Color Combo #115

It's Designer's Challenge Week at Color Combos Galore! Belinda Venables created this lovely, soft, vintage palette for our challenge this week. Don't you love it!

These pictures of Gwen and Raiden were taken a couple of years ago for a school project Brandi was doing in her French class. She wanted to take pictures of Gwen in pigtails and Raiden in overalls. While I was taking photos, my husband, being the good sport that he is, was in the background goofin' off, making them laugh. I've got quite a few of my favorite things on here--some BoBunny and Basic Grey patterned paper, Sassafras Lass button/flower embellishments, a Designer Digitals quote, embroidered border, SLD designs (the felt journaling spots), machine stitched/gathered ribbon, and tiny alpha. Hope you like--I know I had fun putting it together.

There are so many possibilities for this color combo and already, quite a bit of inspiration in the gallery over at Color Combos Galore. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. Remember: You must upload your layouts to the gallery at Color Combos Galore by 11:59pm Sunday at the end of the challenge week to be eligible for the monthly drawing. Here's a link: http://colorcombosgalore.ning.com/

Provo Craft Projects for March

I was asked to make a 3D project for Mother's Day. Here's what I came up with using Cricut vinyl, alcohol inks, and the new Calligraphy Cricut cartridge. I cut the images from the latte-colored vinyl. While the images were still on the Cricut cutting mat, I applied alcohol inks, allowed time for them to dry, and then applied the images to the cup using the Cricut transfer tape. I really like how this turned out. The application of the alcohol inks came from necessity. I didn't have any colored vinyl that would coordinate with the cup I had. The cup was purchased from that local thrift store I like to frequent.



For my second March project, I was asked to use the new Sesame Street Cricut cartridges. Again, I used another item found at that local thrift store--the plain black frame. This frame holds a picture of Raiden last month and his current "favorites" list. I think I like this so much, I'm going to have to do another one to keep.



For the third March project, I was asked to use the new Sports Mania Cricut cartridge. As a family, we don't play a lot of sports, but we do play a lot of Wii Sports games, so I took this opportunity to make a layout using pictures I took of our Mii's. Looking through the images of this cartridge, there are a lot you can use even if you don't play sports. I love the clipboard image, which would be quite useful for cards and mini albums. There are also a lot of background images, like overlays, and layout-looking images, as well. This fabulous cartridge was designed by Art Warehouse's Danelle Johnson. It's pretty cool.



I had a lot of fun completing my assignments this month. Thanks for looking!

Color Combo #114

As soon as I saw this week's color combo from Color Combos Galore, I knew exactly what pictures to use. This layout's pictures are of my youngest little girl enoying a drumstick on our front porch last Summer. I love the little dress she's wearing and how pretty pink her lips and cheeks are. I used the Hello Kitty Font cartridge for the title--"A Scoop on the Stoop". Using the deep-cut housing with blade, I cut the welded title (using Cricut DesignStudio Software) from layers of chipboard, then assembled it, and finally, adhered a white piece of cardstock that was first outlined with the basic black Cricut pen. The ice cream cone was cut in the same fashion from the Indie Art cartridge, and then further embellished with Stickles. This was done for CCG#114 at Color Combos Galore challenge blog: http://colorcombosgalore.ning.com/

Egg-cited!

I'm getting there, especially after completing the past couple of layouts. Spring is in the air. Brandi's birthday will be on Easter this year--there will be a lot of celebrating to do. She'll be 19--YIKES! I do not feel like the mother of a 19-year-old (well, sometimes--ha!). Recently I submitted a couple of layouts to Color Combos Galore's Design Team call and was accepted! I love that blog's inspiration factor--it's a hot spot for creativity. Lots of talent there and everyone is so friendly and eager to share. It's definitely a blog you want to visit. Check my sidebar for the latest activity. Also, I was recently asked to contribute another layout to the Got Sketch? blog. Another favorite blog of mine for inspiration. I'm always looking back to this blog for sketch inspiration. Valerie Salmon's sketches are very user friendly. Most of them allow multiple pictures, and if just using one picture in your layouts, they're easily adaptable. Check my sidebar for the latest activity at the Got Sketch? blog.  The above layout is my contribution.  These were pictures taken of my family when we visited Daffodil Hill last spring, just one day before Easter. Later that spring, we visited again for Brandi's 18th birthday.  It's a place you can take lots of pictures, have a picnic, and just run and play with your family.  Definitely an Easter-ish spot for us.  I used the Hello Kitty Font cartridge with basic black Cricut pen to help me create the title.   I couldn't decide which color to use on the title, the red or the yellow, so I just gave up and used both, and in the end, liked using both.   

This second "layout" is a faux french memory board I used to hang on my wall.  These pictures of Gwen and Raiden were taken on Easter 2007.  I used the Wild Card Cricut Cartridge to help make the faux memory board.  It's the Icon Feature using the Argyle shadow cut.  While in the Cricut DesignStudio software, I stretched the cut to fit a larger canvas than a card, outlined a piece of white cardstock with the yellow Cricut pen, cut, and then cut the image again using a double-sided patterned paper by BoBunny.   The white cardstock pieces were embossed using my Cuttlebug/Houndstooth embossing folder. Then, I assembled it onto a blue cardstock base on top of a very thin piece of chipboard, stitched it for texture, added the pictures, embellishments, etc., and then attached the ribbon for a hanger. To give it more structure, I attached another sheet of very thin chipboard to the back.  Can you believe my sewing machine stitched through all of these layers?  Well, it did--it's my new hero this week.  I've also been taking the Sew Scrappy Happy class over at 2Peas.  I've been stitching for a little while now on my projects but could never master the zigzag stitch while taking corners.  Thanks to Jennifer Johner's help, it's finally happened.  Here's a photo to prove it!