Shake your Valentine

Hi again,
here's another Valentine card to share with you.  It's a shaker card.  I used the extra bits from our February kit to make a fun shaker card full of hearts and glittery bits.
I had a total craft fail though.  I thought the shaker part was sealed up but when I went to shake it, there was glitter and tiny beads falling out and bouncing all over my desk. ah well, nothing a little tacky glue wouldn't fix.
The outlined hearts over top of the window is a die from Memory Box. Can you spot the beaded garland embossing folder in the background?  Subtle and pretty.
thanks for taking a look. The paper is all included in the February Kit at Urban Scrapbook. You will get to see my layout for the month's kit soon.

12 Days (or so) of Christmas Cards

Hello, I am almost through my Christmas Card posts.
Guess which paper I used this time?  Hahaha yeah, Simple Stories. Do you see a pattern forming here?

The window stamp is from Darkroom Door.  I stamped it on a nice wood grain paper with Potting Soil archival ink. I embellished the sides with memory box die cuts and those wonderful burlap pointsettia flowers from Petaloo.

The images behind the window come from a wonderful talented lady - Astrid McLean. They were a free download from her blog site.  Thank you Astrid, I follow your blog and I love your art. You can check out her stuff here.

Seaglass Lantern

Hi again,
I wanted to share this project I made for myself.  Tropical and ocean themes just makes me happy, so here is my happy 3D project...

It started with a great cutting file from SVGcuts.com  I love Mary's designs, they just cut perfectly every time.  I added/welded the palm trees to the window to keep it beachy.

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. I often fall asleep with one finger on my iPad still trying to pin great "pinspirations" (sometimes I pin things accidentally while falling asleep hahaha)
Anyway, I saw this great "faux sea glass" technique and had to try it.
I picked up the Frost translucent paint by Martha Stewart at my local craft store, painted the charms and plastic following the technique described and sure enough, it worked!

here you can see the embellishments better. Great die cuts from a variety of companies : IO,memory box, Dee's Distinctively and my embossing folder from Spellbinders which I LOVE!

here's a better look at the "sea glass" windows
and below it's lit up with some battery operated green led lights
The challenge over at Simon Says Stamp (Monday's) is Start from Scratch.
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=1706
This project started out as plain brown paper and some recycled plastic packaging.
Thanks for taking a peek at the new addition to my beach decor.

Urban Scrapbook's May Scrapbook Page

Hi readers,

Today I want to share the May scrapbook page challenge for Urban Scapbook. You can see the other pages here...

http://urbanscrapbook.blogspot.ca/2014/05/may-2014-page-challenge.html?m=1

We were given the Basic Grey "Mon Ami" collection by Kelly Purkey to work with. I find the hardest part of the challenge, is finding an existing photo to coordinate with the papers. This month's theme was to celebrate moms or that special female person in your life. 

I edited a photo to a black and white vignette with a splash of color in the middle. The "urban skyline" background was perfect for the river valley backdrop in the photo. The picture was taken at my eldest daughter's high school graduation banquet in 2009.

Isn't She Lovely?

Hi again,

I wanted to share this card I made with you.  When I saw the Prima stamp hanging on the rack, she spoke to me. I couldn't wait to stamp the image and color it in.

I used my Copics and Shinhan Touch markers to colour and blend and blend and bl....well, you get the idea. Of course, the reason why she "spoke to me" was that the stamp seemed very tropical to me. So I added frangipanni flowers to her hair, using a memory box die in various sizes. I added a swirly flourish as well to tie in the colours .

Recognise the background paper? Upcycled packaging from the Prima packaging. I don't throw anything away. (lol)

Anything goes at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week. You can check out the link here:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=1230

12 Days of Chistmas Cards - Day 11

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love of paper gave to me: deers and birch trees.

Memory box dies on tiffany blue cardstock

Inside

I found this great pop up die from Joy Crafts. I cut it out and then used the snowflake on the edge die from Tim Holtz. I added some ink behind the pop up and mounted a sentiment on a frame die cut.

Enjoy, it's my birthday today so I am writing this while getting ready to go for a fancy dinner with good friends, hence the hastiness of this post

12 days of Christmas Cards - day 3

On the third day of Christmas, my true love of paper gave to me, a bright red cardinal perched on a tree.

I used the winter berries embossing folder, die cut a birch tree (memory box) and circle. That gave me a good base to build my cardinal collage.  I used stamps from TPC Studios colored up with Shinhan touch markers. 

I layered everything and added in some pine sprig punches from Martha Stewart. Of course I had to add some "snow" with dimensional paint.

I love how it turned out, it's simple, but I think it screams "winter holiday wishes"

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon.

12 Tags of 2013 - November

http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2013-november/

Hello friends,

I wanted to do a quick post for the 12 tags before I get into my Christmas card making frenzy.

So confession time...I shop a LOT. You can't go anywhere without seeing the chalkboard craze in stores.  I was so excited when Tim Holtz did a chalkboard technique tag in his Creative Chemistry 102 class. I have had that frosted crystal embossing powder for years. I've always found it to be quite tempermental to work with. It's so easy to overheat it and lose the effect it's supposed to give, but practice practice. I still haven't mastered it, but I'm getting there.

I have this great chalk pastel set from Lyra (again I have had it for years) so I pulled it out and added some color to the tag. Here's the end result ...

I love how the dusty blue background turned out.

Just a wee bit darker so you can see the colors better.

And here's a fun card I made while I had all the supplies out on my desk. (Die cuts are from Memory Box)

Hop on over to Tim's blog post for the great tutorial, especially the tip for using Frosted Crystal EP.

Thanks for surfing by today, until next time...

Laurie

Nautical

Yay nautical! I was super excited when I saw that the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge was to create something Nautical. I love anything to do with beaches, tropical and nautical so this one was fun.

I made a she-art tag using the Julie Nutting paper doll stamp from Prima, lots of washi tape and some inks and sprays.

You can check out this week's challenge here:
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/challenge-nautical/

Memory Box die cuts

Bo Bunny stamps from the Key Lime Collection

Bonus Card (just because)
stamp anchor on white paper with white pigment ink
add faded jeans distress ink over background and wipe off excess ink off of stamped images
spritz with water to give a "watery" effect
add embellishments (die cuts, ribbon, stamped image) after matting on yellow anchor paper

Rogue Traveller Canvas Passport to Fun challenge

Hi again,

I'm sure it wasn't just me, this winter was the longest, most drawn out test of seasonal affective disorder EVER! When we returned from Southeast Asia, I thought it would have been spring. No such luck.
To cope, I started making paper palm trees. I designed this 11x14 canvas to put on display in my living room, using the fabulous picture of a classic VW camper van as my jumping off point.

I found the picture on Pinterest. The photo credit linked back to desert-dreamer.tumbir.com  A thousand apologies if this is not correct. It's an awesome pic and it reminds me of the jungles in Indonesia that we visited in February.

to start, I made the trunk of the palm tree with some recycled paper bag, twisted it, and sprayed it with color shine.  The fronds were die cut from BoBunny paper, and more recycled packaging for the "looking glass" compass element. I fussy cut a bunch of leaves from the Graphic 45 Tropical Travelogue collection.

 I can't remember the company which the background paper is from. I found it in the sale bin at my local scrapbook  store.  I added some lightweight modelling paste around the edges and also created a stencil from the palm frond die to add more visual interest on the edges.

 here you can see the recycled plastic packaging I used to make a cool compass.  I added some remnant rubs to the canvas as well.  Those packs are awesome. You can put them on everything (like Franks Red Hot hahaha) I glued some jute twine around the plastic to give it a more finished look.

I knew I needed some more red on the canvas to visually balance it with the picture, so I stitched some great metallic thread through the one side.

I really love how it turned out. I am going to submit this piece to Simon Says Stamp and Show for their weekly challenge:  http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.ca/2013/04/challenge-passport-to-fun.html

A Miniature sleigh and 8 tiny reindeer

Hi again, I needed to make a centerpiece for my Christmas table. Ever since I saw what "Jim the Gentleman Crafter" did a while back, I knew I had to bust out the matboard and engineer one of my own.

I googled "sleigh templates" and found a free download to print. (What did we ever do before Google?) I then cut the pieces out from matboard and covered them with paper.

The reindeer were cut 16 times with matboard and 2 glued together for strength. I inked them with "gathered twigs" distress and sprayed them with "picket fence" stain in a mister bottle.

To make the reindeer fly, I cut some heavyweight plastic into 1/2 inch strips and glued them to the back of the deer, creating an L bracket.  I  wrapped some chenille stems around them for a harness - so cute!

Once the general assembly was complete, it was time to decorate (my favorite!!) I added lightweight texture paste to the base and threw on some die cut snowflakes. I used the frostyville border die from Memory Box to glue on the edges.  It was a bit short so I added some Festive Greenery cuts from Tim Holtz. 

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all have a wonderful week, now go get something done today.

Kaisercraft Advent Calendar

Whew! I haven't posted for a few days. The Kaisercraft Advent Calendar took waaaaay longer than I had anticipated. I did get a little carried away though, and I love the final result, but I'm keeping this one. LOL!

I used a bunch of different techniques here. I painted, sprayed, glued, 3D'd and decorated to the max.
My sprays were Heidi Swapp, the main paper collage was from Kaisercraft. (LOVE that paper) and I went on a shopping spree at Michaels for the decorative elements on the top.  I threw on some snowflake die-cuts from Memory Box and Tim Holtz. I used  Mahogany, Black Soot, Vintage Photo, and Broken China Distress Inks to antique the edges of the boxes.

Don't you just love the lanterns from Tim Holtz's ideology line? I bought 4 as soon as they came in.

Now  I just need to fill the little boxes with some treats for the S.M.

I love weddings...

My friend/coworker got married this past summer. Her wedding colors were royal blue and gold. I wanted to make a really elegant shower card for her. This has been my most popular pin on Pinterest. Lots of detail to take in- enjoy.