Snow Angels

This layout was inspired by this month's page map. I used two sheets of the Falling Snow paper from the Traditions line to make this layout. The cream colored side is my background paper and the blue side is a block I used as a single mat to pull my photos together. My title was really fun to design. I love the look of different lettering in a title and decided to do that here. "Snow" is done in Lush chipboard alphabet stickers by My Mind's Eye. Love these letters, this is my third set and they never gets old. "Angels" is done in Mini Market Stickers by October Afternoon. I always pick up these sheets of little lettering. They are great for adding subtitles to pages, highlighting certain letters in journaling, adding initials to layouts, that sort of thing. They are also really nifty when used as part of the main title, like I did here. I embellished the page with some fun snow flake stickers from my stash and a large chipboard snow flake that I misted. I added some swirly bling to complete the layout.

Sketchability

The wonderful thing about sketches is sketches are wonderful things! And really they are wonderful things. Especially when you are stuck in a rut and just need to get something scrapped! :)

This month's sketch had placeholders for a large item, smaller item, large embellishment and several strips of paper or whatever you want to use.


I decided to flip the sketch 180 degrees and substitute a large title for the large embellishment. The dark teal of the Dear Lizzy letter stickers was a perfect match, and much prettier than a black or brown. I used strips of patterned paper and lengths of this soft and fuzzy trim that I found at ScrapbooksPlus. I trimmed my strips down a bit and matted everything on brown cardstock.

A few Prima blossoms, bits of ribbon, and some beads strung with baker's twine on a Karen Foster clip finish it off.

thanks for stopping by!

erin

Paper Tree Decoration

I'd been seeing paper trees in several of the scrap magazines and decided to try my hand at one.

I grabbed an oval punch and went to town punching circles in all of my scraps. After the ovals were done I inked the edges and gave them a slight flare with my fingers. The base of this tree is a thick chipboard and I glued the ovals with mod podge. Once I had covered the tree I gave it a couple of good sprays with pearl glimmer mist for a subtle, yet shiny finish.

This is quick and fairly easy project to make at home. One thing I discovered was as I got towards the top of the tree I had to cut the tops of the ovals into a point so that there was less overlap of the paper. It just glued better that way.

Make and Take - Anna Griffin Christmas

Seasons Greetings! This is my last make and take for 2010! Can you believe how fast the time has flown? I have truly enjoyed creating fun and elegant two page design for you this year. The make and take for todayfeatures the beautiful Christmas collection from Anna Griffin. I have included step by step instructions along with color photo and free elements. Your free elements include the green scalloped strip you see in the photo above, a journaling square pattern and two photo corners.

Enjoy!

Robin

Snow Day by Esther

Falling Snow from Fancy Pants' Tradition group is the base for this one page lay out of the snow pictures of 2003. The pictures were mounted on white cardstock to emphasis the white snow. The Crop-a-dile Corner Chomper was used to round the corners.

The title letters are red Basic Grey Jovial mini mono stickers for contrast. Snowflakes are the obivious design to pair with the pictures for this layout. The blue cardstock was shaped to show the affect of snow blown in to the landscape. Curves are at top and bottom. Journaling was done on the computer and printed on white to layer on a tag.

We have enough snow this year to make many more layouts with the snow theme. This group of cardstock designs is still availalbe at Scrapbooks Plus.

Please see the image on the Design Team Blog at www.Scrapbooks-plus.com site on the Wall in my display. Happy New Year!

Santa

What fantastic papers from the Fancy Pants Tradition collection. The clean crisp palette gives you great versatility for your craft projects.

I used the ornament transparencies from the collection to accent the ornaments on the patterned paper. I found that overlapping the two make for a terrific effect. The title die cuts are from My Mind’s Eye. I used foam squares to adhere each letter. The collection also features a variety of journaling blocks and sentiments. I used a curved design which included journaling space at the bottom. This will allow baby Sarah’s mom to journaling about her first visit with the man in red!

Thanks for joining me today.

Robin

ANDREW

I love how this "Andrew" page turned out. Even though it is not a "Holiday" picture I love how the pictures of my middle son pop on the "Finishing Touch" paper.

For the title I used Candy Apple Glimmer Mist sprayed on chipboard letters. I placed the letters on gold ribbon from Scrapbooksplus. I mounted the black and white picture on cardstock and placed it on my layout. I used a Maya Road envelope to hide my journaling. The journaling is on a Teresa Collins journaling card from her NOEL collection. I used a gold leafing pen all around all my edges. I ran the envelope through my Cuttlebug using a Tim Holtz Texture Fade. The ribbons on the bottom are more of the rose ribbon from Scrapbooksplus. I love this ribbon - I think I own it in every color! It is so versatile - even on "boy pages". TFL.

Christmas Mini Book by Esther

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season. Have the photos been printed yet?

The scraps from the December kit were used to make this mini booklet for my Christmas photos. Chipboard shapes were shaped for the pages & covers. Punch the holes first, ink the edges and cover the sides with cardstock. Use a knife to trim edges after each dries thoroughly for smooth finishing.

The inside pages were varied by using found pieces of acrylic to decorate with the small pieces of cardstock and stickers. These will be used for journaling blocks.

Tags, stickers and strips of cardstock decorate the other pages. Ribbons were tied to gold rings for assembly. This is ready for my Christmas photos. I'm printing them now.

My First Christmas

This page was so much fun 'to create with this month's Tradition paper by Fancy Pants. I used the photos of my granddaughters first Christmas. Just smiling, sleeping and sitting on every ones laps. I love the transparencies that came with this kit. I cut out the tree and popped it with pop up dots to give it dimension I also did the same with the packages but cut them individually to make the element more real. I used pattern paper strips at the top and used Fiskars border punches to help enhance them. I also added some bling. I finished the layout with pinkpaislee green and red glitter letters. Both are sold at ScrapbooksPlus.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Weather Outside....

I took a zillion pics during the blizzard of 2010 & this beautiful fancy pants paper was perfect-except I am a glimmer mist addict so I did have to spritz, somewhat. Page1. I sprayed the top of the title page with GMist using a Basic Grey doilie as a stencil. Cutting snow flakes with cricut & spraying with different blue G.Mists & painting on G.Glam. The letters were cut using cricuts wonderland cartridge, stamped with StazOn & covered with glossy accents to give the epoxy look. I assembled the snow flakes with Prima centers & brads, a bit of bling. Than a journal tag was added to the edge of the photo.

Page 2: I sprayed g.mist on a snow flake border punch cut out & used it as a stencil, adding a little bling. Using the negative snow flake paper leftover from the previous page I sprayed some snow flakes. I cut a snowman using T/Hotlz's alterations from grunge board & painted it with picket fence crackle paint. Letting the paint dry & adding icicle stickles gave it a super shimmery snow look. A cut ribbon with a charm for a scarf & added a string of beads. I also glued beads from the ArtC collection at ScrapbooksPlus, along the edge of Frosty.

Spots of crackle paint were randomly splotted to look like snow. Finally the photos were matted with some of the paper line & a heart quote from the sticker set was added. Come check out the design team wall to see all the fun bling we used this month! Merry Christmas to all & to all a good night!

Celebrating Winter

A few years ago, Becky Higgins had a fabulous layout that I believe was titled "Seeing Red." It documented all of the red things that she brought out and enjoyed during the holiday season. Ever since that layout, I've put some effort into focusing on the little things that catch my eye and make me stop. And last winter, in the middle of blizzard number two, these icicles on my front door did just that.


I sanded the edge of my photo and matted it on Stripe-n-Scallop paper from the Traditions line from Fancy Pants. I carefully edge-punched it so that the edges matched up on either side. A second mat of the reverse of Finishing Touch brings out the red of the berries. I used the red Basic Grey letter stickers for "winter" and sprayed them with Glimmer Mist to tone them down a bit (I used Simply Khaki... but the new gold or silver would probably work just as well). I soaked them a little bit too much and if I had to do it again I'd just use some distress ink instead. This time around I had to add glue since the adhesive separated from all of the liquid. Oops! I tucked the ornament swirl from the glitter cuts transparency sheet under the edge of the mats so that only the flourish extended out. I hand traced "welcome" and added a little journaling frame to finish it off.

thanks for stopping by!
erin

Wednesday-Joy-MITI

This weeks make'n take has places for photos & your Christmas cards, with a large pocket to store them. The theme is Christmas & the paper is from the stunning Creative Imaginations line. This line also has die cuts & epoxy stickers so you will have a lot to play with! Perfect for your favorite Christmas photo. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Quick Christmas Cards

The Cards paper from Fancy Pants Tradition line is a must have. The paper has two sides, the brown distressed side which can be used as a base for any project and the printed side which has several different cards printed on the same sheet. The cards can be cut apart and are very versatile. They can be turned into tags or an embellishment for a layout. They can also be used throughout a mini album to create a cohesive flow through the project.

Here I used some of the cards to make these quick little Christmas cards. In the upper left corner of the Cards paper I found this HO HO HO card. I cut it out and backed it with the green side of Trim a Tree and then backed that with the striped side of the Shimmer paper. My favorite detail in this design is the little red buttons I added as the O's.



This card was made using Trim a Tree as a base for the project. I then chose this fun Christmas Tree card for my focal point of the card. The border of this card is a smaller version of the same stripe found on Stripe and Scallop so I used a small square of the striped side of this paper in the upper left corner. And before I added my Christmas Tree embellishment to the card I used a paper distressing tool to rough up the edges a bit.

I tucked the rest of the cards in my Christmas stash and I am sure I'll use them up quickly!

Angel Card

I really liked this month's kit & had illusions of making a mini album & more than one card but time got away from me so this is my 1 little card. I cut the paper from the Fancy Pants kit & heat embossed the angel with gold & silver metallic powder. I love stamps and I really like the "pop" that embossing gives them. Using red card stock more stamped images were embossed along the edges of the borders. I added some bling to the ornaments. A piece of metal was run through a THoltz's texture fade & alcohol inked than added to the card with the tiny attacher.
Peace for your family this holiday season.

Cards!

This month I went a bit crazy making cards. Not only was the Fancy Pants paper really suited to making cards, but I had all this new Tim Holtz goodness that screamed to be used.

For my first card, I used two layers of ribbon to divide the patterned paper, then added a couple of stacked snowflakes. And sticking out of the snowflakes is a ticket made with a Tim Holtz stamp and attached by a memo pin.


I wanted to make the ornaments in the paper pop, so I used a piece of a Basic Grey sticker border to "attach" the ornaments to the tree. I also outlined the ornaments with Ranger's enamel accents and added a stamped message.


This card has one of my new favorite things - the reindeer die. I inked my reindeer then coated him with rock candy stickles before tying him up with baker's twine and a few bells.

For my last card I used a Kaiser wooden accent that I inked, as well as a Spellbinders die to make the poinsettia.

NOEL

For this two page layout I used two sheets of the Christmas tree paper to create my tree. Like Megan & Robin, I felt like the tree needed more to really stand out. I cut out one tree, sprayed it with Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist, let it dry and then used various colors of Stickles to add more shine. I also used different Christmas brads bought over the years from Scrapbooksplus on my tree. Once this was all dry I placed one tree on top of the other with pop dots and then used Ruby Red Stickles on the "Believe" and green Stickles on the edges of the tree. I used Gold Shimmer Stickles on the star.

I used the new Tim Holtz Lavish Trimmings rose ribbon and colored it with Candy Apple Glimmer Mist. For the gold ribbon underneath the rose ribbons I used the Lavish plain ribbon and I painted it with gold paint and then used Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist on top.

The NOEL banner was cut using my Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge.

For page two I cut apart the strips and placed the red swirl on the bottom of my page. I used a pearl paint pen to highlight the swirls. I used my Ali Edwards Technique Tuesday stamps, from ScrapbooksPlus to stamp "The Most Wonderful Story" on the bottom. I again used my Tim Holtz rosette die for the rosette in the middle of the page.

I have been taking these Santa Hat pictures of these two since they were babies. I love how they cooperate and I love how they come up with the different poses. Happy Holidays to you all and TFL.

Joy

This is actually a scraplift from myself. lol. I loved the trees I created for layout last Christmas and decided to bring them back this year. I created the tree design by cutting two triangles using green cardstock. Then I ran the trees through my Cuttlebug using the Cuttlebug A2 Embossing Folder-Birds & Swirls. I chalked the embossed images using while chalk ink. I added stickles on top of the embossed berries.

I punched circles to create this scalloped border.  I used a white opaque pen to add interest to each circle. 

The tree top decoration was created using my Cricut Home Accents cartridge. I have always loved this design and it is still one of my favorites. Layering papers and patterns will give your projects depth and interest.

Thanks for joining me today.

Robin

Christmas Eve in Washington!

The Tradition paper by Fancy Pants is so colorful. I matted this pattern paper with a solid red sheet from this paper line. Then I added one of the pretty transparency tree ornaments. I added a piece of ribbon at the top of the ornament to finish it off. I changed the photos to black and white for this layout. I thought it made them pop on this pretty blue background paper. The White House Christmas ornament that year (2009) just happened to be the White House in different color blues. It worked perfect on this paper. To make the 3 black and white photos pop, I matted the left side of them with the red and white candy cane paper. I used a Fiskars bracket border punch to enhance the paper.

Christmas Past by Esther

Try to work with a dominate shape on your layouts by using it as the feature. The dominate design for this Fancy Pants cardstock, Tradition Strips, was the red shape. Since there were two pieces, I used them in opposite directions to connect in the middle. They were hand cut and placed at the top. The base cardstock is Finishing Touch.

Ribbon was adhered to the top of both sides. A red strip is on the bottom portion for balance. Pictures with rounded corners were mounted on red Bazzill cardstock for a look of unify. White sprinkles of glitter were added for glitz. Journaling blocks printed on photo paper and mounted on tan cardstock die cut ornaments for contrast.

Your family traditions are a part of family history. Scrap them so younger generations can see the past. It may look overdone but this is a lay out showing past traditions in my family's celebration of Christmas. The white tree had a vast life of different decorations over the years.

Holiday Treats

If you're like me, you spend the majority of your time scrapping your children. And not appearing in the photos (because 1) you're taking them and 2) you hate pictures of yourself). But you don't have to include a photo to scrap about yourself!

For example, one of my favorite treats are the seasonal drinks at Starbucks. I live for the eggnog lattes. Seriously. And Starbucks always has such cute holiday cup designs that just happen to match well with the Fancy Pants paper.

For this layout in addition to the Fancy Pants paper, I decided to play with some of my new Tim Holtz goodies from the store. I used his Alterations dies to cut the tree, the frame, the ticket and the rosette. The stamp on the ticket is also Tim Holtz.

Making the rosette is quick and easy. You can use any cutting machine. I run all of these through my cuttlebug. The die cuts and perforates the paper so it's a breeze to fold. You do need to use a strong glue, such as glossy accents or zip dry to hold it together. After applying the glue and the middle circle, be sure to hold the rosette for a good minute or two before letting go.

Wednesday's - Winter Season - MITI

It's that time again - the Winter Season!! So let's do a cheery, colorful wintry layout for this Wednesday - December 15th, Make It Take It. You will love working with the 3 dimensional ribbon, the great letter stickers and cute snow flakes. You can finish it off with a "free" journaling element. So come in and have fun making this adorable layout. I am sure you have wonderful photos to complete the page.

Christmas Card

The pattern paper in this month's Fancy Pants - Tradition paper line was so pretty. The pattern itself was so intricate and pretty, that it was very easy to make a fast Christmas card. I measured out the size I wanted around the design on this paper. I added a tree ornament transparency and the Happy Holidays greeting that also comes with the paper line. To add some texture and dimension, I added the ribbon to the top of the tree ornament and some red bling here and there on the paper. If you are chose a pretty pattern paper, you can make a card in no time. ScrapbooksPlus also has so many embellishments to add to your holiday cards. Stop by the store soon and check out all the new holiday products.

Sparkles and Stars

Although I'm a big fan of red and green, the soft blue papers in the Fancy Pants "Tradition" line really called to me. Out of all my layouts, only one didn't use the blue papers. For this layout I used two sheets of the reverse of Strips which made me think of a winter snowstorm. I cut a strip from the reverse of Cards and used an edge punch to give it a bracket-shaped edging. I cut one of the little tags from the front of Cards and used it as my journaling box.

I accented the layout with Holiday Dazzlers in star shapes from Petaloo and lots of bling. I used a couple of templates - one from Bazzil and one from Imaginisce - to make the flourishes. I didn't have enough of any one brand of bling... so I used some of the new heat-set jewels from Imaginisce as well as some self-adhesive bling from Kaisercraft and Bazzil. They are not exact matches... but they are close enough! The title is from Dear Lizzy... LOVE those letters - and there are lots of them in the package. :)

As a final touch on the layout, I used a Jen Starr technique and swiped Tim Holtz crackle paint in Picket Fence all around the edges. I painted it on after gluing the papers in place. I made sure not to run any adhesive close to the edges, then I took a scrap of paper and slid it under the edge of the paper I was painting. Between the large paint brush built into the lid and the extra paint on the scrap paper, I ended up getting some paint under the edges. As it dried, it curled the edges up a bit and I really like the effect.

thanks for stopping by!
erin

Family

I love this picture of my family. It is one where everyone looks great. It was taken at our Christmas dinner last year. Calm among the storm. I kept the layout simple to showcase the photo. I like the textured look of this fancy pants paper. I added some of the ornament transparencies & a journal tag from the line. Using glimmer mist to paint the kaiser craft wood, holly, swirl added a nice shimmer. The mat is inked & border punched. I added flowers that I bought from ScrapbooksPlus.

JOY!!

The Traditions line by Fancy Pants was so much fun to work with. For this project I covered the letters JOY with various papers from the line. On the "J" I used green floral ribbon (I love this ribbon - I have it in every color from Scrapbooksplus). I also used a frame from a Tattered Angel letter and painted it with Private Meadow Glitter Glam. I put the blue heart on pop dots and then added snowflakes I found at Scrapbooksplus.

For the "O" I used my Tim Holtz rosette die - love it. I have used that on so many projects. I used Christmas Red Stickles on the edges of my rosettes and then placed the Fancy Pants Tradition stickers on the rosettes.

For the "Y" I rubbed Pantina Stickles all over the top of the "Y" for a different kind of look. I used a Heidi Swapp "bauble" from my stash and anchored it to the "Y" with wire.

This was a fun, quick and easy project. TFL.

Santa's Lap

I designed this layout specifically to incorporate the design on the right side of the Stars and Holly paper from the Tradition line by Fancy Pants. I wasn't able to get good candid shots of my kids talking to Santa since they don't really allow cameras at the mall. I was trying to take pics without them noticing so the white balance ended up being a bit off and there were some harsh shadows from my angle. I was going to just print the photo of Santa a few times in sepia and once in color until I noticed these pics of the kids waiting in line, especially the first one that my daughter took of herself.

So the theme of my page changed from just a simple Santa page to a layout about the long line to Santa's Lap. I placed my title and journaling in the lower right hand corner sort of at the end of the line of photos. I was happy about the new inspiration since I had no idea what my journaling was going to be about. I decided to just write a short blurb for my journaling. It fit perfectly on the little jounaling box from the Traditions line~Cards. I love these alphas by Basic Grey. I inked them with a little Aged Mahagony Distress Ink just to deepen the color a bit. Then I misted them with Gold Glimmer Mist.


I used strips of several other papers from the collection across the bottom of the layout. I also used different papers behind each of the photos. I cut this cute little ornament out and allowed it to overlap my photo. It was just too cute to cover.

Christmas Gift Box

This month I decided to make a 3-D project perfect for gift giving using the "Tradition" collection from Fancy Pants. I used an easy, yet elegant template from My Time Made Easy to create this beautiful gift box. The templates are beautiful, easy to use and a fantastic tool to have in your crafting arsenal.


I used a piece of solid red cardstock for the base of the carrier. I used patterned paper from the collection for the decorative accent pieces. My Mind’s Eye has wonderful holiday die cuts which I used here for the holly leaves. The decorative pins and chipboard button are from Jenni Bowlin and the beautiful red rose ribbon is from Webster’s Pages. To make sure the project stays secure, I used scor-tape to adhere all the pieces.

Thanks for joining me today.

Robin

Joys of the Season Layout by Esther

This is the layout for the Make and Take this week. Try the combination of the red, green and burgundy. See the layout at Scrapbooks Plus. The supplies are at the front of the store. The large diecut ornament on the right is the free element to decorate.

Ornament Card by Esther

I cut a rectangle with the ornaments from the Fancy Pants Tradition group of Trim the Tree to feature the two ornaments. The brown side of Stripe-n-Scallop was cut a little larger for contrast. The soothing blues lend themselves to sparkle. The ornaments were so pretty that I thought just clear sparkle was all that was needed for one ornament. A satin bow is adhered at the top of the ornament. Having things in odd numbers is a standard rule. This design is an exception and adding another ornament would have thrown the balance off. I mounted the sentiment, "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" the Tradition Strips cardstock leaving a touch of green at the top. The base of the card is a red Bazzill cardstock. A white shaped piece of cardstock was added inside that allows space for writing a personal sentiment. "And A Happy New Year!" from the Strip cardstock finishes the title from the front. Enjoy the season!

Joys of the Season by Esther

You have probably started to celebrate the holiday season now that it is December. Plan a two page layout to be ready for those pictures. Moxxie has a group of designs called the "Joy of the Season" that were used to design the two page layout. Supplies are listed and available at the front of Scrapbooks Plus. Lovely holly designs with reindeer and jingle bells are the designs in this group. Along with those cardstocks, stickers, I added red poinsettias, ribbon, cardinal gems and an ornament. You can make the ornament using Stickles at the store for this week's Make and Take. Hint: look for a combination of red, burgundy & green for this layout. The colors work good together to highlight your holiday pictures. Have a great holiday season.

Page Map Joy!

I loved working with Fancy Pants "Tradition" paper line this month. Kim did a great job choosing this kit for us. On the page map layout, I choice to use the large Christmas tree paper. I matted it with the solid red side. I then added a strip of pattern paper for the top. I used an EK Success border punch to finish the edge. I added some of the word stickers that come with this paper line around the photo. There are clear transparencies that come with this paper line. They are so cute. I used two of the transparency tree ornaments as well as the flourish. I finished the page off with holly leaves and berries .

Santa? by Esther

This is my offering for the page map for December. The main feature is a single photo from 1972 showing my daughter at two years old in a plaid pant outfit with a questioning, worried look about Santa. She was really excited to visit him until she sat on his knee for the photo.

The cardstock base is Brrr from Traditions that has been adorned with a piece of Stripe-n-Scallop that was cut along its diagonal with the stripe. The left side features the lovely tree from the Fancy Pants collection called Shimmer with the lettering removed. The large rectangle used to mount the photo is from the remaining piece of cardstock.

At the top are three blocks from Tradition Cards showing sentiments related to the holiday. They were shaped with the Fiskars Deckle Scissors. Green ribbon was placed just below the sentiments. The title and journaling were computer generated on white cardstock.

Holly was made using brown coffee filters dyed with a Copic green marker. Red cardstock and beads were applied to center of holly to form the berries. The leaves are raised with glue dots to give dimension.

Should've Just Bought Wrappings

I had this series of photos from my son's first Christmas. And, like many babies, he was thrilled with the wrapping paper and tried to put all the bows in his mouth. He wasn't too interested in the gifts.

I decided to use these photos with this month's page map. I used Fancy Pants paper for the large block in the pagemap, but then layered my photos on top. For the smaller square, I used a Basic Grey journaling sticker. And I decided to add most of my embellishments along the bottom border, instead of at the top.

And I just have to talk about this ribbon. It's so lightweight and sticks easily! I just ran a line of adhesive where I wanted the ribbon and folded it as I went. I didn't have to add any additional adhesive or staples - it just sticks!