Paper Easter Eggs

Hi! I hope you all had (and are having) a wonderful Easter, He is risen! I have a little "off the page project I did this week in honor of the holiday. I didn't get it done in time for the big day, but Easter is 50 days long, so I'm still is season! ;)

I found these beautiful Easter eggs on a blog last week and wanted to make some for myself because I LOVE that color of blue and they would make a great centerpiece for my dining room table to work with the blue accents in my kitchen. For those of you who haven't been in my house, here is a shot of my kitchen sink for reference.

I went to IKEA in search of the napkins the blogger used, but came up empty handed. I decided to try to make something similar with my paper crafting supplies. I bought some paper mache Easter eggs from JoAnn's and pulled the paper, punch, gesso, Mod Podge, and Stickles from my scrapbooking supplies.

I painted the eggs with the gesso to give them a white base. I did a quick two coats. They aren't perfectly white, but I am okay with that. If you want the totally white, you can use a thicker paint or more coats.

Then I punched a bunch of flowers from the blue patterned paper. I punched about 5-6 per egg. I then used Mod Podge to attach the flowers and then seal them to the egg. I put 3 coats of Mod Podge on to make sure the flowers were really sealed in.

I started this project by just decorating one egg to see if it would turn out how I envisioned. The first egg was a piece of cake. I had no issues with any of the steps. It even sit nicely on its end after I had done this next step. The other 4 eggs did not go quite so easily. :( I created the swirls with the Stickles by squeezing them directly from the bottle onto the eggs. I ended up doing about half of the egg at a time, so that it could rest on the other side to dry... I still had issues with them rolling and had to touch up a few spots...

Here's the final product. I had this little basket laying around, so I got some blue grass to put in it.

All in all, this was a fun project and now I have these pretty eggs to decorate my table!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday: Easter Edition!

Happy Easter! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and great time with family and friends celebrating our Lord's resurrection! Most of my photos for the hunt this week are from today and our preparations for today.

An animal

Both of my boys got Chima Lego sets in their Easter baskets that made an animal. My older son got one that made a gorilla and the younger one got one that made an eagle. As soon as they found them, my older son was wheeling and dealing with the younger to swap and he was happy to do so! Here in my older son working on assembling his set.

Before and After
Easter eggs. We did some marbling this year with the dye. Some turned out pretty cool!

Delicious
My mom gave me the task of bringing the bread for the Easter celebration today. I spent Friday and Saturday making these rolls because I used the bread machine to make the dough, which meant I could only make one batch at a time and I made 4!

Key
My younger son figured out the "key" to making this toy work was to pull the string fast!

Kitchen Sink
This photo is from last week. My daughter is decorating St. Patrick cookies. And look, the kitchen sink is in the background! :)

Boy's Best Friend

Hello! I have a new layout to share! I started with this sketch from "Sketches In Thyme":

I found these photos that my mom took a couple of years ago when my boys stayed with them for a week. As you can see, I had one more photo than the sketch called for, so I moved a few things around. I pulled some random papers together and cut them into strips. I decided to emboss the piece of cardstock for some added texture and pattern. Since my folder was not 12 inches long or wide, I embossed one end of the strip and then the other end. There was about an inch in the middle that didn't get embossed, but I covered that with one of my photos and some embellishments.

I also put my Cricut to work, cutting my title and dog embellishments. I added some extra color to my layout with some spray mists before I added my photos and embellishments. I lightly sprayed the whole background with brown mist and then used the packaging technique to add the yellow.

Materials:
Cardstock- Bazzill
Patterned Paper- Bo Bunny, Basic Grey, Echo Park
Vellum and Brad- Crate Paper
Journaling Spots- Echo Park
Ink- EK Success, October Afternoon
Die Cuts- October Afternoon
Stickers- Echo Park, Hambly Screen Prints
Rub Ons- Art Warehouse
Pen- Sharpie
Embossing Folder- Ellison
Die Cutter- Provo Craft
Cartridges- Doodlecharms, Zooballoo, Playtime, All Mixed Up, Cricut Classic Font

Zoo Fun

Hello! I have a new layout to share today. I crammed a ton of photos on this one! I started thinking I would make a two page layout, but realized I could get all of the photos on one page and still have space for a title and some embellishment, so I went for it!

I started by spreading some gesso over my background paper. I added some red and purple gelatos over that, sprayed them with a bit of water and spread them around a bit. My second daughter wore a lot of purple when she was younger, but there aren't a lot of scrapbooking papers that have purple in them, so I end up getting purple on my page with inks and other media. For this layout, I ended up covering up a lot of that with photos, but you cans still see a bit of the purple peeking through in spots.

I was inspired by the pattern challenge at Scrapbook Challenges this month which was to use chevron pattern on your layout. I fussy cut the red and white chevron paper to run across the center of my page. I used the triangles that were cut from one side for the banner and photo corners. I dug through my stash for the rest of the embellishments on this page. 

I was also inspired by the tic-tac-toe challenge from the crop Paper Issues held on Facebook this past weekend. I chose the center column for my layout.

Materials:

Patterned Paper- October Afternoon, Basic Grey

Stickers- Basic Grey, October Afternoon, Die Cuts With a View, Bo Bunny

Wood Veneer- Basic Grey, American Crafts

Twine- Queen and Co.
Pen- Sakura

Buttons and Enamel Dots- October Afternoon

Gesso- Liquitex

Gelatos- Faber Castell

Remember the Good Times Outside!

Hello! I have a layout to share today. I tried some things that I don't normally do on this layout and I'm still not sure I love it, but it's done!

I was inspired by this month's Take 5 challenge at Paper Issues. Here is the list to choose from:

1. the color yellow
2. the color white
3. the color blue
4. polka dots
5. a cloud
6. enamel dots or shapes
7. a title
8. 2 patterned papers
9. a flower
10. a poem or quote
11. something silver
12. an envelope
13. 2 photos
14. cardstock
15. an animal

I ended up using the colors yellow, white and blue, a cloud, a title, and cardstock. I tried using patterned paper for the background of one of my pages and cardstock for the other. I chose a cardstock that was similar in color in hopes that it would blend well. I then used another smaller piece of patterned paper with the wood grain on the other page of my layout to tie the pages together. I also used a phrase cut from a patterned paper as part of my title. 

I cut the clouds from an old Hambly transparency and used foam adhesive to pop some of them up and add dimension to my page. Various other embellishments finished off my clusters.

Materials:

Cardstock- Bazzill

Patterned Paper- Simple Stories, My Mind's Eye

Tape- Bella Blvd.

Transparency- Hambly Screen Prints

Stickers and chipboard- Simple Stories

Die Cuts- October Afternoon

Pen- Sharpie

Buttons- Oriental Trading Company, Daisy D's

Die Cutter- Provo Craft

Cartridge- All Mixed Up

Lasting Hearts Card Making Day

Hello! I have one more post to catch you all up on what I've been doing the last couple of weeks. Two weekends ago, some friends, my daughters and I made cards for the Lasting Hearts Card Drive.  At the end of the day, we had almost 50 completed cards!

Here are some close ups of the cards I made. First up is this card that I made using some leftover stickers and die cuts from a Scrapfest class I took several years ago. I added some coordinating patterned paper, washi tape, and a heat embossed sentiment to complete the card.

This card I made a few days before the "card making" day, along with another just like it that I sent off for another occasion I stamped and heat embossed the flowers and then painted them in with a water brush and gelato. I cut the sentiment with my Cricut from a coordinating paper. After I attached it, it blended in too well with the image, so I outlined it with a white pen to make it stand out more. 

I picked up a bunch of Stampin Up inks a while back and so I played a bit with them on this card, using 4 colors. I used dye inks for the flowers and pigment ink for the flower centers and sentiment. I heat embossed where I used the pigment inks.

I found a 6x6 paper pad on clearance at Target a day or two before the get together. I used some of the papers on this card. I also used an embossing folder on some Core'dinations cardstock and then sanded it to expose the lighter colored core.

I went to the October Afternoon warehouse sale the day before and picked up this background stamp. I decided to try it with some glitter embossing powder for the this card. Some tape, a stamped sentiment on vellum and some punched stars finished of the card.

I again decided to play with different ink colors on this card. This time I used some layering stamps to make a little scene. I finished it off with a sprinkling of sequins.

Completing Projects!

Hello! I realized I promised to post some projects and then never did! Well, I'm back today with a couple of layouts that I completed in the last couple of weeks. Both layouts started as make and takes from Scrapfest. They have been sitting on my shelf waiting to be completed for a few YEARS and I finally decided to pull them out and get them into albums.

First up is this one that was a make and take for the We R Memory Keepers punches. The paisley pattern across the bottom was created using a punch. I added the photo, title, journaling and a few embellishments and the layout was done!

Next up is this layout that was a make and take from Bazzill (I'm pretty sure). They put out some patterned paper the year I made this and that is the patterned paper on the page.  I added the photo, journaling, and numbers to finish off the page.

Stick It Down- March Card Sketch

Hello! I have a new sketch from Stick it Down to share and a card to go with it! First up, the sketch:

I made a birthday card for my dad's 60th birthday using some October Afternoon scraps, some buttons, and a Fancy Pants chipboard piece. I stamped the sentiment on vellum and attached that to my card front. To bring a little more black in and to finish off those edges, I edged my papers with black ink.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure you check out what the rest of the team did with the sketch!

Pumpkin Patch Memories

Hello! It's been a little quiet around here, I know. I've been busy with other projects that I will hopefully be sharing in the next week or so. First up is this layout I made with inspiration from the 123 Challenge Blog:

It's a little out of season here, but I have had these photos waiting to be scrapped for a while, so I took the opportunity to get them done! I used mostly October Afternoon on here, lots of oranges, browns and yellows, with some blue to match my son's shirt in the photos.

I started my layout by smearing some Glimmer Mist on my background. I used a couple of different colors and layered it on. I also stamped some leaves with an older Stampin Up set to fulfill the leaves part of the challenge.

I broke up my title a bit, using some Thickers for part of is and cutting the word "Memories" using my Cricut. I also cut the leaves with my Cricut and scattered them around the page. I brought a bit of blue to the title area and the journaling area with some ribbon.

A few more embellishments and a piece of tape made up this little cluster on the bottom of the page.

Make sure you stop back and check out what else I've been up to!

Materials:
Cardstock- My Mind's Eye, Michaels
Patterned Paper, Brads, Badges, Tape, Journaling Cards- October Afternoon
Die Cutter- Provo Craft
Software- Craft Edge
Cartridge- Doodlecharms
Ink- Clearsnap, Tattered Angels, Heidi Swapp
Die Cut- Pink Paislee
Font- Smoothie Shoppe
Gelato- Faber Castell
Pen- Sharpie
Stamps- Stampin Up, American Crafts
Letter Stickers- American Crafts