Peach and Blue

Has your favorite color always been your favorite color or has it changed over the years?

When I was younger, my favorite was pink which I guess is pretty typical for a little girl.  In junior high, my mother allowed me to redecorate my room.  Well, she did the redecorating but I got to pick out my wall paper.  The only provision was that it had to have matching fabric so everything could be coordinated.  My parents sold wallpaper in their business so I had lots to choose from. I picked a beautiful blue and yellow floral paper with birds on it and thus began my blue and yellow years.

When I graduated from college and moved out, I had a ton of stuff for starting my household courtesy of my mother starting me a 'hope chest' at a young age.  It was fantastic as I had practically everything you would want for a ktichen plus neutral sheets and towels and tons of other stuff.  Very little was color specific except for these brown, orange and gold dishes we had gotten from the bank for opening a savings account.

My friend Dana's father owned a furniture factory and she took me by one day to order my first sofa.  I was thinking I'd need something brown and gold to match the dishes.  As soon as we walked into the factory, there sat the most beautiful sofa in a peach and blue chintz.  I was in love and those dishes never sat on my kitchen table.  I ordered the exact same sofa and thus began my peach and blue years.

When I moved into the house we have now, I was plenty tired of peach and blue and had embraced aqua green as my favorite color which remains to this day.

The photo of me was taken in the early 90's.  I hid another very busy photo in the pocket underneath.  It shows a different view of my first home and how I had it decorated.

For the page, I didn't have much in peach and blue designer paper so I turned to stamps.  The floral stamps are mostly from the Soho Garden District set from American Crafts.  I also used some from a Fancy Pants set that coordinated.  Not only was I into pastel colors, but I liked flowery things as well.

For the lower part of the page, I stamped a simple image repeatedly on some Marina Mist cardstock to emulate the design from the draperies in the photo.  This type of pattern was very popular in fabric in the mid-1980's.

I'm wearing a jumper with embroidered flowers.  Lately I find myself wanting plain tops or perhaps with just a little tone-on-tone trim that I can accessorize with jewelry.  So times have changed and so have I.  

So much more interesting that way.  Thanks for stopping by!

Anxious for Spring

More butterflies.  I must be anxious for spring. It was blowing snow here on Monday and I'm still wearing sweaters.  The flowers are starting to bloom anyway and I'm hoping for some real butterflies soon.

The background of this card is from Stampin' Up!'s Elements of Style.  The butterfly was cut on the Cricut from Tempting Turquoise cardstock and again in vellum.  I stamped and embossed the vellum with Autumn Leaves flourishes and silver powder.  The pretty striped ribbon is from a semi-local stamping store - The Enchanted Cottage in Winston-Salem.  I go maybe once a year and stock up on their unique trims.

Thanks for stopping by today!  If you have time off for Easter, I hope you enjoy yourself and stay safe.

Working on the Diagonal

The photos of my kitty Jasper playing on the rug inspired the idea of going on the diagonal.  I thought I'd line up the papers with the lines in the photos.  This didn't happen quite that way.  The process from an all diagonal placement to the layout above is shown in the video.  I wasn't sure if it would work at all so I was happy to make just a few changes.

For embellishments I used an older flower punch to create layers.  I've used this punch many times but never with a large circle in the middle.  It creates a scallop edge that is more rounded than my regular scallop punch.  The little bird stamped images are from the Cheep Talk set by Stampin' Up! which has gotten a ton of use over the years.  I've used the birds on at least one page before but not in quite this way.  Most of the paper is Pyrus 6x6 paper from Basic Grey.

Watch at YouTube


Here is the PDF file -- Sketch for page with diagonal elements

I picked this 'Handsome' ticket because I think my Jasper is very handsome.  My husband thinks he is an ordinary looking cat at best.  Hmph!  Ordinary, indeed!

Jasper likes to play with his fake bird toy.  We have no worries that our bird feeder is actually feeding the cat.  Jasper is a ground kitty and doesn't care for heights at all.  Occasionally he watches the birds out the window but that is about it.  Mice and bunnies, beware, though!

Thanks for watching today!

Designer Paper Organization

Ooh, I love to get in an order of designer paper.

Over the last few years I've found myself less and less inclined to shop for clothes.  I want to find something that fits me and my wallet and get out of the store or off the website as quickly as possible.  However, I can spend HOURS on Two Peas browsing papers looking at the details, seeing both sides, adding items to my cart, finding different items, deleting choices and refining until I have just the scrapbooking goodness I want.

Saturday, I got in an order just like that.  I'd puttered on the Two Peas site off and on for three days finding just the right papers for pages I anticipate making this summer.  Our last couple of years albums revealed that I use mostly green, yellow and blue for our summer pages as a lot of the photos are outdoors and we wear a lot of green and blue.  So those are the colors in the collections I got along with just a touch of red and orange.

I videotaped my process my process for sorting the collections and storing them in 12x12 removable Sterilite drawers.  I have the 3 drawer stacks available from Walmart and Hobby Lobby at least, probably other stores, too.  I love these things!  If I had more closet space, I'd have more drawers but I don't so my first chore is always to empty a drawer or two.  I break up collections by color and a few pages go into a giveaway box.  Mostly though I really do use every scrap of paper.

This is why I love the drawers so much.  You can keep all the scraps in one place.

The video also shows a glimpse of some of the new spring collections from Pebbles, My Mind's Eye and Echo Park.  If you use blues and greens, they are worth checking out.

Watch at YouTube


This video is only my designer paper.  If you are interested in cardstock, this post shows my organization.  And the video uses my cardstock deck which is shown here.

Glitter Girl's weekly video over at Two Peas also shows sorting out an order.  She mixes papers and adds embellishments to create a kit from her order. It looks like a fun approach and another video to check out for new spring papers and paper sorting ideas.

Thanks for watching!

Thankful for

One of the things I love most about scrapbooking is the sense of accomplishment.  I used to love crochet and knitting.   I still quilt occasionally and I get a sense of accomplishment there too, IF I finish the project.  In the quilting world, it is so common to start projects you don't finish they have an acronym for them - "UFO" which means Unfinished Fabric Object.  Every quilter has a few UFO's in their stash.

Typically I don't start a new scrapbook page until I finish the last one.  I may finish a page right off or mull over a page multiple days but it gets done fairly quickly.  This one did not.  I think I started it maybe a month ago and just finished it last Saturday.

The background is painted with Martha Stewart chalkboard paint on white cardstock from a lesson on Art Class at Two Peas.  But it bugged me.  I've never been good with high contrast and black and white are the ultimate in high contrast. So finally I painted the edges purple to go with the papers I'd picked out. This was after I did the title with a white gel pen and colored with colored pencils.  I'm not a doodler so I was quite tickled with how the title came out except that it is a bit crooked because I can't write or apparently doodle straight to save me.  I got some inspiration for this from Pinterest yet it was so long ago I can't find it to link it up :-(

My original plan was to use completely different photos and papers but the photo was too formal looking for the doodled title so I found different photos and papers.  Then it sat on my desk, on my Basic Grey magnetic mat for weeks waiting on me to type up things I was thankful for.

I have no reason why that took so long. There are tons of things I'm thankful for.  Anyway I finally printed them out and a few days later sewed them together with some punched pieces from those same K and Company papers.

I like the page alright but it isn't my favorite thing from Art class.  I am amazed at how well the white gel pen works on chalkboard paint.  It just glides over it evenly spreading ink far better than cardstock.

Wilna, our instructor, has asked for suggestions on what to see in the next art class.  Someone asked for more uses for chalkboard paint.  I would agree.  I think there is an untapped resource there.  Might have to pop over to YouTube and see what others have done with this product.

The page only includes some of my many gratitudes.  Today is Sunday and I'm making my Mother's birthday cake and then I get to craft.  I'm very grateful today for family and creative opportunities.

Hope you have a lovely day!

Hydrangea Card

Today's card used Splitcoaststamper's weekly sketch found here.  I also used a wonderful tip from Tracy at Tracy's Treasures of coloring the outline stamp with markers and then coloring in the flowers with more markers rather than using a neutral to stamp with.  I've used markers on this stamp but I don't think I'd ever really finished it off with multiple colors.  I used about 5 shades of purple Stampin' Up! markers starting with the Concord Crush for the outline.

The shapes were cut on the Cricut with the Storybook cartridge.  I haven't decided if I like the background of both the green and the lavender papers being stamped with the same background stamp.  It may be a bit busy but it's growing on me.

Outside my craft room, life rolls along.  Yesterday we went to have our taxes done.  Glad that chore is out of the way.  This morning I'm planning to take down and rehang my bedroom valance and draperies.  The valance needs dusting.  BTW, the best way to dust a window treatment is to take it outside and blow it off with an air compressor if you have one.  Fortunately, my husband does.  I'll probably do the lamp shades while I'm at it.  The main carrier on my drapery rod broke so it all needs a little attention.  It's been that way for several weeks but you know that bit about the 'cobbler's children needing new shoes.'  Anyway, I have the time these days so I'm doing chores at home.  Why was it again I wanted to close my business?  :-)

Hope you have a great Thursday!

Project Life Title Page

Happy Spring!  March is rolling right along and I'm taking plenty of photos for a monthly Project Life layout in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I did our title page for the Project Life album.

For this page, I cheated just a bit and used a photo from Christmas Day 2012.  It was by far the best photo of us close to the first of this year.  Most of the page elements are on the right side of the page to draw the eye to the right and lead a reader into the album.

The sticker at the bottom isn't mentioned in the video.  It is from October Afternoon.  I just felt there was something missing and this finished off the paper and border grouping.

The video features how to customize the color and design of the chipboard numbers and also quite a bit of misting elements including some new border stickers by Pink Paislee.

Watch at YouTube


Here's the PDF with sketch.

The colorful papers are Simple Stories Summer Fresh collection which I've used some on other Project Life/Project 365 pages.  The background paper is a stitched paper from Amy Tangerine.  I won this as part of a wonderful giveaway at Pamela's World of Scrap where she has just posted a new sketch and giveaway opportunity.  Thanks, Pamela!

And thanks to you for stopping by today!

Misted Butterfly Card and Video

Today's card was a spin off from this card I made for my Mother's upcoming birthday.

We did quite a bit of misting in card class last week so the paper in the bottom of my small misting box (shoe box) was a very pretty mix of colors.  But it also had some spray adhesive on it so I thought this time, I'd put down a fresh sheet of cardstock and after my misting would have some pretty paper to play with.

As I was working, I moved the butterflies around and decided I liked the misted sheet so much I'd use it for a background for Mother's card.  So all that inspired the card above with the single chipboard butterfly and the 3 background images.

The butterfly is new from Heidi Swapp and I used her Color Shine mists also.  They are now available at Michaels as well as from the Two Peas store.  Mother's card features gold, tinsel and bronze.  The single butterfly card is misted with mint, peach and tinsel.

You can do this card with any time of mistable element - chipboard, canvas or paper.  You could cut butterflies on the Cameo or Cricut.

Here's the video to watch at YouTube or below:


Personally, I love these mists.  They have great coverage, beautiful colors and super shine.  My favorite thing is that they don't rub off at all once they are dry. And they dry fairly fast.

The butterflies are pretty but personally I'd rather have plain chipboard or other mediums to do my own resist before misting.  But that's just me.   There are several sizes in the package but I'd say a third at least are the smallest size. The last time I was at Michaels these were already sold out though they had plenty of mists.  There are other shaped elements available.

Thanks for watching!

Happy Anniversary background

Two of my dearest friends are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary this month.  Congratulations Karen and James!  They are such a wonderful couple.

For their card, I used a Stampendous flour colored with watercolors.  I added a little silver Liquid Pearls in the center to go with the lattice background embossed in silver.

For the card base, I stamped "Happy Anniversary" over and over to create the look of a background stamp.  It works nicely when you get so carried away with everything you forget to leave room for a greeting.  :-)

Thanks for visiting today!  This week I have both a card video and a scrapbook with sketch video coming up.

Mad for Hats!

Yes, that's me, circa 1989 or maybe 1990.  In the mid to late 1980's I loved hats and gloves and getting all dolled up.  Actually I chose the title because I looked a bit angry in the photo though I wasn't.  Here's the journaling:

I was mad, mad, I tell you!  Mad about hats!  I loved hats in all shapes and sizes.  I wore a white suit and a red hat to visit the White House with my parents when I was in college.  I had all styles for a trip to London in 1985.  Broader brims looked best on me with my round face and my permed hair in the late ‘1980’s.  I also had dress gloves in white, ivory, black and navy.  Dressing for church, as I am here, often featured a hat and gloves that matched my shoes.  No wonder I was mad.

This was a very labor intensive though not difficult page.  I cut out doily designs from these Basic Grey Paper Cottage papers.   Also used some discontinued sheer fabric for the flower and the background behind the Thickers.

The layout was inspired by this great page from Leslie Ashe on American Crafts on Pinterest.

"Mad" was raw chipboard that I painted in dark blue and misted with Heidi Swap gold mist.  It looks great on dark backgrounds.

Thanks for visiting today!

Scrapbooking very bright photos

The challenge with this page was what to do with these very color saturated photos.  I didn't notice until I had the printed photos in hand how much red was in each photo. Before I cropped them and sitting alone on my worktable, they were bright!  It was Valentine's week so we had each worn red. Also, the wall behind me was red, the draperies red and the table a dark reddish color.  Everything was just too bold.

My solution was partially the background paper and partially the arrangement of elements.

I used a My Mind's Eye stamp set to add some doilies stamped on vellum.  Vellum is really popular right now but I've loved it forever.  I wonder if someday I'll feel like that about Washi tape or mist or will they be waning trends.  Well, no sign of disinterest right now.

For this week's video I'm using a new version of Movie Maker that allows me to fast forward and narrate over segments.  I tried to keep the fast forwarding so that you can easily see what is happening.  It enabled me to show more of my process in a 14 min video. There is some background hum in the narration and I think I know the cause of that so I can fix it in future. Please let me know what you think of narration versus real-time.  The first part and the last segment are real-time and everything in between is narrated.

The video deals with the bright photos, working with a paper designed to be the background and building 'shelves' to hold your photos and anchor embellishments.

Watch at YouTube


Well, off to work.  Thanks for watching!

Watercolor drip notebook cover

I always enjoy starting a fresh notebook.  It is a bit like being back in school.  Remember when the school year started and we had all new notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils.  I always vowed to write neatly and that lasted maybe a week before my chicken scratching came out.

Well, I've filled up my last everyday notebook so it's time for another notebook cover. For this cover, I used a watercolor technique from Art class at Two Peas selecting colors to match this bright striped paper.  I think the paper is from Jillibean Soup but I'd cut off the branding strip.  There isn't much of it left at this point as I lined the inside cover with the stripe also.

The stamped and punched circles use the Quintessential Flower stamp from Stampin' Up! and several colors of cardstock.  The words were cut using my SCAL software on the Cricut.  I cut out a ampersand symbol and then sponged around it for the 'and.'  I'd planned to put Washi behind the cut out words but that proved too busy and plain cardstock looked best.

This was the first time I'd wrapped a notebook cover in watercolor paper.  Since it is heavier, I did score it with the scoreboard first.  The process of fitting the paper around the holes is the same as this video I did a couple of years back.  It is still by far my most popular video.  I'm planning to do an update to it later in the year when we get close to back to school time.  I'd like to add some ideas for decorating the covers and still keeping them flat.

Watch at YouTube


Thanks for visiting today!

Artfuldelight Card Sketch

Each month, Artfuldelight.blogspot.com has a scrapbook sketch and a card sketch to play along with.  I've used her card sketch for this one we did in card class last week.

It has taken me awhile to get over my literal self and embrace woodgrain in more than just browns.  Here I used Pool Party ink on Pool Party paper from Stampin' Up! for the card base.  The banner is misted over a Cricut cut image in Heidi Swapp green, peach and amethyst Color Shine mists.  A Hero Arts sentiment and some Stampin' Up! ribbon finish it off.

This isn't the best photo I've ever taken for sure, but it is a soft delicate card for spring.

Hope you have a lovely day!

Class Cards

Here are a couple of the cards we did in card class this month.  We did two misted cards and two more traditional stamped cards.  For the stamped one here, I used Stampin' Up!'s Summertime Hostess set.  I love this image with the little dog in the cart.

For this misted card, I finally broke out my The Crafter's Workshop number stencil.  I thought it would make a good youth birthday card.  We misted with Studio Calico's buttercup and Honor Society mists and October Afternoon's Pink Lemonade which is more of a Cameo color.  This is my first try with OA mist and I really like the consistency.  It is very similar to Studio Calico.

An accordion flower and a Cricut pinked circle finished it off.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Everyday Conversations - A Project Life layout

Do any of your conversations go like this?

This usually follows "Where do you want to have dinner?" or "What time do you want to leave?"  I don't know if we are really compatible are just indecisive :-)   Anyway, here's the layout for the last two weeks of Project Life.

So for this two week spread, I focused on what we said.  A few little tidbits are in the speech bubbles. Of course I had to interpret for the 4 legged master of the household:

He's on squirrel watch in one of the photos.  I chase the squirrel off the bird feeder and he runs from window to window to watch him leave.

On a more serious note, Lenny and I did talk a lot over those two weeks but most of it is in the hidden pocket.  A business associate of his passed away suddenly and it created a lot of change in how he would be doing business.  His friend and business associate was also only a couple of years older than my husband and seemed in great health. It really made us think and appreciate life and each other.

For the layout, I created this sketch which is found in this PDF.  The PDF also goes over how to create speech bubbles in Microsoft Word.

The video ran long and didn't upload for me as so I had to break it into two parts.  This weekend, I'm going to be trying out some new video editing software and hopefully speed up my upload times.  It currently takes my computer an hour for every 5 minutes of video I have.  There has to be a better way.

The first part goes over the sketch, product selections briefly, photo placement and how to use a single border sticker across a double page spread:

Watch at YouTube:


The 2nd part shows 3 ways to create speech bubbles and the final embellishments.

Watch at YouTube


This sketch works well with 6x6 paper pads.

Thanks for stopping by today!

The Queen of Bling

My Mother is the Queen of Bling. She loves all kind of jewelry and fashion. I should give you a little background.

Mother is one of those women who can wear anything.  Well, maybe not pink.  But just darn near anything looks fantastic on her.  She's tall, has stayed trim and she just has style to carry off large statement jewelry, bold patterns and pretty much anything on trend or from years past.

Most of my life, I've been in awe of her ability to put together her outfits from purchases made in different stores usually in different cities sometimes from different decades.  She taught me to always save your accessories.  Jewelry, belts, scarves and handbags should never be thrown out.  She's right.  Last year I was wearing a necklace from the 80's and getting compliments on it.

There have been times when her style has left me wondering if I was adopted.  When I was in high school, The Preppy Handbook was the teenager's bible. My friends and I wore pleated wool skirts with knee high socks for our college tours.  My Mother was going through a phase that included a fringed leather jacket.  I was mortified.

I do okay putting myself together when I make the effort but I don't have nearly her knack for it.  Most of my wardrobe is from Talbots, Land's End, and Eddie Bauer.  I love good basics that last forever and I wear everything in my closet.  If it weren't for mail order, I'd be running around naked.

Mother loves scouring stores for fashion and statement jewelry.  When she read about a necklace Mrs. Obama was wearing for a fashion magazine photo shoot, she just had to see it.  So she came down and we looked it up on-line.  The necklace was available at J. Crew (where else?) and we ordered it.  You can see the delight on her face when it came.

Like most of my wardrobe, I've had these photos for awhile and just hadn't gotten them scrapped.  The technique at the top and bottom of the page is from the Art Class at 2P's.  It uses modeling paste, paint and some Heidi Swapp mist.  

I like that so many of the class techniques work on dark colored cardstock which is always a challenge to me.  The one thing I don't like on this page is the word "Bling" I mixed two different fonts and I don't think it was successful.  It is a bit delicate for the other pieces.  Anyway, it was a fun page to do and something totally unique.  Just like it's subject.

BTW, she took the bow off that necklace to make it her own.  She couldn't copy even the First Lady if she tried.

Project Life will return tomorrow.  I have a traditional two page layout with a ton of photos and journaling.  Hope you are having a great week.