My Scraps and More {sketch challenge}

Today I am a guest sketch artist for the My Scraps & More Sketch Blog. Thanks, Audrey, for inviting me to lend a hand this month!

This is the sketch that I made, and below is the layout sample to inspire you to play along.

I also did a fun little Q&A over on the My Scraps & More site, so check that out, too.

Many of these great supplies can be found on the My Scraps & More shop, like the Elle's Studio - Good Cheer Joy and Peace and Elle's Studio - Good Cheer Star of Wonder. 

I also used my Scrapbook Circle We Are Made of Stories December kit. 

Thanks for stopping by here today to see my layout and guest spot with My Scraps & More. Make sure to stop by their blog and play along with the sketch.

Christmas Train {bella blvd}

Yesterday on the Bella Blvd blog, I shared this fun Christmas train. And yes, I'll admit I sang the songs from Polar Express pretty much the entire time I was making this. 

For this week's project, I wanted to make something that would highlight the whimsy in the Christmas Cheer collection, and I think this accomplished it. The deer and penguin look so happy riding around with Santa in his train.

It would be fun to use this for a holiday decoration or even for giving a small gift. A gift card, small lotion or even jewelry would fit in the back of the train.

The studio file for this train can be found here, in case you would also like it.

Supplies: Christmas Cheer (Pattern paper: Christmas Crew, Jingle All The Way, Reindeer Games, Making Spirits Bright, Borders Christmas Cheer), Chipboard Icons, Trinkets

Thanks for stopping here today to see my festive train project!

Samantha Walker Creative Crafters Team Blog Hop {handmade holiday gift ideas}

Welcome to the Samantha Walker Creative Crafters Team Blog Hop! You should have come to my blog from Cristal (Pinky) Hobbs' blog. To catch all of the fun from the beginning, visit Samantha Walker's blog first.

This month's lucky winner will receive a $10 gift card to digiplayground.com.  

...and be eligible for the free SVG/Silhouette file for this month. Be sure to look extra closely at Step #4 below to learn how you can get this FREE SVG and Silhouette Studio file:

To enter, just leave a comment on Samantha's blog during Wednesday 12/10 until Sunday 12/14. The winner will be announced on Samantha's Facebook page on Monday 12/15.

For additional entries:

1. Receive an additional entry for commenting on each of the other blogs in the blog hop.
2. Go here and follow Samantha Walker's blog. 
3. Follow her on Facebook.

4. Sign up for an e-mail subscription to Samantha's blog and you will automatically receive a link to a free SVG cutting file that you can download and use on your personal electronic cutter. If you are already a subscriber, just enter in your information in the secure form on Samantha's blog!  The free files will be e-mailed early next week!

To receive the additional entries and get the free files, mention in your comment on Samantha's blog that you have done so! 

Now for this month's theme: Handmade Holiday Gift Ideas

For my handmade holiday idea I made a gift bag using Samantha's tote bag cut file.

 A fun snowman file adds to the gift as a giant gift tag.

Supplies: Samantha Walker — Simple Bag Tote, Snowman

Keep hopping along with us for more summer inspiration! Your next stop on the hop is Cathy Harper— click on the image below to keep on hopping!

Thanks for hopping along with us this month! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This is my last post for Samantha Walker's team. It was a fun two years and I'm so thankful for the time I got to spend with these ladies. Thanks to Samantha and Jamie for a great experience!

Christmas ornament {fancy pants & tombow}

Today on the Fancy Pants Designs blog I'm sharing an ornament project for our swap week with Tombow. I used Tombow adhesive along with the little trees that are a part of the Fancy Pants Designs Oh Deer! collection.

Because I was sticking a wooden-based tree to a plastic round ornament, the Tombow Xtreme permanent adhesive was the best choice. It applied a layer of super sticky adhesive to the base of the tree, which worked much better than a wet glue would have.

After applying the adhesive, I used long-nosed pliers to drop the tree into the ornament. Then, one of my handy Tombow markers worked well to help straighten and position the tree.

Once the trees were all inside the ornament, I used the packaging from my Tombow adhesive to make a little funnel for pouring the glittery fake snow into the ornament.

Thanks for stopping by here today to see my ornament!

Hey, Santa {bella blvd}

Today on the Bella Blvd blog, some of the creative team members are sharing layouts that use this month's sketch. (You can see the sketch I used at the end of this post or on the Bella Blvd blog.)

I'm a big fan of sketches with only one photo, but when you also add a split background like this one does, I love it even more. 

I recently snapped this photo of my boy with Santa Claus at the mall, so the Christmas Cheer collection was the perfect choice. 

I love the traditional green and red color scheme for the holidays. I used a variety of stickers in the collection and some journaling to create the big title off to the side of the page.

Supplies: Christmas Cheer (Pattern paper: Borders Christmas Cheer, Daily Details Christmas Cheer, Happy Hearts), Treasures & Text stickers, Trinkets.

Here is the sketch that we used for this month.

Thanks for stopping by here today. You can see more examples with this sketch today on the Bella Blvd blog.

Santa Claus card {samantha walker}

Today on the Samantha Walker blog I am sharing how I made this card. I started with this cut file from Samantha Walker. 

Stop by Samantha Walker's blog if you'd like to see the tutorial.

And thank you for visiting here to see my card today!

Add A Little Dazzle {fancy pants}

Here's a sneak peek of what I made for today's Fancy Pants Designs blog. We are swapping with Add A Little Dazzle, and I have to admit that I loved this swap. I hadn't worked with these metal sheets before, but now I love them!

The Add A Little Dazzle sheets are made of metal you don't often find in paper crafting. They are strong, flexible, forgiving and easy to work with.

For my project I made two holiday cards using the Oh Deer! collection new from Fancy Pants. Add A Little Dazzle has a wonderful shiny metal on the back of every sheet, as well as rich red and turquoise blue sheets. These went really well with the Oh Deer! sequins, colors and patterns.

Stop by the Fancy Pants Designs blog this week to see what some of the other ladies came up with.

What's New {bella blvd}

Yesterday I shared this fun holiday layout on the Bella Blvd blog to show off what's new with Bella Blvd. If you haven't selected your holiday collections yet, put Christmas Cheer on your list!

The Christmas Cheer collection is the perfect blend of whimsy and traditional holiday imagery. For this layout, I wanted to capture our fun tradition of Elf on the Shelf.

I started with the green stars background and then layered on some of the more dense patterns, like the plaid and argyle patterns. The pops of red in the collection complimented the little elf in the pictures and helped bring it all together.

I fussy-cut the lettering "celebrate" and "traditions" from the Happy Hearts paper and it worked out perfectly for my title. Coupled with the Merry Merry Christmas die cut and the long title, it anchors the photos in just the right way.

This layout has me in the holiday spirit already. I can't wait to get those cookies and cocoa going!

Supplies: Christmas Cheer: (Pattern paper: Jingle All The Way, Borders Christmas Cheer, Happy Hearts, Making Spirits Bright), Treasures & Text, Paper Pieces and Die Cuts, Trinkets

Thanks for stopping here today. Stop by the Bella Blvd blog to see what else is going on there this week.

Winter scene card {viva las vegastamps}

Hi! I'm dropping by today to share with you my first card as a guest designer with Viva Las VegaStamps. I'll be working with some amazing stampers and mixed media ladies for the next three months, and I'm in awe of them. 

Stamping was something I loved before scrapbooking, and anytime I can play around and get inky I'm reminded of what I enjoyed as a teenager. 

Today I am busting out the wintery scene stamps — they aren't just for Christmas! If you live in certain mountain regions or in the northeast, you will be dodging snow for at least two more months.  I used the Boy on Sleigh Silhouette stamp and the Xmas Silhouette Collage stamp — both can be found on the Viva Las VegaStamps website.

Here is a little bit more about my process in a step-by-step guide for you:

1. Cut background paper into 4" wide x 11" high. Fold in half from the top down. 

2. Lightly paint the card stock with watercolors. I used Reeves Water Colour Pan Set I got at Hobby Lobby. 

3. While that dries, stamp onto separate card stock the boy and the tress. I use Bazzill Coconut for my stamping when I am not coloring the image in with Copics. 

4. For the boy, I stamped using a mix of Soft Pool from Hero Arts and Coal Miner from Quick Quotes. For the tress, I used Field Greens from Hero Arts, Coal Miner from Quick Quotes and Aloe Vera from Tsukineko. I used a variety of similar shades to create depth and shadows in my stamping. I keep the edges darker and work inward with the lighter colors. 

5. I also discovered a new love — the Gelly Roll Clear Glitter pen from Sakura. I used it on the edges of the sled blades and the boy's shoes as well as the edges of the trees to create a shimmery embossed look without using embossing powder. 

6.  I put those aside to dry and then moved on to making the hills. I used templates from Kiwi Lane and cut the hills out of POW glitter paper from AC. I then used foam adhesive to pop the silver hill up off of the dark grey hill.

7. Now it was time to assemble. I used the Miracle Tape (1/8 inch) to mount all of the pieces on my card. It was perfect for putting glitter paper on water-colored paper and then again for putting my stamped images on glitter and water colors. Some adhesives don't work so well on slightly damped or rough surfaces and the Miracle Tape worked really well!

I finished off with Lawn Fawn sequins from the winter embellishment pack and an Elle's Studio tag for the sentiment. 

So there you have it — my wintery scene card. I hope you liked reading a bit more about my process. When I see a card that a little more mixed media involved I always want to know how it was made, so I thought I'd share a bit more.

Thanks so much for stopping to see this today!

Winter issue projects {paperhaus magazine}

As I start to get my spring issue 2014 projects put together for PaperHaus Magazine, I want to make sure I share my work from the winter issue 2013 with you.

If you missed this issue, here is a link to view all of the amazing projects that are featured.

I had a two fun projects in this issue. I'm the card sketch artist for PaperHaus, so I made a card to go with that sketch, and I also made a layout. Both used the Snow Village collection from Pink Paislee.

And here is the card. Such a simple little tree, but I love how the tiny bow adds dimension. The bling on the tree is from Close to My Heart. I just love their teeny tiny bling packet.

Thanks for stopping to see my projects from the current issue of PaperHaus Magazine. I'm already gearing up for the spring one and it is going to be great!

Jolly sleigh ride {chic tags}

This Sunday I was looking online for some inspiration and stumbled upon a sketch from Chic Tags. I had this pack of Good Tidings embellishments that I got from Paper Issues not too long ago and was itching to use some of the pictures I had been collecting for my December album on a layout. 

I was also looking forward to getting a bit messy, so I grabbed my embossing paste and a snowflake stencil to add some fun wintery embellishments to the background of my gray card stock. 

If you are looking for a really great texture for snowflakes on your projects, try embossing paste! Use it on a gray card stock for a bit more kick than if it was white-on-white.

Add some sequins, mist and stitching to call it a day! I love how this turned out, and it was just what I needed for some scrappy happiness this past weekend. Thanks for stopping by here today to see my layout!

December Days {part 3}

It's finished! My December Days album for 2013 is finished and set aside to be enjoyed. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 you can click on the links to see the beginning of my album.

This part of the book covered December 15th - 25th. I continued to use Pink Paislee Snow Village and Elle's Studio for the majority of the album.

Scroll on down to see the final pages…

I love how this turned out and am already looking forward to next year's album. I have some ideas for what I want to keep and what I'd like to change up a bit.

Did you make a December album this year? Link your album up in the comments section of this post, and I'd love to visit your site and see what you made.

Thanks for stopping by to see how my album ended up!