Crop du Soleil

Sunday was just a wonderful day! 12 uninterupted hours of scrapbooking at the Photo Express Crop du Soleil. I am pleased to have completed the layouts I had planned, plus a bit more. I also packed much lighter than usual (although I still had a large stack of supplies to carry in). And I can attest to having used everything that I brought!

2010 Winter Olympics

I tried something new this time in that I didn't print off my photos. Instead, I printed off a proof sheet of all the pictures I might include and then I was able to print off the photos at home later to the exact proportions I needed. This worked out particularly well when I decided to make this row of photos match the wave pattern in the paper. The paper and die-cut title, by the way, are part of a limited edition set created by Photo Express. The mattes are made with paper from my stash.

The Allsorts Challenge for this week was to turn something from "rags to riches" and so I created "The Olympic Flame" embellishment by repurposing a City of Coquitlam advertisement. I absolutely LOVE free embellishments (LOL).

There will be a 3rd page to this layout that will have all of the journalling as I wanted to write quite a bit about the experience of living in a host city during the Winter Olympics.

Challenges:

• Allsorts Challenge - Rags to Riches - alter or recycle something

Recipe:

• Patterned paper - Photo Express
• Die cut title - Photo Express
• Cardstock - stash

Monsters at Rest

This is one of my favourite pictures of the boys and I really wanted to give it special treatment. When I came across this "monster" paper & sticker set I knew that I had to use it with this photo. After all, the kids were being absolute monsters that day until they just collapsed on the couch.

Recipe:

• Cardstock - stash
• Patterned paper -
• Cardstock stickers -
• Letters - Quickutz "Reuse" alphabet set  (thanks Jacqui for letting me use your brand-new dies!)

Monsters Vs Aliens Birthday Party


This layout was an extreme challenge because I had no pictures for it. I took a couple during the party but all but one were too out-of-focus to be usable. And the party was so incredibly hectic (what was I thinking asking Luke's entire kindergarten class???) that I hardly took any pictures anyway. I was able to redeem just one photo by blurring out the busy background so that the shot of Luke blowing out his candles was sharpened in contrast. I was absolutely thrilled last month then to come across a digital stamp of two kids in a movie theatre. I created a row of kids, added some clipart 3d glasses, and "voila" a "picture" of the kids in the theatre.

Recipe:

• Cardstock - stash
• Patterned paper - Piggy Tales "Billy Goat Gruff"
• Letter stickers - Piggy Tales "Billy Goat Gruff"
• Digital stamp - Karen's Doodles
• Brads - stash

Making better use of images

Just like most crafters, I love to acquire stamp images and other supplies but I don't always use what I have.  With that in mind, the latest challenge fromthe PCP group for Phindy's Place is quite a good one for me. Phindy has challenged us to use one image in two different ways (all the better to justify our purchases). I am still working on the second card using this image, but I wanted to post this first card today as it is based on a sketch for the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge ending tomorrow.

Other challenges:

• Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge - sketch

• Pile It On - animal-riffic
• Hand Full of Stamps - something sweet (what's sweeter than a hug?)
• Cute Card Thursday - dimension (I've got layers, popped up embellishments, thick ribbon)
• Play Date Cafe - colour challenge

Quirky spring card

I just picked up the brand-new Basic Grey paper pack "Kioshi" and I had to use it for a card right away. I just love the quirky feel to the designs. They feel spring-y to me without being sweet or pastel-y (are either of those words???).

The stamp is from Stamping Bella - her dress and shoes are paper pieced with a bit of Stickles added to the flower centres. I also added Stickles (black diamond) to her hair - it provides a wonderful shine. At first I added a traditional style bow but it just didn't suit the feeling I was going for so I retied it, purposely making it loose and lopsided. It probably looks like a sloppy bow but I can't help myself - I just like the way it turned out (LOL).

I'm entering this card into several challenges, as follows:

• MAWTT - sketch
• One Stop Craft Challenge - let it shine
• Totally Gorjuss - ribbon
• Corrosive Challenges - paper piecing

My baby boy is turning 7

I am feeling quite old these days because my son is turning 7 next week. It really has come up quickly. I wanted to make sure his card was special so I let him pick out the image and colours.

I used a sketch from Truly Scrumptious Challenges (I will be adding this sketch to my file for future use as it is a very versatile design. The red patterned papers are Basic Grey with the rest coming from my scraps. Everything is coloured with Copics, then Stickles and glossy accents added for shine and dimension. The image is new from Bugaboo - I believe it's supposed to be a giant cupcake but I really thought it worked well as an ice cream sundae (glossy accents added to the chocolate sauce gives it a bit of shine as if it has hardened).


I'm entering this card into several challenges, as follows:

• Fab N Funky - use something new
• Truly Scrumptious Challenges - sketch
• Cute Card Thursday - birthday or anniversary
• Crafty Creations Challenges - spots & dots
• Creative Card Crew - going dotty
• Charisma Cardz - something for the kids
• Little Red Wagon - use copics

Pollycraft design team call

Pollycraft is holding a design team call with a slight twist. Instead of just submitting samples of one's work, Paula has two adorable free images and challenged anyone interested to show their stuff. The images are available for anyone whether applying for the design team or not so you MUST check them out. This is my first submission using Codi Stylin'.

I wanted to use an unexpected colour palette for this card. Codi is so sweet looking, but I just know she has some attitude (check out the t-shirt). I decided on papers from the Basic Grey June Bug collection. The flowers are all fussy-cut from a pattened paper in the set. The paper ribbon is also part of a larger pattern. You absolutely can't tell in the photo but my favourite part of this card is the "lip gloss" (glossy accents added to the lips).

In addition to the Pollycraft DT challenge, I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:

• Pollycraft Challenge - image
• Totally Papercrafts - sketch
• Creative Cottage - flowers
• Crafty Calendar Challenge - flower power

For anyone interested in the details, here are the products used:

• Basic Grey, June Bug patterned papers
• glossy accents
• unknown cream cardstock
• Copic markers (see colours below)

Thanks for looking and wish me luck in the Design Team submission. The competition is extremely stiff so I don't expect to be selected but it's worth a try!

Fairytale girl

Getting this card finished has been quite the undertaking! I worked on my paper-pieced princess over a couple of days until the only thing left to add was her crown. I located the gold paper that I wanted to use, cut out the crown but then couldn't find the princess. I looked for days! Even my DH looked but she had seemingly disappeared. I had already made the card base (based on a challenge) and I needed to finish the card that day so I picked out another paper-pieced image I had done awhile ago and tried to make the image fit. Of course I ended up just hating the finished product!

Finally, I gave up and dismantled the card. Of course it was shortly after that I found my little princess (attached to the bottom of my paper cutter!!). Oh well. It gave me an excuse to start over with the card layout and I'm actually more pleased with this sketch. So, without further ado, here is my paper-pieced princess card and the challenges she is (finally) ready to enter.

• 
  C.R.A.F.T. - use citrus colours
• 
  
  Create 4 Fun - sketch
• 
  
  One Stop Craft Challenge - spots & dots
• 
  
  The Pink Elephant - spring
• 
  
  Totally gorjuss - something sweet (isn't she just the sweetest little princess?)

Recipe:

• Basic Grey patterned papers
• Technique Tuesday stamps (princess & sentiment)
• Stickles
• Gold foil (for crown)

Karen's Doodles Challenges have started

Yay! Karen's Doodles now has several challenge blogs up & running. Each blog will be running a different challenge each week. We can enter in all of the challenges but have to make new projects for each. I doubt that I will be able to enter each challenge every week but the stars were aligned this week (in other words, the kids went to bed early) and so I was able to finish up 3 cards! Every card uses a Karen's Doodles image (they are just soooo much fun to colour). I'm entering each into a selection of challenges so make sure to scroll through to the very end.

First up is "I didn't do it". I used the following sketch challenge from Karen's Doodles Challenge - US.

As well, a couple of colour challenges seemed to fit my mood:

• Simon Says Stamp (PCP group) which called for vanilla, brown and teal
• Pile It On Challenge which called for just one colour plus neutrals
• Stampin for the weekend where it's monochromatic week

I used papers from my stash along with a new ribbon that I just bought at Michaels. I wish I'd had some feathers to add but all I could find were some old scraggly seagull feathers that the kids gave me. Instead I added a white puff-ball behind the ribbon to hopefully add the impression of feathers everywhere.

My second card uses "Movie Date" which is one of my favourites.

I used Basic Grey papers and another sketch challenge, this time from Karen's Doodles Challenge - Netherlands.  The other challenges that apply to this card are:

• 
  
  Fab N Funky Challenges for their theme of "weddings"
• 
  
  Cute Card Thursday for their theme of "celebrations"
• 
  
  Saturday Spotlight for their theme of "friendship"

My final card uses a brand-new image from Karen called "Peekaboo". This time I chose a sketch from Simon Says Stamps.

I'm not totally happy with this card as I think the ribbon is too dark a green and the flowers need more volume (I may have to make a trip to Michaels to look for substitutes). And I really had a hard time coming up with a suitable sentiment. I figured this could work as a friendship or encouragement card. The papers are Basic Grey per usual.

• 
  
  Karen's Doodles Challenge - Scandinavian for colours - pink, baby blue, lime green