Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Paper Made Bakery: May Roundup

The Reveal
This is my sixth and final project for Paper Made Bakery's May kit entitled Portobello Road. I loved the pastel colors, shabby chic designs and feminine feel of the kit. For today's reveal, I wanted to use the stamp set in an unintentioned way. So instead of using the stamp themed stamp on a letter, I turned it into a quilt block.



For more info on this card, please go to today's post on Paper Made Bakery.

May's Summary of Projects
Here are the rest of my May projects. For more info on any project, please look on Paper Made Bakery's blog.

One in a million shaker card
Hello Kitty Cafe Layout (can't show the whole thing as it will be published in Scrapbook Trends Magazine)

Oh Happy Day pop out card

Muffin Basket Topper
Apron Gift Card Holder
As you can see, a lot of fun things can be made from the same kit. Be sure to come back on Friday for the June kit's reveal and a blog hop with fun prizes!

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Engagement Album

The Beginning
I can't believe my lil' cousin is getting married in just a week and a half! At Christmas I received this save the date magnet from her. 

Save the Date magnet
Since it was so cute, I had to feature it on a layout using some of her engagement photos I downloaded from Facebook. I wrote about this in a former post here

Save the Date layout
After seeing my layout, she asked me to make a whole album of her photos which will be displayed at the wedding. Kevin, my hysband, will be playing the guitar and Vic, my sister, will be singing, so I guess I'll contribue where my talents lie. I just realized scrappy skills can be of use to others.

The Prep
I finished 19 of the 20 pages in three weeks without too much stress. Completing an entire album is usually a major ordeal for me. When completing a large project within a short period of time, organization and planning is key. Here are some of the things I did beforehand that really helped. 
  • Choose a theme and stick to it. I looked at the photos and they had a soft, romantic feel to them so I wanted that to reflect in the pages. I didn't know her style so I chose a clean and simple style with straight lines that seemed neutral.
  • Get some layout designs ready. I didn't want to spend time designing 20 layouts and wondering where to place photos and what size to print them. So I used sketches from one artist so they would be streamlined. I used some Allison Davis designs from Sketch Support and her books
  • Make a kit of materials. My cousin wanted her wedding colors used, which were Tiffany blue and orange. I couldn't find one collection in those colors that matched my theme, so I assembled the papers in those colors using 4 different collections and chose matching embellishments in yet another collection. I placed all the materials on my desk and tried to mainly use those, so I wouldn't be spending time searching my stash for an elusive embellishment that would be perfect. This is what it looked like in the middle of a layout. 
Mid-process


The Results
I have 9 of the pages out to show you today, and I'll share the second half in another post. 

This is the title page, aren't they a cute couple? 


I placed their names using alpha stickers on punched circles, popped them up and used some Glossy Accent on top. I placed some twine behind the names to simulate a banner look. 


I went with a circular banner to mimic the one they had in one of the engagement photos. 


The other pages are featured below.




Three of the photos were in black in white (above), so I altered the colored photos below to match, since these two pages would be opposite each other in the album. I hope the photographer won't mind me playing with her photos. 


Since I didn't have titles or journaling for each page, I used some pre-made tags and stickers.


To make the album seem cohesive, I repeated several elements. I utilized the same color scheme, used a lot of straight lines in the design and used the similar embellishments like ribbons and flowers. But I also wanted each page to be unique so I placed at least one element that was different from the other pages. In this one I used a negative spaced heart with a dangling tag next to the title. 


I wanted to have sunflowers on these pages to match what she is holding in the picture, but I didn't have any nor wanted to go out and try to find some. My sister, Jenn, suggested making some so I did. I colored some Prima flowers with an orange ink pad and filled the center with a black Pearl Pen



The two layouts above actually go together as a double paged layout. 


It was really easy to scrap as the photos themselves were so lovely. If you need a photographer in the Los Angeles area, these were taken by Anna May Lam. If you want to look at just the photos of Marrina and John, you can go here. I hope you enjoyed taking a look at my cousin's engagement album. Please come back soon to see the rest after I finish the final page and photograph the layouts. I even have some of their candid photos, like the actual engagement at Disneyland.

Thanks so much for stoppin' by, 

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Paper Made Bakery: Gift Card Holder

The Reveal
I can't believe another week has passed by since my last reveal! During these last few weeks, I've been busy putting together an album of my cousin's engagement photos since she wants to display it at her wedding on June 2nd. I've finished 19 of the 20 pages, so it is possible to get an entire album finished within 3 weeks. I'll be sharing those layouts in another post soon.

Today I made a shaped card based on something I saw at Home Depot. To see the inspiration and the entire card, please take a look at today's post on Paper Made Bakery.  I can give you a sneak peek here.

Today's reveal at Paper Made Bakery
It turned out so cute! I loved using this month's super feminine Portobello Road kit and digital die cut designs from the Silhouette store.

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Paper Made Bakery Reveal: Muffin Basket

The Reveal
It is my reveal day over at Paper Made Bakery. One of the teacher's at Kevin's school is leaving so he asked me to bake some muffins for his department. I baked some for his staff to eat and then packaged some to give to the one leaving. 


I bought a wicker basket and kitchen towel at the dollar store to hold the cupcakes. I then wrapped the basket in cellophane with a raffia bow. To finish it off, I then made something with my Portobello Road kit. To see what it is, please hop on over to today's post on Paper Made Bakery.


Thanks so much for stoppin' by,

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Travel Layout - Borsang Umbrella Village

The Reveal
I have a single paged layout to share today that I recently created about my summer trip to Thailand. When I found out there was a handicraft village just outside of Chaing Mai, I really wanted to take a peek.

Borsang Umbrella Village
The Village
We went to several different factories, including a silver jewelry production site and saw how they carved wax molds to shape the silver and a silk factory that displayed the silk production process. We also went to a hand carved wooden furniture factory. Kevin and Jenn are sitting on some elephant head stools. 


These are some teak tree trunks used to carve the furniture. 


My favorite was the umbrella village where they hand make and paint paper umbrellas. 


There was a section where the artists would paint directly on items you already possessed. So I had my camera bag, sandals and shorts painted. Bor Sang Village and San Kamphaeng Road also nicknamed "handicraft highway" is definitely worth a visit if you are the crafty type. 







The Details
Back to the layout...I saw this sketch on Liz Qualman's blog and really liked the three intersecting lines at the top. It reminded me of a tightrope so I went with that theme.

I paired the sketch with my umbrella factory photos and some bright LYB papers that reminded me of the umbrella colors. The collection even had an umbrella sticker which I cut down to match another bird sticker so I could transform the bird into a tightrope walker. 


I cut out some flowers in the patterned paper and popped them up over another strip of the same flowers for a fun embellishment. I bought some handmade paper flower stickers when I was in Thailand, so I placed those as the flower center. 


The sketch is designed for 3 photos, but I wanted to use more photos, so I used the TurboCollage App to create a 6 photo collage within the same photo space. 


I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my travels.

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Paper Made Bakery Reveal: Oh Happy Day!

Kevin's New Best Friend Layout
My layout about Kevin and his little elephant friend is up on ScrapStreet Magazine this month, which you can view here. We were visiting an elephant farm last summer and we spent the day with our own elephant for the day. Kevin got a mother with a three week old 400 pound baby that liked to play with him. We gave them a bath in the river before taking a jungle trek together. 


The Reveal
I made a pop-up sentiment card for today's reveal over at Paper Made Bakery using Pink Paislee's London Market collection. This is a fun technique and gives the card a different look. For a view of the whole card and a link to the tutorial, please visit today's post on PMB. I can only show you a sneak peek here. 



The Occasion
It was my sister's birthday this past week so I made the card as a birthday card for her using PMB's Portobello Road kit. Since she is a music teacher, I went with a music theme. Luckily, the stamp set in this month's kit had a music staff and notes stamp, so it all came together for me.  Here are some photos from her party where we hung out with family and friends. 


My nephew's favorite pasttime of late is dueling with light sabers. I think he just likes to swat at me while I run away. 


This was the cake, Jamocha almond fudge ice cream cake. Happy birthday kiddo.


Thanks so much for stoppin' by,



Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pages from the Heart: May Reveals

This is a long post today as it is actually three posts that I grouped together since they all feature the same collection. 


The Collection
This month for Pages from the Heart, I worked with Bo Bunny's "Weekend Market" collection which features travel themed images with rich colors and regal designs. I made three projects - a card, a calendar/mini-album and a layout. For all my projects I only used three sheets of patterned papers, three pieces of cardstock and the sticker sheet shown below. You really don't need a lot of supplies. So just put together a small kit and get crafting. 




Project #1: You Are Picture Perfect Pop-up Card
Since the colors in this collection were more masculine, I decided to make a card for my nephew. For my first project I was inspired by the sticker that read "picture perfect" from the sticker sheet so I designed a card built around that sentiment. I really liked the floating pop-up card I made last week so I replicated this technique. If you would like to know more about the specifics of the card like the supply list, please visit Page's blog. If you would like to view the tutorial I wrote about the pop-up element, please visit Paper Made Bakery's blog



I was looking at my nephew's birthday photos with him and I noticed the face he was making in this photo. 

He said it was because he didn't really want to take these pre-party photos as he would rather be playing in the jumper outside. I thought this was a "picture perfect" photo and used it for his card. 

Project #2: SoCal Shop Hop Calendar
Last summer I had a lot of fun visiting some of the scrapbooking stores in Southern California, collecting my passport stamps and obtaining the 6 x 6" make and takes from each store. Last year's theme was "Papercrafting around the World" so each store had their own special destination. The store across the street from me, which has since closed :(, chose Grand Ole Opry. 



I ended the summer with a bottlecap necklace and a pile of make and takes that I didn't know what to do with. I made my own steamer trunk mini-album from some chipboard die-cut packaging to house my collection. 



This year I decided to get ahead of the game a bit, and have my album done ahead of time so that pile of make and takes won't seem so overwhelming. Since this year's theme is "Wacky Holidays," I thought a calendar would be a nice change from a mini-album.


I took an existing 6 x 6" SEI album that I already had and just turned it sideways. The inside will house some monthly calendars I printed from iCal and the make and takes I'll be collecting this summer. For more info on this project, please visit this post on Page's blog. 






Project #3: Korean Family Portrait Layout
I went to Seoul, S. Korea a few weeks ago with my Dad and sister. We each picked one activity that we wanted to do while in town. My Dad wanted to tour the DMZ, and it was a very educational and surreal experience, seeing all the places that I've only read about in history books. Here we are with a S. Korean soldier in the Peace Conference Room built exactly on the MDL. 


I chose something more innocuous, visiting the Hello Kitty Cafe. I just wrote about the experience here and made a layout here


Jenn wanted to dress up in traditional Korean outfits and take photos. We walked around Myeongdong and found a studio that catered to Japanese tourists for just such an endeavor. We took our own candid shots, like this one, while the studio took more traditional shots. 


Kevin couldn't take time off of work to go as he is in the middle of boy's volleyball season, but he did Photoshop himself into a shot.


Here is the layout. For more info about the scrappy side of this layout, please visit this post on Page's blog. 
Thanks for viewing all my projects for the month for Pages from the Heart. Whew!


Have a scrappy, dappy day,