Stuck on You Die Cut Challenge Reveal: Coming Thru

To my dearest daughter.  I am so proud of you and your strength.   I saved this picture for a SOU Sketches challenge because it represents the challenging time you are having right now. Life, I am afraid, is full of them sweetheart. I loved this picture because it shows the bracelet which represent all of the pieces of you.  Remember the gift that Chickie and I gave you...inner strength.     I love you Kitten.
Mom

I used Cricut's Sophie cartridge to make the requirement for this challenge which is a wreath and we are also to use scrap paper. I used one piece of scrap pink cardstock  by Bazzil, in Bubble Gum, that I had and cut a scalloped circle around an ink spot it had in its very center, with the wreath was cut centered in the middle, as well to avoid the spot.  I put a lot of Cricut flowers on the bottom under the photo and centered each one with Prima bling in crystals and pearls in various shades of pink.  I bought the huge bag that Scrapbook.com sold two years ago and I still have tons left.  I consider them scraps now.  The Making Memories tag came from a very old package in my stash.  I fussy cut the hearts on the doilies from scrap paper I had and, then glued them to the bottom of decorator pebbles I had laying around from my wedding.  The title was using Chipboard Alpha's from Amy Tangerine, also in my stash for I wanted more dimension at the bottom of the page where all of the embellishments were.  Another old stash item I used was the floral rub ons in black.  I had received them for Christmas three years ago in huge collecton from Big Lots that my DFIL had given me.   I altered the cardstock usng Tattered Pink distress ink, gesso and a home made glimmer mist I had made mixing 2/3 part water and 1/3 Gold Metallic paint by Folk Arts I had laying around.  I distressed the paperusing the Prima Distressing Tool by rubbing the edges with the side blade and then scraping the surface with the larger grater.  The doilies were in my stash from another project I was working on that just went wrong...lol.

Wearing a smile

I loved the saying on the title card and found it fitting for this picture. Justin has the sweetest smile.

This is a digital layout I made using my effects features for the picture and in the page elements using the embossing functions.  Digital is definitely the cheap and easy way to go when one is too tired for a full scrap.  

Love those sound effects

I love watching my husband play with the grandchildren.  This photo highly amused me.

To capture all of the fun in this photo, I enlarged the picture to 11" in height. I tried using brighter papers, but the elements of the photo that I wanted to highlight disappeared.  So I went with more muted colors of those in the photo with bright spots of washi tape in various spots to tie it all together.

SOU Die Cut Challenge Reveal: Love

This weeks challenge at Stuck on You Sketches is a fun die cut challenge called Switcharoo.  You are to use a die cut to substitue a letter in your title, and also to use scraps.  I grabbed a few shots of my Stepson and his girlfriend playing while we were on top of our Mountain taking shots of his race car.

I used Home Decor for the flourish at the bottom and Sophie for the die cut hearts.  I adorned the title die cut heart for the letter "o" with a bit of prima bling and backed the heart with My Minds Eye paper with pop dots for dimension.  I normally would recut the heart because of the offset issue I had when I cut it, but when I did the offset heart looked better for it stood out better on the busy background, so I colored the white areas on the first cut with a lighter pink copic pen and used it.  The title was cut with Art Nouveau using the Cricut Craft Room.  I also made a few glossy dots usig and Epiphany punch using the same scrap paper I backed the heart with to create unity on the page.  I had cut the banner and topped it with a die cut and word strip from My Minds Eye scrap stash. In fact all of papers are all from My Minds Eye  scraps.  I had cut the squares behind the letters from a scrap piece of paper I had.  You will see that they are not perfect squares and a bit uneven to keep the feel whimsical to go along with the pictures. Actually, I didn't have a straight edge scrap that would offer enough space for all letters, so the inspiration in design came from that issue.   I used cut strips of scrap paper to create the look of layering, and to fill up the page. It works great!  I still have about half a page of each of these strips to make another scrap to place along side it in my album.

SOU Sketch Reveal: Together

We have a new sketch challenge this week at Stuck On You Sketches.  I was lucky enough to have my daughter here for the holidays.  My stepson's girlfriend offered to take pictures of us. We had not done so since we were at an antique photo shop in Myrtle Beach 8 years ago.  What a thrill!

 

 

This was made using the sketch from Stuck on You Sketches.  I printed the papers from Echo Park's Graceful This and That collection I got at Jessica Sprague's site.  The circles were cut using Cricut Craft Room Basics.  The size I needed for a full circle would not fit on my 8.5" x 11" paper so I just fit what I could and ergo there is the border of elements at the bottom.  The rest of the EP embellies were just hand cut.  The Medallion was made using the same border at the bottom and just folding it.  Believe it or not the snowflakes were made from wrapping paper that was on one of my gifts this year.  It had glittery goodness so I saved it.  The title was die cut from the Tim Holtz Market die strip from Sizzix.  I hand drew the stitching around the frame and circles in black ink using a microtip pen in a .05 size.