SOUS Die Cut Challenge ~ Snowflakes ~Gift Bag

Well, I think everybody knows that Friday is my favorite day of the week .. it promises the weekend .. and it is always a new Reveal Day at Stuck on U Sketches . This week we are posting the new Die Cut challenge. And in honor of all that white stuff that so many of you are getting .. or will soon, we  want to see your Die Cut

Snowflakes

Remember that your project must be new as of December 30th and you must use a Die Cut machine or tool to create your snowflakes. The more the merrier!

So, for my project I decided to decorate a gift bag that I was using for one of my Christmas gifts. Now mind you I have tons of snowflake cuts amongst all of my Cricut cartridges but my all time favorite is from A Child's Year.  You'll soon be seeing more projects done using this cut because I do like it so much and have used it a few times already this month.

First, I adhered some pretty Bo Bunny Christmas papers to my bag, then added my large (4.5 in) snowflake to which I had applied Rock Candy Stickles, then Diamond Dust. Love that look! I placed a matching sticker in the center and placed Tim Holtz Idea-ology Ornate Book Plate over it. I painted my hardware with some Sky blue paint and then added Gesso on top of it. I finished things off with some pearls and some red crinkle ribbon ..

Here are a few close-ups ..

Thanks so much for coming by! I sure hope that you will join in the challenge and show us your snowflake project. It can be a layout, card, tag or altered item. The sky is the limit! Remember you will have two weeks to upload your project!

Wishing you a safe and very Happy New Year! See you soon!

Family Fun ~ SOUS Dec 23

Happy December 23rd, everybody! Time for one more sketch for 2011 over at Stuck on U Sketches. This time is it another one of my sketches .. kind of a quick one ..  that calls for 3 photos to help you get some holiday snapshots scrapped!

As you can see, I ending up using only one photo because the group I intended to put together just didn't look quite right in the smaller sizes. But oh, well! This is my sweet dd Danielle on Thanksgiving Day opening a few of her gifts. I had been dying to use my new Glitz Beautiful Dreamrer papers and thought they would look great with this photo. Might not match the rest of my T-day pages but .. too bad! The papers used are Polka and Floral.

I've also used a couple of my fave Dusty Attic pieces. Ornate Corner # 11 da0582 and French Flourish Border da0275. They have both been painted with Glimmer Mist Chalkboard, the corner in Cranberry Zing and the border in Sprout. After drying, I adorned them with pearls and flowers.

I wet distressed one corner and tucked a doily behind the folds and added in some more flowers and leaved. Then I was ready to cut my photo mat from A Child's Year. For the journaling tag, I have just used a Creative Memories punch, then inked the edges and added a Websters Pages sparkler as a pull. Some ribbon was tied around the photo for added interest. Lastly, my title is simply an old rub-on.

I hope that you will find time to play along with us this challenge. You will have 2 weeks to upload your project .. so maybe after the holiday you will have some time to scrap! If you ahven't seen what the rest of the design team has done this time, I hope you will make your way over to SOUS!

Thanks for coming by. Wishing you the most wonderful of Christmases!

Precious Memories ~ SOUS ~ Original Sketch Dec 9th

Hey hey hey! Happy Friday, everybody! Today I am really excited to be posting a new sketch reveal at Stuck on U Sketches  featuring an orignal sketch by 'yours truly!" This was my first digitally designed sketch and it proved to be loads of fun! I hope you will get a chance to play along this challenge.

It has been a few weeks since I did this layout but it was super fun to do. The photo is of my Aunt Arletha and Uncle Weldon back in 1945. I have several family photos from that day and gather that some kind of family event was occuring. For this one I've used some yummy Glitz Vintage Blue papers.  They are just fabulous and I cannot wait to use them again. Then I added in some Prima and Petaloo flowers from last year along with a bit of bling. And of course, distressed with my Distrezz-it-all.

Here are a few close-ups:

Loved these florals and my crinkle ribbon. I also added in a vintage light blue charm for a different texture.

I fussy cut these cute little birdies, then adhered them to cardstock, fussy cut them again and then mounted them with foam squares.

Just a close-up of my bling and Melissa Frances resin photo corner.

I tore away part of the edge and placed a punch cardstock strip behind the tear. I don't use rub-ons that often but have used an old one here for my title. Well, I think that's about it! Once I chose which papers would be which layer, the rest was easy! I did cut my red circular piece about 3 times trying to get it exactly the way I wanted it. It looked different on my Gypsy than on my layout for some reason ..

In case you haven't had the chance to download the sketch, here it is.  As a note of credit, I used Creative Memories Storybook Creator 3 software for my designing. 

I hope that you will take a few moments to see what the rest of the Design Team has done over at Stuck on U Sketches. Remember that you will have 2 weeks to upload your project to the site. Sure hope you have a great weekend! Thanks for coming by!

Flying Unicorn December Kit of the Month Reveal! (long post)

Hello, scrappy world! Time for another Kit of the Month reveal at The Flying Unicorn Store. This month' s kit is called Sugarplum Dreams and is chock full of wonderful papers and embellishmetns to scrap those wonderful holiday memories or make a stack of Christmas cards for those you care about! And of course, there is the OTP project  .. a reindeer .. and it's the cutest thing ever!

 There are no sign ups, no membership, once they are gone, they are gone ! Kits are $31.99 + $8.95 shipping USA and $16.95 International. And oh my goodness ...You are going to LOVE this kit!

I am so excited to share a little of what I did with mine!

First, a page of myself and my dd's last year with Santa  We have an annual Girls Shopping Day every year and sometimes they will pose for me with the Big Guy! Anway, I loved the background paper on this page so much that I scanned it and hope to print some more for future use .. a gorgeous red damask that is not just for Christmas! I did lots of layers and distressing, added a poinsettia floral stem from last year plus 2 kinds of ribbon (love my crinkle ribbon, I'm addicted!) and some pearls and an embellie that I had on hand.

This is a new photo of dgd MacKenzie that I chose to use on this decorative pp. I cut out the top image and then elevated it with pop dots to make it look like a transom above the door. Around my photo I've added gauze and shaped it to resemble a wreath. Then I placed some flowers and buttons around it and tied some gauze bows. The large red flowers were tan but I have Glimmer Misted them with Burnt Red, then embellished them with Gesso and added in some Melissa Frances chandeliers that were from the kit. So pretty. I chose my title because every year, we seem to have a grandchild graduating from highschool or college. Never fails that we are always adding one more thing to our already hectic schedule. What can you do but laugh and attend?!

Nothing too special here ... just the lovely die cut piece, some long strips of the pp and more crinkle ribbon and flowers. I've used my fave MS cherished hearts punch, a TH bracket, a Prima resin bird and a gorgeous Dusty Attic piece that I painted green, then added Glimmer Glam to it in green. And pearls all around the mat. Finally got this photo from last year scrapped!

Then a fun page! I was all set for this kit to be in shades of purple or plum ... sugarplums, you see. But it wasn't. So I used this piece of Core'dinations cardstock, sanded it and went "plum" crazy. I used a Dusty Attic piece as a mask and Glimmer Misted in Sugar Plum Fairy. I've also used the DA hat rack painted with Cranberry Zing. Then added some Petaloo florals and Websters bloomers. Tucked around are a Websters Pages silhouette and a Melissa Frances resin swag. The "HIP" alphas are from the kit but "chick" was cut using my Cricut and Gypsy font. Lots of pearls and rhinestones and I called it a wrap! (DGD Marianne is our gracious and oh so funny model!)

Next. I did a few Christmas cards. Don't faint! I do DO an occasional card! These went so fast that I amazed myself! The lower right hand card with the deer is doubling as a DT project for SOUS tomorrow.

Lastly, my little reindeer. Kept it very simple! He is painted gold with gold Glitter Glam on his antlers. Then a nice bow and a Christmas pick finish him off.

Well, so are you ready to order your kit? Then fly on over to the Flying Unicorn Store and get yours before they are sold out!

Sweet Girl ~ SOUS Sketch Challenge ~ 11-25-2011

Oh, my! This has been such a busy but wonderful week! I hope that all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving had a fabulous day! As I write this it is Wedneday night, I am soooo tired from cooking and cleaning my heart out for my family tomorrow that I almost forgot to write my post. :)  So I will keep this short and sweet!

This time at Stuck on U Sketches time we have a great sketch from Pagemaps. I followed it closely .... even threw in the clouds which is rare for my pages. That was kind of fun, though!  My papers are Prima's Romantique which are gorgeous but did not photograph to their true color or quality. They are just fabulous in person.

I've used my Cricut for the background marquee, the clouds and the scalloped circle as well as the plain circle. Yeah, me! Then I have added a Dusty Attic piece (french flourish DA0273,) Melissa Frances resin bird (MF CX830,) Glitz Design and Prima alphas and Websters Pages bloomers. Then I mixed in some miscellaneous pearls and crinkle ribbon as well as my MS butterflies. In addition to my Cricut, there is a ton of fussy cutting on this one which I always enjoy!

The clouds were embossed with the Divine Swirls embossing folder and enhanced with some TH inks, Rock Candy Stickles and Diamond Dust. My Dusty Attic piece was painted with Glimmer Mist Chalkboard in Cranberry Zing.

My cute photo is of dggd Peyton who went to the Parade with her Papa. I photographed this one Before I did the journaling .. in case I messed up (did not) but I did forget to re-shoot it!

Thanks for dropping by .. sorry for the shortened post but I am sure you understand. I hope that the weekend does not find you too busy to run on by Stuck on U Sketches  and see what the rest of the design team has done! Cannot wait to see your take on the sketch! Have a great weekend!

Joy ~ SOUS sketch reveal ~ 11/11/2011

Hey, there, everybody! I hope that you have had a great week! It's Friday and you know what that means ... it's reveal time over at Stuck on U Sketches! Nanne was our sketch artist this time and I really love how this one played out! 

There is tons of Prima used here .. papers are from the Printery collection. Love them! And flowers are a mix of several of the Prima Paloma line. Even the tile at the bottom is Prima as is the journaling piece.

I've used a Dusty Attic circular frame here to tie everything together ... which it did nicely! After first painting it white, I used some clear crackle paint on it. Then distressed it some with Vintage Photo and added some yummy pearls. Super fun to alter!

I used my Imagine to cut a couple of Gypsy Wanderings butterflies and mixed those in using pop dots and added pearls to them too ... of course. My title letters are American Crafts Thickers. I really had trouble thinking of a title for this page .. at least one that would fit iin the small space that I left.

And of course, the 2 cuties in these photos are my dgd and dgs, Marianne and Christian. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of their museum photos Hehe!

So, are you ready for a few close-ups?

That's about it for today! Thanks for coming by .. And if you haven't been by SOUS yet, I hope you will go have a look at what the other designers have done. To those of you with a long weekend coming up ... congrats and be safe!

The Boys! ~ SOUS Die Cut Challenge ~ Leaf

Hello, scrappers! Hope everyone is doing well and looking forward to an awesome weekend!

I'm excited to post a very simple but special page today. Seems I have not been scrapping my new twin grandsons very much as it is sooooooooo hard to get photos of them. For awhile they were always asleep or taking a bottle ...... and never at the same time! They are still not sleeping very well but are finally having a few happy moments crawling around on the floor.  That is Danny at the top of the page and Bobby at the bottom.

I've used some Graphic 45 Baby 2 Bride papers that I got from Alda at the Flying Unicorn Store . They are really soft and gorgeous IRL although they look a bit pale here. I just did a simple side-panel design along with my MS deep edged scallop punch. Then I made some flowers from some G45 Le Romantique that was in my stash. They were cut using my Cricut and then moistened and bent into shape. I love this leaf cut that is on the Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge. I paired these with some vintage Prima to complete the look.

Finally, I just added some pearls and then a ribbon with a single button. Oh, and some MS punched butterflies. My title was cut with my Hello Kitty Font cartridge which was purchased soley for the font .. not much HK going on around here LOL

Here is a close-up of my floral cluster. And don't you love that font??

I hope that you will make it by Stuck on U Sketches and see what the Die Cut team has done with this challenge. So many cute ideas ....  

Hope you have a fabulous weekend and maybe get some scrapping done! Thanks for coming by!

November Kit of the Month Reveal ~ Remember the Days!

The November Kit of the Month (Remember the Days) is now available at Flying Unicorn Store  There are no sign ups, no membership, once they are gone, they are gone ! 31.99 + 8.95 shipping USA and 16.95 International. And oh my goodness ...You are going to LOVE this kit!

I am so excited to share a little of what I did with mine!

This layout above was a tribute page to my Dad. (Papers are all Glitz Designs except for the tags which are Riddersholm Chantilly Dawn.) The photo was taken in 1962 shortly before my parents moved to Colorado which was my Dad's dream come true! My title came from my own grandkids .. they always called him Reindeer Man because of some antlers he had mounted on his shop. (Title tiles by Lisa Gregory, thank you!)

I added a lot of symbolism to this one and did some heavy distressing as well as adding "natural" embellishments like the vintage Prima from the kit and the Dusty Attic long stem flower, cheesecloth and burlap from my stash.  The torn spot is to remind me of all the target practice we used to do. Dad was a gunsmith by trade. The cheesecloth and burlap were both things that he used frequently. And the Chevron patterned paper is reminiscent of the checkering that he did on custom gunstocks. I did throw in some lace, ribbon and buttons to remind me of his gentle heart and how much he loved his family. Plus ........ he could make the best apple pie you ever hoped to eat and made his own crust!!  Miss you, Daddy!

Now could this page be any more different than the one above? I had this great photo of dgd Maddie with her new hubby Marcos that I wanted to get scrapped. I had lots of fun with this one! The papers are mostly the Riddersholm and they are gorgeous with a capital G. I did throw in one piece of Glitz from my stash for the large circle. (Sketch is by former SOUS teammate Ness Waller.) I had fun altering my Dusty Attic piece, painting it first and then adding crackle accents to it after placing the title on it. I fussy cut the butterflies and added some crinkle ribbon and vintage Prima. The little cherub is from the kit. It comes in clay but I painted it white. A little punching, pearls and I was done.

Next up is the FABULOUS Melissa Frances Mini Calendar Book which is our Off the Page product this month. Be still me heart .. an OTP that I will actually use!! It has calendar pages with envelope pockets in it that I am going to use for receipts, cards and that sort of thing. I have purposely left my pages pretty flat so that it will not be too bulky. I am not totally finished with it either but ran out of energy ..  

Thanks for coming by! Hope you will hop on over to Flying Unicorn Store and will pick your kit up before they are gone! I could seriously use another one of these myself! While you're there, I hope you will take time to see what the rest of the Creative Team has done as well!

Happy shopping!

I'm in the Cricut Magazine!

Finally! The November issue of the Cricut magazine is now available! My "Baby Twins" layout is on page 109!!! I am over the moon excited! Having a craft project in print has been a goal of mine for awhle although I am sorry to say that I seldom submit. I finally did ... and was pleased to be accepted.  Thank you, Northridge Publishing!

Monday sketch and a new layout!!

This week's sketch is from Enchanting Creations Magazine. Complete your take on it and submit it to ecmagllc@gmail.com for a chance to win some goreous PION Santa II Papers .

While you're here, let me share some CT work that I did this weekend that features a photo of my Mom and 2 of my Aunts.  It is not the most flattering photo of them but I wanted to get it scrapped some time! Also, I've been wanting to do the butterflies en masse thing, so I took the opportunity to do it! Papers are from Kaiser Craft's BonJour collection, available soon at Flying Unicorn Store.  

Thanks for coming by!



Sweet Moments ~ SOUS Die Cut Challenge ~

Sooooo .... do you know what day it is? My favorite day of the week ... Friday! Made even more special by our Stuck on U Sketches reveal! This week it is the Die Cut team's time at bat and our lovely hostess, Nanne, has chosen "Fence" as our challenge.   So, we want to see some die cut fences from you .. on any kind of projects .. be it a layout, card, mini or altered item. The sky is the limit. The only criteria is that it be a new project.

Well, I cheated a little on mine because I had this awesome die cut paper that I have been dying to use that is cut in the shape of a fence! How could I pass this one up, right?!  So, I paired it with some yummy Webster's Pages (Country Estates) and a wedding photo (are you sick of them yet?) and away I went.

The Webster's paper has a gazebo on it and of course, I wanted for that to show because Maddie and Marcos were married under a gazebo. I split my fence and offset it to both sides. Then I added in some flowers, ribbon and a pearl flourish. I cut my favorite butterflies from Gypsy Wanderings and trimmed them with some flat-backed pearls. While I had the Gypsy on, I cut a photo mat from A Child's Year.

Here are a few close-ups:

 

This is another one of those pages that looks so much better IRL than on the computer monitor. It has a bit of a different look for me .. maybe it is the colors .. but I do like how it turned out. I was going to let this challenge pass without participating but I'm glad I changed my mind.

I hope that you, too, will pick up the paper and join in our challenge! If you haven't made it over to our site, please visit soon and see what all our designers have done! You will have 2 weeks to complete and upload your project. Also, please remember that you still have another week to complete last week's sketch challenge! Happy Crafting!

Enjoy the moments ~ SOUS original Sketch ~

Happy Friday, pals and gals! This one is super special because we have another Original SOUS sketch by our very own Leah Schaeffer. Let's give her a high five! It was such a fun sketch to work from and I think that you'll love it!

Here it is again:

And here is my take on it:

I had this great new photo of  2 of my dgds to scrap and decided to have a little fun with it and with some yummy new paper by Bo Bunny called Welcome Home. (Speaking of Bo Bunny: I recently won a give-away from them and received the most gorgeous Christmas papers and embellishments in the mail. They were so generous. Thank you, Bo Bunny!)

Okay, I digress, sorry. Along with the papers I wanted to play with some of my favorite Dusty Attic pieces, the title and the lamp post. I painted the one brown and the other white, then coated it with some Rock Candy Stickles.

Here are a few close-ups.

The title piece was painted with Tattered Angels Chalkboard in Decadence.  I love this saying and will have to order more of this one!

The lamp post was simply painted with some Folk Art Warm White, then distressed with some Chestnut Roan and finally brushed with Rock Candy Stickles. I added a flower to dress it up a bit more.  Then added some beige papers where the globes are.

Here, I framed the bottom of my photo with some gorgeous ribbon from Pink Paislee. Then used one of my remaining Prima vines and added a mix of florals. The large white flower was a BoBunny flower from last years Olivia collection. The white and green flowers are Recollections and the tiny flowers are from Flying Unicorn .

Well, I will keep my post short today .. but hope that you will get a chance to play along with the sketch this time. Can't wait to see your inspiration!

SOUS Die Cut Challenge ~ TREE~

Hey, everybody! Did the week fly by for you like it did for me? Now that Fall is here, I kind of wish time would slow down a bit so I can enjoy the cooler (yet not cold) temperatures! Seems that the craft stores are all really busy with selling Fall things to decorate our homes .. and our projects. Love it!

Speaking of .. this week at Stuck on U Sketches we have another Die Cut challenge. This week it is to use a "tree." Well, I was really sweating this one because I couldn't come up with any great ideas. I have to wonder if my Cricut is now only useful for titles and flowers .. we shall see.

But as I was looking at some of my dgd Maddie's wedding photos, there was a lovely Bradford pear tree in bloom, so I got the idea to scrap one of her photos and use a tree (SYI) on my page. I also cut out a gazebo using my Freshly Picked cartridge .. but in the end simply used it as a mask instead of adhering it to the page. I used Smooch Spray that really turned out great as far as defining the gazebo shape and making the page shimmer. My photo mat was cut with the Sentimentals cartridge.

There is lots of distressssing on the page both with water as well as my Distrezz-it-all and my Distress inks. I folded back a few places to let a white doily show through. There are some paper curls at the top of the gazebo to give the illusion of trailing vines.

These yummy papers are a mix of Graphic 45 Baby 2 Bride and Once Upon a Springtime. For product. I've used some Websters Pages trim and netting, Prima florals and Recollections pearls. Then I finished off my page with some small butterflies cut with my Martha Stewart punch.

Here are a few close-ups:



I think that just about wraps it up! I hope that you will visit the rest of the designers at Stuck on U Sketches and see what they have done. Then .. we hope that you will be inspired to add a tree to your project and upload it to our site. There is some awesome blog candy there .. you don't want to miss out! 

Thanks for coming by. Love that we have such a great, supportive online  community that can inspire and lift one another up. Have a fabulous weekend~

Flying Unicorn's October Kit of the Month Reveal

October first, really? But .... the good news is that it is now time for the October kit "Pursuit of Happiness" to go on sale at Flying Unicorn online scrapbook store . And scrappers, this one was so jam-packed that I've done 5 major projects and still have stuff left over to do more, whew!

I hardly know where to start with showing you what I did with my kit because every project became my fave! But here goes ... 

"Imagine the Possibilites" .. love this page~

"Dream" ~ Did this page with my scraps!

 

 

 

An explosion box birthday gift for my sweet SIL. Inspired by my friend and former teamie Sandy Windsor. You can visit her at Details by Sandy.   I've wanted to make one of these for a couple of years now but needed a little push! Thanks, Sandy!

The Off the Page item this month is a TicTacToe box/board by KaiserCraft but I saw it as a window pane and went to town creating a Fall scene! Love love love how this turned out.

And lastly for today is the mini-album that I have started for my dd to keep photos of her step-daughter's baby girl, Peyton. Sorry I couldn't get a better photo of this! There are more pages but ..maybe I will share them tomorrow since this is already such a long post!

Didn't I tell you this kit is packed with endless goodies? You had better order yours today. They do not last long!

And don't forget that today marks the beginning of Scrap-o-ween at the Flying Unicorn Forum! Click on the photo on the right-hand sidebar to go directly to it in the Forum! There are daily games, weekly challenges  and a month long Amusement House. Should be tons of  fun! Hope to see you there! Also a 13% savings on all individual items in the store using coupon code SPOOK.