Project 12 for June 2012

I'm back with another layout for my Project 12 album. July is almost finished which led me to start thinking about this project, which then led to realize I'd neglected to do my June 2012 layout. Using another sketch from Pagemaps and the Patio Party DSP collection I came up with this.

This is the sketch I used from June's Pagemaps.

Here's a close up of the left hand page. 

And the right hand page. 

As you can see I stamped a tone on tone border on 3 sides of the layout using Flowering Flourishes. I embellished some of the flowers with rhinestones - the last thing I did to finish off this layout!

Again I have used WAY more photos than the sketch called for but to keep them from overwhelming the layout I created a grid pattern and mounted them all onto Whisper White card stock. This left me with just enough journaling space for what I had to say!

Some more close ups for you .. starting with the title.

This technique should be pretty familiar to you all by now. I cut out my title using some leftover chipboard and my Typeset Alphabet die for the Big Shot. I then inked them in Baja Breeze (including inking the edges with my Baja Breeze Stampin' Write marker) and then flooded them with Cyrstal Effects.

The Patio Party DSP collection includes a sheet with lots of different patterns in strips - perfect for creating borders. I liked these banners and had originally left them uncut but felt the layout needed a bit more texture and interest. I got the idea of fussy cutting all the little banner flags out and really love the final look. It was literally a pain to do - my hand was seriously cramping by the end of it - but worth it I think!

To embellish the journaling block I played with the Reason To Smile stamp set (a special right now - see my side bar). It is a double stamp stamp set. This means you get a solid image for each flower plus the outline/detail stamp. I knew I was going to be cutting them out so I wasn't too concerned with stamping within the lines. In fact, I stamped the small blue flowers multiple time which gave them a cool layered look! Once the base colours were stamped I got out the coordinating Stampin' Write markers and added some shading and depth. I also used my blender pen to give it a more realistic look.

A closer look at the back ground stamping.

In this picture you can see the subtle texture that the solid flower stamp have.

Thanks for coming by again today. Do you document each month in any way? If so I'd love to check it out. Please leave me a link in the comments section. Hope you have a wonderful, sunny Tuesday!

Here are your links for products featured in this post.

Patio Party DSP

Flowering Flourishes stamp set

Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die

Reason To Smile stamp set (only $5 with a purchase of $60 ENDS TODAY!)

Stampin' Write markers

Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents

Crystal Effects

Just for the fun of it!

The title really says it all. I wanted to play with one of the new stamp sets from the 2012-13 IBC so I just started stamping and having fun. The stamp set I was playing with was Daydream Medallions. My upline Sandra had featured a card (and this one too) on her blog using this set and it got my creative juices flowing. I wanted to use it on a layout though and here it is.

Usually when I start a layout I know what pictures I'll use but this time I started with the oddest of things ... that scalloped tulle ribbon. I'd created a card using the ribbon to make a flower and had a large piece left over that I though would look cool layered onto a layout. It's Early Espresso in colour which led me to pick the First Edition Specialty DSP, the Crumb Cake card stock base and then the Comfort Cafe DSP pieces. With the basic building blocks in place it was time to hunt for a photo. This one is incredibly blurry as it was taken with someone's cell phone but as it's the only one I have from that night, it's a keeper. 

And then it was time to start stamping.

I started by stamping the largest image onto the blue floral patterned paper in approximately where the corners of the photo would end up. But since it is barely discernible, I took the next size down image and continued stamping up into the top left corner of the layout and down into the bottom right corner. The embellishments were made by stamping more images onto different coloured card stock and using the Floral Frames Framelit dies (which are designed to fit the stamped imaged perfectly) to cut them out.

I popped up some layers using Dimensionals and added rhinestones to the centres for added bling. I also scattered some smaller rhinestones around the embellishment clusters.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture (maybe click on it to make it bigger) but I sprayed the Early Espresso card stock title letters with Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz to give them some added texture.

I had a lot of fun creating this layout and can see many uses for this stamp set - both for layouts and cards! Thanks for stopping by today. Here are your links for the products featured in this post.

Daydream Medallions stamp set
Floral Frames Framelits Dies
Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz
First Edition Specialty DSP
Comfort Cafe DSP
Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents
Early Espresson 3 1/2" Scalloped Tulle Ribbon - available August 1st!

Splatter Birthday Card

My eldest daughter attended a birthday party the other day at 4Cats Art Studio and she needed a card. She'd been to a birthday party at 4Cats before - a Splatter Paint party - so she asked me to make her a very specific kind of card. One with paint splatters on it!
Ever the accommodating mother and always up for a challenge, I got to work. Here's what I came up with.

I used Primrose Petals card stock for the base and Patio Party DSP for the back ground accented by a piece of Lucky Limeade 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon. 

To create the splatter effect I used 5 different colours of Mister Huey's mists by Studio Calico (not a Stampin' Up product obviously but I wanted a more opaque look than Stampin' Up inks could have given me) and simply splashed them randomly onto some scraps of Whisper White card stock. I cut out a flower shape using the Floral Frames Framelits dies and an oval label shape using the Labels Collection Framelits Dies. I then stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment from Delightful Dozen in Rose Red and used one of the mists to paint around the edges of each die cut shape.

Popping up the centre piece adds just enough dimension to keep the card from feeling too flat.

Well, there you have it. Hope you liked this latest card creation!

Here are your links for today:

Lucky Limeade 3/8" Ruffled Ribbon

Primrose Petals card stock from the 2012 - 2014 In Colors Collection

Patio Party DSP

Floral Frames Framelits Dies

Labels Collection Framelits Dies

Delightful Dozen stamp set

A Very Special Card to Share

Today I'm sharing something a bit different with you. A card made by my middle daughter Paige. She is rapidly becoming my "artistic" daughter! She attended a birthday party today and requested that we make a card. The day before my oldest daughter had requested a card for a birthday party SHE was going to (I'll post that tomorrow!) so I assumed Paige wanted me to make the card for her as I had for her sister. But no. She wanted me to cut out the pieces for her so she could put it together.

Here's what she made.

As per request she wanted a blue card (Baja Breeze) with purple #7's (Wisteria Wonder). Then she picked the floral pattern from Twitterpated and asked for the Happy Birthday banner stamp from Patterned Party in pink (Rose Red - I fussy it cut it for her.) The butterfly was left over from my stained glass card and the heart is from my old stash. 

Not bad I think.

But the inside is where she really shone! 

See what I mean? My little artist!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little departure from my usual posts!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Starting Point Layout - Party Monsters

I managed to finish the latest Starting Point Layout this afternoon. If you stopped by earlier today you saw a sneak peak on this post. To see Shimelle's Starting Point post please go here. I am having so much fun with these! I think I like this idea better than a sketch. Gasp! Is that wrong? :) I have my reasons though. Sometimes I find sketches tough if I have more pictures than it shows (not surprisingly this frequently happens to me) or my title and/or journalling don't fit where the sketch suggests putting them, or my embellishments are the wrong size, etc. I know that the whole idea of a sketch is to help with the placement of design elements to make the whole process faster but to be honest, using them almost makes me scrap slower. Maybe it's the rules follower in me that feels the need to actually follow the sketch!! LOL! Whatever the reason, I find Shimelle's starting points freeing. It's like once the background is in place I am free to fit my photos, title, journalling and embellishments where ever I want. Sound crazy? Give it a try and then tell me if I'm crazy or not!!

Anyway, enough rambling. I knew I wanted to play with the new Hallowe'en DSP and when I went hunting for photos I found ones of Marley's first Hallowe'en party. I even had the exact number and sizes of photos that Shimelle had used. It was total kismet!! Here is my finished layout.

And here's a reminder of how I started.

The new papers from Stampin' Up! (Howlstooth and Scaringbone) don't have any red in it but my pictures did so I used my designer discretion to add a block of Real Red to mat the photos onto.

The title was (of course) cut out with my Big Shot using the Typeset Alphabet dies but before I did that I embossed the Tangerine Tango card stock with the new Wood Grain embossing folder. I also lightly brushed  the raised parts with Basic Grey ink.

And then I had a bit of fun. In the soon to be released Holiday Mini Catalogue is a kit to make treat bag labels. It uses a new stamp set called Googly Ghouls and comes with googly eyes. I used the spider and BOOOO images elsewhere on the layout and then came up with the idea of turning the middle of the O into a mummy using the googly eyes and some white bakers twine. Isn't he cute?

Here's a look at the spiders. Also in this picture are some large ink splotches (straight from my re-inker bottle), some smaller ink flecks (using my Aquq painter), a rhinestone that I coloured black with a Sharpie and a red and black stamped butterfly image from Papillon Potpourri. I felt I needed to bring some of that red out from behind the pictures and spread it around a bit.

Well, that's it. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your weekend everyone and here are your links to available products featured on this layout.

Aqua Painter

Typeset Alphabet Bigz Die

Big Shot

Papillon Potpourri stamp set

Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents

White Bakers twine

Shameless Plugging!

I know I have been a bit MIA on the blog but I have been working my butt off behind the scenes. Promise!!

On what, you ask? Well ... cards, layouts, and pricing my stash. Huh? Pricing your stash? That's right. I have a table in the Clipper Street Tailgate Garage Sale this Sunday (PLEASE stop raining!!!) so this is the current scene in my living room  ...

Come on out and scoop up last season's Stampin' Up! products at over 50% off plus TONS of other manufacturers products that need new homes. I have completely culled my stash in an attempt to a) get it under control (I have a serious paper hoarding problem!!) and b) earn some cash to buy myself a Silhouette (no, I did not win the contest ... boo, hoo!) I have a Cuttlebug plus 2 SETS of cutting mats for sale PLUS my Cricut. 


So ... come on out to Clipper Street in Langley (click on the link to get directions) this Sunday July 22nd from 10:30 - 2:00PM. See you there!!


What else is on the agenda? You may have noticed the new box in my side bar for Upcoming Classes and Events. All the orange highlighted dates are dates for classes or drop-in scrap nights. Click on them for more information and to register. Next week I am happy to offer two dates for my new Birthday Cards for Kids Class - Wednesday July 25th and Saturday July 28th in the afternoon. Here's what you could make ...

Also next week is July's Drop-In night (fondly called Vini, Vinum, Partum or I came, I drank wine, I created!) Pre-registration is a must for ALL EVENTS or else you run the risk of no one being home! Don't want to pay by credit card? No problem. Just shoot me an email via the link on my side bar to let me know how many are planning to come and then pay by cash or cheque at the door. 


Also in the works in another Starting Point layout featuring the NEW (as in, not available to the public until August 1st) Hallowe'en line called Howlstooth & Scaringbone DSP.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out ...

I must wrap this up now as it is almost time to pick up the older two girls from Vacation Bible School. They were told to wear their swim suits today but I don't think the leaders meant for them to be swimming in the pouring rain! Sigh. Why can't it just decide to be summer full time already?!?! Christine has missed her sisters this week as she is still too young for VBS (next year!) but she will have them all to herself next week as there are no camps planned. Boy I hope the sun shines all week! Otherwise I may go completely mental! 

Have a great weekend everyone. Remember to pop by my table at the garage sale on Sunday!!

Practical Scrappers Feature - 10 Things to do with Vellum

If you received my newsletter the other day, I hinted that I'd have a project featured on the Practical Scrappers Blog today. I'd love for you to go on over there and check out all the gorgeous cards and layouts my fellow Designer Team members have created. Really truly amazing things can be done with humble vellum!

Here's what I made.

A quick confession before I talk about the Stained Glass Technique ... the large butterfly stamp and the sentiment are NOT Stampin' Up! stamps. I looked for an image I could use with this technique but didn't have anything large enough so I had to dig into my other stash. The butterfly is from an older Martha Stewart (I think) set and the sentiment is Studio AE by Technique Tuesday.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, how do you get this look? It's ridiculously easy (the colouring on the other hand ... let's just say I'm colouring challenged and leave it at that!) First find an image with lot's of white space. Ink it up with Versamark and stamp it onto your vellum. Choose your colour of embossing powder (I chose black to mimic natures own colouring) and heat emboss it. Depending on the quality of your vellum, you may have to be careful at this stage. Stampin' Up! Vellum Paper is really good and did not warp or burn. If your vellum is thinner you may want to use a Staz-On ink instead of embossing it.

Once your embossed image has cooled, flip it over and colour away. To get a more natural gradation in my colours I used the Blender Pen after using my Stampin' Write markers. The Blender Pen is great! Not only can you blend the colours together so you don't get harsh lines, but if you are like me and never learned to colour inside the lines, they even take OFF colour if you need to. Awesome, right? 

I'm not sure if I was able to capture it on film properly, but once your image is coloured and you flip it back over, the embossed lines resemble the lead used in real stained glass windows to separate each individual piece of coloured glass. 

I then mounted my vellum image onto Whisper White card stock and framed it with a piece of Tempting Turquoise patterned paper from the Brights Collection Designer Paper Stacks. The frame was created with the Labels Collection Framelits dies.

As an added embellishment I embossed an image from Papillon Potpourri onto Wisteria Wonder and punched it out with the matching Elegant Butterfly punch. I topped it with a Vintage Faceted Designer Button threaded with some black embroidery floss. I left the tails long to mimic the antennae.

Well, thanks for coming by to see my project today. Hope you liked it. It was a lot of fun to make! Here are your links for today.

Black Stampin' Emboss Powder

Stampin' Write Markers

Brights Collection Designer Paper Stacks

Label Collection Framelits Die

Papillon Potpourri stamp set

Elegant Butterfly punch

Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons

Canada Day Blog Hop Winner

Tara has crunched the numbers and come up with a winner for the Canada Day Blog Hop.


THE WINNER IS: Romaine! 


Please email Tara at creativeaccents@telus.net to get your $20 code to use at creativeaccentsonline.ca :) 

Bonus: Tara is offering ALL OF US a coupon code so we can save 10% in the online store this month. Just use the code CANADA10

Thanks for hopping along with us!

Card Making Canadians Canada Day Blog Hop

Hi there! Thanks for joining us today on this blog hop. We are a small group of Card Making Canadians from all over Canada that wanted to have a fun blog hop to celebrate Canada Day! Today we're sharing with you cards that have been created with either Canadian products, a Canadian theme or Canada's colours! We hope they inspire you! And Happy Birthday Canada!! 145 years young today!


You should have come here from the lovely Chelle's Blog but if you just stumbled upon my blog and want to go back to the beginning of the hop then please go to the Creative Accents blog and follow the links. Be sure to leave a comment as there is a $20 gift certificate to the Creative Accents online store up for grabs - details are at the end of this post.  If you have joined me from Practical Scrappers, welcome. I am so excited to be a new PS designer!!

I have two projects to share with today. The first is a layout (I know, I know, we advertised cards but I'm a layout girl at heart!!) with a very Red, White and Maple Leaf theme!

The journalling is more reflective than normal (I've been working my way through Shimelle Laine's Cover to Cover class and I'm suddenly feeling the need to write down more than I normally would.) It reads: "I was not born in Canada. I moved here with my family in 1981 and became a Canadian Citizen a few years later (1984? '85?) I love being British and I am proudly Canadian! I love that I can be both at the same time and not feel any disloyalty to either party. My daughters ARE Canadian though. Born and bred (so far) and proud of it! We didn't have "British Day" growing up but we were sure to celebrate Canada Day at Fort George park (in Prince George) with different ethnic food vendors, bands, entertainers and lots of good friends, One of the best things about living in a  small town again is discovering similar events that we can attend and that become part of our family traditions. These pictures are from the 2009 Canada Day Pancake Breakfast held in the street in front of the Delta Museum. The food is good, there are always fun bands playing - usually Celtic bands which particularly warm my heart - and if we time it right, we get a yummy strawberry cake made with berries from just down the road.  We make every effort to go every year both to celebrate our country's birthday, and to connect with our community."

Some close ups of the details for you.

The maple leaves are stamped using the two part stamp set called Gently Falling. I used Real Red for the leaves and Basic Gray for the outline. The chipboard letters were cut out with my Big Shot (took a bit of muscle but I love the outcome!) using the Typeset Alphabet die and then coloured using Basic Gray. I added some rhinestones for a bit of sparkle too!

To make sure the sides of the chipboard letters were coloured also, I used my Basic Gray Stampin' Write marker to ink the edges.

The patterned paper you see is from the Designer Series Paper Patterns Stacks in Real Red and Whisper White. These are great pads of paper full of sheets in each colour family and simple, basic designs that can accent any project perfectly.

My next project is (as this hop promised) a card! Another of the fabulous things about living where we live is that during the summer we have a market in the streets of "down town" every other Sunday. Last Sunday was a gorgeous day so we went for a wander. Lo and behold there was a booth (The Old Island Stamp Company) selling stamps!! Canadian made stamps no less. I crossed my fingers and prayed they'd have something I could use to make a truly Canadian card for today. Here it is ...

I purchased a Canada Flag stamp which is stamped in Real Red onto Whisper White card stock and then cut out to create this tiled effect on the card base. 

I used a scrap of Whisper White Organza ribbon to create a bow.

This little maple leaf was the other stamp I purchased which I stamped in Basic Gray and fussy cut. I used Dimensionals to lift it off my card and give it more presence. 

The "congratulations" sentiment was stamped into Versamark then Whisper White Craft ink THEN heat embossed with white embossing powder. I wanted to make sure it was as white as it could be!! 

This card is currently winging its way to my aunt who moved to Canada 12 years ago when she married a Canadian and who just recently (sorry Aunt Moira, I've forgotten exactly when!) got her Canadian Citizenship. I felt the need to send this to her as a reminder of how proud I am that she is now a Canadian too. Truly we are a diverse nation!! Awesome!!

Well, thanks for joining me today. Your next stop on the Hop is Janet. Here is the complete list for you. 

1. Tara Nixon http://creativeaccents.blogspot.com
2. Tracy http://tracystreasures-tracy.blogspot.ca/
3. Barbara G. http://barbscreativecorner.blogspot.ca/
4. Sarah http://scrapsbysarah.blogspot.ca
5. Roxy http://roxyrolla.blogspot.ca
6. Luce Lavertu http://myvintagecat.blogspot.com
7. Chelle http://maybecreative.blogspot.com
8. Alison Day http://adaydesigns.blogspot.ca/ - YOU ARE HERE
9. Janet http://hilltopcreations.blogspot.ca/
10. Donna Whiteman http://yellowdoggreetings.blogspot.ca

Please be sure to leave comments on all the blogs as Tara will be selecting one random comment from one random blog to receive a $20 gift certificate to the new Creative Accents online store!! How awesome is that, eh? (Ha, ha, ha! Had to include it at least once on this Canadian blog post!!)


Here are your product links from today's projects:
Gently Falling stamp set
Big Shot
Typeset Alphabet Die
Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents
Designer Series Paper Patterns Stack - Brights and Neutrals Collections
Whisper White 5/8" Organza Ribbon
Stampin' Dimensionals