Lovely Flowers Bundle – The End of the Challenge

My journey comes to an end today.

This 20 page scrapbook was quite fun, and occasionally challenging, to make.  The challenge was the discipline to get it done.   I admit, I didn’t quite meet the time portion of the Challenge, but the second aspect – make a scrapbook using the Lovely Flowers Bundle was a success.    I’m very pleased that I was able to incorporate the Designer Series Paper, the new In-Colour papers and ribbons, the rub-ons and the stamps as well as some of our current and retired accessories.

The final layout shows off one of the things we like to do here  – fishing at the point.   As a note, we don’t kiss all our fish, we did this one for the cute shot.   The rub on on the top left says “happiness is”.      The colours worked quite well together.  Her pink hat and the Melon Mambo paper.    The purple flowers and the Rich Razzleberry textured card stock.  The yellow at the center of the daisies and the Crushed Curry textured card stock frame of the purple flowers.  Even the silver brad reflects the shininess on the water.

Well, that’s it.  Thanks for joining me on this week.  I hope you enjoyed the experience and hopefully I’ve inspired you to try something similar.

Now that this is done, it’s time I turn my attention to preparing for Hallowe’en and Christmas – my favourite times of the year!

If you’d like to get the Lovely Flowers Bundle to make your own scrapbook, contact me so I can show you how you can get it for free.

Lovely Bundles Challenge Day 6

My challenge is almost over.    Today’s two spreads are decidedly different from each other and style despite the fact that both have 6 pictures.

For the first one, I assemble pictures taken during a hail storm in June 2009.   My daughter and her friend were playing outside when it hit us.  They sought shelter in her plastic play house.   As you can see, we made a hail man.   I thought it would be fun to contrast the subject matter (cold) with the flowers (warmth).  Again, I used DSP from the Lovely Flowers Bundle.  The bling comes from adding Stampin’Glitter – Fine Cosmo (p 180) onto the word ‘friend’ from the Sticky Cuts Sweet (also p 180).

This next layout is the last one I made, and the one I has most trouble with.   The reason I had trouble, was selecting subject matter.   I really didn’t want to do more flowers, or homes, or wildlife.  I felt I’d already covered that.  So, I thought I’ll take pictures of downtown.   As I did that, I came to the Canal Gallery and thought I’d take a picture of Angelina Wrona’s paintings.  Angelina’s a local artist whose work I am completely enamoured with.     Her work is one that people either love or hate I think.   It doesn’t leave you feeling ambivalent.   That’s when it hit me, don’t take pictures of her paintings, buy some note cards with her paintings on it.  As you can tell, I did.     Note cards that feature nice art are a great way to bring high end art into your scrapbooking.   Don’t be limited to photographs you’ve taken.

The layout is simple with one 12×12 sheet of Designer Series Paper cut in two to bookmark the pages.   I didn’t want an exact mirror layout so I used 2 different In-Colour Ribbons – Dusty Durango and Crushed Curry.

Since I wanted the names of the paintings  and artist on the page, I used the punches to punch the titles, and sometimes her name from the backs of the note cards.   I didn’t want it all to be the same, so I had some fun — occassionally punched with the Large Oval, the Wide Oval, the Scallop Oval, and the Modern Label.    That was some of the most fun I had – I’m a punch addict. I own them all!

Enjoy your day,

My Digital Studio – project #1

Hi – Got home today and My Digital Studio was waiting for me.   Woohoo!

Here’s my first project.  Gosh this was simple to do.

Love it!

Lovely Bundles – Day 5

Today’s layouts are for the birds.

Daily, as I drive to and from Ottawa,  we see these beautiful Osprey.    Apparently Osprey mate for life.   This couple, have had chicks this year – at least 2, maybe three.   We’ve taken many photographs but are careful not to get too close to take them since we don’t want to disrupt them.

My goal with this layout was something simple.   I was starting to be concerned about running out of Designer Series Paper and wanted to have a page that incorporated it, but not too much.  Hence, it’s just two 1.5 inch strips of Crushed Curry designer series paper.    I framed the one picture with Dusty Durango.   I added Designer Brads (p 179) to the page for some visual interest.   The flower is made from the smallest daisy on the Flower, Daisies #2 Bigz Die (p 199).  the title was made using the Stampin’Up Alphabet Simple Letters Bigz Dies (p 198).

My next layout is about birds that are a little closer to home.  Frankly, I wish I had more pictures – but they are really skittish.  As soon as I get outside, they fly away and don’t return until I’m in the sun room.    However, the pictures taken from there are through windows and screens, so don’t look very good.     I think, to get a good shot, I’ll have to camouflage myself   Here we’ve got a blue jay, a finch and woodpecker.  What we don’t have are the bright yellow finches, the cardinals, the times the blue jays

Once again, a simple page.    I used the On board So Tweet chipboard and the rest of the flowers from the Flower, Daisies #2 Bigz Die (p 199).  I centered the flower with a Corduroy Button (p 181).

Have a lovely day,

Lovely Flowers Bundle – Day 4 of my Challenge

Today’s layouts, while side by side, are not actually a 2 page layout so I’m going to describe them separately.     The subject matter of these layouts is our Apple Tree.

In the first layout, you see our apple tree being visited by a deer.  Yes, that’s right, a deer in my yard.  Right outside the bedroom.  It was early morning – we were so excited, it was our first close up deer spotting (other than dinging one with a car) since we moved here 8 years ago.

OK, enough about the subject matter – on to the layout.   As you’ll note (hee hee), I used the Bigz Top Note Die.  You may recall I used this same die earlier in the challenge.   This one is from the same cut – essentially, this is the left overs from the paper I used to make the original Top note.   I like using these remnants as frames.

The apple tree accent is made from left over Designer Series Paper punched with the circle punch for the leaves and the smaller one for the apples.   This layout really does make the most of the Curry In-Colour.

Our next view of the apple tree is when it’s in bloom.   It’s a beautiful 2 weeks in spring.   I accented this layout with the On Board So Tweet (p 185) coloured with Earth Elements Craft Ink.  I like using the Stampin’Spots (p 156) for this.  They are easy to handle and you can apply them to the chipboard rather than the other way around.     The other accent is the circle scallop punch.  I used it to cut a bit of DSP to frame the close up on the bee.    I know, you can’t see is well, in these pictures, but it’s there, pollinating the tree.

Lovely Flowers Bundle – Day 3

My challenge continues…

The inspiration for the first one was a saying on the bundle’s Rub-ons.  It says: “Find joy in the little things.”  My “little thing” is our chipmunk.  I use the expression “our” loosely.  He lives in our yard, we’ve created a very nice environment for him, and he seems to like us.   I suspect it’s the fact we feed him peanuts.    My daughter has named him Chippity.

Because there are many pictures in this layout, the designer series paper was used sparingly.  This is good when you are trying to spread 9 sheets of paper over  20 pages.    Visual accents were created with the Flower Fusion flowers (these colours are retired) and some brads (p179).  The other accent is created using the circle punch to punch out a picture of the Chipitty.   Without the punch, he would have been lost in a sea of green grass.  That’s one of the perks of the punches -  they allow you to focus on the important part of a photo.    Some advice: Never be afraid to cut or punch your pictures.  They usually look better cropped.  And if you don’t like how it turns out after cropping  it really is economical to just print another picture.

Next are some of my favourite homes in Merrickville and a hand-drawn sketch (not by me) of the church down the street.  Whenever I give directions, I use the church as a landmark.  Frankly, there are so many homes I love, it’s hard to pick – consequently, I went with a minimalist approach.

In order to give credit where credit is due, I punched out the name of the artist with the Modern Label punch (p 187).  On the right of the page, I wanted a strip of paper, but because I wanted to keep it simple I didn’t want to use another DSP and I didn’t want to repeat what was already there.   So, I decided to take a strip of Whisper White and stamp alternating flower images from the stamp set that comes with the Lovely Flowers bundle in Chocolate Chip.

Lovely Flowers Bundle Day 2

As you may already know (or will soon realize), my daughter is my muse.  She is the subject of most of my scrapbooking.  Recently, I’ve attempted to broaden my horizons.   This subject matter of this project, as previously noted, is home.    Since she’s a part of that here she is.   Photos were taken in our front yard’s garden.   Obviously not the same year since she’s grown substantially in the photos.

The layout above used the designer papers from the bundle.  I used the Big Shot and the “Top Note” Stampin’Up! Bigz Die.   I love the shape of this die.  It reminds me of curvy brackets.    I used the circle and scalloped circle punches (p 186-187) to add a little dimension and interest to the page.    I also glued some buttons from the Button Latte (p 181) collection and some of the felt flowers from “Flower Fusion” (p 180).  The ribbon is 1/2″ Polka-Dot Grosgrain fin Rich Razzleberry.   I believe that is my favourite of this year’s In-Colours.

The following layout focused on some of my favourite flowers in our garden.  Since it was about flowers, I thought I’d play with White Flowers from the Pretties Kit (page 178).  That kit truly lives up to its name.  I’ve used the pearls to make jewelry and the brads have been on many pages and cards.   If you’re sharp eyed, you’ll see the flowers aren’t white.   I promise, I’m not pulling your leg,  these are the flowers from the Pretties Kit.  They however have been “dyed”.  I tapped the Sponge Daubers (p 192) on the InColour Classic ink pads and then dabbed that colour onto the flowers.  It was really quite simple.   I centred the flowers with Corduroy Buttons (p181).  Some of the colours used are retired.    Also used in this spread: Rub-ons and the Spriral Punch.

Lovely Flowers Bundle

As promised, today I begin showing you the results of my challenge.   The subject matter of my scrapbook is Merrickville.  That’s my home and I thought it was time I scrapbooked it.

Page numbers listed in the description correspond to  page numbers in Stampin’Up!’s 2009-10 Idea Book and Catalogue

Cover / Title Page

This page includes a sample of each of the paper designs.   In addition to a picture taken at an antique shop in the village, I used the curly label punch (p 186) to punch out the “Jewel of the Rideau” and the map showing  how to find Merrickville.  Both were from brochures I got here in town.

This is the first 2-page spread.   I used one of each the chocolate and the white rub  ons that come with the bundle (the flower to the left and the word “lovely” to the right.   I also used the scalloped oval punch (p 187) to punch out the word Merrickville from a brochure.   The ribbon is the grosgrain polka dot in Soft Suede (p182).    I set the vibrant In-colour paper on Going Grey neutral cardstock.

The pictures are (from left to right):  the Merrickville – Wolford sign coming in from Hwy 43, the Ruins of Merrickville, a lock at sunset and the lock house.

Responding to a Challenge

A while ago, a fellow Stampin’Up demonstrator, Jo-Ann Pullen, did a 7 day challenge where she used the Lovely Flowers Bundle (2009-10 Level 3 hostess set).   The Lovely Flowers Bundle includes double sided designer papers (6 designs), a coordinating stamp set and rub-ons.

Jo-Ann’s project  inspired me to try something similar.      I decided to make a 20 page Scrapbook using this bundle, some 12×12 textured In-Colour paper, various accessories and punches.   My intention was to do 9 double 12×12 page spreads + front and back cover over 10 ten days.  I did well for 7 days, then it took me a month to get the rest of it done.

I will post the project a couple page spreads at a time over the next week.     I hope you enjoy the project at much as I enjoyed making it.

Please note that many of the layouts are based on Becky Fleck’s page maps who is always a wonderful source of design inspiration for me.

U Stamp!

Hello world:

I’ve got great news.  I’m FINALLY ready to start holding classes.    You’ll find my first set of offerings on the “U Stamp” page on this site.

If you like one of the classes but can’t attend when it’s scheduled, contact me and we can arrange a private class for you and/or your friends.    Ask me about the perqs of holding your own private class with 5 or more friends.  (oooh, aren’t you just dying to find out what it is?)

Yours in creativity,