Lots of Cards!

I'm a little behind posting the cards I've made the last couple of weeks, so I have several to share.

The first is for the I Feel the Love Project.  This month we are making cards for the family of Baby Mason who died of injuries sustained in a car accident.  Baby Mason was just 6 months old.  As a mother of a nearly 6 month old, this story really tugged at my heart and I really tried to think about what would be comforting to me.  I wanted to use one of these Stampin' Up silhouette stamps.  I ended up using just part of the stamp and heat embossing it in copper.  The verse is stamped on a shape cut using my Cricut and Storybook cartridge.

Next I have a birthday card using last week's sketch from Sketch Saturday.  In stead of the hexagons, I used punched flowers.  I stamped the sentiment and used some Liquid Pearls to make the centers of the card.

Next is a masculine birthday card using the Mojo Monday sketch from this week.  

Finally, I have a thank you card that I made using some Glossy Cardstock and Distress Inks.  I rolled the three inks on with a brayer.  I experimented with stamping with water.  I used a flower "paint print" stamp that I had misted with water.  Some of the flowers turned out better than others.  I will definitely be experimenting with this technique some more!

Nuts About Sketches #271

It's Monday again, so there is a new sketch at Nuts About Sketches. This week it is a single pager with area for one large photo and one smaller photo.

As you can see, I decided to use a photo collage instead of one large photo.  The collage is larger than 5x7 so some of the other elements are smaller.  Instead of the smaller round photo, I used a chipboard embellishment.  The papers I used on this page are from Echo Park's "Everybody Loves Christmas.  This is another collection that I think has run its course.  I haven't gone back to count how many layouts I've made, but I can tell you that about all I have left is scraps!  

To start my layout, I sprayed and splattered some white mist on my cardstock.  I layered the papers over that, using foam adhesive to pop up the ornaments.  To add some sparkle, I glued on some sequins.  The sketch suggested stitching, but I didn't feel like pulling out my machine, so I just used a pen and a ruler to draw on the stitches.

Materials

Cardstock- Bazzill, American Crafts

Patterned Paper- Echo Park

Specialty paper- The Robin's Nest

Chipboard- Making Memories

Ink- Ranger, Studio Calico

Pen- Zig

Stickers- Echo Park

Digital Elements- Scrapbooks Etc., md Designs

Software- Photoshop Elements

This week's cards...

I am back with some more cards!  This past week included Father's Day and a couple of graduations.  (I had a graduation card in my stash, so I only made one.) First up, we'll take a look at t he Father's Day cards.

I made two copies of this card, one for my dad, one for my father-in-law.  The background of this card is glossy cardstock that I inked with a brayer.  I used Salty Ocean and Walnut Stain Distress Inks.  The cool thing about Distress Inks is that they react with water, so after I rolled them on the cardstock, I spritzed it with water and then splattered a few drops as well to give it some texture.  Once it was dry, I stamped the images using Archival Ink.  I finished it off with the sentiment and a piece of ribbon.

This card I made for my husband's grandpa.  I used my Stamping Gear for the large circles of stamping.  I stamped the sentiment on a lightly patterned paper, ripped around 3 sides, inked the edges and attached it to my card.

Finally, I have a graduation card.  I wanted to make the hat because I thought it would be pretty easy.  I cut the square of black cardstock, knotted some white embroidery floss around the brad and attached the whole thing with some foam tape.  The background was created by dry embossing a green piece of cardstock, rubbing it with some metallic ink, heat embossing with gold powder, rubbing the edges with Versamark ink, and heat embossing with more gold powder.

Nuts About Sketches #270

It's Monday which means it is time for a new sketch at Nuts About Sketches.  This week's sketch is a two pager, so I used it for my calendar page for July.

I used the Kraft Funday papers by My Mind's Eye for this because the main colors were red, white and blue without being too over powering.  I squeezed in several extra photos by splitting the photos spots to fit two photos.  People are doing some really cool stuff with the Silhouette Cameo and it inspired me to play more with Sure Cuts A Lot and my Cricut.  I used it to create the July border that spans both pages.  I LOVE how it turned out and will definitely be trying more stuff in the future!

Materials

Cardstock- American Crafts

Patterned paper- My Mind's Eye

Chipboard- Heidi Swapp

Ink- Ranger, Clearsnap

Pen- Zig

Die Cutter- Provo Craft

Software- Sure Cuts A Lot

Fonts- CK Ali's Writing, Jasmine

Finding My Photo Style- Week 3

This week in "Finding Your Photo Style" our instructor was Tracey Clark.  Tracey enjoys exploring and photographing light.  So that's what our first assignment was.

I really wanted to work with some natural light, but it has been cloudy and rainy here, with few exceptions, over the past week.  On Monday it was finally clear and the kids were playing in the backyard.  I decided to bring my youngest out on a blanket and get some shots.  I chose this shot for the light assignment because I love how the light is hitting his face and the blanket.  We are facing slightly away from the sun, but he still has some "catchlights" in his eyes.  By the way, we are under a tree in some "open shade" making for the lovely soft lighting.

Next, our assignment was to focus on composition.  I tend to really focus on the rule of thirds when I am composing my shots.  As you can see in this shot, if you divided the shot into thirds, his eyes are where the top line and left line intersect.

Finally, our last assignment for the week was to play with post processing, finding the effect that we liked best on a shot.  I have several actions I have downloaded for Photoshop Elements.  I found I liked this effect best.  It made the shot warmer and brighter.  I'm definitely a minimalist when it comes to post processing, and this is another example.

Cards- The First of Many...

I've been busy making a few cards the past few days.  I was inspired by a couple of challenges too!

My first card was a birthday card for my sister, whose birthday was Sunday.  I just loved this color combo at the Play Date Cafe and decided to work with it.

I cut the owl and frame using my Cricut and the Storybook cartridge.  The background piece was cut and then I ran light grey patterned washi tape across it.  I just trimmed the excess tape so it couldn't be seen on the sides.  I accented the owl's eyes with some pen tracing and glossy accents.  Finally, I accented the frame with some Liquid Pearls.

Next, I used this Cardabilities sketch to my an anniversary card for my sister-in-law and her husband.

Again, I put my Cricut to work and cut the bracket piece and the champagne glasses.  Rather than cutting the piece for the liquid, I used some liquid glue and gold glitter to give it some shine.  I also pulled out the liquid pearls again to accent the frame.

Last, I have a baby card that I put together quickly yesterday for my husband's cousin who had a baby 3 weeks ago.  I used lots of premade embellishments so this card went together pretty quickly.  The sentiments stamped down the right side are from a roller stamp so I could just stamp, clean and roll to the next sentiment.

Nuts About Sketches #269

It's Monday which means a new sketch at Nuts About Sketches is up.  This week's sketch is a single page, but has space for several photos.

I ended up breaking up the photo areas even more so that I could fit 5 photos on the page.  I've had this photos waiting to be scrapped for a while and I was so excited to see they worked for this sketch!  When I pulled out this paper to work on the layout, I looked at it and felt uninspired.  I have used this paper quite a bit, I am pretty tired of it.  In fact, I went and counted how many pages I have made using paper from this collection.  Here are the totals:

9 12x12
4 8 1/2x11
1 8x8

No wonder I am sick of it!  I think I may pass on what is left to my kids and buy myself a new Halloween collection this fall!  Even though I have used this paper a ton, this sketch was so inspiring I felt like maybe I can make another layout with it.  We'll see what happens...

Materials
Cardstock- American Crafts
Patterned Paper- Basic Grey, Pink Paislee
Stickers- Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket
Punch- Marvy
Stamps- Westrim Crafts, Cosmo Cricket, Stampin Up
Pen- Zig
Buttons- Jesse James Co.
Ink- Clearsnap

Finding My Photo Style- Week 2

This week our instructor for "Finding Your Photo Style" is Elizabeth Dillow.  I would describe Elizabeth's style as journalistic.  Her lessons this week focused on telling the story.

The first assignment was to focus on taking photos of an event that showed the 3 C's: Context, Characters and Close Ups.  On Monday we planted some flowers, and here are the photos I took, from left to right; close ups, context, and characters.



Our second assignment was to work on "knowing when to click".  Last Friday we went to a local gym and the kids had a blast running down the long trampoline and jumping into the foam pit.  I love the look of glee on her face:



Our last assignment was to evaluate our photo editing style.  Elizabeth tends to do very minimal edits, as do I.  I generally do a white balance check, adjust the exposure, sharpen it a bit and up the vibrance.  Here is a comparison of the straight out of camera shot (left) and the same shot after my basic edits.  The only thing further that I would maybe do is to lighted the shadows a bit so his hands are so dark.

That's all for this week, we meet a new instructor and get new assignments tomorrow!

Scrapping Everyday Miracles- June Main Challenge

It's the first Monday of the month, so it is time for a new challenge at Scrapping Everyday Miracles.  This month I got to come up with the challenge, and here it is;

Since June is one of the most popular months to get married (my husband and my anniversary is the 19th), I decided to do a challenge on love. Your challenge this month is to scrap about a husband and wife relationship and the love you see/experience because of it.  The scrap twist is that you can only use cardstock, NO PATTERNED PAPER! The couple you choose can be you and your spouse, your parents, grandparents, or any other couple whose love for one another inspires you.

The scrap twist proved to be quite the challenge for the design team but they did AWESOME!  I had a lot of fun getting messy and this is what I came up with:

Since my husband and I are celebrating 9 years, I decided to make a "recap" page with a photo of our family from each year since we were married.  It is fun to see us change as well as our family growing!

Since we couldn't use patterned paper, I made pattern and texture in several ways using ink and other media.    I started by using my Stamping Gear to stamp a circle of design where my first and last photo would be.  I then used a heart mask and used spray ink in the center of the circles.  Then I took some molding paste and a stencil and made the stone pattern across the bottom of the page.  Once the past was dry, I went over it with my ink blending tool and some blue ink:

For my title, I cut an over-sized number 9 from glossy cardstock and colored it with alcohol ink:

Most of the flowers I used were already colored, but this big one was white and I colored it using my ink blending tool and some blue and purple ink.  Once I had the color I was going for, I sprayed it with water to blend it:

I had a lot of fun playing on this layout, I hope you will join us this month celebrating those special relationships in your life!

Materials-

Cardstock- American Crafts, Core'dinations

Glossy Paper- Ranger

Stickers- American Crafts, October Afternoon, Creative Memories

Inks- Ranger, Tattered Angels

Pens- Sharpie, Sakura, Zig

Flowers- Prima, Petaloo

Modeling Paste- Golden

Tape- Target

Stencils- Fiskars, The Crafter's Workshop

Stamps- EK Success

Embossing Folder- Ellison

Gems- Prima, EK Success, Hero Arts, Robin's Nest