Project 365 - Week 4 All Digital

Just watched the videos for Erica Hernandez Digital 101 class at Two Peas in a Bucket this weekend.   Although I've been using Photoshop Elements for nearly 2 years, I never fail to pick up some tips, particularly shortcuts.  The 'key' to using Elements, I'm learning, is to learn the keyboard shortcut keys.  When I first started using this application, I thought it was the most tedious software I'd ever used. My hand would get so tired from all the mouse use. Seems odd to learn keystrokes when we have been conditioned away from keyboards for so many years.  Erica even includes a PDF of shortcuts with this free class.  What a deal!

I did this layout using last week's photos.  I'd planned to add a little bling in my embellishments after printing.  I'm much more of a hybrid scrapbooker.  I love buying stuff way too much to ever go completely over to digital.  However, everything rhinestone and ribbon competed for attention with the photos of my pin and the decorative glass decanter.  I guess 7 photos focusing on glass is enough without any outside sparkle.

The assignment for class was to use a free kit.  This one is appropriately called Give Freely and it is available at Two Peas along with many others.  Here's a link to Erica's class:  http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/education_class.asp?cl=16

(Also, if you are new to Photoshop Elements, I highly recommend doing the first few videos of Sandy Krieger's class from last year to get you started --> http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/education_class.asp?cl=7

His Majesty opts In

"Meow," squeaks Jasper in his whiny, high voice so unsuited to a cat his size.  He paws at the front door.  He clearly wants out. 

Or does he?  He stretches his head as far out the door as possible to look from side to side.  Snow everywhere, even all over the front porch!  Brr!  I think His Majesty will just spend the day (or two or three) indoors.

Hope you are warm and safe wherever you are today!

Cosmo Colors

A trendy color combo that has been popping up all over design magazines and television is black, white and a greenish yellow.  Actually most any color that makes black and white pop is popular.  Since I had some embossed black cards left from my first effort at the 4 Hearts card a few days ago, I thought I'd give this dressy cosmopolitan combo a go.

To get the greenish yellow paper, I started with white Stampin' Up! cardstock and stamped some damask images with YoYo Yellow craft ink and then embossed. I wasn't quite fast enough so some of the images didn't completely take the embossing powder adding to the distressed look.  I sponged Kiwi Kiss over the images using the Tim Holtz distressing tool.  One card has some further black embossed swirls.

For the other card, I trimmed up a piece of discontnued gray sateen fabric.  The yellow cord has been in my stash forever.  I think it was part of a fabric store ribbon grab bag.  I attempted some sort of fancy Chinese knot but after several ties, it looked a little lost on the card.  A few more embellishments and the experiement was complete. 

One of these may be my Mom's birthday card in a couple of months.  She is definitely a lady who suits this striking color combo. 

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Baroque Motifs and On Your Birthday from SU!; Flourishes (damask) from Paper Studio
Ink:  Versamark; YoYo Yellow, Basic Gray from SU!; Black pigment ink from Colorbox
DSP:  Urban Garden from SU!
Wish metal embellishment:  All My Memories
Flower brad:  Oriental Trading

Fab Flowers Playtime

I haven't done much with this set since it jumped off the rack at A.C. Moore and just made me buy it. I still think these are beautiful images - just having a little trouble doing them justice.  So here are some of Hampton Art's Fabulous Flowers in traditional card designs.

This second one is a fairly non-traditional color combo at least for me:  Purely Pomegranite, another burgandy/red, periwinkle blue with some black and white for neutrals.  I'm adding this to my 'guy' card stash. 

I used a couple of the Colorbox chalk inks (Rouge and Warm Red) for the pink and red flowers and just love them more and more.  It did look like these flowers were going to visually topple the leaves and stems so I colored in the leaves with a blender pen and a little matching dye ink in Kiwi Kiss.

I've got some less traditional ideas for these images running around in my head.  If only I could add more time to my shopping cart as easily as stamp sets...

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Fabulous Flowers by Hampton Arts; Cheap Talk and All Holidays by SU! for greetings
DSP:  Stripe is from American Crafts; Blue/purple distressed paper is from DCWV
Ink:  Rose Petals fluid chalk inks from Colorbox; Purely Pomegranite, Tempting Turquoise, Basic black from SU!
Ribbon and button from unkown sources.

TIPsy Tuesday - Coloring Tools

First, I should make a disclaimer.  Coloring, no matter how good the tool, is just not my best thing.  When I was in elementary school, I was always jealous of another girl who could color so evenly and stay between the lines.  She kept her hair pretty and neat too, whereas mine was doing good to be untangled.  Fortunately, I'm not having to have my work graded these days and I keep my hair short :-)  We could call my coloring - um - artistic!

Since this is Sale-a-bration time for Stampin' Up! and you get something from the SAB catalog for every $50 you spend, markers and watercolor crayons may be a great addition to your wish list.  I'm no longer a demonstrator, but I do like to take advantage of this opportunity as a customer.

Before I purchased these coloring tools, I wasn't sure which I wanted to invest in - markers, crayons or pencils.  Today's tips will focus on the benefits of the markers and the crayons.  Stampin' Up! also sells waterolor pencils; however, they do not match the SU! colors.  The markers and crayons both match the SU! color families and the neutrals.

Markers:  SU! markers come in sets for each color family, a set of neutrals and for the first time, the 2009/10 In Colors.  Other advantages include:

• Markers can also be ordered individually as well as sets. (except for the In Colors and some neutrals where you have to order a set.)
• Classic refill inks can be used to refresh a marker so they last a long time.  Eventually I understand the tips may wear down.
• Markers are used to color in images, but more importantly to color stamps.  If you have a flower stamp for example and you want the petals in one color and the center in another, you just use the markers to color before stamping.  In the card below, I used the markers to color "happy birthday" from a greeting stamp that had other words on it giving me just the greeting I wanted.
• There are two tips - a fine tip for writing and coloring detail and a brush tip usually used on a stamp or for coloring larger areas.
• Markers can color on any type of paper you would normally stamp on since they are the same ink as Classic (dye) inks.

Watercolor Crayons:  These also come in sets for each of the 4 color families and a set of neutrals.  They are not available in In Colors or for individual purchase.

• Crayons are less expensive than markers.
• Crayons are usually used with blender pens to color in images or add a little color around an image.  If you are really artistic, you can just do your own images, I suppose.
• The colors typically come out more subtle than the actual shade in ink; however, you can keep applying color to darken the image.  Both cards above use Cameo Coral - a marker on the left and the watercolor crayon on the card on the right.  What a difference!
• Because of their subtle coloring, you can use blender pens to apply color to select elements in a detailed image without coloring every part as in this Home for Christmas design.
• Blender pens usually work best on watercolor paper or a paper with a slightly rougher texture.  I often use the office supply store white cardstock as I mentioned in last week's Tips.

So these are both great product with their own advantages.  Personally, I have two sets of markers and three sets of the crayons.  I doubt I'll ever buy the markers in Rich Regals since I just don't use those colors very often. I might buy a few individuals.

Ingredients for both cards:  Stamp Set:  Petal from Stampin' Up!; On Your Birthday for Greetings also from SU!

Cardstock and ribbon from unknown sources.

Ink:  Staz-on black, various Earth Elements, Bold Brights markers; Earth Elements, Soft Subtles and Rich Regals watercolor crayons

Vellum from Hobby Lobby

Project 365 - Week 3

For some reason my weekends have become busy times. I'm not complaining - stamp classes, meeting clients and meeting up with friends are favorite activities.  It does mean though that time for scrapping and stamping has to be planned ahead.

For this layout, I saved some time by chopping up the work into manageable pieces.  I cropped and arranged the photo collage on Friday.  Then I printed it on Saturday and selected my pattern paper.  Finally last night, I pulled it together and limited myself to the embellishments that coordinated with the paper from Basic Grey's Indian Summer collection- all but just a touch of ribbon from Stampin' Up!.  I too often ignore the stickers that come with Basic Grey kits.  They look great and are easy to use.

The only head scratcher in this layout was making my pattern paper work.  I had my heart set on something from the Indian Summer collection and the colors matched.  Yet when I put the paper with the photos, the patterns competed.  To solve the problem, I placed the photo collage on a very large black mat and just used the pattern paper on the edges of the page.  

So now we are taking photos for week 4!  The year is moving right along...

4 Hearts in Love

LOVE describes what I feel for the layout of Kristina Werner's Finally Friday card this week.  Check it out at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/.  Look under Education and you will see her video.  She used punched butterflies on her black card background.  Yesterday, we made Valentine's Day cards in our card class here so I was in the mood for hearts and rosey red papers.  Plus I had all that stuff still out so...

I experiemented with a different design on my card base at first using Baroque Motifs swirly design.  It turned out too busy for the hearts but I have 2 great card bases for another color idea I had earlier in the week.  Don't you wish there was more time for all the ideas? 

I'll just add them to the many piles of partially completed projects in my scrap room. 

Ingredients:  DSP:  Stampin' Up!'s Raspberry Tart from last year's catalog
Cardstock:  Basic Black; white from Staples for the letters cut on the Cricut with SCAL using English Vivace and Edwardian Script fonts in bold.

Watercolor and TV Escape

When I was a teenager, I always had a crocheting, embroidery or knitting project going. I'd come home from school, turn on a soap and needles would start clicking.  I did get my homework done, but I loved that hour or so to unwind every day with just ATWT or Guiding Light and my thread.  I would watch something beautiful and functional come together in my hands.

Those types of crafts are too hard on my hands these days so I enjoy papercrafts and machine quilting. However, it is hard to do those things and watch TV.   Fortunately, I can occasionally throw stamped images, blender pens, watercolor crayons and other supplies into a basket and camp out in front of a soap on a rainy afternoon like I did yesterday.  Here is one of the cards I assembled this morning with my colored images.  General Hospital never looked so good!

Ingredients all by Stamping Up!:  Stamp Sets:  Playful Petals, On Your Birthday, All Holidays

Cardstock:  Kraft

DSP:  Raspberry Lemonade

Ink:  Going Gray, Rich Razzleberry and various watercolors

Ribbon:  Rich Razzleberry

Second Chance Reads

Jennifer Weiner is considered one of the queens of Chick Lit fiction.  Yet, I just didn't care for her books.  Or I thought I didn't.  A couple years ago, I read one - mostly.  I skimmed most of the second half.  For some reason it didn't appeal to me.  "In Her Shoes" was made into a movie that I tried to watch on a long, tedious (is there any other kind?) flight and again didn't care for it.  But after grazing the fiction at our local library all the way to the W's the other day, I decided to give her one more try.  A good choice.  Best Friends Forever is funny and touching - a very pleasant read. Her characters are revealed layer by layer alternating between the humorous snippets and the dramatic points of their lives. 

Now I'm reading her first book, Good in Bed, and I can't put it down.  I've really got other things I need to be doing and I keep picking up this book! 

So I'm really glad I gave this author a second chance. 

The bookmark above is made from Basic Grey's Indian Summer collection.  I had the papers out using some of the chocolate and rosy ones on Valentine's day cards.  This collection works really well with the In Colors this year from Stampin' Up!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Petals by Stampin' Up!
Ink for distressing:  Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango; for stamping:  Melon Mambo
DSP:  Basic Grey's Indian Summer
Brad: Oriental Trading
Ribbon:  Source unknown

TIPsy Tuesday - Indispensable Cheap Paper

There was a thread over at Splitcoast a few days ago asking what you would differently in papercrafting if you had the benefit of hindsight.  Many, many of us said  we would not purchase "cheap cardstock" - the kind that is flimsy and won't stand up when you use it on a card or just looks, well, cheap on a scrapbook page.  I've also bought some white-core cardstock that I didn't realize was that way.  Then when I scored it for a card, ick!

There is though one 'cheap' cardstock I continue to buy.  I love it so much; I buy it by the ream - a 250 sheet pack.  110 lb white cardstock from an office supply store is a must-have in my craft space.  The weight is a little deceptive as it isn't as sturdy as Stampin' Up!'s 80 lb or nearly as much as Papertrey Ink's 110 lb. but it still pulls its own weight. (pun intended)

I use office supply store white cardstock for:

• journaling on scrapbook pages as shown above - this is how I got started using this type of paper for crafting and just kept going and going.
• liners for dark colored cards
• test printing before I print journaling on my best cardstocks or vellums
• testing cuts on the Cricut (usually use a blade depth of 4)
• creating masks using the Cricut or punches 
• testing paper punch images for size
• white matting for photos or card designs - Often my white mats are in between the photo and the next color of matting so it never looks flimsy.
• some light watercoloring -  Doesn't work quite as well as true watercolor paper but it is so much cheaper and much easier when cutting out a design
• stamping when planning to heavily color and distress the paper as in these notecards. The "C" and the paper beneath it both started out as plain white office supply store cardstock.
• a base for sewing papers together.  I cut and glue my papers to the white carstock and then stitch through all layers.
• anywhere I need another layer or paper to add weight or hold everything together.
• as a money saver for larger quantities of items.  For example, I used this type of paper for my stepdaughter's wedding programs.  I backed the programs with a thick designer paper but the bulk of the content was printed on this white paper.  Inexpensive and much easier to punch through for threading the ribbon.

A pack of 250 sheets costs $15 - $17.  Be sure to look for one that says "Acid Free."

Thanks for visiting for today's TIPsy Tuesday.   Hope you have a great day!

Project 365 Week 2 - Diet & Exercise

I'll admit it; I'm a Theme Girl. I just can't stop myself from organizing my scrapbooking around themes.  So I'm finding myself snapping photos each week concentrating on a particular activity without even meaning to.  Last week was mostly food with a little exercise thrown in - just so we sound somewhat healthy.  This week I'm already on a winter gardening kick. 

Diet (really???) & Exercise is a one page layout - a rarety for me in our scrapbook.  I also did something really unusual for me in that the photos are teany tiny - about 1 1/2" high.  For some reason, I always scrapbook photos big enough to see from across the room.  These show up just fine on the page and are plenty big enough.  I mean, do we really need to see every crumb of my homemade bread?  These sizes worked for my recipe card style layout.  It has a lot of designer paper but I really love it.  Perhaps it is because these are my favorite colors or maybe because there is a fair amount of white space around the photos given the details.

Once again I cut letters with my Cricut using both the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and the SCAL software.  Before sewing, I adhered and trimmed all the pattern paper to a large scrap piece of cardstock for the frame.  There is no stamping at all on this layout, not a bit of ink.  Surprisingly, I'm not going through distressing withdrawal.

Thanks for stopping by.  Come back tomorrow for TIPsy Tuesday.

Ingredients:  Pattern Paper:  Farm Fresh by October Afternoon with just one tiny piece of Basic Grey's Nook and Pantry.
Ribbon:  Basic Grey Periphery
Chipboard accent:  K & Company

Two Birdies Together

Yesterday at our Stampin' Up! monthly club, we made a card Jean designed using the new bird and branch punch from Stampin' Up!  I really love the redesigned punches.  It was very easy to use.  We punched a full set of designs from 4 different designer papers from the new Sweet Pea paper pack in the winter mini catalog.  This left us plenty of additional images to play with so I made this card today using my 'leftovers.' 

I first stamped the 'together' sentiment and then masked it off to stamp the woodgrain background.  Everything else was assembly.  We debated at club whether these birds needed eyes.  I penciled in small eyes for mine.

The mini catalog and the Sale-a-bration catalog have many great choices.  Check them out via Jean's site on my Places to Shop on the right side of the screen.  Thanks for stopping by.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Define Your Life by SU!; Woodgrain background by Hero Arts
Cardstock:  Kraft by SU!
DSP:  Sweet Pea by SU!
Ink:  Soft Suede, Chocolate Chip
Ribbon:  River Rock by SU!

Date Day

Oh what a lovely day we had! We had our first “date” day in quite awhile starting with a small shopping excursion at a Stamper's Alley in Mooresville, then marvelous lunch at a hard to find café (to Lenny’s credit he dared not mention that a GPS would have been helpful – I hate his chattery GPS system), then the main event – hiking in a wildlife area near Charlotte, finally stopping for one of the finishing touches to our recently redecorated Master bath. I actually got to buy something at Anthropologie where I love to browse!

We took full advantage of the cloudless near 60 degree day. After a couple of weeks where it seldom got above freezing and we still have snow on the ground from before Christmas, we were delighted to get out. I am so whiny about the weather here if it gets too cold, too dry, too hot – probably why my ancestors never ventured west.

Photo:  Lenny on the trail by Lake Norman at Latta Plantation.

I look forward to using the new stamps and ribbons I bought today.  Stamper's Alley offers 15% off on non-sale merchandise on the 15th of each month.  If you are in NC Piedmont, they are a nice store to check out at http://www.stampersalley.com/

Daufuskie Island Pages

Just working through a few photos from last year's vacation.  We took a side trip to Daufuskie Island via ferry from Hilton Head.  I get terribly seasick so this is a very rare thing to see me on a boat - even a ferry on a sound is a challenge.  I did love the ride and spotting dolphins.

However, the golf cart ride was almost worse than any boat trip.  Yet, despite the horribly rutted roads, the lack of signage so we missed at least half the sites, and the lack of interest in the rest of the sites, we really did have fun and laughed a lot.  We found a completely deserted beach.  Lenny thought my getting chased out of a gallery by a poodle was hilarious.  In my defense, it was a full size poodle - not the toy kind.  And how do you know it is a poodle just by the bark?  And it was their house not their gallery, but how am I to know?  Lack of signage, remember.  It matched the photo on the brochure.

I thought it was funny that Lenny was sure we had found this pottery place by the 'kiln' in front of the house.  It was actually a still - or so the owner said.  I think he was serious.  (There is only one store with very limited provisions on the island.)  The scenery is pretty and it is worth going - once.

Jounaling is tucked behind the photo collage on this page. 

Chocolate Chip lettering was too dark for this page, so I recut the letters and glued them over the originals.  It created a nice accidental effect.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Flourishes Vol2 by Autumn Leaves; Itty Bitty Backgrounds by Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Old Olive by SU!
Rub-on's:  Stampin' Up!
Cardstock:  Mellow Moss by SU!
DSP, Buttons and Ribbon:  Periphery Collection by Basic Grey

CC253 Pink and Chocolate challenge

Are there any better colors for Valentine's than pink and chocolate?  Throw in Rich Razzleberry and this is a delicious combination.  For the Splitcoaststamper's color challenge this week, I started with a Basic Grey paper from their Indian Summer line.  Using a little gold (which I'm counting as a neutral) tied the colors to the paper. 

To get a little gold embossing on my Cricut cut letters, I stamped with a small swirly stamp and then embossed with SU! gold embossing powder.  That stuff melts quick!

The gold rhinestones were purchased in the jewelry making section at Hobby Lobby.  Super cheap and easy to attach with glue dots.

BTW I was just over at basicgrey.com to verify the name of this paper collection.  They have completely revamped their site and added fabric! Or at least I didn't know they carried fabric.  I'm going to have to spend some serious time browsing their site.

Ingredients:  DSP:  Indian Summer collection from Basic Grey; Razzleberry Lemonade from Stampin' Up!
Cardstock:  Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Rich Razzleberry
Ink:  Versamark
Ribbon: fabric store

TIPsy Tuesday - Cardstock Reference Deck

This project started because I needed a fast way to find paper to match my projects without pulling out half my stash.

Stampin' Up! cardstock is great quality, available in a huge number of colors, and available in both 8 1/2 x11" and 12x12" papers so it is becoming my go-to paper.  I typically start a project with designer paper choices that appeal to me or match my photos if I'm scrapbooking.  Then I'm looking for cardstock to match the designer paper.  If I'm using SU! designer paper (DSP), I know what solid colors match the prints.  However, I'm often using other companies papers.  I needed an easy reference to find the cardstock that matched my paper.




So in about an hour and half Monday afternoon, I created these cardstock palettes similar to a paint deck.  Each one has one of the SU! color family and a piece of cardstock from each color in the family.  I ran the cardstock to the edge of my paper so it would be easy to lay it next to pattern paper and get a match.  I'm matching up cardstock from Earth Elements to this October Afternoon paper below quick and simple.

If you would like to do this project, the Word document I created is available on Splitcoaststampers.  (I haven't figured out how to link a file to a blog entry yet.)  Here is the link to my thread on Splitcoast ... Splitcoast Link for Word Doc;  You'll see that I didn't leave myself quite enough space for all the In Colors in mine.  I have corrected that on the file posted on Splitcoaststampers.  Also I left a little more room at the top of each card.  To do this project:

1. Download and open the document in Word (I created this in Word 2002)
2. Print on 8 1/2" x 11" white cardstock and cut into thirds - approximately 2 3/4" wide strips.
3. Add grommets to the top of each card.  My example uses some I had on hand; I'm not sure of the source.
4. Cut a piece of each color of SU! paper and glue in place.  The pieces are approximately 1/2" x 2 3/4".  I just cut mine by hand from scraps and let them lay over the edge. Then I trimmed all the edges at once.

That's it.  You have an easy reference for all the SU! colors to use in your craft room or to take with you when you shop.

Color Inspiration #57

When I lined up the ink colors of Kristina Werner's color challenge on my worktable, I immediately thought of a sunrise/sunset. The colors are a dark red (Ruby Red), Cameo Coral, More Mustard, So Saffron, Baja Breeze and Whisper White - or equivalent colors in non-Stampin' Up! products. Surprisingly the red didn't show up that much in the finished product althought it really is there and the effect was a very soft sunrise.  So I paired the image with Cameo Coral cardstock, So Saffron ribbon, and a Baja button.

Typically I do this technique of embossing an image and then sponging on colors on plain white cardstock.  For this one, I tried water color paper in the card at top. The results were very similiar.  You get a little more texture showing through on the watercolor paper.

The bottom of the card is vellum stamped using Itty Bitty Backgrounds in Whisper White.

See more entries in Kristina's challenge at:  Color Challenge 57

Ingredients:  All SU! unless otherwise noted.  Stamps:  Upsy Daisy, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
Ink: Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, More Mustard, So Saffron, Baja Breeze and Whisper White; Coral Rose from Colorbox.
Cardstock:  Cameo Coral, Whisper White
Vellum from unknown source
Button and Ribbon are SU! also.

Project 365 - Week 1 Layout

The first I've really known of Project 365 was from last January's Creating Keepsakes Magazine.  I'd heard the term batted around the web and then I came upon the magazine from some back issues I ordered off E-bay - a great way to stretch your educational dollars BTW.

To participate, you just take at least one photo per day for an entire year.  Then you scrapbook the photos by week, month or however you want. I'm doing weeks - Saturday through Friday.  That way I can scrap the previous week over a weekend - in theory anyway.

This project provides several benefits.  It encourages me to take photos of daily life - not just travel or special occasions.  I've been doing a lot more of that the last couple of years but I still look for the extraordinary moments and miss how we spend our normal days.  Also, I wanted to experiment with a lot of scrapbooking styles and techniques.  I'm not going to have a pattern to my pages other than to capture each week on a page or spread. 

"Daily life" this week was a little out of the ordinary as we were completing the bulk of our bathroom redecorating project.  Most of my photos related to the process plus a couple of other things like going out for the day.  I noticed as I took the photos that I had quite a bit of the color red repeating.  So I printed out all the photos with red in them in color and turned all the others to black and white.  Check off one new technique for me right there.

Also, I had an idea how I wanted to arrange the photos which of course got tweaked but it is basically what was in my head.  What I didn't plan on were papers.  I love designer paper.  Sometimes when I'm playing with stamping and inking techniques for cards I think that I ought to just buy more cardstock and do my own background pages.  Today I have a whole new appreciation for designer paper and why it works for me.

Since I had papers pulled out for Valentines, it was easy to see what I had in reds and it wasn't that much to go with these photos.  So then I pulled out some inks and here is my first effort at background paper...

I distressed the paper with 3 SU colors.  It's actually pretty.  However, it does nothing at all for these photos.  The color scheme is too soft.  And that red frame I was planning to use on the photo?  Forget it.  I stared at this a long time before I finally let the idea go.

The real irony is that I initially regretted buying wallpaper for our bathroom.  I'd spent more than I intended and felt I "should" be able to faux finish the room myself with all the skills I've learned, the tools I have available to me.  Well, maybe I could have.  But I tell you, just doing 2 12x12 pages of distressing was tedious to me.  And my bathroom has about 400 square feet of wall space.  If I could hardly get through 2 square feet, where would I have gotten with 400?!!  Better use my talents on fabric and paper, leaving walls to the experts.

Anyway, sometimes you just have to go in the complete opposite direction.  Rather than start with white background paper, I got out some black and was amazed at the difference.  (Score another one for something different.) I still wouldn't say this is my favorite layout ever yet it is far closer to the message I was trying to get across for my first week of Project 365 and it lets the photos really tell the story.

The Cricut also got a workout on the easy border. More on that another time ...

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Snap Frame Alpha by Autumn Leaves 
Ink:  Versamark
Font:  Batang
Ribbon:  Stampin' Up!

Remembering '09 SAB

2010 Sale-a-bration (SAB) is on at Stampin' Up!  I've got my eye on the new border punch and one of the stamp sets.  I can earn either of these with a $50 purchase of SU products. 

This card celebrates the pretty things available in last year's SAB.  The envelope is made with the Cricut and I lined the little envelope in '09 SAB designer paper.   I didn't do a great job stamping my greeting so I went over it with a Zig marker.  It kinds of looks handwritten - but much neater than my real handwriting :-)

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Polka Dot Punches from Stampin'  Up!; Polka Dot Basics from Papertrey Ink; greeting from Inkadinkado

Cardstock and Ink colors:  So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Sahara Sand

Ribbon:  Certainly Celery from '09 SAB

Green Guy Cards

This week's color challenge at Splitcoaststampers is to use Bermuda Bay, Handsome Hunter and Certainly Celery.  I'm all for that as greens are my favorite colors. 

The branch is first stamped in Handsome Hunter.  Then I stamped again as a shadow in Certainly Celery. One ended up more over the original image than the other creating an actual change in color.  Not sure which I like best.

I love this combo so much I've got another card idea running around in my head.   The wallpaper hanger is here today; maybe I can sneak upstairs and get another quick card done...

Ingredients (all Stampin' Up!):  Stamps:  Kindred Spirits, Kind and Caring Thoughts, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
Ink:  Bermuda Bay, Handsome Hunter, Certainly Celery, Choc Chip
Cardstock:  Whisper White, Handsome Hunter, Certainly Celery
Ribbon:  Bermuda Bay

TIPsy Tuesday - Spacious Pockets

Putting pockets on scrapbook pages lets you store a lot of stuff related to your subject.  I almost always have one pocket page per trip when I scrapbook our travels.  The pocket will hold brochures, postcards, train schedules and other momentos that remind me of our trip yet I don't want to devote lots of scrapbooking real estate to them.

Another place I use pockets is for keeping extensive journaling.  This year's 2009 wrap up and 2010 resolutions are printed on several sheets of narrow white cardstock I've attached with binder clips, staples and other decorative fasteners.  I can pull out last year's summary to see what went on during the year or easily refer to my resolutions and objectives for 2010.

I find two challenges with pockets.  First is getting the pocket sturdy enough the adhesive doesn't come loose.  The two best options I find are to stitch the pocket with the sewing machine.  This can be decorative stitching or you can cover it over with other paper and embellishments.  When using adhesive, Creative Memories photo tape is my favorite.  Just be certain where you want it because it is immediately permanent.  I haven't tried the red sticky tape.

The second challenge is space.  If you are just slipping a couple of flat items into a pocket, no big deal.  However, if you have many pages as I did here, you need a little extra space.  To get a little extra room:

1.  First, adhere the bottom of the pocket to your layout within one inch on each end.  

2.  Place the pocket paper (in this case my photos printed on matte paper) over a spacer.  I used a couple of pieces of folded felt since I had some handy.  (One would have probably been enough here.) You could also use a thin notepad.

3.  Add adhesive to the sides carefully smoothing the paper down.

Note: If you are working with a striped background, your edges are not going to look lined up.  You may want to plan on covering the edges of your pocket with more paper, flowers or other embellishments.

4.  Remove your spacer and you'll have lots of room for what the pocket is meant to hold.

Ingredients:  Designer Papers Fancy Pants Delight and Daily Grind collections

Binder Clips, mini folders, book plate, brads:  Fancy Pants Daily Grind collection

polka dot brads by Oriental Trading

Ribbon:  Polka Dot in Dusty Durango by Stampin' Up!

Braces Border

I'll have the full view of this layout in tomorrow's TIPsy Tuesday post about pockets.  Here is a little peek at the border for the pocket.  Most of the supplies are from Fancy Pants and I got the idea for this from one of the journaling tags in the collection.  It had a row of braces {} turned sides ways - one up, one down going through the middle of the tag. 

For this border, I cut braces uses the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge on the Cricut.  The Tempting Turqoise ones are cut with the Rolly Polly option and the others from a piece of designer paper are just the regular braces.  I layered mine on top of each other rather than end to end to cover all of my paper at the top of the pocket and also to get one centered over the rising "2010." 

It was a really fast and cheap border for this page.  I just love the Cricut!  (No kidding, right?)

Ingredients:  Designer Paper and embellishments: Fancy Pants Delight and Daily Grind collections
Ribbon:  SU! Dusty Durango
Cardstock:  Tempting Turquoise by SU!