Stitching on my pages: from the Scrapinar

Wednesday I had a wonderful evening participating as a panelist in a scrapinar on stitching for Lain Ehmann. I made my first video tutorial, this time on stitching on layouts,* and I spent some time answering questions on stitching and enjoying the company of people who love this craft of ours. You can see my video here.

It's fitting, I suppose, that the first video I made is on stitching. I have sewn and cross-stitched for a long time. I am cross-stitching a sampler right now with a verse ("The diligent farmer plants tress of which he himself will never see the fruit") and sewing various Star Wars crafts. I also had two pages this week picked up for the July Scrapbook Trends magazine, both of which included stitching, and one of which will be published in the stitching section. I love to add stitches to my pages. Love.

I wanted to share the pages I made for that scrapinar, plus some extra tidbits I didn't share in the scrapinar, which of course came to me after it was done. (For the record, I used Studio Calico's January kit Block Party for all of these layouts. I added bits from my stash as well, since these were the last pages I made with the kit.)

Here's the first page I made, which highlights the machine stitching I tend to do:

I didn't do any hand stitching on this page, but I did some typical machine stitching as a frame and to zig zag some elements together at the top of the page.  Here's some details:

Here's the second page I did. I love the design, and I hand stitched the tickets together to add some contrasting color and texture to the page. I also stitched a line through one of the paper strips (just me stripping on a page again, LOL!) to add some texture. Plus, a confession: I had used an adhesive eraser to remove some gummed up adhesive, and it damaged the patterned paper. The stitching distracts from my damage.

Here's the third page, probably my favorite since it depicts the group I scrap with, the Scrappin' J's. On that note, mad props to the first J's: Janet for taking photos of me stitching that I used in my video; Sandra, which was going to but got sick; Jennifer, who took the photos in the above layout; and Jolene, who at first couldn't believe I sewed on pages but now does so beautifully herself.

I hand and machine stitched on this page:

And the last layout, a gift I made for my parents (they're not interested in much else but scrapbooking pages from me). I hand stitched circles using my Bazzill template and I machine stitched the title and date.

 

  

Note: looking above, you can see that super thin letters are not good to stitch on. Learn my lesson before you stitch and only sew on thick letters/numbers like the ones below:

 Thank you for viewing my pages! And now share: do you stitch on your layouts? If so, what do you tend to do?

*Just a quick note: I am planning on making two more videos at least, one of heat embossing multiple colors at once and another on making a mini album. Come back and share in the videos! I'm hoping to make one or two a month, possibly more when I'm not grading papers in the summer (heh).

Favorite pages from 2012

When you read this, I should be in the air, heading to California for CHA! I will blog every day this weekend, sharing some of my favorite products and projects that I see. Until then, hee's a list I had so much fun making: my favorite pages from 2012. Since it was the year of 12, I picked my 12 favorites. (Note: I ignored the ones that are going to be published this year.) Here they are:

 

I did this page as a guest blogger at Simple Scrapper. My post was about scrapping the stressful moments of life. This looks complicated, but I'm pretty sure those are two 4x6 photos with 6 pics embedded in them.

One of my first pages for Elle's Studio. I had a love affair with big photos and bright colors this year. Plus embossing.

What can I say, I turned 40 this year. This page commemorates the event. I lay some metal numbers down, misted, then stitched for the number.

This is an "inspired by what Dominic said" page. I just got it back from publication, and I have to say, it was a fun page to make. A fun way to record your life. Have your scrapped your cool stuff and pretty stuff?

 

Another Dominic page, this time his mild obsession with water towers. This page shows my love affair with circles this year too.

 

Again: my love affair with circles. And my husband. I love this picture of us.

 

I love two page layouts. The challenge of putting them together is great. Here I scrapped my son Rowan's  black belt ceremony. Kudos to him!

This page was a serendipitous "Those products randomly sitting on my table look good together, so I'll use them on this page" moment.

 

I finally gave up looking for some iconic childhood photos and scrapped the page anyway. Thank goodness for photo frame stamps and journaling.

 

Another big photo, but I was also inspired by product-the photo frame let me zero in on my son in the big photo, and it made the page more interesting.

 

A page about my grandpa and my memories of him, especially this phrase he said. I like how everything worked together on this page.

 

Another page where the perfect product--in this case, KI Flashback--led to the page idea. I had so much fun making the page!

This one was for The Scrap Review reviewing Bazzill Beach House. Again, big photo (I guess I'm in a rut, but it's a rut I like!). This was picked for the cover of ScrapStreet Magazine.

I think I posted more than 12--oops! Ah well. It was a fun year for scrapping. Now off to CHA to see what I'll be using to scrap with this year.

New Scrapbooks and Cards Today is out!

I have just read it online, and you can too! I am in this issue--page 53--with a double page  layout using mostly the 100 Days of Summer Collection by Simple Stories about a fun picnic our family and friends had last summer. Here's the link; I hope you enjoy these fun and colorful pages as much as I did!

Published!

As I mentioned earlier, I got a couple published layouts back this week. The first was one I was super excited about: the next issue of Tips and Trips, which is based on stamping.


The reason I'm so excited? CK asked for a layout of mine they'd seen in their gallery, which they also wanted to use to spotlight me in the magazine! They asked me many interview questions, some of which are published online here. The rest are featured in the magazine, along with my photo, which is *think* might have been photoshopped. Not majorly, but I do not have the gorgeous creamy skin in the photo. : - ) To paraphrase the little green guys in Toy Story, we are eternally grateful.

The next layout I had returned was actually two layouts in an upcoming special issue called "Scrapping Everyday Moments." The book is a winner, IMO. Some really innovative layouts with some really great idea starters.

Now I need to go outside and scrape solid ice off my windshield without falling on the ice rink that is actually a street. The weather this week is going to be frightful, but if it tends more to snow than ice, Thanksgiving will be great, because we'll be going sledding!

New issue of Scrapstreet magazine is available online

And you can see one of my layouts there! The September magazine is here, and the link to the article with my layout is here. This was the first page someone asked me to do, sort of an assignment, which made me very excited. I like the result, and I loved the challenge. The prompt also gave me the idea for this page:

The title "My Life in Sticky Notes" had been going around my head for a while. The color inspiration gave me the creative push I needed!

And since I am preparing to start teaching again next week, I have to say my life in sticky notes is starting up again. I have two going: a to-do list, and a list of people I am giving some peonies to that I split today. Thank goodness for 3M.

A little Hooray

If you can take a peek at a couple scrapbooking magazines this month, you will see my layouts: I have a layout published in both Creating Keepsakes January issue and also in Scrapbook Trends. The latter is one of my all-time favorites; it's in the stitching section.

I've posted before on how the publishing calls give me ideas and help stretch my creativity. This is true. As an example, if I can brag a little, I just got notice that three of my layouts will be published in June Scrapbook Trends! All were layouts where I got inspiration from the posts or other online challenges, so hooray.

On my journey still to create 100 layouts without new supplies. Here's the latest three:

Inspiration from the BPS class and my son's words. Making this LO made me realize how little purple I have.

Scrapping my minor medical scare from last week.

87 more to go!

Inspiration from submission

A couple days ago was the submission deadline for Scrapbook Trends' April issue. I submitted a few, and though I would like to get at least one picked up, I've got to say that the submission process alone is beneficial.

Why? It encourages me to try new (or long dormant) products and techniques. It also gets me motivated to scrap photos that may otherwise not inspire me.

Here were the calls I submitted to:

• birthday (I submitted already created layouts for this)
  
• chipboard (ditto)
  
• lots of photos
• showcase (a miscellaneous category)
  
• my top ten
• blogging

Some I submitted a couple layouts, others just one. The ones I really want to get picked up are the lots of photos call, blogging, and my top ten. Those gave me the most fun time making them.

I'll post any that don't get picked up. Until then, here's a LO I have already posted that didn't get picked up last month:


It was for a glitter call. The submission call gave me creative inspiration to use product I had on hand and had not thought of using on this layout. Definitely made me stretch, but that's good.