Creative Inklings

Happy 3 Year Anniversary....

I'm thrilled to share the news today that I am now part of the wonderful collective of talented and inspiring scrapbookers that make up Write.Click.Scrapbook. I think what I love the most about WCS is the diversity it offers. The designers share work that includes both digital and traditional scrapbooking projects. I also see a wonderful variety of products used on the showcased layouts, from the latest and trendiest papers and embellies, to older pieces that pretty much all of us hidden in our stash (I'm still hoarding some of my old favourites from Scenic Route!). I also love the diversity of themes and projects featured on the blog, that range from layouts to home decor to mini books, on anything from Halloween to birthday and everything in between. I'm really looking forward to my time as part of the collective, and hope that I can perhaps inspire some of you, the way I am inspired by so many others in this group.

For this month's gallery, we were paired up with another member for inspiration. I was so lucky to be paired with my good friend and incredibly talented scrapper Lisa Kisch. I adore Lisa's clean and graphic style, and her ability to incorporate small bits of everyday life in her pages. For this challenge I chose a layout of hers that I love, called "Cloche". 

I love how Lisa used a singe word for the title, paired with a definition for journaling. I also loved how she used the trendy chevron pattern to anchor the photo, but put her own unique twist on it:

Here's a sneak of my page, which you can see in full in this months gallery.

As a thank you for visiting my blog today, I have a little giveaway of a few of my favourite products...

If you would like to be entered to win this collection of goodies, please leave a comment below.

 

And finally, here's your letter for the blog hop:

Please stop by Teka Jo Cochonneau's blog next! I've admired her work for a long time!

 

Bug Hunting....

It's that time of year again! When I go to pick the kids up after school, they fling their backpacks at me, and quickly rush off with empty tupperware from lunch, in search of potato bugs, worms and the coveted caterpillar. I have one rule about these habitats...they stay OUTSIDE! Last year, I found a giant snail on my spatula in the kitchen, about three feet and many obstacles away from where the habitat had been deposited. I shuddered at the thought of the long trail of invisible slime it had left.

This is a quick layout I put together of my little bug hunters with this week's finds. I used this month's 35mm Studio Calico kit, and a bunch of colourful washi tapes from my stash. Here's it is:

Be sure to stop by tomorrow for some news and fun giveaway!

Habit and Routines

It seems that I have got out of the habit of blogging, and into the habit of not blogging, and this habit is proving hard to break! However, I will perseve. Now that the weather is warming up my studio isn't so frigid, so I'm happy to spend more hours in there. I have a couple of layouts to share today, created with this months Studio Calico kit. 

I loved this photo of my daughter, even though it totally overexposed (unintentioanlly!). I decided to work with the underexposed element and pair it with a white woodgrain backround for kind of a dreamy look. I added the banners for an element of whimsy and colour. I think practically every layout I do about my daughter has hearts on it somewhere, and for this one I added some vellum hearts, die cut with some old-school QuicKutz dies - love all my old dies!

Supplies: Studio Calico Kit May 2012 (35mm)

This second layout is a small collection of the several hundred photos I took on Mother's Day! I'm taking Karen Russell's "Snapshots of a Good Life" class right now, and I used that farm trip as a chance to practice a few things I've learned. It proved infinitely more difficult than anticipated because of two excited and uncooperative kids! Instead of playing with patterned paper, I used my washi tape to create a colourful backround for my main photo. 

Supplies: Studio Calico Kit May 2012 (35mm)

 

Back again....

After a thoughtful pause from blogging for the past few months, I am back again, full of ideas and hopefully bits of inspiration. I'd love to sit and write a long post right now, to avoid the unpleasantness that's sure to unfold at my morning bootcamp, but unfortunatley it starts in about 20 minutes, so I will keep this short. I have some exciting news that I will be sharing soon...stay tuned.

In the meantime, I just wanted to share a collection of layouts I made recently from one Studio Calico kit. I love the diversity of layouts, and how quick some of these came together. I plaed along with the National Scrapbook Day challenges for many of these:

 

That's it! Have a great day!

My Urban Hipster

Just a quick post today with a card and a layout. I'm doing some of the challenges over at Studio Calico this week. Laura K. is hosting one where you have to scrap something you've written electronically. Well, this promted me to go through some recent facebook postings, and I found a picture I posted in December that cracks me up. I took Rowan to Starbucks one day, and I captured this photo of him - which made me ponder (on facebook, of course)...."Am I inadvertently raising an urban hipster?"

All supplies for this layout were from the December Studio Calico kit, Brooklyn Flea. I cut the first part of the title with my Silhouette. I have to say that my little machine performs much better now than it did when I bought it 3 or 4 years ago. I think both the mats and the blades have improved.

My next project was super quick and fun, and was for Susan W.'s "Get punchy with a card" challenge. You had to use at least four different punches to create a card. I used four different sized Stampin' Up! circle punches, then cut the label with a QuicKutz nesting die. I used four shades of Stampin' Up! cardstock (soft sky, cool caribean, tempting turquoise & taken with teal). The Stamp is also Stampin' Up!, and the ink is Teal Damask chalk ink by Prima.

The Fine Art of the Ballet Bun...

Never did I imagine that I would be fussing and fawning over achieving the perfect ballet bun. I was more of a tom boy, and did sports like basketball, volleyball and track, and always preferred sporty to frilly in my clothing choices. My daughter is entirely different. She weras dressed whenever possible, the frillier and glitzier the better! She also does ballet, and with that comes the expectation that I send her with her hair in a bun. Lat year at her ballet classes, they spen the first two lessons teaching the parents how to put their daughter's hair up! Now, ballet was supposed to be husbands responsility, but he kind of panicked when he found out about the bun - so that's when I stepped in. Putting her up is no easy feat. She has fine whispy fly-away hair. Did you know there are you-tube videos on how to do a ballet bun??? I have to admit - they were very helpful! Anyway, I'm much better at them now. I can do it ina few minutes, as opposed to the hour it orinially took. I took a photo of the bun from last week - and the picture turned out really well, so I scrapped it. For this layout, I went with a cleaner style - but still added a few white splatters. I also used a few old supplies from my stash - my much loved and underused copper embossing power, a couple of cuttlebug embossing folders, and some "pretty in pink" Stampin' Up! brads. Here's the layout:

 

Crazy Eights on the Sun Porch bed

Ooops - I just realized that I didn't get anything posted last week - that's not to say that I wasn't busy! I have a couple new layouts, and at least two more weeks of Project Life to update. Molly is home sick with a cold/bronchitis for the fifth day in a row :( However, she likes to hang out with me in my studio, especially when I'm playing with m QuicKutz dies. I actually bought her her own Cuttlebug kids machine - and it works pretty well. The only problem is, she has about ten dies, while I have about 100 times that - at least (uggg...did I just admit that???). Anyway, last week, I was working on scrapping some photos from last summer. I usually take around 500 while we're in Nova Scotia, but I find September to be such a crazy month, followed by Halloween, Christmas etc...that summer photos are my least scrapped pictures. I saw this image on the SC blog, and wanted to create something similar on a layout. I have a set of old nesting diamonds from when I was on the QK design team. At the time, I found it difficult to come up with clever ideas on how to use them. Of course now, 4 years later, I can barely put them down! So, while I was cutting endless diamonds last week, Molly found my stash of mini cookie cutter shapes and happily churned out bunnies, cupids and snowmen while I worked this, a layout of Rowan playing crazy eights with his cousins on the cottage bed....

Fighting the Gray

Yesterday was the grayest of gray, soggy, foggy urban winter's day. I captured this shot of the grey sky through the tangled oak branches in the backyard, which I think brings a bit of beauty to an otherwise gloomy day.

I spent most of it huddled in my basement studio, warmest by my space heater, and cheared by the bright happy colours in a summer layout I decided to put together - to combat the bleakness. The photos are of Molly last summer, when at only 5, and a teeny tiny one at that, she managed to do two "widths" of front crawl at the local pool to pass her deep end test, and earn the coveted green wristband. The looks on her face tell it all!

I'm off now to work on project life...and maybe another layout about summer....

Digging into my stash...

for anything small and round. I have several ideas in my head for my layout today, and they all involved playing on a circle theme. I wanted to scrap a set of photos of Molly roller skating, and I was thinking about the wheels I guess. I ended up pairing the newest SC kit, with some very old supplies in my stash. I have boxes of colourful brads in all shapes of sizes, organized by brand and theme that are very under loved.

 

 

At least after this layout, I am again familiar with what I have. Molly got roller skates for her birthday this year - and finally after her third time out, she is love with them for more than just how they look (which is awesome by the way!). She "got it", with the glide and the toe off. She was so proud of herself she went up to the DJ and requested a glowstick, so she could show off her talents! She then wore the entire ensemble home, from roller skates to wrist guards to helmet, and glow stick of course. These photos are of her trying to teach her doll to skate, after she got home.

Photo Collages

I'm addicted to them. Sometimes I get that one perfect shot, that tells exactly the story I want, but other times, more aftern than not, I don't. I get a few that together work. I'm working on it, but in the mean time, I'm having too much fun playing with apps and making collages for my photo a day. I use an app called pic stitch, and I usually then pair the image with instargram, or another editing app. Here a few example of some recent collages:

fun with our Zoku ice pop makers:

A Pendergrast jamboree...

My little roller girl:

My favourite pasta place at the market:

The ride home after swim practice

Some of these will wind up on a layout, some in project life, some both. My favourite collage so far is of Molly and her friend, putting on a Ballerina Bunny Fashion Show (girly much??) This went straight to a layout:

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week.