Beautiful Girl

Hey, there everyone!  Today I'm sharing a project that was featured on the AWDML blog last week!

Today I want to share a fun sketch from our Pinterest board and the layout that I created with it. First of all here’s the sketch by the fabulously talented Pamela Young from Pamela’s World of Scrap.

And, here’s my layout featuring the new Lily Bee collection called Sweet Shoppe. It’s a great collection full of wonderful colors and super cute patterns! It’s going to be one of my go-to summer collections, for sure!

One of the things that I love about sketches is how you can use it exactly, or not. I often start using the sketch pretty exactly, and then make small changes along the way. You can see that I stuck pretty close to the sketch here, but made a few adjustments to make it work for me. I moved the title and the journaling. I chose to use a large pleated flower in place of the butterflies from the sketch. I also added the date into the upper right hand corner. Lastly, you can see that I created a large (yellow) mat for the layout elements to sit on. For me, it helped to pop everything off the page.


Here’s a close-up of the cardstock alpha stickers that are a part of the collection, and the pleated flower that I made. I just love the pop of pink!

And, here’s a peek at the journaling:

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed the sketch and my layout!
Have a wonderful day!

Easiest Gift Card Holder EVER!

Hey there, everyone!  Here's a project I shared on the AWDML Blog last week!  Enjoy!

Gift Card season us upon us– Father’s Day, Graduations, Baby Showers, Weddings and Birthdays. Every occasion calls for a gift and in every case Gift Cards are simple and loved. But, there’s always the question of how you present the gift card. Well, I have a super simple and easy gift card holder that is perfect when you have several to make at once and not a lot of time to do it! And, the greatest part, you can make THREE of them from just one piece of 8 1/2″ by 11″ piece of cardstock!

Here’s what we’re making:

First, cut your cardstock into three strips that are 2 3/4″ by 11″. There will be a tiny strip left over. You can just put that in the recycle bin!

Now, using your score board, score each strip at 3 3/4″ and 7 1/2″.


Now, cut corner to corner on the third panel (the furthest right in the photo above), which is slightly smaller than the rest.


Now, apply adhesive along the bottom edge of the now triangular panel where I marked with a pen below.


Now simply fold the triangular panel over and press down to adhere. This makes the pocket for your gift card.


Once you fold your card on the final score line, that’s IT! No kidding! Isn’t that the easiest thing EVER?! Now, you just need to decorate it!

I cut two white pices at 2 1/2″ by 3 1/2″ and two patterned paper pieces at 2 1/4″ by 3 1/4″. I put one white piece and one patterned piece together for the front of the card. I stamped my sentiment on the other white piece and adhered it to the inside left of my card. Finally, I cut the 2nd patterned paper piece from corner to corner to fit on the triangular flap.

Here’s the front of one of the cards:


And, here’s the inside:

I hope you liked today’s project and that you will find it useful when you have gift cards to give this summer!

An Amazing Opportunity!!

I'm beyond excited to share that I was asked to be on the Cycling Team for Little Yellow Bicycle's Poppy Collection.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this collection!  The papers, the embellishments-- EVERYTHING!  Today I get to share my layouts on the LYB Blog and I'm super excited to share them here, too!  

My first layout features my sweet Goldendoodle, Duffy.  We’ve had a very rainy spring and since he likes to play in the mud, we don’t usually let him out to “play” when it’s so wet and he gets very, very sad.  One day, he looked especially pathetic staring out the window and my camera just happened to be nearby, so I got out the camera and the kids and I laughed while trying to figure out what he was thinking.  The “5 things” embellishments worked perfectly to remember the moment!

I used some alpha stickers from my stash to put a few words that we thought Duffy might be thinking about:

And, to create the look of a rainy day, I added some raindrops to my layout using some clear, wet glue.  When it dries, it adds some fun dimension and looks just like raindrops!

LYB Products:
PY-103 Springtime Bands/Aqua Chevron
PY-104 Poppy Field Damask/Aqua Script
PY-106 Blooms & Damask/Yellow Pinstripe
PY-308 5 Things Envelopes - with embossing (11 pieces)
PY-135 Cardstock Stickers - Favorite Pieces - with glitter and embossing (29 pieces)
PY-305 Paper Crafting Kit (73 pieces)
PY-220 Fabric Favorites (18 pieces)
AS-110 Burlap Alphas - Esfera

My next layout features my little girl who LOVES to go to the beach!  It doesn’t matter what kind of day it is, she’s always happy to play in the sand and water.  She can just play and play and play and always has fun!

I am absolutely LOVING the Naturals products from LYB—especially the alpha stickers!  The fonts are fabulous and the texture that they ad is fantastic.  Here, I used some of the white stickers and colored them with an alcohol ink marker.  This way, the color options are endless and you can make them match any project!  I love it when I can buy one product over and over and make it look a million different ways!

Poppy Canvas Words

The Poppy Collection also includes some fantastic journaling cards!  They are a perfect size and have such cute shapes and designs on them.  

LYB Products:
PY-106 Blooms & Damask/Yellow Pinstripe
PY-101 Garden Journal/Red Pinstripe
PY-102 Red Floral Fabric/Spring Blooms
PY-104 Poppy Field Damask/Aqua Script
PY-105 Garden Stripe/Flower Power
PY-108 Green Script/Yellow Parchment
PY-134 Journaling Cards - with thermography (10 pieces)
PY-135 Cardstock Stickers - Favorite Pieces - with glitter and embossing (29 pieces)
PY-305 Paper Crafting Kit (73 pieces)
PY-279 Chipboard Shapes - with glitter accents (29 pieces)
PY-202 Canvas Stickers - Words (17 pieces)
AS-211 Canvas Alphas - White, Esfera

Thank you so much for stopping by today!  Thank you, also to Liz Qualman and the rest of the LYB gang for this incredible opportunity!  

Happy June!!

June is happy for SO many reasons!  The biggest one is the start of summer vacation!  Both as a mom and a teacher, June is a very, very happy time! 

June is also great because that means a new sketch from My Sketch World!  Here's my take on the June sketch using the fabulous collection from Little Yellow Bicycle called "Just Because!"

 

You can see the sketch and what the rest of the designers did with it on the MSW Blog!

 

And, I'm just realizing that in my complete slacking in blogging, I never posted the May sketch! Seriously, you'd think I just spent my time working, running kids back and forth, cooking, cleaning... oh wait.  Nevermind.  Here's my take on the May MSW Sketch!  Better late than never, right?!

 

 

I promise to be back soon to post some more of what I've been up to!  I have lots to share!

You (alpha)bet!

Hey there, everyone!  I have some fun cards to share with you today!  I have a fun set of alphabet dies from Paper Smooches that I was dying to use.  They are a great size for layout subtitles and also for cards.  I got a little carried away and decided to use the whole set on a card!

Can you see the sentiments in these two cards?

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  As always, there's more projects on the way so be sure to come back soon!

Don't Judge a Collection by its Theme!

Hey, everyone!  This layout just went out as a part of the A Walk Down Memory Lane newsletter!  (Just click HERE to subscribe!)  In my article, I challenged scrappers not to judge a collection by it's theme!  Today I used Imaginisce's Good Dog collection to create a baseball layout.  Even though the "A" sides of the papers in this collection are chock full of super cute dog themed words and images, the "B" sides are made up of wonderful solids, dots, chevrons, stripes and more! 

I used a sketch by Valerie Salmon for Basic Grey for this layout:

Here's a close-up the mix of alpha stickers I used for the title!

Here's an up-close look at the journaling strips.  I love to mat my journaling strips so that they pop of the page and draw in the eye.

And, here's a look at my star cluster.  I actually struggle with creating clusters of stars.  It took me a while to figure out what didn't look "right" to me.  I found that I need to make sure that all of the points of each star must be visible in order for it to look "right."  What do you think?

By looking at this layout, you probably never would have guessed that it's created from a dog-themed collection!  So, use your imaginiation!  Look at the "B" sides of the papers and see what else you can do!  Can you make a beach layout using Christmas papers?  Can you make a baby layout using footbal papers?  Sure you can!

The sketch for this challenge also happens to be the sketch used in the April sketch challenge at Birds of a Feather.  Amy has some wonderful challenges posted!  You can check them out HERE.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you were inspired and that you'll come back soon!

Getting Caught Up!

Hey there, everyone!
I'm on vacation this week and am SO happy to have a chance to do some projects that have been bugging me and get caught up on things that I just can't seem to get to on a regular basis.... like blogging!

Today I want to share with you two layouts that I've recently done for A Walk Down Memory Lane!  First up a fun layout using the wonderful new collection from Echo Park called "Sweet Girl."  It features to of the sweetest girls I know- Caroline and Elizabeth saying "yes" to the flower girl dress that Elizabeth will wear in Caroline's wedding this summer!  This isn't just a wedding, folks-- this is an event!  And, an event I can't WAIT for!

Here's a close up of the title.  I LOVE to mix my alphas up!

And, here's a little sub title using the "scrabble letter" paper from the collection.  These words were right there on the paper just waiting for me to cut them out!  Perfect!

Here's another layout that I recently made for AWDML!  It features the Good Dog collection from Imaginisce!  It's such a FUN collection and I loved incorporating a Pinterest idea (the pie chart) as my journaling.  You all know how much I "love" to journal....

And here's the pie chart upclose and personal.  You can see a step-by-step on how I made this on the AWDML blog!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope to be back with more projects to share soon!

New Month = New Sketch!

That's right, folks!  A new month means it's time for a new sketch from Lucy Chesna at My Sketch World!  Check out this fabulous sketch!

This has been a really fun sketch to work with!  I've enjoyed it so much, I've made TWO layouts with it already!

 

The first layout features some photos taken by my friend Patricia Takacs of Kivalo Photography and some fabulous older papers from Bella Blvd papers!

 

And, the 2nd layout features some fantastic new papers from Imaginisce, and of course, my sweet Duffy Doodle!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I have more fun stuff to share with you, so I'll be back this weekend for sure!  Have a great one!

Hoppy Easter!

Hey there, everyone!  I know that I've been a slacker here on my blog, but I've been scrapping... I promise!!

Today I want to share a few projects that I've made for the A Walk Down Memory Lane blog! 

First up... some Ombre Cards!  Ombre is all the range these days so I wanted to try it out on some sweet and simple cards! 

 

I also made a sweet little Easter Bunny using only circle, oval and heart dies.  She's just SO cute.... and there's a tutorial on how to make here HERE on the AWDML blog!

 

I hope you enjoyed these projects and will visit the AWDML blog to see the products I used upclose!  I have lots more fun stuff to share with you, but you're just going to have to come back to see them!

 

My Sketch World Blog Hop!

Welcome to My Sketch World's Blog Hop!

Sketches, sketches!  Oh, I love sketches. And, I'm really excited to show off this month's sketch from MSW!  We are welcoming a new Design Team and I'm so excited to be back as the Design Team Leader!   MSW is my online-scrappy family and I truly love it there!  First, just a little about me...

 

My name is Nicole and I live in Southern Maine with my husband of 13 years, my two kids and my two dogs.  They are my life and they are why I scrap!  I love to scrap the small moments, as well as the big ones so that they will have them to cherish and remember forever.  By day I am a middle school music teacher and am in my 15th year.  After school time is spent carting my kids to dance, karate and music lessons, cooking and of course, scrapping!  I love my MSW girls and if you haven't been over to the forum to hang out with us, you should definitely check it out!

 

I'd also love it if you became a follower of my blog so you can come back to check out what I'm up to!

 

Here is this month's layout sketch:

 

 

Here is my example using the sketch:

Here's a close-up of the title and journaling:

Here’s the skinny on how this blog hop works... Stop by each designers' blog to see what fantabulous creations they’ve made using My Sketch World March 1st sketch and get to know them. Be sure to leave a comment at each stop along the way!  We are going to draw at random from all the comments left on all the blogs (this includes this MSW blog posting).  The winner will receive a $20 GC to YOUR CHOICE of ONLINE STORE.

All comments must be made by midnight PST on March 3rd. Tune into this blog on March 5th to see if you are one of the lucky winners.

 

So without further adieu here’s the line up:

My Sketch World Blog http://mysketchworld.blogspot.com/
Nicole Wise (DT Coordinator) http://fourwiseguys.blogspot.com/ (You are HERE!)
Vicki Robertson http://validationofvicki.blogspot.com/
Jeanette Nystrom http://www.jeanys.se/
Joan Borgelt http://thegovsplace.blogspot.com/
Ann Jobes http://www.lovestnpaper.com
Kristin Perez http://somescrapsugar.blogspot.com/
My Sketch World Blog http://mysketchworld.blogspot.com/

Thanks for being here and now its time to head to Vicki's Blog to check out her creation!

Have fun and come back soon!!