Amanda and Me, at Tharpe's Mill

I had a special time this month where my niece came to visit me. First time ever!  We went to my favorite photo spot and took pics of one another.  I don't know about her, but I had a lot of fun.  Tharpe's Mill in the Spring is so pretty.

I will be doing a paper scrap of these pics, but I was feeling lazy today and resorted to playing around with photoshop and Samantha Walker's new Sweet Memories digital papers and a page template that was available on Jessica Sprague's site.  I loved how the circle topper on the digital life masks just about ran into the picture of the mill wheel.

Really, I like growing old with you

I just love this picture of our Grandsons.  I love how the hug from Dalton was unprovoked and how Rhylen is looking at his shoe.  Cute cute cute!

I took advantage of Micheal's Customer Appreciation sale two Sunday's ago.  They had a sale on open stock paper where you could by 8 sheets for a dollar.  The polka dot paper came from 8.5 x11 paper packs were only $2.  All of the papers were bought there.  The Title block was cut from my Silhouette.  The hearts were punched using an older EK Success mini punch.  The stickers were from a set that I bought a while ago. The arrow was cut using Cricut's new The First Few Years cartridge.  Though meant for small children designs there are a ton of scrapbook page elements on there. So, if you haven't looked at it closely, check it out.  I also used The Cutting Cafe's new Card Topper for the embellishment block on the upper right.  I am having a ball with that set.  So head on over to the Cafe to see those.  The tab punch was made using the  Stamping Up punch.  The Washi Tape is from the Smashbook Collection.  The flower and the Yes block were from Seen and Noted elements that I printed and cut out by hand.  The Seen and Noted set was purchased at Jessica Sprague's site.

Free Digital Class and Quick Page at Jessica Sprague.com this week only!!!

I am taking the free digital scrapbooking class at jessicasprague.com this week. It is only available this week starting today.  She is also offering a free quick template in commemoration of Arbor Day.  I took some of my pics and threw them in there with a few digital embellies. I was surprised how much I liked it when done.    I have been venturing into hybrid scrapping to save money and never really thought to go completely digital until I started tackling my project life album.  I really enjoy it.  It is not quite the same as glue, glitter and inks, but when tired it is rather enjoyable.

So head on over to her site and grab this cute page for yourself! 

 

 

 

 

Big News!!!

I heard this week that I made the Cutting Café Design Team!!! 

I am so excited.  Regina Easter founded this site years ago. She has great cut files, stamps, and ideas for gifts, cards, wrapping and more.  I have followed her site for years and am Positively thrilled to be joining in.  It is so funny because I made the suitcase below just before I heard that I made the team. 

So come on over to the Café and see what Regina has for your creative bone.  It is fun, fun, fun!!!

The Cutting Cafe

Stuck on U Sketches Design Team Call for 2013

Design Team Call for 2013

Hi crafty friends!

We are so excited to be announcing some new spots

opening up here at Stuck on U Sketches!

We are looking to grow our team which means even more

inspiration when you come by and visit!

Some of those changes mean missing some incredible designers

that will be leaving us. However we are excited for some

new talent to join us!

Will that be you?

We have a small opening with our Layout Sketch Team

and are looking for 2 new Design Team members.

You'll be creating with our original sketches every other Friday.

And with our Die Cut Team we are looking for 4 new 

Design Team members!

Again, you'll be creating every other Friday with a chosen

Die Cut Challenge. The great part about this is that you may

use ANY die cutting machine. Electronic, metal dies, etc.

You can take a peek around the site to get a better idea

on the challenges we do and if you have enough imagery

to join our challenges!

We are also looking for someone who would be interested

in being a Sponsor Coordinator.

Design Team Call will be open until May 3
and new teams will start in June!

Any questions? Please let us know!

We are asking for 6 month commitments to the teams.
You must be able to comment on all entires for your challenge.

We are very excited to also share a little tease and let you know

that we are planning some other changes for our site!

We hope this will be the inspiration and fun that will 

cause us all to really get excited about our awesome hobby!

We can't wait to share these changes and to see 

who wants to join this amazing team!

Please email Leah at mrsbealash@aol.com
with your name, which team you'd like to be on,
your blog link and any gallery links.

Thanks so much!

Stuck on U Sketches Die Cut Challenge: Crustacean

This weeks challenge at Stuck on You Sketches is a die cut challenge using a crustacean.  I will admit when I first saw that I gave a silent "Ugh!" in protest, but this turned out to be one of my favorite layouts of the year.  That is the beauty of a challenge.  It stretches your creativity and you surprise yourself with what you can do.  There is a story behind this design.  When at the beach as a child, the grown ups would give us a stick with string and a piece of bologna tied at the end. They told us to go and catch some crabs.  Of course we never caught one but  we would sit on that pier for at least an hour or so which gave them a break.  I had to tie a string on the crab's arm.

I used Wilna's style from Two Peas in a Bucket.  She uses white backgrounds with bright colors  to guide the overall design of the page.  I grabbed some paint and started with a dry brush (blue) and after cleaning it with water, I did the other crooked stripes with a wet brush. I loved the contrast it gave to these elements, including the side banners.  The echo park crab shells and beach title were cut from Silhouette designs.  I love Wilna's technique of sewing and folding paper on a layout, so the background was sewed onto kraft cardstock distressed and folded up to give the page more dimension.

Card Storage

As I build my inventory of cards for the year I am finding that I am running out of places to store them neatly. Leave it to Regina at the Cutting Café to come up with the perfect solution for me.  This suitcase not only is pretty and fun to make, but it also serves a purpose.  The design comes with three inserts that you can use to use it for storage.  There are three that come with it, but I opted for the A2 card storage option. 

 

Regina Easter, at the Cutting Café, recommends a sturdy cardstock, like Basic Gray for the paper that you use. I do to. My Minds Eye would be another good choice.  I used what I had, which is the cardstock you can buy at Walmart, because I wanted to print the papers However, as much as I straightened the inner edges of the lid last night while drying, you can see they still buckled a little.  A sturdier paper would not have done that.  Had I known, I would have put a weight on the troubled edge to keep them straight  I swear they were straight when I went to bed.  I used Samantha Walker's Rosie Collection to print the papers.  I got the whole set for $1 on one of  Jessica Sprague's  One Buck Wednesday deals.

 

Regina used brads for her hardware. I used a mixture of brass brads and antique adhesive gems. It was much easier than poking 18 extra holes and using up my now limited number of brads.  I did use brads for the handle though.  I figured I would be using the handle a lot to pull it out of the shelf  I am to put it on.  I had to shorten the inner sides a bit to accommodate the place I want to put this. Otherwise, the pink polka dots would have shown more on the overall design.   I got the lace at Debbie's Lace and Trims.

 

I wanted to make the pocket look like it was divided, so I scaled down a pattern size in my silhouette where it looked like it had three sections.  I placed ribbon over the seam marks you get when you do that, then punched little flowers  using Martha Stewart's Hydrangea punch.  Boy that thing is handy.

 

There is a cute little luggage tag that comes with this set.  I have made the outer pocket, but have not decided what to put in as the label.  Cards just didn't seem to do the design justice....so I am still pondering on that one.  But when put with the box, it looks awesome!

 

This was really fun and easy to make. Regina has a Tutorial on showing you what I mean.  I was intimidated when I saw the box, but loved it so much, I investigated it further. Regina follows the KISS principal. I should have known.  Well I am off to store my cards now and free up the covey where they are currently tucked. 

 

By the by...this design does work with the Silhouette SD.  I am dreaming of getting a Cameo so I will never have to ask that question but for now SD Users, feel free to purchase this one, worry free.

 

If you need a little inspiration, head over to the Cutting Cafe's blog.  Their team has great ideas on how to use their products and the site is pure eye candy.  Make sure you have an hour or two to spare though. The site is addicting....  lol.  Enjoy!

 

Stuck on U Die Cut Challenge: Sea

Hi everyone!  This week Stuck on U Sketches has a die cut challenge for us.  We are to create something using die cuts that have any thing to do with the ocean.  I am getting very excited about Summer coming and decided to make a celenbration card for it to send to my girlfriend who lives for Summer.  



I used the Life's a Beach cartridge by Cricut, using the card feature.  I covered the sea horse using the regular die cut and glittered him and the seaweed up to give the card some pizazz. The background paper was from Cricut's Enjoy the Seasons cartridge. It just looked like colored bubbles to me and added some whimsy to the card.

Head on over to Stuck on U Sketches to see what others on the team came up with and grab your blue, greens and tan colored papers and join in on the challenge.  We would love to see what you come up with.