My favorite projects of 2013

Since it's the last day of 2013, I think it is just appropriate for a crafter like me to look back at all of the projects I've created this year and do the hard task of picking my "favorites". It was definitely a difficult job...but someone's gotta do it. Right? Without further adieu, here are some of my faves from 2013....

This altered Halloween frame that I created as one of my first projects for Paper House was a blast to create. I am known to "save" items for that perfect project and this old picture frame was one of them. Adding some fun Paper House products made this project easy to put together.

Another thing I love to "save" are the negative spaces of papers that I've die cut a shape from. In this card, I used the round opening of the blue cardstock to show off some of my washi tape collection.

In this layout, I recently journaled what I've been feeling all year long. My kids are growing up way too fast and a quick look at how small they were in this photo (which was only from a couple of years ago) made my heart ache a bit. Part of me wants them to always be a child but I know that cannot be. So for now, the photos in this page are ones that I hope to never forget.

Here's another project created for Paper House. My favorite thing about this layout is the title and tabs, thanks to my new die cut machine...the Silhouette Cameo. I love how I can type up anything that I want and it can cut it. No more cartridges for me.

Another Cameo project. This one was my first attempt of using vinyl on a plate. It was no picnic and if you look closely, there are many rips on this project. But I've learned a lot and can't wait to give the next project a go.

Going with my "looking back" theme, I created this page with some random pictures of my daughter through the years. I created this for Die Versions and I love how the new doily die added some sweet subtle elements on this page. 

This layout was another favorite. Can you believe that I've had this layout in mind for over a year before I actually created it? I'm very grateful that I was able to take the whole month of November to jot down things that I'm thankful for and then turning those words into a layout. Here's the evidence of the power of "life documentation".

Here's another layout that is my fave from this year. This one was made for Inspired by Stamping and my favorite part on this layout, besides the images of a future chef (my son) is the bottom paper that I created with multiple inks and a background stamp. Love how I can personalize my pages with the use of stamps.

This card was created for Epiphany Crafts. Hexagons are a big rage right now and I'm so happy with how this one turned out. It had a mixture of punched out papers and ones that had some butterfly stickers added to them before adhering a bubble sticker over it.

This card was created for a GCD Studios blog hop. I love how the papers, die cut borders and buttons jived pretty well together. I'm a sucker for color and this card just makes me happy.

And finally this is a frame that I created for Inspired By Stamping. I used some banner stamps and the quote that keeps me inspired and "creating" when I look at it in my scrapbook room. 

So there you have it. Thank you for stopping by. Did you create some paper projects this year? Were they inspired by something you saw on this blog? If so, please share a link. I believe that we all inspire each other and I am honored that you got something from what I am passionately doing and creating.

Till next time,

Grace

Latest published page.....and the end of an era

Hi there blog friends. Hope you all had a great Christmas with family and friends. We had a quiet Christmas. A different take on this special celebration from the years past. I was a bit homesick but after being able to do so many new traditions with the family that day, it turned out to be one of my most favorite way of celebrating Christmas. 

Speaking of Christmas, have you seen the latest issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine? I am very honored to have had a digital layout published in the Nov/Dec. 2013 issue. 

as seen in the Creating Keepsakes Nov/Dec 2013 issue

This issue of Creating Keepsakes is a bit bittersweet for me. In one hand, I'm honored to be part of their final print issue and on the other hand, I am very sad that indeed, this is the end of an era; the era of having print magazines geared specifically for scrapbooking has come to a close. A few months back, CK had made the announcement that they were no longer going to offer their magazine in print, rather they were teaming up with sister magazine Paper Crafts to create a new digital only magazine starting Jan. 2014. It will include all sorts of papercrafting projects and ideas like cards, layouts and altered items.

I feel like this whole industry is shifting to a direction that I'm not totally ready to follow. I'm still a "traditional" type of scrapper and love learning about products, seeing new techniques and gathering inspiration from flipping through a magazine. I will miss folding the bottom of the pages so I can "bookmark" ideas and layouts that I would like to scrap lift. I don't have anymore magazines to take to doctors appointment, the park, or anywhere I will have to be waiting on something or someone. I know that change is inevitable, but I'm still on the fence on this one.

What about you? What's your thoughts on this? I'm curious. Maybe if most of us speak loud, there might be a resurgence to "the way things were".

One could hope!

Till next time,
Grace

Die Versions December Release Projects

Today I’m sharing a couple of projects featuring some of the dies released this month from Die Versions. I know that we are still in the middle of our Holiday season but it’s not that early to start grabbing inspirations for our next holiday which is Valentine’s Day.

Je t’aime card

Size: 4 ¼ x 5 ½”

Featuring:

Je T’aime- Sweet Spots (DVSS-064)

Winged heart- Sweet Petites (DVP-104)

One of my favorite things to do with die cuts is to layer them on top of each other. Creating the die cuts with cardstock also allows me to add some texture to them by running it through my die cut machine with an embossing folder.

Love Her Thru the Years layout

Size: 12x 12

Featuring:

Winged heart- Sweet Petites (DVP-104)

Hearts Background- Whispers (DVW-306)

Love doily- Whispers (DVW-307)

Adding the intricate “hearts background” die cut and love doily makes this layout very dainty, something that I associate with my daughter. Cutting the love doily in half gave me more mileage out of my die cuts. I also used it to balance my page out.

Thank you for stopping by. I wish you an inspirational day and make sure you check out this and other fantastic dies released by Die Versions here. 

Till next time,

Grace 

New Christmas decorations with the Silhouette Cameo

Every year I try to add something handmade to my growing collection of Christmas decorations. This year I decided to use my Silhouette Cameo to make some fun items with vinyl and masking techniques. 

Joy Pillowcase

One of my favorite things to do when I'm at Hobby Lobby is to check the remnant or scrap rolls of fabric. It's usually at the back of the store. Because these fabric pieces are not enough to complete a yard, they're usually at a discounted price. Anyways, this year, I was able to score some plain canvas fabrics. I love the thick and durable texture of these pieces. I decided to make them into pillowcases.
For this first one, I got this image from the Silhouette store, cut it out on a vinyl sheet and placed the negative parts of the cut on my fabric. I didn't want this to look so "Christmas-y" so I used a pink paint.
*For my acrylic paints, I add a fabric medium to them so that they can be used for fabrics and that paint doesn't come off when I wash the pillowcase.

Merry Christmas pillow case

This one used a similar technique, cutting the image on vinyl from the Silhouette Cameo and painting the inside parts of the cut. I used green as my paint and used red buttons to add dimension and design to my tree. I gotta tell you though, that the vinyl is pretty tricky to work with. It takes a lot of patience to transfer the image onto the pillow without ripping the vinyl or getting it stuck together. It was definitely a challenge!

Joy Plate

So I didn't let my vinyl cuts go to waste. If you remember my first pillow, I used the positive cuts of that image and transferred it onto a plate. I got this plate at Goodwill for less than $3. I actually had this for about a year now and was just waiting for the right image to add to it. This "joy" ornament cut was super cute and I couldn't resist. The beauty about vinyl is that when I'm tired of this image, I can simply peel off the image and I have a fresh new plain plate to dress up.

So there you have it. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you get to create something fun and festive for your home this Holiday season.

Till next time,
Grace

Season's Greetings card *Inspired by Stamping*

Hi there friends. I'm starting off this week with a card for the latest Sketch Saturday challenge in mind. We were to choose from the previous sketches and I chose this one...

Season's Greetings card

I made this project with some Christmas products I had on hand plus Inspired by Stamping stamps and flowers.

I used this stamp set for my sentiment. I embossed it with gold powder to make it stand out better. I also like the texture that embossing gives to the piece. I gave my plain canvas some more color and pattern by stamping this stamp image on it. I used some flowers from the store as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

Till next time,
Grace

Congratulations on your new home card *Inspired By Stamping*

Hello friends. Today I'm featuring a card I created recently for Inspired By Stamping, featuring the blog candy for this week. For more info on this, check out the Inspired by Stamping blog here. 

Congratulations on your new home card

I love the Fancy Label dies II. It is perfect in layering papers over each other. I decided to heat emboss the title of my card on the green paper to make it stand out better. I just so happen to have some pattern paper with house prints on them so I added that in the card to match the theme.

Supplies Used:
Fancy Label Die II- Inspired By Stamping
Big Congrats- Inspired By Stamping
Others- Cardstock, Pattern paper, Rhinestones, Black Pen, Circle Punch and Adhesive.

Thanks for stopping by,
Grace

Have a Merry Christmas card *Inspired By Stamping*

Hi there friends. Two post today from me. Wow, that's very rare and to think I'm supposed to be doing school work today. ha! Well a little creative time doesn't hurt anyone, right?

Well today's post is a card that I'm submitting to the latest challenge for ABC Christmas challenge blog. The theme of the challenge was to create your own embellishment and I used an IBS sentiment stamp and some flowers to create my own holiday "bell". 

Have a Merry Christmas card

I wanted to customize my background so I used this IBS stamp to create my music notes paper background. I then added some whites and light colored accents to create a balance in my card.

So there you have it. Hope this helped you get ideas for your next project.

Till next time,
Grace

Our gingerbread house this year...

Decorating a gingerbread house is one of our favorite holiday traditions. Here's a look at our gingerbread house in 2009 and in 2011. There have been years where I would post them on the blog and some that I don't get around to it but we do this activity every December. This year we bought our kit at Costco. We can't seem to find a pack that doesn't have the house already put together. I looked at Walmart, Costco and even Bed, Bath and Beyond. 

Anyways, this year we did as our activity for Family Home Evening (weekly family night). I took pictures while Mitch put the frosting on the house and the kids placed the candies over them. 

This particular kit had some red fondant which I rolled out and cut into squares to be part of the roof shingles. The kids' couldn't wait to dive into the leftover fondant. We were trying to pattern our house from one of the samples on the box.

Here's the finished house...

Mitch did a great job adding the frosting while the kids added the candies. This kit had a premade wreath which was super cute hanging on the front of the house.

The kit even had some gingerbread man and one Christmas tree cookie and each of us got to decorate that as well.

 

All in all, it's been a good activity. Now the problem is to keep the kids from trying to nibble onto the house. They are already pestering us and asking every single day when they can eat their gingerbread man and house. Let's see how long they can resist. :)

Till next time,
Grace

Back to Basics Part 2

Thank your for stopping by today. Today I'm sharing the other 2 layouts and one card that I created with my "back to basics" kit that I've put together. The products are all from my stash and these are memories that were itching to be documented....

Mother's Day Gifts

I cannot keep every cute handmade card or project that my children create. There is just not enough room in the house to store them all. That's why sometimes, I like to photograph certain things, in this case gifts, that I receive so I can have a visual reminder of them without having to hold on to the actual handmade item.

For this layout, I decided to layer two cardstock pieces as my foundation, build my images in the center and then add embellishments and journaling on the edges of the page. I love how the title still stood out against the busyness of the images. I did notice that the pattern paper where I was going to put part of my title was a bit busy, so I added a strip of vellum over it first before adding the word "gifts". 

I decided to use typed journaling for this layout. I think with the flourishes and mist splatter, the journaling needed to be more structured.

Staying In Shape

It's been a while since I've created a layout on an 8 1/2 x 11" spread. This single 3x5 photo was yearning for a smaller canvas. I've always been inspired by all the layouts that I see that have layers of pattern paper behind the image. I wanted to try it and so I used three patter papers and one journaling block to create that "look".

I love combining two different fonts for my title. It gives it more personality and the script and san serif  style works well together.

I love this honeycomb stamp from Pink Paislee. It's so fun to build together.

Here's the Scoop card

For this card, I used some more of the fun stamps from Pink Paislee, papers from the Ready, Set, go line and other embellishments.

I copied the circle accent that I had use for my first layout as a design element in this project. I even layered them to make more use of my papers. The chipboard butterfly inked in black also gives this card a more sophisticated look.

So there you have it.

Here's the supply list again...
Cardstock- KI Memories; Pattern paper- 6x6 Pad, Ready Set Go, American Crafts; Journaling blocks-Lily Bee Design; Letter stickers- Thickers, American Crafts; Butterfly chipboards- Heidi Swapp; Stamps- Pink Paislee; Inks- Tsukineko, American Crafts, ColorBox; Epoxy dots- My Mind's Eye; Flourish black stickers- KI Memories; Pen- Millennium, Zig; Mist- Heidi Swapp; Thread- Coats and Clark, Sewing Machine- Kenmore; Adhesives- SEI, Thermoweb.

Thank you for joining me as I shared my journey into getting back to why I love scrapbooking. I hope my projects have inspired you to get back into documenting and playing with the products you already have on hand.

till next time,
Grace

Documenting December, 2013 version

Last year I decided to try my hand on documenting the whole month of December in a mini called "December Daily". You can find my finished project in the blog post here. 

I recently pulled that book out to display in my front room as part of my "Christmas" decorations this year and as I flipped through the pages of that mini album, I was reminded of the many things we did to celebrate the season. It was fun looking back and that made me feel excited about this year's album. I created the foundations of my book this year here. Everyday I try to photograph something that visually represents that day. Here are some of the images I've captured so far....

December 1- We got our Christmas decorations up early this year cause I was asked to host part of our Relief Society's progressive dinner this year (Relief Society is the women's organization of our church). I was so proud of the kids as they decorated the tree this year. They did a fantastic job making sure that all the ornaments were spread out evenly on the tree. 

December 2- We decorated our gingerbread house for FHE (Family Home Evening) tonight. We seem to have a hard time finding a kit that does not have the house pre-built already. Anyways, I took more photos of this activity and will post that later this week. This is one of my kids' favorite things to do for the holidays.

December 3- We received our first Christmas card this year. It was from a scrappy friend. I just getting holiday greetings from friends and family and I can't wait till our card holder starts to get filled up.

December 4- I was asked to host part of the Relief Society's progressive dinner this year. I had 9 guests lined up to have dinner with me, then we were all to drive to another sisters house and have dessert there. Unfortunately with the bad snow that we got on this day, it was cancelled. Even though the dinner didn't pan out, I still wanted to photograph the table setting and will add this to my December daily album.

So that's how our December is shaping up to be. I hope that you will find sometime to document this season. It's definitely one of my favorite months of the year.

Till next time,
Grace