Disney Autographs Mini Album

"Best laid plans of mice and men" . . . you know the saying. There is just not enough energy to be creative and blog about it lately. Good news, though, I've been more creative in the last week than I have in the last month!

To celebrate [inter]National Scrapbooking Month, Club Scrap is hosting some challenges. The first one (deadline is tonight!) is to create a Passport to Fun mini album. You can find the challenge and submissions HERE. 

This album is a lot of fun. It's made with envelopes for 5x7 cards, plus some cardstock mattes, two booklets, and some pages tucked into the envelopes.

I pulled out my kit and assembled the mini album, which took less than an hour--my kind of project! As I'm putting it together, I realize that the primary colors will go perfectly with pictures from our trip to Disney World back in '09 (which still haven't made it into an album!)

I decided to focus only on pics of my daughter with the characters we met. It was her first time to WDW, and we went to a lot of character meals. She was all smiles that week--what a blast!!

I had made her an autograph booklet that she carried around. You can see it in the photo of her and Eeyore. For this album, though, I decided to pull the pages out of the autograph book and include them in the mini album with the pictures. I think having the pictures and autographs together make them all more meaningful.

No time/energy right now to complete the book, but I hope to soon. My daughter will enjoy looking through it and reliving memories of our special trip.

Until next time,

Lisa Kay :-)

Hydrangeas Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on Club Scrap's Hydrangeas blog hop! I'm so happy you are here. If you arrived from Tiare's blog, Tiare Smith's Designs, you are on the right track. For the entire list of participants, hop back to our starting point, Club Scrap Creates.

Earlier this month, I was honored to be the Guest Artist for the Hydrangeas Greetings to Go pack. You can check out all my cards here. The element of the G2G pack that caught me off-guard was the 5-pack of paper doilies. I've used doilies to line cake plates, even as stencils to dust powdered sugar on top of desserts, but I've never used them on greeting cards. For inspiration, I turned to the place that holds a wealth of creative ideas--Pinterest. I even created a board focusing on greeting cards that feature paper doilies. Check it out to find ideas on how to use your paper doilies!

There were some wonderful comments made about my greeting cards (thank you!!), but most of them mentioned the doily dress I made on this card.

Want to create this dress yourself? I found the instructions on this site: Inking Idaho. Becky is a successful Stampin' Up! demonstrator with a host of amazing and creative ideas! She shares this pictorial on how to fold the paper doily into a layered skirt. Easy!! For the bodice, I embossed a piece of white Club Scrap cardstock with a swirl embossing folder, then sketched the shape onto the back--no pencil lines to erase after cutting out the shape. You can see various types of bodices on my Pinterest paper doily board. The ribbon hides the junction and adds a pop of color. 

The next time I make a doily dress, I'm going to first color the doily like I did on this card. It was incredibly easy!

I've seen instructions on how to color doilies by dipping them in a bowl of water colored with food coloring. Seriously??! How messy!! Just look at all the supplies needed on this blog. She even includes rubber gloves and a "sense of adventure"--come on, I just want to color a paper doily!

So, what does the seasoned paper crafter use for this otherwise daunting task? A few sprays of Stewart Superior's Memories Mist does a fabulous job. If you want to see the many colors they offer, check out this page--go half way down to the Mists section. I just laid the doily in a CS pizza box and spritzed the Memories Mist enough to cover the doily. It didn't take long to dry and become a part of my "Thinking of you" card. Yes, doily dresses in a variety of colors will be in my future! 

Thanks for stopping by. The next stop on our hop is Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel. I know you will be amazed at her creativity--I always am! 

Until next time,

Lisa Kay

March CS Blog Hop--Trees

Welcome to my stop on the Club Scrap Creates Trees blog hop! If you got here from Tiare's blog, then you are on the right track. If you want to start at the beginning or see a list of all the bloggers contributing this month, click HERE. 

This month all the bloggers are featuring projects using the March 2014 kit, Trees. Here's a pic of some of the kit elements. You can find more kit items HERE.

Ever have a bad case of crafter's block? Well, that's what I had this month. I often have at least a small idea of what I want to create with the new kit when I first open it. This time, though, nothing was coming to me. I'd looked at the kit, seen projects other CS folks have made with the products, even created a mood board in Pinterest featuring trees and the many beautiful colors in the kit. Still, nothing came to mind when the deadline was approaching for this blog post. Absolutely nothing.

So, with the deadline right around the corner, I pulled out the kit elements and spread them out on the floor. Hmmm . . . nothing.

I opened my stamp binder and found two really cute leaf stamps on the Trees Art Nouveau unmounted stamp sheet. I felt a glimmer of hope when I saw those stamps!

They have text on them, which reminded me of some stamps in the Up, Up & Away! collection from February 2013, so I pulled those out and some of the plain Trees papers and CS inks and started stamping.

Using the leaf trio stamp, I created a background panel using Leaf, Moss, and Earth Club Scrap hybrid inks. 

I then used the dictionary page stamp from Up, Up & Away! to create another background on the dark green paper.

Still not knowing just what I was going to do with these stamped papers, I used Sandstone ink and another UU&A stamp and Moss ink with the Trees row of leaves stamp.

Here are the three stamped papers I created. It was getting late, so I went downstairs to read a few pages in my human resources management text book. This serves several purposes: It checks off another thing on my to-do list for the day, and it puts me to sleep (please don't tell my professor!). But most of all, it enables me to take a break from my creative venture, since at this point, I still wasn't sure what my final project was going to be. I had a start, but I what path I was taking was still a mystery.

A new day brings a refreshed mind (isn't that great?!), and I could finally see what I was going to do for this project. The leaves and the light green paper both reminded me of pears--that's right--pears. And I just so happen to have a pear die! (From Spellbinders' Orchard Harvest Tags and Accents die set.) With a new-found direction, I used the dictionary page dark green paper to die cut two pears. (I didn't use the leaf die, though it's pictured.) I also stamped the leaf trio a few time and cut out a couple leaves to add to the pear die cuts.

And here (finally) is my completed card. The sentiment strip was made using the UU&A stamp and Sandstone ink. I made the row of leaves lighter by stamping first onto scratch paper. The "thank you" stamp used on the top and bottom is from the Milestones kit, and the "thank you" in brackets came from Pure & Simple. (These are both extinct wood-mounted stamps.) The sentiment strip and the pear/leaf on the left are raised with foam adhesive. The fiber is from the Trees embellishment pack. 

There you have it. Sometimes when creativity is blocked it helps to just get out some paper, stamps, and ink and stamp away. Then, get a good night's sleep, and in the morning you'll find your mojo has returned. Mine just happened to be in the form of pears!

Thanks for making it to the end of my blog post. Your next stop on the hop is Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel. I can't wait to see what she has in store for us!

Until next time,

Lisa

It's a BIG DEAL!

Welcome to my stop on this month's Club Scrap blog hop featuring the February 2014 kit Big Deal. (See elements of the kit HERE.)

If you got here from Tiare's blog, then you are hopping right along. If you get lost along the way, or you want to start back at the beginning, go to the Club Scrap Creates blog.  There's a list of all of this month's participants there. 

When my kit arrived, I immediately noticed the gorgeous colors and unique textures of the papers. Photos can never do justice to paper textures, but you can see the beautiful colors in this picture.

For the blog hop, I opted to do another canvas art project. You can see the one I made in December for the Gnome for the Holidays blog hop HERE. Below is my Big Deal canvas art--perfect for Valentine's Day or year-round!

I started with a white 6x6 canvas. To distress the parts that would be visible, I first inked with Club Scrap's Sandstone hybrid ink, then I added Earth ink on top. I like the two-tone, aged effect this gives.

For my base paper, I chose the Tan Plain from the kit, cut to 5.5x5.5". It has a raised "Swiss Dot" pattern on it that is ideal for inking! After distressing the edges with my Tonic paper distressing tool, I ran the Earth ink pad over the surface and edges of the paper. 

The focal image was made with two stamps. The card background stamp is from the Borders & Backgrounds sheet. To keep it light, I inked with Sandstone ink.

The verse is found on the Collection sheet of rubber. I inked with Club Scrap's India Black ink and sprinkled Hematite embossing powder (found in the Tribal kit) over the words. I love the look of heat-embossing--and it adds even more texture to my project. :-)

Another stamped and embossed element--the scroll image, also found on the Borders & Backgrounds unmounted rubber sheet.

After cutting out the scrolls, I glued them on with CS Bookbinding Glue.  Ribbon (from the Big Deal embellishment pack) and some brads from my stash layer on even more texture.

To add to the love theme, I stamped hearts from the Collection stamps onto the Red Pearl paper and added red brads from my stash. This canvas makes a festive home decor element for the month of February, though I might just leave it out year-round.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I hope you enjoyed seeing my creation and are inspired by the textures in this kit. The next stop on the blog hop is Marya's blog HERE. 

Until next time,

Lisa

Graffiti Greetings to Go

Hello, blog hoppers! Thanks for stopping by as you hop along the Graffiti Blog Hop. I'm sure you are enjoying the fun and creativity of the various bloggers. You may have arrived here from Tiare's blog (iClassygirl). If not, go to the beginning (and see the entire list of bloggers) at Club Scrap Creates. 

I'm a scrapbooker at heart, but for the past year I've really been enjoying cardmaking. I'm not sure if it's the smaller size, the fact that I can complete a card in less time than a page, or the amount of cards I can create in one crafting session, but I really like making cards. 

For this blog hop, I pulled out my Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. Every month, the G2G pack includes enough materials to create 15 cards in three different sizes. First, I made this trio of cards. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, the love theme is quite appropriate.

In my attempt to use more of my older supplies this year, I pulled out some Zig Writer pens to color in the stamped Love image from the Graffiti Greeting Unmounted stamp sheet.

The heart and string image, also from the Greeting UM sheet, makes a fun and whimsical background on the white panels. For one card, I stamped the hearts in Club Scrap Fuchsia ink, coloring with three Zig writer pens. A second card was stamped using CS Onyx ink (no coloring to allow the "Love" to pop). The third card background was created from the paint splatter stamp on the Graffiti Art Nouveau stamp sheet.

Here is another card I created from the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. The preprinted panel (love those!) had "Congratulations" printed on it. I actually have plenty congratulations cards in my greeting card boxes, so I stamped "Life is beautiful." onto a piece of white cardstock and trimmed it down. (That stamp is also on the Art Nouveau sheet.) I wanted to matte it with the same black as the large matte. Black papers come in so many shades that sometimes it's hard to get a perfect match. Using the exact paper fixed that problem, and I remembered a trick that Julie (Cape Cod Scrapper) showed us in a Club Scrap Creates post last summer. You can read her post HERE.

I adhered the stamped panel to the center of the black matte. Then, I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the black piece--allowing plenty of space around the stamped panel.

After trimming the black matte with a paper trimmer, I mounted it to the center with black foam adhesive. You can see the dimension in the photo below. Layering the orange panel onto the black, then onto the white card, no one will ever know that I took a piece from the center of the black panel. (Sneaky, but smart!)

And there you have four of the cards I've made using the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please hop along to Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel to see even more Graffiti creations!

Have a crafty day!

Lisa :-)

Stripes and Hearts

I haven't been participating in many challenges lately, but I recently acquired some new supplies and wanted to play with them. The January OWH* challenge hosted by Our Daily Bread Designs is to use stripes, so I pulled out my new 6x6 pattern papers from Gina K. Designs (newly acquired item #1) and cut 1" strips to create the striped backgrounds.(*Operation Write Home)

The other new item in my papercrafting studio is the Love & 5 Hearts die set from Hot off the Press. You can see the dies in their online store HERE. I thought it was a great purchase since we are nearing Valentine's Day. And they combine very well with my new Love Letters pattern papers. :-)

The cards are simple, yet intricate, with the layered die cuts. That's my favorite thing about cutting shapes with my die cutting machine--the intricacy. And the way these hearts fit on and in the other hearts really adds some interest and complexity to the designs. The die cuts were all cut from Club Scrap cardstock--my very favorite paper!







I'll be sending these cards in my February package to OWH. I've challenged myself to send 12 cards a month in 2014. While the Valentine card deadline has passed, since these don't say "Happy Valentine's Day," they are acceptable. After all, love is in style year-round!

Until next time, blog readers!  ~~Lisa Kay