One page sketch

The sketch I did this week for Sketch Support was absolutely charming. My problem? I had no small photos on hand. I'm all about making life simpler for myself, so I took out some photos of my mom and my sons when she was in town last fall and trimmed them a bit to use. I took other liberties with the sketch too to aid my design. I plan on giving this LO to my mom, BTW:


It's hard to see, but the LO is called "Gramdma Time." I used Studio Calico's May kit for this. I love the Jillibean Soup corrugated die cuts, but I've always struggled with how to use them, so I decided to spread the frames across the page to house accents:


That's an old Doodlebug paper frill I flipped and misted to match the LO. Since this page is going to my mom, I decided to go all pink on it.


I lay down some GCD Studios chipboard flowers, misted, then added some scrap paper to them to pretty them up. I also added some painted, stamped grids randomly along the outside of the LO.

And now for the giveaway!


You asked for it, and you got it! Allison Davis and Scrapbook Generation has released a one page sketch book! I have one copy to give away. To enter your name in to the giveaway, leave a comment on this post, telling me how many photos you tend to put on one page layouts, and I will draw a random winner Tuesday night at 8 P.M. CST.

CHA faves: take 3

*I spoke too soon when I said my last post would be my final CHA post. When I went through my photos, I found more lovelies.*

On my third day at CHA, I felt like I didn't see the whole floor, but I still noticed some amazing projects. Here's a few:

I can't believe I didn't notice these stamping projects until the last day. Yes, these are stamped with stamps like these:


These are from designer Dyan Reaveley. They remind me of the Story People art. I saw these in a lot of places, like Unity Stamps:

For directions on how to create these, see Julie Balzer at Crafter's Workshop.


For more traditional scrapbook projects, Little Yellow Bicycle Winter Twig:

Go for drama with a great photo.


EK Success has a great idea, pointed out to me by Ella Friend Valerie. This is a multi-use rub-on you can use to stitch! Terrific.


Finally, a great way to record your bucket list--in a bucket!--at Jillibean.

CHA faves: take 2

This will be my last post for CHA this year; I'll be posting this week at Ella another time for CHA.

A note about the above photo: To honor Sasparilla, October Afternoon set up their booth like a Wild West Saloon. I think every female at the show took their pictures next to this rowdy girls sign.

Here are a few more of my favorite projects:

Epiphany Crafts again had an amazing booth. Other companies should take note: products look infinitely more desirable when the booth is attractive and has lots of samples. I love this frame, which has decorated tags.

And this frame, which has buttons made with their button maker on a neutral patterned paper.


Fiskars didn't have a booth, if I recall correctly, but they did have two Fiskateers walking around in dresses made of paper. I took their picture here with Cindy Liebel. The one on the right is sewn; the left is constructed with hot glue. Both women said it wasn't hard or time-consuming, and said that making a dress for a little girl would be easy and fun. They also said they needed help getting out of the dresses to go to the bathroom. Here's why:


She's tied up the back. But hey, if you have lots of eyelets you never use, you obviously need to make a dress using the eyelets to lace up the back.

Harmonie had those terrific wood and acrylic shapes for misting or painting, and the layouts used them well. This one used the tree branch as an accent; see the snow on it?


This LO at the Jillibean booth is also terrific. I love the blue paper frame, and the dimensional diamond part is incredible.


This LO by Cindy Liebel at Lily Bee is terrific--the accents are punched hearts attached with dimensional stickers. Evidence that you don't need a lot of embellishments for a fine looking page.


Nikki Sivils had some nice pages with white space. To be honest, I appreciated the LOs with white space because many of the pages had a ton of product on them. I understand why, but the ones with purposeful white space, like this one, were great.

You say you didn't buy Rocket Age because you don't have boys or can't use space stuff? Look at how clever these cards use the themed products.


Boarding Pass was only hinted at during Winter CHA, so I was happy seeing it in person. But check out these clever LOs using the line! I am having seriously lustful thoughts about that map paper.


White space. *Sigh!*

A cute frame at the Pebbles booth, this one for girls:


And this one for boys.

This is a cool frame with no backing at the Pink Paislee booth.


Multiple cute LOs with lots of good ideas.


Simple Stories had TERRIFIC LOs. I loved this one in particular. Note to self: dig out my Polaroid stamp.


Studio Calico also had terrific projects. I loved this one, I think by Emily Pitts? The quote had me at hello.


And this charmer is by April Foster, and it is so cute, starting with that photo. Aw!

Thanks for seeing my favorites, and I hope that you have a great rest of weekend!

CHA favorite projects part 1

I love looking at the products and meeting friends at CHA, but a particular pleasure is looking at all the projects and idea sparks at the show. CHA is one big idea book.

I thought I would post my faves here today, but as I went through my pictures, I swiftly realized this would take 3 posts.

Here's my first faves in no particular order (maybe alphabetical in my photo file):

This is a page in the yellow, I think, Smash book. It gave me an idea for a page about my two boys, heh, heh, heh.


Amy Tan's line itself is an idea book, but the projects in the AC booth were so exciting. Click on the picture to see the projects closer. (I have closer images. If you'd like me to post them later this weekend, I will--just let me know).


I liked the Halloween line from Authentique. These quotations were especially inspiring, especially the one on the right about costumes.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is pairing with Crafter's Workshop to create some awesome misting masks. Here's how she used them on a dress, which won an award at the show.

Canvas Home Basics had lots of cool projects in their booth, and this was inspired: they stacked empty frames to create this two-bin box. It looked so real, someone tried to open a drawer--and pulled off the knob! Oops.

If I had to pick a most inspiring booth, it would have to be Bella Blvd. I got SO many ideas from so many of their posted products. Here are a few:

The white board on top with a daily schedule? I'm making one.


These two Christmas LOs are exciting design wise. The one on the left has a dimensional scallop on the tree. And I love the way the one on the right has small photos on top, a big swath of patterned paper on the bottom, and some elements right and left for balance.

I have many colored markers, but I've never thought of using them to emphasize important words in my hand journaling. Now I will.


If you've been to my blog before, you know I like paint, mist ink, but in a restrained manner. This LO gives me ideas for how to do that. LOVE.

This was maybe my favorite LO in the whole show. The background sports quote paper, the tone on tone big scallops that reflect water, the white title, the amazing photo, the banner. Perfection.

The last three projects are by the same artist, Katherine McElvaine. You can see the LOs much better on her blog. Go and make her a favorite.


EK Success had great samples. This display was gorgeous. The hot cocoa was felt.


I was so impressed with the chalkboard elements on this display, but it was just black paper with chalk writing! Inspired.

Martha Stewart flowers made with cupcake holders. Terrific.



I love the white space and the circles on this Crate Paper LO.


Another Crate LO with circles and white space.


DCWV rocked the last show with the paper dresses. This time there was a homey Chritsmas mantle made almost entirely of paper. The logs are paper rolls, the stockings are paper, and the deer is a die cut wood head covered in paper. Amazing.

Back tomorrow with more great inspiration.

Warm weather colors

I'd like to share one of my favorite color combos:


My kitchen is painted a light orange, and I LOVE the little pop of blue and white. Add a couple of other shades of orange and blue, plus a smidge of yellow, and you have the color equivalent of happiness.

Happy colors definitely need to be used when scrapping warm weather events, so I used this combo on a page about Spring Break this year:


I used the following papers' B sides to make my own striped patterned paper using all these happy colors.

Youthful Eggsuberance "Eggcellent"


Soul Food "Lovely Garden"


Material Girl "Hugs & Kisses"


Homespun Chic "Blue Redwork"


Fun House "Trick Pony"

I cut the papers at random widths from 1/4 inch to 1 inch. Next I cut a piece of white cardstock to house the strips; to do the curve on the bottom, I hand drew the curve and cut it out. I trimmed the strips as I lay them down to allow a little of the white to show.

I also dug into my DMC and hand-stitched part of the title. I lightly wrote the word in pencil, punched holes every 1/4, erased with a white eraser, then stitched.


The journaling appears on the tags, tucked behind the striped paper block:


I hope you're inspired to use these colors to scrap about some warm weather fun!