Scrap Your Stash BLOG HOP *Practical Scrappers*

Welcome to the Practical Scrappers Scrap Your Stash Blog Hop!  You should have arrived here from Jennifer Haggerty's Blog! A whole bunch of us have gotten together to tackle our mounds and piles of scrap goodness that has been left to the wayside and is collecting dust as new products continually find their way to the front of our scrap desks!

I, personally, have been trying to scrap my stash more and trying NOT to buy as much (but is is SO hard!).  So I try to incorporate a little something from my stash here and there.

But for today, I did an entire page devoted to using my older stash.  It's not new news that I love working with Crate Paper products, so I used up some papers and embellishments from Acorn Ave, The Pier, and Close Knit.

I started by using a stencil and some gesso on the background.  It was a little too white, so I tried wiping it off, and it left a lighter cover, and I was happy with that!  Then I splattered some mists and water colors here and there.

For my page design, I was inspired by a sketch at Skissedilla, and used strips of paper, distressed them, and then stitched them down with a mix of straight and zig zag stitches. Then I used a few other patterns to mat my photos.

The rest was just clustering of embellishments: stickers, chipboard, brads, labels.....all tucked here and there around my photo.

I spent an HOUR looking for the wagon chipboard piece that I KNEW I had seen somewhere before.  And just FYI, if you ever need a wagon, there is one in the Crate Paper Close Knit die cuts (NOT the one on my page), and this chipboard one from Crate Paper Acorn Ave. (and that collection also has one printed on a card and a wood veneer one, too!).

If you would like to see the ENTIRE blog hop list, please go to the Practical Scrappers Blog!

Now you are headed over to Lee-Anne Thornton's Blog!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Muddy Mess!

When the snow starts to melt, we get mud.  Lots of mud.  Why is mud so fun?  I have no idea....but it keeps my kids entertained and I don't mind throwing their clothes in the laundry!  So I let them play!

I don't usually mix and match lines, but I did a LOT on this page!  I used products from the Amy Tan Plus One, Dear Lizzy daydreamer, Crate Paper Styleboard, Studio Calico Lemon Lush and Wanderlust collections!  I love how the background paper looks like rain drops!  That's why I chose it!  :)

For each photo, I just added some bits of paper behind and clusters of embellies on top of each.  I layered vellum, chipboard, die cuts, stickers, and even some wood veneers. Then topped it all with some machine stitching in black.

On my title letters, the black alphas were just too dark, and I wanted them to look more muddy, so I used white ones and stamped them with some grey and brown inks.  And I LOVE those gold foil leaves from Studio Calico!

I kinda like the bright springy colors of this page contrasting with the MUDDY photos!  :)  And there is a lot more mud out there still!  :)  but at least the flowers are starting to poke through in some spots!

Stay scrappy my friends!

We are Perfect Together- *Scrapbook Circle Jan. kit*

When I opened up the January Scrapbook Circle kit, it was like spring hit me right in the face! The colors are so bright and fun, and although many of the papers are from valentine's collections, they are versiatle enough to use for anything, and I love that about kits!

I was drawn to this bright, watercolor print paper from the Basic Grey Fresh Cut collection and thought it would be perfect for some girly photos of Charlotte and I from a wedding in November that we were both in together.  I used sketch #258 from Creative Scrappers that you can see HERE.  I began by splattering the background with white paint, and the white cardstock strip with black paint.

I stuck closely to the sketch, and the squares that weren't photos I wanted to really jazz up a bit.  On this one, I used the January cutting file from the Scrapbook Circle store and wove the metal clip through the holes.  I added a fussy cut heart doily from a piece of Crate Paper and popped another heart from the same paper off of it.

I needed to balance some of the green color that was on the patterned paper, and the Heidi Swapp "Citron" color shine mist was a PERFECT match!  I painted the exclusive SBC wood veneer square white and then misted it with the citron mist.  I added another small doily and the xoxo from a piece of paper.

Finally, I layered some fussy cut flowers and a doily on another square.

And here is a little look at the kit!  What do you think??

Stay scrappy my friends!

I like mine With Sprinkles!

We aren't big birthday cake eaters around here, so for Charlotte's birthday a few weeks ago, we went out for ice cream instead!  The kiddos LOVE to get rainbow sprinkles, and I have to admit that I love them, too!
This page is based off of today's sketch at the My Scraps & More sketch blog, which you can see HERE!

I used the Crate Paper Pier collection which I have been just eating up (pun intended)!   It has these cute little chipboard ice cream pieces, so I used them to help design my page and pick the colors.  And doesn't the background paper just remind you of sprinkles???

Lots of layers of papers and die cuts under my photos, and I used a lot of bits with golf accents cause I just love the shine it gives to the page!  I "sprinkled" some pink enamel dots from MME on the page, too, to go with the flow of the other circle elements on the page.

 I found some circle shaped elements from the chipboard sheet and added in some buttons and pink twine.  I love stitching over chipboard! :)

Are you hungry for some Ice Cream now?  :)  I am!

Stay Scrappy my friends!

Summer Memories

Last week I posted about how much I love the "Lakeside" collection from Pebbles and today I am going to share some more layouts that I made!  My mother in law just had a new dock put in at the camp in the Thousand Islands and it is LONG.  The kids love running up and down it and jumping off of it into the water!  I wanted to use a really big photo to capture the size of the dock.

I used every piece of patterned paper that came in this collection on this page.  With the large photo, I was able to use a lot of the patterns together and still not distract from it.  

I simply cut a whole bunch of strips of paper and distressed them all and started layering them down the sides of the photo.  Then I machine stitched down the edges of my photo.

 I just layered a few simple embellishments and stickers to top it off and kept it simple in that department!

I have a few more from this collection to share in the next few days, so stay tuned!  :)

Stay Scrappy My Friends!

Catching some Waves! Fancy Pants

For the Glitz Designs Blog Hop, please see the previous post HERE.

We just got back from a trip to Florida where we spent some time at the beach!  I have been really itching to start scrapping warmer weather photos, and these Fancy Pants "Down by the Shore" papers were just perfect for my photos!  Charlotte just loves the water, and she was a bit scared of the waves at first, but quickly got over it.

My layout today is based on a sketch I created for the My Scraps & More Sketch-A-Thon.  I rotated the sketch to make the banner pieces look more like flags.

I really layered on the banner pieces, and turned them sideways.  I thought they looked like flags this way.  Each little piece was distressed a bit to add some more texture.

On the background, I wanted to give an feeling of water being splashed, so I used some white modeling paste and some glitter paint with a stencil. Then I splattered with navy and aqua mists.

Only 2 more days for the Sketch-A-Thon!

Hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend!  Stay scrappy my friends!