Birthday Fun Layout for Lasting Memories #739

Today is the design team reveal for the final Lasting Memories challenge of February, and Sandy asked us to create a layout using a band design. It could be horizontal or vertical or even curved; I chose to go with a wide horizontal band which I then proceeded to cover with lots of photos - LOL! You can still see my dinosaur paper peeking out, though, so hopefully I fulfilled the assignment. Please join us for this or any of the other February challenges by Saturday, March 1.

Recipe:
Journaling Jots & Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp sets
Wild Asparagus paper (MME)
Field Trip paper (American Crafts)
My Happy Place (Doodlebug Designs)
Mocha, Black & White Daisy cardstock
Mocha, Black, Sunkiss Yellow, Creme Brulee & Lilac Mist ink
White gel pen (Sakura)
Black grosgrain ribbon
My Happy Place Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Designs)
Beetle Black hearts puffy shapes (Doodlebug Designs)
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: tag
Cricut Artistry cartridge: title
Pattern: EMS Sketch Challenge #116 (revised to use only one band across the page)

Challenges: Cut It Up Challenges #324 Tie It Up - I used ribbon; My Time to Craft #554 - 1 tag and 1 ribbon + 2 circles + 3 patterned papers and 3 hearts; Crafter's Cafe #316 Spot and Stripes

Mother's Day Card 2023

I'm super late creating my card for my mom this year, but hopefully it will get there in time! I started with a blank card base and used this technique to create a floral background. I'm not much of a mixed media gal, so this is probably as close as you will see me get. Once I created the background, I added some die cuts and patterned paper, but they weren't working for me, so I went back to the drawing board and found a card sketch from Stick It Down that I thought I could adapt for the word MOM. Part of me thinks I should have added a penned square around the letters to tie it all together, but I was too chicken, so I left it as is. I know my mom will love it no matter what, so that's what's important. 

Recipe:
Background Elements & Intrinsic Backgrounds (2010) stamp sets
Gypsy, Lagoon, Sunset, Black & White Daisy cardstock
Gypsy & Lagoon ink
Black marker
Mocha Opaques pearls
Black button
Lagoon baker's twine
Heart stencil (Scrapbook.com)
Cricut Wall Decor & More cartridge: MOM
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: butterfly, daisies, hearts
Small flower punches (EK Success)
Pattern: Stick It Down May 2023 card sketch

A bunch of challenge blogs had a flower theme this month, so FYI: I was also inspired by the new purple and white daisies we planted last Saturday. They look fuchsia in the photo, but they're really more purple.

Challenges: Allsorts #727 April Showers bring May Flowers; Crafter's Cafe #296 Easter and/or Flowers (I went with flowers); Crafting Happiness #142 Flowers; Little Red Wagon #704 Spring Flower; Retro Rubber Challenge Blog #206 Tic-Tac-Toe  (use the middle column down with stencil + flowers + ribbon/twine)

50th Birthday Fun Fold Card

Double Trouble has a challenge to make a fun fold card, something that is far outside of my comfort zone. Fortunately, they also provided some tutorials for how to do this, so I started with the easiest one, and here is the resulting card I created. My friend Lori is turning 50, so I wanted a pretty card that didn't give her too hard of a time about her age. Hopefully she likes the one I came up with. The heart portion of the card was fun to design; I cut the hearts out using my Cricut and then used the negative piece on my card with a stamped piece of cardstock underneath it.

When the card is opened, you can see the rest of the flowers I stamped plus the sentiment. I know the sentiment looks a little high up on the card, but I wanted to leave space for my family to sign and personalize it.

Creating this was a fun experience, so I may get even braver and try out some of the more complicated fun fold tutorials on their list!

Recipe:
I Am, Intrinsic Backgrounds, Universal Backgrounds & Just a Number stamp sets
Tickled Pink papers & flower die-cut
Kraft, Blush, Crystal Blue & White Daisy cardstock
Hollyhock, Blush, Crystal Blue & Twilight ink
Gold Metallic marker
Black marker
Gold & white ribbon (Michaels)
Edge distressing tool
Cricut Design Studio: heart overlay
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: title shape
Cricut Artiste cartridge: 50
Challenges: Double Trouble #92 Fun Folds; Creative Creases #14 Anything Goes with a Fun Fold; Bitten By the Bug Anything Birthday using a Cricut cut; Let's Craft and Create #175 Anything Goes with lots of layers

Mission San Luis Obispo Layout

September has not been a scrappy month for me, unfortunately. I guess I am still adjusting to having four kids doing distance learning at home, with all the fun challenges that entails! Speaking of challenges, the layout I have slowly been putting together over the past two weeks was inspired by several challenges. First, Double Trouble challenged us to create a scene from anywhere around the world. This fit perfectly with photos from a trip my hubby made to Mission San Luis Obispo, and much of my time this week has been spent finding a good line drawing of the mission that I then imported into Cricut Design Space and edited to create the mission facade. Lots of work but I think it was worth it. Twisted Sister's twist to include a mode of transportation stumped me for a while but then I thought of adding a little donkey (mule?) to my scene to represent a primary mode of transportation in the mission era. Isn't he cute?

And here's a close-up of the mission die-cut:

Recipe:
Friendship Alphabet Small, Universal Backgrounds & Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp sets
Autumn Terracotta, Pacifica, Topiary, Linen, Greg Wool, Almond & White Daisy cardstock
Autumn Terracotta, Topiary, Cocoa & Almond ink
Black marker
Gold Metallix marker
Wooden Arrows
Blue epoxy bubble
Cricut Noah's ABC Animals cartridge: donkey
Cricut New Testament cartridge: cross
Cricut Design Space: mission (based on imported drawing)
Cricut You Are Here cartridge: tree, bush
Pattern: Sketches in Thyme #435 (I used the sketch for both pages but flipped and changed up the right page)

Challenges: The Paper Girls #207 - Around the World; Use Your Stuff #405 - Farm Animals (there was lots of livestock at the mission including sheep and cattle, but I chose to just include the donkey); Heart 2 Heart Wood You Rather? (used wood arrows and stamped a wood grain pattern on the Chocolate cardstock)

Let's Have Fun at the Zoo Layout

Since we have a zoo membership, I have scrapbooked zoo photos many times, so these are just a few snapshots my hubby took, plus there are a bunch more in a pocket page. We got some great shots of the hippos snoozing on the rocks, which made me smile because they are my sister-in-law's favorite animal. I meant to add just a few of the stamped bamboo images to my base cardstock but it looked a little funny, so I ended up stamping the whole piece, thus the striped background!

Recipe:
Intrinsic Backgrounds & Season of Thanks stamp sets
Jungle Stripes paper (Echo Park)
Kraft, Lagoon, & Colonial White cardstock
Bamboo, Topiary & Lagoon ink
Brown marker (Zig)
Jungle Safari stickers (Echo Park)
Chocolate ribbon
Topiary spiral clip & button nail heads
Cricut Art Philosophy cartrdige: decorative shape (behind the monkey)
Pattern: EMS Sketch Challenge 86

Challenges: Double Trouble #54 - It's Hip to be Square (Thing 1 = square scrapbook page and square picture + Thing 2 = played along with 2 Crafty Critter Crazies + Thing 3 = used two stamp sets that were way older than a year); 2 Crafty Critter Crazies #37 - anything goes with a critter

Through the Trees Layout

It's time for another challenge at Lasting Memories, but their challenges are so addicting that I'm still playing around with the last one! I couldn't resist using up the last of the blue ink in my spray pen to mist the background of this layout, but I also had fun playing with their new challenge: stamping. I'm a long time stamp lover, but I used the stamps in a little different way this time. There was nothing in my stash that seemed to go with the green patterned paper in the middle of the page, so I pulled out a leaf stamp set and repeatedly stamped it until I had a new background to match - voila! The title is also stamped, as are all the trees. For the title circle, I even used some masking to create a denser look for the trees rather than the evenly spaced look elsewhere on the layout. Hopefully you now feel inspired  to pull out some stamps and join in the fun challenge over at Lasting Memories!

Recipe:
Intrinsic Backgrounds, True Happiness & Pen Pal Alphabet stamp sets
Dutch Blue, Whisper, Olive, Creme Brulee & White Daisy cardstock
Dutch Blue, Whisper, Olive, Creme Brulee & Crystal Blue ink
Steel Grey marker (Zig)
Silver washi tape
Durables Artisan Studs - pewter
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: banners
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: semi-circle cut-out (welded in Design space)
Pattern: Scrapbook.com November 2 page sketch challenge
Challenges: The Studio Challenges die-cuts (I cut both banners using my Cricut and backed them with patterned paper, plus I welded the semi-circle to the rectangular block in Design Space)

Dakota Card Workshop

I haven't posted anything for a while because I've been so busy creating cards for my card workshops. I just finished a workshop last night, and here are the cards we created, 2 each of 6 designs. I wasn't enamored of the Dakota papers when my ladies picked them, but I really enjoyed the challenge of taking papers that weren't "my style" and making cards that were my style. Hope you like them!
Recipe:
Live Inspired, Find Your Style, 4 My Friend, Diverse Backgrounds, Say It In Style, It's Your Day, Hooray Bouquet, Intrinsic Backgrounds, Card Chatter - Birthday, You & Me stamp sets
Dakota Level 2 papers
Pacifica, Barn Red,Sky, Desert Sand, Bamboo, Black & Colonial White cardstock
Pacifica, Barn Red,Sky & Black ink
Color-Ready Seam Binding ribbon
Burlap ribbon
Colonial White ric-rac
Durables Round Studs
Pearl Opaques
Milepost Shapes stars
3-D foam tape
Patterns: Gallery, Delightful Dots, Stay Left, Sentiment Secured, Veranda WOTG, Clementine WOTG
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: scalloped border, frame, alphabet collage, "u", arrow, star, sun, flower

LOAD #12 - 2 Tired 4 Words

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone! I've fallen a bit behind on my LOAD challenge, but am determined to get caught up today. Here's my first layout. This week's inspiration challenge at Split Coast Stampers was to browse the Celtic Shamrock site and be inspired by something there. As soon as I saw this cute patchwork kitty, I knew what I wanted to do! I went through my paper packs and cut out a bunch of 1" squares. I was able to use lots of scraps, and it was fun that all the different shades of green actually look okay together. Instead of using regular Grey Wool cardstock for my accent color, I used White Daisy textured cardstock and brayered it with Greg Wool ink, trying to mimic the texture of the van's seat cushions. I also added a few Foundry Pin Clips to look like the cat's whiskers. The title was cut out on my Wishblade.

Recipe:
Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp set
Animal Cookies, Believe, Boom-Di-Ada, Elemental, Emporium, Evensong & Tinkerin'  Level 2 papers
Colonial White, Clover Meadow & Kraft cardstock
White Daisy textured cardstock
Grey Wool, Clover Meadow & Desert Sand ink
Chocolate marker
Twill ribbon
Pewter mini brads
Pattern: Abracadabra from Magic

LOAD #15 - Forestiere Underground Gardens

I've been trying to finish up my layouts in the morning so I can post them by noon, but today was a hectic day. In fact, this has been a crazy week. We "sold" our house contingent on us finding a new house, lost out on the house we wanted to purchase (by 90 minutes), and I've spent the last 2 days scouring the area for another home we liked enough to move from our current one. Found it today, so we've been doing paperwork and been on the phone with our realtor all day. If all goes well, I will have a big scraproom by this time next month! Anyway, I finally got a chance to sit down and work on my layout today after dinner, so it is pretty simple, but at least it tells the story. You probably have to click on the picture and enlarge it to see this, but I used a circle punch to create the arches in the bottom border paper, and then stamped plants on the background paper that peeks out from behind it. Fun! BTW, I may be posting late tomorrow as well since I'll be at a seminar until 5, but we'll see if I can whip another one out tonight!



Recipe:
Friendship Alphabet Small & Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp sets
Unknown patterned paper from my stash!
Heavenly Blue & Bamboo cardstock
Topiary & Chocolate ink
CM circle punch

EMS Sketch Challenge 2 - The Zoo Layout

Here's another sketch that I came up with for this week. Hope you can play along. Remember, feel free to use different size photos, fewer or more photos, add or remove elements - whatever it takes to work for you. Let's get those photos out of the packages and into our albums!

The Sketch

My Layout

Update: this sketch was used at A Cherry on Top for their double page sketch challenge in March 2024. Click on the link for more inspiration!

Recipe:
Classmate Alphabet, Rustic Alphabet, Intrinsic Backgrounds & Today's Date stamp sets
Expedition Level 2 papers
Autumn Terracotta & Colonial White cardstock
Autumn Teracotta, Olive, Chocolate & Cocoa ink
Cocoa marker
Chocolate brads
Autumn Teracotta My Accents
Circle Cutter (CM)

LOAD #27 - Dinner Prep

My parents' church sponsored a community dinner this year for Thanksgiving, and since we were visiting my parents for the week, we got to pitch in and help. Both my mom and sister were wearing blue shirts, but I am a little tired of that color right now (my kids don't seem to wear anything else, but I guess that's my fault since I purchase their clothes), so I decided to try emphasizing some of the other colors in the photos. I couldn't find the perfect B&T paper in my stash, so I decided to create some using my stamps. Recipe Box was a natural choice for a food-oriented layout, and I haven't used Intrinsic Backgrounds much, so I thought I would try that out as well. The buttons and journaling placement are pretty much a direct scraplift from the layout in Imagine.




Recipe:
Friendship Alphabet Large, Recipe Box, Intrinsic Backgrounds & Say It In Style stamp sets
Bamboo, Garden Green & Brown Bag cardstock
Brown Bag, Chocolate, Garden Green & Olive ink
Chocolate marker
Garden Green My Accents
Olive Embroidery Floss