Creative Inklings

Another Bellarific Friday!

Again, after so much struggling with the sketch for this week, I love how today's layout turned out. The sketch this week is by uber talented Jel Del Muro. The awesome thing about these sketch challenges is that I put together layouts in a way I never would have thought of without the inspiration.  I'm a bit bit circle challenged when it comes to the focal point of a layout, so that's what had me a bit stumped on today's layout. When I saw the little strip at the bottom, I thought about doing a filmstrip thingy, so that part I had right away. To figure out what to do for the circle, I went to my QuicKutz Silhouette shapes. After contemplating a few, a decided on the "Cookies for Santa" design, because I knew it would work perfectly with my photos of our gingerbread house from a couple of years ago. I had a sheet of plain red cardstock that I used as the square element, but it looked a little plain. So, I pulled out one of favourite Stamping Bella boarder stamps, Groovy Dots, and stamped it with a coordinating ink, and it pulled the whole design together. Here's a full list of my supplies used:

Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Riding Hood Red
Patterned Paper: Doodlebug, Sassafras Lass, K & Co
Stamps: Stamping Bella Groovy Dots
QuicKutz Shapes: Holly Holiday Gift Set
Embellishments: pom pom ribbon, American Craft Thickers, American Craft Woodgrain Ribbon, MAking Memories Brads, Cosmo Cricket Earlybird Chipboard.

So....here's the sketch and my layout (click on the photos to see a bigger version). Don't forget to check out all the other fabulous cards for todays challenge on da Bella's blog!

Dancing Queen Layout

Well, the past two weeks have been beyond crazy! In that time we have bought a new home, and sold ours, completely out of the blue. So, I apologize for the lack of blogging lately, but I have living in local parks and my car, pretty much! Life is now getting back to normal, and I have many layouts and other shtuff planned! For today, I have a double page layout featuring several photos of my daughter doing her best dancing poses. I took the photos with my iphone, so they're not the best, but I really loved the story behind the photos, so I used them anyway. I fussed with the layout quite a bit, but in the end love how it all came together. The new Basic Grey Lemonade papers worked really well because they have a slight yellowish cast, like my photos, and I love the patterns and colours. I used the mini pad, which I love for the scaled down prints. The title is created with QuicKutz, using both the Flirt and Chigago fonts, and I added some cute Lemonade brads to highlight. To highlight the dynamic nature of the photos, I stamped a Stamping Bella Ketto fairy, Calliope, and stitched a flight path with my machine, using holographic thread - love the effect! She is coloured with Copics, and highlighted with stickles. I paper pieced her dress with more lemonade paper. Lastly, I made a journalling block using the QuicKutz label die. I lined up four pieces of the lemonade paper in my revolution, cut out the label, then put the scraps back on my layout, so I was left with the negative image of the label, to write my journalling in. Thanks for looking!

 

Bellarific Friday Sketch Challenge

Yeah! I love Fridays! Time for another reveal of all the great challenge designs on the Stamping Bella blog. I had fun with this week's sketch, adding my own twist, and making it into a two page layout. I used the awesome new Junebug papers by Basic Grey, available TODAY at Stamping Bella - soooooo fun! I also used the coordinating Junebug chipboard stickers. To create the circle element in the corner, I used a die cut sheet by Collage Press as a mask for my Tattered Angels glimmer mist. Then, as I was putting it all together, I thought that circle would work well as a tree, in keeping with the theme of my layout. Just as with yesterday's layout, these photos are taken with my iphone. They're a little dark, but I'm so glad I was at least able to get them. It  was such a great day, so I went ahead and my photos anyway, even though they aren't "perfect". Here's the sketch and my layout:

i {heart} my iphone

So, I've never been much of a cell phone girl, but I do love gadgets, so I was thrilled when my husband gave me an iphone for Christmas this year. I still don't have much use for the phone (I hate answering it when I'm out), but I do love the apps!. Everything about this photo was done with my little iphone. I took this shot of myself using the camera it comes with. Can;t compare to my Nikon, but not bad in a pinch. Next, I altered the colour of the photo, using a very cool app called ColorSplash. It transforms your photos to black and white, then you just touch the parts of the photo that you want to add the colour back. Lastly, I printed my photo right from my iphone using another app called HP iPrint. Super crazy easy. Now someone just needs to design a digital scrapbook kit for the iphone and all will be perfect. Sigh. 

For this layout I used a fun Hambly ATC transparency, American Craft Thickers and yummy ribbon from Stamping Bella. The heart is cut from felt using a Sizzix die, and topped with a button from my stash. 

Bellarific Friday - sketch challenge

Well, we've had an eventful week. We unexpectedly bought a house! Things are not finalized yet, but hoping they will all be worked out, to justify the layout I'm posting today! This is for the Bella Friday sketch challenge. I used mostly American Crafts product on this page. My favourite detail is the ribbon. We're going to miss our little house. Here's my layout:

End of Year Teacher Gift

Today was my son's last day of Junior Kindergarten, and his last day at his school. He had the most amazing teacher this year, so we are very sad to be leaving. I wanted to make her something specual for her classroom. I asked her what units they cover throught the year, and a lot of things change year to year, but she said each year she covers the four seasons. SO, that is what I deided on as a theme for a set of canvases for her classroom. I used the same design as before, but altered the tree for each season. Each canvas was painted first with Claudine Hellmuth paint. I then  added a QuicKutz tree, using Claudine Hellmuth Matte Medium. FOr the sprong canvas, I used pale green and pink buttons, to represent the spring blossoms. My son suggested I the added grass and ants. For summer I used darker green buttons, to represent a full leafy tree. I then added button lollipop flowers. Fall was favourite canvas. I used fall coloured buttons, and added some buttons falling from the tree, and piled some at the bottom, to represent the changing leaves amd falling from the tree. For winter I used all white buttons to represent the snow on the branches. I added little button snowmen for fun.  Here they are:

It's Bellarific Friday!

The sketch for this week's Bellarific Challenge was FABULOUS! I really loved it because it was especially "scrappy". I think I will use this sketch for more layouts in the future. I used a fun technique on today's layout. Instead of creating layer with paper for the outer frame of the sketch, I decided to mask off the inner square, and create the frame using the Tattered Angels glimmer mist. I used four different colours and loved the results - so pretty. For the inner squares I used thr new  Confection line of papers by Doodlebug. I've always been a bug fan of Doodlebug products, so when I saw them at Stamping Bella, I knew they had to be mine! I also used the stickers from the same collection, were are so yummy you want to EAT them! I used the mini tags to create a banner for the word "three".  For the title, i used the word "cupcakes" from the sticker sheet, and spelled birthday using the new QuicKutz chicken noodle alphabet (an absolute MUST HAVE!!!!). For final embellishments, I used Stamping Bella's mirror blacked bobbles, crystal flowers and Melissa Francis flourish and flowers. For my journaling, I used one of the realy fun journaling bloacks by Stamping Bella, the hanging clouds. I then cut the images out, added eyelet, and "strung" them on my layout. A really fun way to add your journaling! All of the supplies used to make this page can be found at Stamping Bella - the without a doubt bestest scrappiest place in Earth!!

Here's the sketch:

Here's my layout: