Fears

I just got back from visiting my relative in a nursing home. It was good to see her, but I am pretty nursing home phobic. So many of my relatives have been in one and I desparately don't want to end up there. 

Take time to scrapbook about your fears and some of the not so happy-happy details of life.  It can be theraputic.  Here is a page I made earlier this year about my nursing home fears.

Glow in the dark glitter!

Just saw this on the Scrapadoodle blog. It's glow in the dark glitter from Martha Stewart.

How fun is that?

Happy Birthday Cynthia!

Today is my friend Cynthia's birthday. Anyone that knows Cynthia knows that she has a little white dog whom she adores and that her favorite color combination right now is orange and green. So I made this cute little card for her on my Cricut.  She said the dog looked exactly like her dog.  :  )

Happy Birthday Cynthia!

How to Create Scratch off Reveal

Chances are you've seen an instant lottery ticket where you scratch away a silvery film covering the numbers.  You can create a similar scratch off effect on your projects!  I just saw this tip in my Scrapbooks, Etc. magazine (page 46) and I had to share.

Mix two parts silver paint with one part dishwashing soap and paint the mixture onto clear contact paper. When the paint dries, cut the contact paper into strips, peel off the backing, and adhere to your project covering whatever you want to reveal when it is scratched away.  Way cool! 

Winner!

Audrey Petit, you are the winner of the WCMD giveaway!

Please let me know your address so I can mail you the cards.

Thanks,
Elaine

World Card Making Day Giveaway!

Happy World Card Making Day everyone!  To celebrate, I'm doing my very first blog giveaway! Comment below and I'll choose one random person to receive all 4 cards pictured so far on this blog as well as one surprise card. 

The card above is from a make and take I recently did with my scrapbook club.  Thanks to Donna Dillon for designing and teaching this make and take. 

Instructions:

1) cut and fold card base

2) cut orange mat and adhere to front of card

3) cut out striped paper and emboss with a spider web Cuttlebug embossing template (so cute!)

4) add black fiber over striped paper, tucking around the back of the top of the striped paper

5) adhere spider with pop dots (this one is from doodlecharms cricut cartridge, but any spider will do)

6) put red Stickles or other glitter glue as the eyes

Sewing on paper

I love the look of sewing on my scrapbook pages.But I don't often do it because I have trouble controlling the speed of the foot pedal. It goes from 0 to 60mph in 1 second and then it's going all over my page! I often wonder if they have foot pedals that will only go to a certain (very slow) speed.

If you've never tried sewing on your projects, or are challenged like me, check out these tips for sewing on paper from Cosmo Cricket.  And let me know if you have any tips of your own. 

You Rock!

My scrapbook club is having another crop in a couple of weeks and it's my turn to do the make and take (I'm an officer of the club).  This is what we will make for my make and take.  I stamped the guitar image on white paper, colored it in with Copic Markers, and cut it out. Then I rubbed embossing ink all over the image and heat embossed it to jazz it up a little bit. I cut large pink flowers into 4ths to make wings and attached them to the back of the guitar.  Then I spritzed the pink paper with a little black ink and attached my guitar.

On the inside I stamped my message and added the cute little guitar stickers that inspired the whole project.

Supplies: stamps- Inkadinkadoo; markers- Copic; stickers- Sticko; flower- Bazzill

Be Brave Little Turtle

Generally speaking, I'm not much of a risk taker. I like the feeling of safety way too much. I recently saw a quote about turtles about how if they don't stick their neck out, they don't make progress. I really liked this quote as a reminder to myself to get out of my comfort zone and take more risks. And it just so happened I had a couple pictures of turtles. One from a recent road trip to Kansas (the top one) and one from a turtle from the Miller Park zoo.  

Layout supplies: paper- Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon (OA); letter stickers-Jenni Bowlin, Adorn-It, OA; banner flags- Jenni Bowlin; die cut- Girls Paperie; bracket- Pebbles; journaling spot- OA; buttons- American Crafts.

Bo Bunny Flower Tutorial

Check out this awesome Bo Bunny flower tutorial my friend Carla told me about.

Prima is not going to like them very much for giving away so many flower making secrets!  :  )

Curled Flower

A week ago tonight I was at a crop with my scrapbook club.  We did a flower make and take (courtesy of Lori Rogers) and I learned how to put an old technique to use in a new application.  If you've ever curled ribbon for a present, you can do this.

Start with a flower cut out of cardstock. (It works best on flowers with long petals.) This flower is from the Walk in My Garden Cricut Cartridge.

Open up your scissors all the way and place your thumb on the blade.  (It's probably best not to use really sharp scissors.) Lifting up your thumb slightly, place the petal underneath your thumb (starting at the middle of the flower) and apply firm pressure with your thumb while pulling the petal across the blade towards the outer edge of the flower.  In this picture, you'd start in the center and pull the flower to the left with your left hand, while holding the scissors in your right hand.  If you're using patterned paper, make sure the pattern is facing down towards your scissors.  Repeat for all petals.

When you're done, you'll have a perfectly curly, perky flower. Yeh!

Before I learned this technique, I would have wrapped each petal around a pencil or other round object in order to curl it.  This is much faster and seemed to have more consistent results.

Then we punched small holes in the center of several flowers and layered them on a shish-kabob stick and placed a Rolo candy in the center of the flower.  If you made about a dozen of these it would look pretty in a vase. 

Thanks Lori!

Another scrapbook store closing

I just found out The Scrap Shack in St. Charles, IL is closing soon.  This was a nice little store handy to the Scrapbook Expo every August.  It always makes me sad when an independent store closes.  Because one of my favorite things to do is to visit a scrapbook store I haven't been to before. Each one is so unique and carries a variety of things different from any other store. 

Bon Voyage!

One of my friends went on a trip today and really quick this morning I made up a little bon voyage card for her.  This is using Elsie Flannigan paper from my stash. If you ever saw Elsie's work in CK magazine, you know she did a lot of hand drawn and doodled things.  She would be proud of my little hand cut plane.  :  )

Tip: Next time you're at a crop or watching a movie, cut several colors of 8.5x11 paper in half to have ready for card making.  That way you can make one fast whenever the mood or the occasion strikes.  Plus when you finish a layout, before you put your supplies away, you can quickly create a card from your scraps. Buy a big box of invitation sized envelopes at an office supply store to have on hand for all the quick cards you'll be whipping up! 



My Type

I used the typewriter rubon and it came out really cute.  This card design is scraplifted from an October Afternoon card I saw at CHA.
Supplies: cardstock- Prism; ribbon- American Crafts; patterned paper- Oct. Aft.; rub-on- Michaels; letter stickers- Jenni Bowlin (round) and Oct. Aft.

My Shopping Haul

Went shopping tonight (and spent too much).  But got some good deals.  A book (40% off coupon), some ribbon (50% off), a border punch (50% off), some letter stickers, some cool typewriter rubons ($1 bin), some shimmer mist, and a cricut cartridge (on sale).  Oh and some tulle which I'm going to try out on one of my scrapbook pages.  Can't wait to play with it all.

Welcome to my blog!

Hello out there.  In this first post, I wanted to let you know what this blog is all about and what you can expect.

So here goes . . . in this blog I will share, inspire, learn, motivate, and chat about my favorite of all topics: scrapbooking!  I will post pictures, challenges, tips, and perhaps an occasional giveaway. And I hereby promise to only post things that somehow relate to scrapbooking and never to post what I had for lunch because, according to a blog book I saw online, no one cares what I had for lunch.  :  )

My next post will be more fun; I have a super cute Halloween card to post.

Thanks for stopping by!