Moxie Fab World - 365 Cards Week - Random Fun Challenge - Button

I am loving the 365 Cards week over at Moxie Fab World and all the fun challenges they are providing us.

The Random Fun challenge was this:
Create a paper crafted card that incorporates a button(s), a mustache(s), or an alcoholic beverage.

Right away I thought of the phrase "Cute as a Button".... and since I have a friend who will be having a little girl in March, I made this girly baby card for her....

I really love this fuzzy button I have. I got it in a 1 lb grab bag of buttons. I used embroidery floss for the tie on the button.

The patterned paper is DCWV The Glitter Stack, and I titled with my Copics (T10).

Thanks for looking, please leave a comment and follow my blog!

Moxie Fab - The Celebrating Hobbies Challenge - National Sewing Month

In honor of the issue of the new 365 Cards book from PaperCrafts, Moxie Fab issued three different challenges in card making.

Now, I don't make cards. I think, prior to this, I have made maybe 3-4 cards MAX.  I just didn't feel that making cards was much fun.

So I wrote down on my challenge log all the card projects and willed myself to submit at least one.

I visited the Quote Garden and got totally inspired.

The first card I made was for the Celebrating Hobbies Challenge.

The challenge is to:
Create a paper crafted card that you could give to someone for National Sewing Month, Book Lovers Day, and/or Camera Day.

You have until Dec 12 so get cracking and play along with me.


National Sewing Month instantly inspired me. I actually have about 5 sketches of different cards I would like to do for this, hopefully I get to them all!

The quote I found was "May your bobbin always be full" (unknown author). I immediately thought of transforming it into a birthday card for my friend (and cake genius) Laura, and since I went to her party on Saturday, it was the first card I completed.

Pretty simple card, but it conveys the message. I cut the "bobbin" out of some plastic packaging material - you know, the rigid stuff. I tried to ink it, etc, but it won't take pigment inks, and it also doesn't take water colored markers :(

Then I wrapped it with some embroidery floss (I love this stuff, got a big pack of it and am using it everywhere) and made the long string coming off. I used a liquid glue... likely not the best choice but it was all I had :)

Finally I hand cut the double layered tag and punched the hole with my Crop a Dile Big Bite. I was going to use an eyelet to affix it.... then I realized I don't have any! Add that to the xmas list lol!

Hope you enjoy, please comment and follow my blog!

Thanks!

2SF Online Crop - Sharon's Challenge

Sharon's challenge over at the 2SF forum was to use blue. Not just blue... specific requirements:

at least 2 different shades of blue cardstock
at least 2 different blue patterned papers
and at least 2 different blue embellishments!

I knew this one would be fairly easy as I have tons of blue everything (although not a lot of blue embellies) and I love blue... To challenge myself I decided I wanted to make it somewhat of a monochromatic page as well...

I went immediately to the Hawaii album and selected a few topics. In the end, the blue Jolee's helicopter embellie sealed the deal.

I've really decided "recipe" challenges like this one and those over at HMITM are my favs :)

So this is what I came up with:

So for two patterened papers I used a "stripe" and a "spot". The spot is DCWV The Glitter Stack. The stripe is out of a holiday stack I have.

For two cardstocks - I used 6. 3 for the large circles, 2 for the flowers to accentuate the title letters on the title, and one for the background (although its debatable if that is a solid or a pattern?)

Finally, my two blue embellies are the helicopter and this glittery button like thing with a map of Hawaii on it.... I might see if I can cut a mini volcano and glue it on the map where the volcano is...

All the embellies are Jolee's and I'm not sure about the sticker letters.


Also - fun fact - this is my first circle based layout I've done without using a sketch. Yay me!


Thanks for looking and please comment and follow!

2SF Online Crop - Joanne's Color Challenge

Ladies... head on over to the Two Scrapbook Friends forum and join in on this fun online crop. The DT and the 2SF themselves each put up a color-based challenge, and all layouts are due Sunday.

Joanne (one of the 2SF) gave us this image:

And instructions to use pink and lime green.

This screamed baby to me... but I couldn't find any suitable baby photos (pink does not go with the orange furniture my mom had lol)... then I decided Hawaii! It feels very Hawaii!

Then I bent over to find my cutter (or maybe to pet Casper) and saw this $4 pack of paper I got on clearance at Michaels... and the whole plan changed!

Then I had to scramble through my stash for lime green and pink papers to match. The pink was easy... but I really didn't think I had lime green. Turns out there was one 12x12 hiding in my pack of 250 colored cardstocks. *phew*

Somehow I'm going to have to find more lime green paper as I have a few more sheets of this chandelier paper to use up..

Then I started stressing about embellies. I was convinced I had nothing in lime green.... so I pulled out my bin of random mini embellies and found the foam flowers and the swirly things. I got discouraged, walked away, and then came back. Went over to the bed to pet Casper (I scrap so much better now that I have him lol) and looked down into the open drawer under the bed and simultaneously saw the container of flowers and the ribbon. Its hard to tell, but the centres on the flowers on the ribbon are lime green.

By then end of my rooting around, I had a large pile (think 2 cups worth) of lime and pink embellies to add to my page!

Clearly this one was meant to be, and now I know I have lots of lime (except paper).

Thanks for looking, and please comment and follow!

HMITM #184 - Mix it Up

This week the challenge at HMITM was not as difficult as the two previous (thank goodness!).

So here's the challenge:
- Eight different patterns, none to match the holiday
- The word 'happy'
- Any holiday picture and embellishments. ( Embellishments can match the holiday)

Now from first glance this seems kind of hard. But I don't really use holiday papers that often (even though I own a ton) so I wasn't too worried.

Once I had this done... I had a revelation:

Everyone (yes, even you) should be doing the HMITM challenges every two weeks!

Why?
Because they are the ultimate stash busters! If you're anything like me you have your stash everywhere... ribbons over here, papers over there... and generally you have too much of one theme (for me it's Hawaii) then you could ever use for the album you originally bought it for.

Plus - my scrap bin is positively overflowing! I use scraps all the time, and try to use up every little bit of my papers so my scrap bin has itty bitty bits, big bits, and even 12x12 pages with only a bit out of them. This challenge was the challenge to empty that bin (well... not empty. but I did use 7 patterned papers out of it).

So here's my LO:

I really don't have many holiday photos. I am really good at celebrating holidays, but I never do with a camera in hand. So all I had was a few photos of random holidays, and these that I took of the kittens on Halloween this year.

I really do suggest kittens, puppies or babies if you're not a photographer. Magically you metamorph into this camera wielding crazy intent on catching all the cute and new things they do. (Last night they caught their first mouse.... forgot to hand hubby the camera for that one :( )

How did I do on the criteria?

Happy - yep! Its in the title

Holiday - yep! Halloween pumpkin carving with the kittens

8 patterned papers - check! Seven in the circle border, one for the strip across the bottom, and a re-use of one of the papers to mat a photo (I used a new 12x12 for that one).

I decided that the challenge said nothing about not using traditional holiday colors.

Top down on the circles:

• Rainbow stripe is from some random old 8x8 pack. I have bits of this paper all over my scrapbooks, as it seems it breeds in my scrap bin - I never run out!
• Gren dotty - I think its from the same pack as the stripes.
• Blue circles - DCWV The Glitter Stack (old!) 8x8 stack
• Yellow with dots - my old favourite, Creative Memories school - this was piece of a journalling card I had cut up a while ago
• Green flowered print - also DCWV The Glitter Stack
• Blue flower dots - no idea. Potentially the same pack as the rainbow stripe and the green dots
• White multicolor dots - my cat pack I have (possibly DCWV or Deja Views). The only non-scrap I used

The stripe is another random paper I picked up at some point and am slowly whittling away the scraps.

The tag is from my Cat pack (it's called Cat's Life or something like that).

Most of the buttons were from a 1 lb button bag I got from Michaels, and the two glittery ones are Recollections.

And here are some detail shots:

Journalling

Stitched Circle Border - not sure where I scraplifted this from... but all I did was cut out 7 circles with my Creative Memories cutters and then used one glue dot in the middle to hold them steady, and stitched down the centre with my machine. I then bent up the edges to give it a bit more texture.

Cat Border - I marked my paper at 1 cm intervals and then drew a centre line on my punch (this doesn't have to be accurate, its just for lining up). I then punched with the lines lined up (not forgetting the 0 cm mark on the edge of the page). If anyone is interested, I can post a tutorial. The punch is a $1.50 cheapie from the bins at Michael's. I really love the extra detail this adds... and I did it all with a cheap punch rather than an expensive border punch!

Not sure how I came up with this - it just came to me. Planning on going home and doing something similar with my tiny heart and flower punches too :)

Hope you all enjoy, and as always, please comment and follow my blog!

Thanks

Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesdays #27

Frosted Designs is a really great challenge blog, with sketch challenges, theme challenges and card sketch challenges.

Their layout challenge is Sketch Along Tuesdays, and here is the sketch for #27:

I thought this was pretty cute and loved the crunched up ribbon trim at the bottom, although I chose to do it a little more tidy (I am an engineer, in case you didn't know. Symmetry is very important to me. Patterns are very important to me. Randomness... not so good at that. Or spontanaiety)

So here is the layout. In my wedding scrapbook there will be several "chapters" where there is a title page to explain whats going on, and then a few pages about same subject with very little journalling or titles. This page is part of the "chapter" about the Bride's Cog - you can see the title page with the whole story about this crazy wedding tradition here.

Orange paper and ribbon is Cosmo Cricket Everafter. Flower is Recollections. Clear sticker is Deja Views. Charm is random. Cardstock is DCWV.

Hope you enjoy!

Sketchy Thursdays 11.3

Sketchy Thursdays brings us another great sketch this week... so get on over there and check it out and join us!

I really liked this sketch and the fun feel of it. I don't have many photos that can be cut down to a small size, so I specifically printed the small photo for this LO. I really thought this was a good sketch to focus on something special - a special moment, a special gift, a special friend, a special tradition.

I finished a layout of the girls getting me ready for the wedding for a Sketch Inspiration challenge you can see here, but purposely left off placing the veil.

My sister called me maybe the Thursday night or even the Friday night before my wedding (either way it was very late) all in a fuss. She is very superstitious - I'm not... I own a black cat lol... and she found this very important superstition - a bride's veil must be placed by a happily married woman...

Not to get into my family dynamic, but my mom was never married and "happily married" actually caused us both to panic a bit... who did we know? No one... what were we going to do?

So we are thinking and thinking and finally we come up with the answer... our cousin's wife, Etta, who, with her family has come all the way from the Orkney Islands for my wedding! Perfect!

In retrospect, the mother of my child attendants would also have been a good choice, but like I said, we were panicked!

I love the intimacy in the larger photo and just the feel overall.

A challenge that has been annoying me over at the Two Scrapbook Friends forum was to use a paper tole technique on a page.I managed to do it here and love the little pop it gave to that orange flower (and I used up a little scrap of paper so bonus points!)

I journalled in silver on a tag and on a Creative Memories flower punch. I also used pearls (left over from my Moxie Fab LO)  to anchor the two tags I used. I didn't have large enough brads (add that to the xmas list!).. but in retrospect I love the pearls on there (good thing I have a whole necklace's worth left!)

Hope you all enjoy and leave some comments... and there's still time for you to get in on the Sketchy fun!