Birthday & Friends Scrapbook Pages

Here's another lost scrapbook layout from last year (I loved that DSP so pretty), from memory this was an aborted layout, that didn't make the cut into a class........although I like the chipboard flower embellishment that I made for it and the hidden journalling in the envelope......

although I like the chipboard flower embellishment that I made for it and the hidden journalling in the envelope......

I know I didn't finish the layout s it has no title on it - even though I am assuming it was done for a birthday because of the cake die cut! Then I morphed it into these pages.........

I love how the Stamp-a-ma-jig makes it so easy to line up elements like this part of Artistic Etchings....

Doesn't it make a great border for the photo mats & journalling components? The journalling was hidden inside this envelope.......I love the scallop envelope die......it has a perforated part (similar to the Top Note die, so you can trim things off and it gives it a perfect layer).

Inside the envelope, the stamping and sponging matched the rest of the layout (you can tell this was one of my finished layouts as it had sponging on it - unlike the one at the beginning of this post!).

Stamps: Artistic Etchings, Friends 24-7
Ink: Not Quite Navy, Riding Hood Red, Basic Black
Card Stock: Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red, Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Love Letter DSP.
Accessories: Big Shot, Scallop envelope die, Tasteful trim die, Simple Letters alphabet, stamping sponges, blossom party die, chipboard sheet, 2 way glue pen, multi-purpose adhesive sheets, decorative label punch, round tab punch, Big Bold Cupcake die.

Happy Birthday Double Scrap Book Layout

Here is a double scrap layout from last year (!) that featured chipboard embellishments. It's a very clean layout without too many fussy bits as it was more to showcase the photographs than anything else.

It used a lot of die cutting - the letters, borders, flowers and scalloped photo mounts. As you can see the chipboard we layered to form embellishment pieces and used brads or basic rhinestones in the centres of them or in the case below we stamped then covered the pieces in Crystal Effects to give a lovely shiny finish to them before sprinkling with glitter. The blue circles were chipboard covered in card stock and the edges inked and the same with the vanilla scallop squares.

Stamps: Party This Way, Afterthoughts (hostess retired)
Ink: Basic Black
Card Stock: Not Quite Navy, Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, White Stazon Ink
Accessories: Blossom Party, Tasteful Trim, Scallop Square Duo, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, Crystal Effects, Circles #2, Perfect Pennants, Basic Rhinestones, Tombow, chunky glitter (retired), multi-purpose adhesive sheets, sponge dauber, sponges.

Autumn Days Scrapbook Double Layout

Well I found a load of scrapbook pages recently that I hadn't photographed so I will blog these over the next week or so - apologies if they use a few retired items as that's how long ago I made some of them! This layout is new as it's the one we did last week in class (see here for upcoming classes I have running). I wanted to keep the colours Autumny and also incorporate the new Pool Party seam binding ribbon from the Autumn-Winter mini catalogue.

I love the Timeless Type Junior alphabet! The centre panel above the die cut leaves was made using some patience and the stamp set French Foliage and a lot of sponging - I love making my own designer papers with stamps - so personal and unique. I also love the convenience of the Top Note die having a perforated decorative layer just inside the outside cut - makes it so easy to cut and layer with different colours, I also added some sponging to tie it in with the stamped designer paper. I am not sure if you can see it from the photograph or not, but I used a stylus (from the Simply Scored) and the base part of my Mat Pack and dry embossed veins onto each leaf after I had sponged the edges of each one, all the edge sponging was done in Soft Suede. Tip: I hold the leaves in place with Dotto whilst I finish my layout and then they can be easily removed when I add photos and re-stuck down permanently, but this way I don't lose any or forget which element was going where one the page!

The ribbon was done by running a line of adhesive over the strip of More Mustard card stock and then anchoring it behind before pleating it randomly with my fingers to form a decorative strip - I love how soft and shiny the seam binding is, so easy to work with.

Stamps: French Foliage
Ink: Soft Suede, More Mustard, Wild Wasabi
Card Stock: Pool Party, More Mustard, Spice Cake DSP (retired), Very Vanilla, Soft Suede
Accessories: Big Shot, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, Top Note, Leaves #2 die, Pool Party Seam Binding Ribbon, Dotto, sponges.

Hugs & Kisses Scrapbook Double Layout

Do you celebrate St. Valentines Day? I saw a lovely single scrapbook page on the Paper Crafters Library a while ago and decided to adapt it to a double page layout and also make it suitable for other events e.g. anniversaries, those cute children moments or a wedding - it could be easily changed to suit the event by changing the colours used. The first page features what would be the main photograph and the second page has room for journaling and smaller photographs, other round tabs or hearts could be added afterwards to add in dates or a little quote or similar. I am going to change a few of the hearts decorating the pages though, as I just borrowed the I {Heart} Hearts stamp set.

Live, laugh & Love Scrapbook Pennants

I CASEd the layout from somewhere on the web (apologies I couldn't find the link back when I went to look for it), but I changed the papers, stamps, colours & modified the layout a bit too........I have to make a matching page for this as this was just a single scrapbook page I made a few weeks ago and just haven't made time to make it a mate yet (I have a personal aversion to single scrapbook pages unless they are the title or end pages in my album). I love the al a carte stamps and in particular the Triple Treat Flower - not the least for which there are three handy punches to make layering it effortless, but in the Summer mini catalogue there is also matching designer paper - how cool is that?? Like many projects, I took the card stock and ink colours directly from the designer paper that I chose to use, Bring on the Cake. The page is designed to have only a single photograph on it - on the Poppy Parade section, which is hopefully large enough to leave a nice coloured boarder around the photograph to frame it nicely.

The pennants are all popped up on Dimensionals and threaded onto Early Expresso Bakers Twine, also from the Summer mini catalogue. The centre of each little flower on the pennants is highlighted with a small Basic Pearl and the scallop strips along the bottom were all cut with the Tasteful Trim die and the Big Shot. 

Stamps: Triple Treat Flower, Field Flowers, On Your Birthday, Pennant Parade

Card Stock: Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Eat Cake DSP, So Saffron, Poppy Parade.

Ink: Poppy Parade, Baja Breeze

Accessories: Basic Pearls, Big Shot, Five Petal Flower Punch, Petite Pennants Builder Punch, Fancy Flower Punch, Itty Bitty Shapes Punch Pack, 1/2" circle punch, Antique Brads, Tasteful Trim die, Big Shot, SNAIL, Dimensionals, Early Expresso Bakers Twine, 1/16" handheld punch, 

Christmas Scrapbook Layout 2011

I know I promised Christmas cards, but I just finished the scrapbook layout for Tuesdays class, so thought I would share that instead! There are still spots for the class if you want to come along - just let me know ASAP! I kept the layout fairly simple as for Christmas I think that the photographs are the most important element so they should dominate the space and journalling. 

I wanted to show off the new Silver Glimmer paper from the new Summer mini catalogue and added strips of it cut with the Tasteful Trim die, the new postage punch and the heel and toes of the stockings. The Baja Breeze circle that I cut with the Circle Scissors Plus to go inside the Scallop Circle Die for the year was 4" diameter. Extra journalling could be done in white gel pen on the Night of Navy card stock as well.

I chose not to title it with anything other than the year as I felt that the stockings hanging and the Christmas postage bauble stamp told the story better (as will the photographs - we got our first Santa photo today & it wasn't blue and silver!!!). I used the relief cut out of the Tasteful Trim die to border the DSP on this page as I didn't want to waste any of the gorgeous Silver Glimmer paper - did I ever tell you I was 1/4 Scottish!

I am not sure if you can see from the photographs (sorry taken at night so not the best), but each of the stocking tops have our names written on them - if you have a bigger family, then you can just add more stockings! I also added a few basic rhinestones on the stockings to add to the sparkle of the page. Most of the Baja Breeze will be covered by the photographs, but there will be enough left to give a slight contrast. The stockings are suspended by some white Bakers twine - how awesome is that stuff - 23m for just $4.95 - bargain of the year I say!

Stamps: Stitched Stockings, Merry & Type

Card Stock: Night of Navy, Baja Breeze, Whisper White. Regals DSP Patterns stack & Silver Glimmer Paper

Ink: Night of Navy (ink pad & marker)

Accessories: Big Shot, Tasteful Trim Die, Scallop Circle Die, Square Scallop Die, Circle Scissors Plus, Junior Timeless Type Alphabet, White Bakers Twine, basic rhinestones, 1" square punch, 1 3/8" square punch, postage stamp punch, Stocking builder punch.

Ariel 6"x6" scrapbook page

Once a year we have a Stampin' Up! demonstrators meeting for our state, a fun filled day of demonstrations, make & takes, ideas and information. One of the highlights are the swaps. I actually got time to make 20 swaps this year - but I think I forgot to photograph mine, so I might have to make another to blog it. This one below was made by the very talented Kylie Leusciatti, such vibrant colours aren't they!

Stamps: Commotion in the Ocean
Ink: Pacific Point
Card Stock: Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise & Rich Razzleberry
Accessories: Bug Shot, Junior Timeless Type Alphabet, 1 1/4" circle punch, Dimensionals, white gel pen

Zoo Scrapbook Pages

I have literally hundreds of photographs from our visits to the zoo, both here, interstate and overseas - we totally love visiting zoos! Recently I made up some scrap pages to showcase just 5 photos from these visits featuring our child of course. They didn't turn out like the pages I had sketched out mentally in my head, but I wanted to use the photographs full size rather than cropping them down or doing a series of small prints.

I went a bit overboard with the leaves - but a wonderful part of our zoo visits are exploring all of the different plants, trees and shrubs that make up the animals habitat. They range from exotic to almost weed varieties, but they are all part of the zoo experience. 

The monkey punch art is from a Kim S. tutorial (the valentines one here) and virtually everything else was cut with the Big Shot - I am so living that machine, no more running out of letters when you are making your titles!

I haven't added journalling to these pages yet (I need to check the date on one of the photographs first), but I was envisaging writing around the photographs and also inside the 'fun' tag - I am loving the new Two Tags die, so versatile.

If you would like to come and make these pages, they are the ones that we will be making on Tuesday (details here , so let me know ASAP if you want to come along and join in the fun.

Stamps: D is for Dog & Woodgrain

Card Stock: Neutrals patterns pack DSP, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Chocolate Chip, Old Olive & Always Artichoke.

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Junior Timeless Type alphabet, Leaves #2 dies, Big Shot, Simple Letters Alphabet, stamping sponge, Hemp Twine, Two Tags die, Crop-a-dile, 1/2" circle punch, Dimensionals, (monkey punches as per Kim's tutorial). 

Scrapbook Photography

Okay so I'm not a veteran scrapbooker, I tend to only make pages for the classes I am teaching, consequently most rarely have photographs on the layouts - which is not to say I don't have a zillion photos waiting to be scrapbooked, it's just a case of time anemia and a phobia of cutting photos (I have the same phobia about ripping book pages!). Anyway my husband is the photographer in our house and I tend to be a bit of a point and shoot photographer and go on the basis that since digital cameras were invented I just take lots of pictures and figure one is bound to turn out okay!

However it is National Scrapbooking month so I wanted to share some good photography tips with you I found over on the Kodak website (if you click on the picture underneath each tip number an explanation and example will pop up - I'm a very visual learner so for me this was a good basic website for me to start to try and improve my photography).

Kodak's Top Ten Photo Tips are:

1. Get down on their level
2. Use a plain background
3. Use the flash outdoors
4. Move in close to the subject
5. Take some vertical pictures
6. Lock the focus
7. Move the subject away from the middle
8. Know your flash's range
9. Watch the light
10. Direct or rearrange your subjects

So I am going to do my best to incorporate at least a few of these tips into my photography in the next few months so fingers crossed you might even be seeing more layouts with photos in them! 

Monkey Business Scrapbook Pages!

Scrapbook pages are always a lot of fun to make, some are simple, some are fun, some take a while to evolve and of course when children are involved in your life you have a vast array of material waiting to be preserved at your fingertips! One of the gorgeous things about children is some of their words or phrases, especially when they are explaining things to each other - so this months scrapbook class is dedicated to "classic kids quotes" which I have combined with some punch art monkeys from the super talented Kim Score. Our scrapbook class is approximately 2 hours and is a double layout with all materials provided - for my class schedule you can check my website or sign up to my newsletter, of course if the time doesn't suit, I would be happy to bring the class to you at a different time if you get a few friends together.

Pretty cute hey! The pages are designed to fit a 5"x7" photo on the left page and a 3"x4" photo on the right. Journaling for the pages can either be done around the pages, the piece next to the right hand monkey was designed for adding a name and date and further space is hidden under each tag - they flip up.......see I hadn't glued them down wonky - they move!!

Just in case you were adding things which might embarrass your children when they get older!!! These pages were done for a boy, but for a girl I would do the photo mats, small stamped circles & hearts on the monkeys in Pretty in Pink instead of Bashful Blue and add a pink butterfly bow in the monkeys hair as well to "girly" it up a bit - although glitter might also work!

All of the edges of the pages are sponged to add dimension and give the pages a softer look.

So if you would like to join us for some fun, please contact me or check out my website for other classes that are coming up.

Stamps: You're a Gem

Card Stock: Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Early Expresso, Bashful Blue, Real Red

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Accessories Crop-o-dile, Jumbo eyelets, metallic brads, paper piercer, mat pack, Tombow Glue, SNAIL, 1/4" chocolate chip ribbon (retired but you could use Early Expresso), paper snips, LOTS of punches, stamping sponge, black stamp 'n write marker and white gel pen, dimensionals.

Happy Easter - Scrapbook Layout

Happy Easter Everyone, I hope that you are enjoying time with your family & friends or just chilling out enjoying the break and maybe getting the time to get some stamping or scrapbooking done! This is the double layout that we did last month for my scrapbook class - for details of any upcoming classes head over to my calendar of events here, subscribe to my newsletter or check out my business Facebook page. 

The white panel is obviously for journaling which I haven't done yet! I am loving the new Tasteful Trim die - makes such lovely borders for cards and scrap pages and combined with the new multi adhesive sheets makes my life SO much easier! Although I also pulled out one of my roller wheels for this page and when I do I always wonder why I don't use them more often.

I love this chocolate bunny (retired) I know naughty of me to use retired items, but my Easter stamp set was on loan to a friend so I had to improvise!

Here's the same chicken from my Easter treat bag, but sitting on a wooden crate. The other Trendy Trees for carrots and bunny punch art I CASEd from someone, but for the life of me now I can't find it again on the internet - awesome idea and if it's yours let me know so I can credit you! The bunny on top of the journaling was the same I used last year on my 6" x 6" Easter baskets.

Stamps: Retro Remix roller wheel, Trendy Trees, Teeny Tiny Sentiments, Woodgrain, Chocolate bunny
Card stock: Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Crumb Cake
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black (marker)
Accessories: roller wheel handle, paper snips, SNAIL, Dimensionals, Ovals die, Big Shot, Textured Impressions finial press, polka dots & vintage wallpaper, small oval punch, large oval punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1 3/4" circle punch, Stamping Sponges, Boho Blossom punch, scallop circle punch, Tasteful Trim die
Non SU: google eyes

Summer Fun Progressive Scrap Page

How do you turn a stamper into a scrapbooker? Very slowly is the answer! Big spaces to fill is very daunting for a lot of papercrafters - but here's a nice gentle way to ease people into the process. It's a progressive scrap page - first off you make a 6"x6" page and decorate it (incorporating a photo - which I'll eventually add) which really is just a bit bigger and squarer than a normal card......

I used circles and layers and jazzed it up a bit with sponging, embossing folder and Dimensionals. Then I took this 6"x6" page and popped it onto an A4 page and added a few more elements to get this:

I continued the circle theme down the page to link it together and then added two more photo mats. This whole page was then layered up onto a 12"x12" page and ohh my goodness a square card has just turned into a scrapbook page!

The circles continued down the page and off to the right a bit as well, then I added a layered Top Note die for journaling. The So Saffron 12"x12" page was looking a bit bland so I jazzed it up a bit with stamping some circles from the stamp set in the same colour and then sponged all the edges as well. So what do you think of the result? 

Stamps: Circle Circus

Ink: Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Baja Breeze

Card Stock: Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Baja Breeze, Whisper White

Accessories: Dimensionals, Timeless Type alphabet, Big Shot, 1" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, Simple Letters alphabet, Top Note die, Polka Dots Textured Impressions Folder, Stamping Sponge, SNAIL, Tombow glue, Jumbo roller wheel & Spot On.

Back to School Scrapbook Pages

Yay school finally went back after the long hot summer holidays! To celebrate we made school themed pages at this month's scrapbook class - I'm a year behind in doing my pages, but of course you could change the year and make it current! The first page was this one - how cute is that pencil? The background letters were just randomly stamped in Versamark to make it more interesting.

The Pacific Point photo mat had a pull out journaling tab behind it on the A+ tab, but could go landscape or portrait orientation on the page to suit the photos.

The second page was designed to fit the large school class photograph (it does have the school name and all of the children's names listed on it - but I blanked it out beneath the photograph, so in reality it's not a big expanse of pale blue beneath the picture). If you didn't want a single large photograph, the page easily fits 2 more 6"x4" photo mats in Pacific Point.

Stamps: Big Deal Alphabet (retired), Tart & Tangy

Ink: Versamark, Real Red, Old Olive, Basic Black stampin' write marker.

Card Stock: Crumb Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Real Red, Pacific Point, Daffodil Yellow, Newsprint DSP.

Accessories: Large Tag punch, XL Tag punch, Crimper, Round Tab XL punch, Scallop Oval XL punch, Big Shot, Timeless Type Alphabet, 3/4" circle punch, Spiral Border punch, Stampin' sponges, Word Window Punch, Corner Rounder Punch, Tombow glue, SNAIL. 

Summer Mini Scrapbook CASE

The Summer Mini catalogue is in full swing and Sale-a-bration starts tomorrow (happy dance) if you want to book a workshop for it, please contact me. I have also been working on a new 3D valentines tutorial from the Paper Crafters Library, but I got sidetracked recently as a lot of people I know saw page 11 of the Summer mini went "Ohh I want to make that". 

(don't ask about the red lettering at the top of the page - I know there is an easy way to covert a PDF to a jpg so I can upload it to my blog, but I only know the hard way of doing it and that results in red writing on the image - any computer literate readers I'd love some tips!!). Anyway I set about making a double scrapbook layout based on the above page. The first challenge of course was that the Presto Patterns Specialty paper used in the catalogue wasn't suitable firstly as I wanted a left and right page and that 'Paris' image is only on one half of the Presto paper and also in a class situation for everyone to have the same papers would mean that everyone would have to purchase a pack of the Presto Patterns Specialty paper in addition to the class cost. Answer - make our own paper using clear embossing powder, Versamark and the stamp set Friends 24-7 (thanks for the loan Charmaine - my order arrived today!). The result is below:

The pages have a lot of sponging on them as well as the new smooch sprays to add a vintage feel to them. 

Details of paper tearing and piercing to add a distressed look and layering to give it all depth and the rhinestones, well what can I say - they add style and sparkle at a very low cost!

The pages use lots of lovely Big Shot dies to make the flowers and lettering, some of the flowers I put through the textured impressions embossing folder to give even more dimension to them and other flowers were just stamped on with the Elements Of Style set, which was also used a watermark in the background of the pages.

So the left hand scrap page looks like this completed:

Obviously it will change a bit when I add photographs to it, but at the moment I was really pleased with the way the pages turned out.

This class is running on March the first if you want to come along and make your own set of pages with me (full details of my classes can be found on my website here) or if that time/day doesn't suit you can get together a minimum of four paper crafters and I will bring everything to you. 

Does this answer the question as to why Stampin' Up! call their catalogue an Idea Book & Catalogue?? Hopefully it has inspired you to have a second look at some of the pages and CASE some of the ideas within them.I'd love to see any creations you have CASEd using the Ideas Book & Catalogue!

Beach Scrapbook Pages

Well summer is well and truly here and this weeks scrapbook class made a gorgeous double page layout perfect for putting in their summer beach photos. I saw a nice beach layout here and used that for my inspiration, the photos are from a few years ago - I'm a tad behind with my own scrap booking, but we won't go into that! Not everyone has a boy, so we also had alternative punch elements to add for the girls involving a bit more glitter and pink!

I always do my classes as double layouts as I feel it looks nicer when they go into an album. These pages used a lot of sponging, rolling with the new Sandy Speckles wheel and lots of punch art! The crabs were CASEd from Teresa G. and Michelle H. and look so cute, especially as where these photos were taken was by the river where we do get lots of blue swimmer crabs.

I added the red spider crab though just because he was SO cute!

For those who didn't want to do crabs, we also had a glittery mermaid, a pair of thongs (flip flops for the northern hemisphere readers) and a beach ball. Some of the girls got carried away and added a shell bikini to their mermaids from the small Boho blossom flower, but I left mine plain.

I always use a terrific product called Dotto for piecing together my layouts before I stick them together permanently, such a great product, saves lots of frustration later on when you just want to move something that little bit, but can't as it's stuck down!  I couldn't decide when I was putting together this layout which colour letters to use for the title, eventually I did a shadow layer and liked the result - what do you think?

A close up of the first page is here, the shells were stamped in the darker soft suede ink and sponged with crumb cake as when I stamped them in the crumb cake ink, they just sort of disappeared and didn't pop out like I wanted them too.

The matching page also has plenty of space for photos and journaling.

Stamps: Nature's Nest, Elements of Style

Ink: Crumb Cake, Soft Suede

Card Stock: Bashful Blue, Crumb Cake, Pacific Point, Daffodil Yellow, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip & Basic Black

Accessories: Hemp Twine, Wide oval punch, large oval punch, small oval punch, two-step owl punch, photo corner punch, small tag punch, crop-a-dile, SNAIL, two-way glue pen, Big Shot, Junior Timeless Type alphabet, spiral punch, Sandy Speckles roller wheel.

I saw another gorgeous summer scrap book layout on "Water Play" at the Paper Crafters Library so might have to make up another layout soon using some of the many swimming at the beach photos I have taken and done nothing with! So if you are like me and have way too many photos that you have not done anything with, feel free to come along to our monthly scrapbook class or get some friends together and I can bring the class to you. Details of all my classes are either on my website and while you are there you can sign up for my monthly newsletter, so then you don't miss out on all the Stampin' Up! news and ideas.

Christmas Scrapbook Layout

What a busy time ahead, I can't believe it's only 4 weeks until Christmas - honestly it's the same date every year and I never seem to be quite as organised as I'd like to be! We had a lovely double layout for a class last week all ready to pop in the Christmas photos for this year, or you could use last years too (just change the year numbers)! I built the page around the Jolly Holiday designer series paper and my new Delightful Decorations stamp set (it came with the FREE ribbon in the bundle here). What you can't see from the photo is the glitter on the baubles and Dasher or the rhinestones on the snowflakes and top of the tree. If you wanted to modify the page to fit more photographs on it, I would use the ornament punch and put people on the tree! The small circles are also popped up onto Dimensionals and the numbers on the squares are covered in Crystal Effects to make them nice and shiny.

Stamps: Dasher, Contempo Christmas, Delightful Decorations

Ink: Cherry Cobbler & Early Expresso.

Card stock: Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler, Early Expresso & Jolly Holiday DSP.

Accessories: 1 1/4" square punch, 3/4" circle punch, 1" circle punch, Ornament punch, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, Stamp-a-ma-jig, basic rhinestones, Dazzling Diamonds, Dimensionals, Crystal Effects & SNAIL.