More quilt inspiration and a speedy, standing little guy

Here are a few pages I did a couple weeks ago but am just now getting around to posting!  I have been so busy the last two weeks.  Charlotte turned 3 last week (which I can't believe) and this 10 month old little guy is all over the place!!!!  He is climbing steps and putting everything imaginable in his mouth.  It's funny because from the time I take these photos, to the time it takes me to make a layout and then get the layout posted on my blog, almost a month can go by!!!  

I first saw Kyler standing in his crib on April 28th.  I knew he had done it before because I had heard him fall, and then there was the incident of the quilt being pulled off the wall.  I don't think the dust bunnies did that....

This was for a challenge at the Cocoa Daisy crop weeks ago and I had to create a grid, use 3 photos, the same stamp 3 times, and three of the same embellishment.

I decided not to center my grid and instead drag it all the way to the corner.  I used different squares for stamping, journaling, and adding paper.  These bright, fantastic papers are from Jillibean Soup.

Another challenge was based on some quilt inspiration.  I think the Priarie Hill line from Pink Paislee has some great, masculine colors.

This onesie that Kyler is wearing says "Speedy" on it.  I love the way his knees are bent in the bottom two photos to show how he is speedin' around. (And since these photo, he is now crawling on his hands and knees!)

These little circle shapes I made by cutting the papers in uneven wedges and then stitching the edges and cutting into a circle.  I also added a circle to the middle and stitched that, too.

We will be leaving in a few weeks to travel to NY state for the summer, so I am trying to get a lot of projects done before we leave!  I hate packing!!!!!!!!!

Celebrating Mom's and Babies with Glitz!

Hello everyone!  A special belated Mother's Day to all you hard working and crafty moms!!!  Audrey here to share my take on this months' challenge.

Since my mom got an iPhone, she takes photos of herself and stuff around her all the time and send them to me to share with my daughter.  So I grabbed one of my favorite photos from my phone and made a page about it!  She is a fantastic mother, but an even better Grandma.  My daughter misses her so (we are 1700 miles apart).  Anyways, I wanted to use some bright girly colors so I went with this palette:

I actually have been using my Cricut a lot lately, and I used it to cut out this lacy pattern from some bright yellow paper from Vintage Blue.  I also really liked the inside shapes, too, so I added them to my page as well.

I added a few dabs of Stickles here and there for some sparkle and this phrase is totally something my mom would say!  :)

I found this wooden word in my stash and misted it to match the papers and stickers.  I just love these teeny alphas, too!

We wouldn't be called "moms" if we didn't have these precious things to make us who we are.  I'm talking about sweet babies!

I also put my Cricut to work on this page, too, cutting out these doilies from an free svg file I found online.  I just resized them and cut three of them to place on my page. A small maroon punched flower and a rhinestone are in the center, and I used some jute twine and wrapped it around the page.

I had a lot of fun layer some of the chipboard stickers, transparencies, and epoxy stickers, too.

And I don't often use premade titles for my pages, but the word "Joli" just seemed to capture my sweet little guys' personality!  I stitched the stickers over one of the small doilies on the edge of the page.

Thanks for joining me today!

Supplies:

"Grandma Talk"

Vintage Blue Toile Paper

Happy Travels Polka Paper

Pretty in Pink Polka Paper

Pretty in Pink Music Paper

Pretty in Pink Paper Layers

Pretty in Pink Peek-a-Boos

Pretty In Pink Teeny Alphas Pink

Pretty in Pink Glitzers

Pretty in Pink Epoxy Stickers

Happy Travels Glitzers Stickers

Happy Travels Giant Rhinestones

Happy Travels Journaling Stickers

French Kiss Epoxy Stickers

"Joli"

Happy Travels Floral Paper

Happy Travels Stripe Paper

Vintage Blue Toile Paper

French Kiss Floral Paper

Happy Travels Paper Layers

French Kiss Layered Cardstock Stickers

Happy Travels Giant Rhinestones

Happy Travels Epoxy Stickers

Happy Travels Peek-a-boos

Pretty in Pink Layered Stickers

Memorable Seasons DT kit ftg Lily Bee Victoria Park

I am so sad that this is my last kit with Memorable Seasons!  :(  I have been on the DT there for a year (and a member a LOT longer) and I really love the message board and the store, too!!!!  I will be sticking around for all the fun things that go on!

This month i got to play with Lily Bee Victoria Park, and this first page is a scraplift of our member of the month, Kasey.  Kasey does a lot of layering and distressing and uses a lot of doilies and flowers, so that is what I went with, too.

This is one of my favorite photos from our trip to see some Bluebonnets back in March.  Charlotte has such a tight squeeze on Kyler and I just love his expression!

The little blue flowers I actually made from the bar code strip that is on the bottom of the patterned papers.

You can't go wrong with accordion flowers.  See those leaf vines?  I cut them freehand.  I love that shade of green.

I distressed each layer of paper and I misted the doily with some light purple shimmer mist to add some more color.  I like working with purple lately!

This next page is actually based on an old sketch from Sketchy Thursdays.  

We made some smoothies with some frozen triple berries and it was REALLY dark cause we used so many.  Charlotte had the greatest smoothie mustache.  She looks like the Joker...

You know how each Lily Bee line has a sheet of stickers with the triangles on them?  Instead of using them for a banner, I used them to create these circle embellies.  But when you line all the edges up, there is a little gap  So I had to cut a snip in the paper and fold it under so you couldn't see the cardstock.  This made them make a little cone shape.  I really like the dimension they give to the page.

I added some accent stitching and a few of the hexagons fussy cut from paper.

Finally, a few weeks ago I shared a mini album of the kids which I ended up sending to my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  I had printed doubles of the photos, so I had to make one for my mom, too.  With bright papers like these, black and white photos work great.

The cover is a little confetti pocket that I made by stitching a transparency to the cover and leaving a little opening to add some tiny punched heart shapes, and then I stitched the opening closed. I love the way the little hearts move inside!!!!

I made a simple little accordion album and put small B&W photos on each page.

Here are some of the individual page shots.  I wanted to keep embellies to a minimum because I wanted this to be something that my mom could tie up and carry in her purse without it being too bulky.

And I had to make a card to go with it, so here is one that I whipped up.  

I love the contrast of a geometric shape like a hexagon with something soft like a flower.

I found these shaped card bases at Michaels in the $1 bin!  There were a few different styles and they came with envelopes, too!   

I am so going to miss Memorable Seasons store!!!  But I will for sure be applying next time around!  :)

Inspiration Elevator

Welcome to Inspiration Elevator!

IE is a group of like minded scrappy friends who want to raise the bar in their own creative process through unique challenges that we issue to each other once a month. These won't be run of the mill challenges and we hope you will join us each month and be inspired by the innovative designs we create.

This is not a blog hop, and there are no prizes, but we would love it if you would take a few minutes to see what the rest of the Inspiration Elevator team created. We are sure you will feel inspired to get creative:

Ann 

Lisa

Audrey

Cathy

Laurel

Christa

Carolyn

Joanne

Laura

Sue

Lisa M

  

The first challenge, issued by Christa, is two-fold: to create a new design that reflects your style, and to use a new product or technique that you find inspiring right now.

So to attack this challenge, I had to think about what is quintessentially me and my style?  My pages usually include:

• patterned paper background
• bright, fun colors
• 2-3 photos of my kids and our daily activities
• machine stitching 
• misting and/or paint splattering
• something on the "edge" of the page
• a strong visual triangle
• using the latest and greatest products

So here is what I came up with using the new Indie Chic line from MME.

At the scrapbooking store where I work, Scrapp'n Savvy" there is an "adopted" orange kitty that is named "Savvy".  Charlotte calls her "Sabby".  It is her favorite thing about going to the store and every orange cat she sees is "Sabby".

These new lines from MME have some AWESOME washi tape which I used here and journaling lines.  I just cut the tape in half length wise to make thinner line.  You can also see my machine stitching and a few pink paint splatters.  Also, I used some GOLD mist from Studio Calico (which is AWESOME) in the background behind the center cluster.

These little banners also come as part of the line, and you can see that I cut a few extra leaves and popped them off the page to give some dimension,  one of the other things that I like to do on my pages!

Well I hope that you stop by every month and get some inspiration and  ideas from all the wonderfully creative people on the Inspiration Elevator team!  

Almost 3

It's true.  On Wednesday, my little girl will be THREE!!!!  How did this happen??  She was just rolling over for the first time yesterday, and drinking from a cup, and taking her first steps down the sidewalk, and saying "mamma", and dancing to The Wiggles...oh gosh I'm getting all choked up!

You may remember these two layouts that i did the past two years.  

From April 2010

From April 2011

And now April 2012

I based the colors on this page from a challenge at Cocoa Daisy a few weekends ago.  I stayed with my layout design except I added the other half of the circle on the side of the page.  The papers and most embellies are from the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan Collection.

I wanted to add a touch of "bling" to this page, so i used from silver paint, stickles on my letters, and I even found some silver metallic thread that I used to stitch around my photo.

I cut the clouds from the Dear Lizzy vellum and layered them on the page.  I love the shade of yellow in this collection and used it for accents here and there.

So Charlotte wanted an Elmo themed birthday, and we are having a very small party this Saturday.  I have been pinning Sesame Street things like crazy!!  :)  I can't wait to share some photos with you!

Misting and white space

In a few weeks I will be teaching a misting class at my LSS and I have been working on some projects that we are going to do in class.  I got a jumpstart on some of the pages that we are going to do during the last Cocoa Daisy crop.  We are going to be using Studio Calico Take Note and lots of SC mists and stencils, along with stencils from The Crafter's Workshop.

I really wanted to use a lot of stencils and some different forms of misting on my page.  I layered the ampersand and the reverse chicken wire stencils and sprayed with green and grey mists.  I love the negative space that a stencil creates.  You can see more negative space layouts at Practical Scrappers on yesterdays post.

Of course there is fussy cutting.  And I wanted a slightly bigger white flower, so I punched some white cardstock with the large lace flower punch I have and backed it with some woodgrain paper and it looks like it came off the same sheet at the others!  You can also see I layered a bit of vellum behind my photo, too.

I love how the corner of this page misted with the chevron and the chicken wire overlapping!  The heart is also from a TCW stencil.

I just finished up a few more layouts that we will be doing in my misting class and I can't wait to show you!