Pages from the Heart: Detour Collection

For Pages from the Heart, I made a series of projects using Bo Bunny's Detour collection, which is a travel themed line. 

The first project I completed was a layout of my new puppy which I've already blogged about  here. I also made an altered item and a mini-album. 

Rockstar Altered Item

Even though this is a travel collection, I wanted to make something non-travel related. I paired it with a can of Rockstar Energy Drink since the colors of the can matched perfectly with the colors of the Detour collection.

I used a cloth wrapped floral stem, which can be found in the floral section of a craft store, as the starting off point. I attached a sign which reads, "I think you're a ..." which is completed by the name of the drink. To continue the rockstar theme, I made some star shaped flowers and attached it to the sign. The floral stem is a green color and didn't match, so to tone it down, I wrapped some black washi tape around the stem. 

I adhered the stem to a belly band that I wrapped around the drink. This would make a fun gift to give to a guy, especially on Valentine's Day. 

New Orleans Mini Album

For my last project, I made a travel mini-album. The cover is a piece of plain chipboard that I folded and added patterned papers and embellishments onto. I hole punched it and used two book rings to secure the inside pages. I tied some Mardi Gras beads to the rings and added the baby Jesus that Kevin found in his King cake to the cover. 

This is a view of the back cover. 

The best part of the album is that the inside pages are made from the 6 x 6" sheets. Just make a 2" fold along one edge, take two folded pieces and stitch on three sides. This will give you a pocket along the 2" fold to store tags, photos and memorabilia. 

The bonus is that there is an extra space between the pages (back to back). That is where I placed my journaling with little pull tabs. For more info. about the construction, please see this post from Practical Scrapper's blog. 

Here is a view of all the pages inside. 

This is a great way to use up those 6 x 6" pads. If you don't have that, then just cut up a 12 x 12" paper and you'll have four pages to work with. I ended up placing all the memorabilia I brought back from my trip (brochures, photos, business cards, bookmarks, pins) inside the album. Otherwise, it would just be gathering dust in a forgotten drawer. 

All the projects are on display at Pages from the Heart, so you can see it in person when you come on by!

Love to Scrap Challenge #2: Emboss It!

Hello Scrappy friends! It is time for our second challenge at Love to Scrap. We just wrapped up our first challenge, Anything Goes, yesterday and the winner and top three can be seen here.

The Challenge
For our 2nd challenge which begins today, submit any type of project that uses an embossing technique. It can be heat embossing with inks and powders or dry embossing with die cut machines and folders.

I choseheat embossing and made this small Christmas gift. It is a clear pillow box that was leftover packaging from some buttons. I filled it with mini marshmallows to look like snow. I wrapped a belly band around it and decorated it with a wintry theme.

The Details

I stamped the background snowflakes using a clear VersaMark watermark stamp pad. I then added white embossing powder and heated it on watercolor paper. This is thicker and more absorbent that cardstock. 

I stamped some blue and purple Stampin' Up ink pads on my craft sheet. I then sprayed some water onto the stamped ink which made small puddles. I dragged my paper through the puddles and got a subtly blended watercolor effect in the background. I first tried using cardstock but the colors looked dull and muddy so I switched to watercolor paper. 

I wanted a soft muted look for my central snowman image so I used the leftover puddles of ink for my colors and painted it onto the snowman with a water brush. I thought Copics might be too stark as I only wanted a hint of color since the snowman is mostly white. 

The snowman is a digital image called, "Oops Snowman" as he is falling on that little rock next to his skates. It is a digital image from the sponsor for this challenge, The Crafting Boutique.  The rest of my stamps (snowflakes, sentiment, scarf wrapped heart) are from a Clearly Wordsworth set called, "13 Snowman" that I already owned, which matched the digi stamp perfectly.

Supplies

Pillow Box - Clearbags

Watercolor Paper - Simon Says Stamps

Inks - Stampin' Up Classic, Tsukineko

Cardstock - Cutcardstock

Watercolor Brush - Niji

Craft Sheet - Inkssentials

Digi Stamp - The Crafting Boutique

Stamps - Clearly Wordsworth

Embossing Powder - Hero Arts

Glitter Glue - Ranger

Heat Tool - American Crafts

Spray Bottle - Inkssentials

Join the Fun
For more details about the challenge and to see the rest of the design team's projects, please see today's post on Love to Scrap. This challenge is open for two weeks, so get your entries in before Sunday, March 31st at 3 P.M. PST. If you have any projects with embossing on it, just link it to today's post. 

The winner will receive a $10 shopping spree at The Crafting Boutique and that will get you 5 - 10 items as everything is only $1 or $2. So get your crafting on.

I'm entering this in:
Sentimental Sundays - Challenge #146, Anything Goes
Lady Anne's Challenge - #6 Using Stamps
No Matter Which Challenges - #7 Anything Goes
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything but a Card
Love to Create - #57 Anything Goes
My Crafty Spot - #91 Embossing

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,

Lulu's Arrival Layout

The Reveal

I ordered a Schipperke puppy from Ohio, because I couldn't find a local breeder in Southern California, so I had a few photos of going to the airport to meet and pick up my dog for the first time. She flew in a tiny carrying case and I picked her up from the airline's freight section. I wanted a sunburst in the background to match my welcome to L.A. theme, but it just happened to be a gray and rainy day. I decided to use my initial concept anyways. 

The Tutorial

I worked with Bo Bunny's Detour collection for Pages from the Heart. I was thinking up different ways to utilize the 6 x 6" paper pad. The 6 x 6" size is too small to cover the entire width of a 12" cardstock. What I did was cut out a smaller piece of cardstock around 6 x 10," created the sunburst on the smaller cardstock and stitched it onto the larger background piece.

Here is a mini tutorial on creating your own sunburst or sunrise background. This is a great way to use up all your loose scraps of papers. 

1. On a piece of scratch paper the size of your sunburst, draw out your rays. Number the sections for easier identification later. 
2. Cut along the rays to make some templates. 
3. Place your patterned paper over a piece of the ray and cut according to the template. 
4. Arrange your newly cut pieces and adhere. Stitch along the seams for a quilted look. 

At this point the layout still looked a little plain, so I added a cluster of embellishments. I cut some arrows from the patterned paper and arranged the strips like a row of banners. I used a circle punch on some travel vehicles from another sheet of patterned paper, adhered them onto circular punched cardstock and added some Glossy Accent on top. This made them look like epoxy stickers. 

The Challenges

Last week I entered my New Orleans layout in one photo layout challenge with Scrap Your Story's blog. I was a Top 3 Winner, and you can view the winning layouts here. This week their challenge theme is animals so I am entering Lulu's layout. If you have an animal themed layout, then join in the fun here. 

I'm also entering this in these challenges:

Deep Ocean Challenge Blog - Cute and Cuddly 

Tuesday Alchemy - Anything Goes

Thanks so much for droppin' by,

New Orleans Title Page

The Reveal

I was at my LSS, Pages from the Heart, and saw We R Memory Keeper's new spring line, Simply Spring and thought it was simply gorgeous. This layout came together quite easily as the papers and stickers are so pretty. I had this photo from our trip to New Orleans that I thought would make a good title page for an album if I ever get to it. If not, it'll be a representative page of the entire trip. 

The Sketch

I used the following PageMaps sketch from Paper Secrets blog. They are having a sketch challenge if you'd also like to join in. 

Variations

• The main one was I turned the one large banner into a group of banners. 
• I continued the banner theme in the title area. I replace the title tab with strips of tiny banners. 
• One component of the challenge was to use Thickers. The ones I chose that matched my color scheme were too large for the title space. I ended up finding smaller Thickers for the brackets but they were a red color. I used a copper Pearl Pen over them to match the brads. 

• I exchanged the two smaller photos for one larger one for a more dramatic effect. 
• I had a fleur de lis brad that I wanted to use, but the copper color was so bright that it stood out too much in the sea of pastels. I added a few round copper brads and two copper eyelets so the copper became an accent color. 
• Instead of stitching the two vertical stitched lines, I added eyelets and tied some peach string through it. 

• Instead of a doily, I had a circular frame from the collection that I cut into three pieces and arranged around the photo. 

• In place of the heart embellishments, I used the floral and butterfly stickers from the sticker sheet. 

I'm also entering these challenges:
Scrap Your Story's very first challenge on using just one photo in a layout
Crafting for All Season's spring into spring challenge
Flutter By Wednesday's open challenge using a butterfly
Whimsical Design's think spring

Thanks so much for flutterin' by,

Love to Scrap: Challenge #1: Anything Goes!

The Challenge

The very first challenge on Love to Scrap's blog is entitled, "Anything Goes," so basically you can make any type of project. The design team members were given digital stamped images by Bugaboo Digi Stamps to work with. The winner will receive 7 digital stamps from Bugaboo as a prize, and the images are super cute! 

The Reveal
I made this birthday card for my nephew who will be turning 6 next month.

The Details
I chose to work with the Deacon Piper digital stamp because it reminded me of my nephew who was Peter Pan last Halloween. His sister was Tinkerbell, and my hubby was pretending to throw candy at them when they came trick-or-treating at our house.

I colored the image with Copic markers.

I made some notes using gems and a brown liner marker, stamped "Happy Birthday To You!" so it would look like the piper was playing the birthday song.

I used two pieces of BoBunny patterned papers (background) that I had lying around on my desk which I had just received from attending a crop. I matched it with a piece of scratch Scenic Route paper (banners) from my scrap pile. I love how everything from different places came together.

Supplies
Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Papers: Bo Bunny, Scenic Route
Digital Stamp: Bugaboo Digi Stamps
Sentiment Stamp: My Sentiments Exactly!
Ink: Prima Marketing, Stampin’ Up
Border Punch: EK Success
Gems: Doodlebug Designs
Markers: Copic

For more details about the challenge and to see the rest of the design team's projects, please see today's post on Love to Scrap. For general challenge guidelines, please go here. This challenge is open for two weeks, so get your entries in before Sunday, March 17th at 5 P.M. Pacific time. You must have something lying around begging to be seen!

I'm entering this in:
ABC Challenges - Anything Goes.
Created with Love Challenges - Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesdays - Anything Goes
Divas by Designs - Anything Goes
Catch the Bug - Anything Goes
My Grafico - Anything Goes
Paper Playtime - Anything Goes
Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges - For the Boys
Victorine Stamps - Anyting Goes
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes

Thanks so much for stoppin' by,