I was playing around with some of my Basic Grey papers and my EK Success border punch and this is what I came up with:
I had fun making these ;D I was thinking of an office style phone message and I love the way they turned out. I love the “Go Away” – so fun! Here’s a close up:
I love the stitched border too. It’s from one of the new stamps that Basic Grey came out with, I think from the Pyrus line. Beautiful – I can’t wait to play with those papers, they are gorgeous!
I have some cards I made with Imaginise’s Apple Cider line of paper and stamps that I’m working on right now, which I hope to be able to show on Thursday. I’ve been having problems with my power cord for my Mac, this is actually the third one and it seems to be defective, working intermittently since the day I got it on September 1. I’m returning it on Thursday for another one – fourth time’s the charm??? If the new one doesn’t work either I’m going to demand the new style of power cord, maybe I’ll have fewer issues…
These cards are up for sale in my Etsy shop if you’re interested in them. Check it out here or on the sidebar on the right.
Today I thought I would share some of my favorite blogs and websites – sites I visit pretty much on a daily basis for projects, inspiration , tips and tricks. Probably at the top of my list would be Hero Arts blog. They have fabulous products and great inspiration. Their Flickr group is fantastic too – fans of Hero Arts submitting projects – I find amazing projects there constantly. Next would probably be Jennifer McGuire Ink. Great projects, and a major enabler!! She’s pretty funny too.
Jen Gallacher. She’s an amazing scrapbooker and a Garden Girl at Two Peas among other things. She’s very open and honest about the fact that she and her family lost their oldest son to cancer three years ago. In a recent post she poured out her story of his life and I was surprised to learn that he suffered from Ulcerative Colitis. (You all probably know that I have Crohn’s disease and I can totally commiserate with his experiences,)
(Speaking of Two Peas, I made my first order from them a few weeks ago and, aside from the fact it took two weeks to get to me since it had to come all the way to Canada and through the border, it was awesome getting that package!! I think I squealed – a lot! ;D )
Nichol Magouirk is another favorite. She stamps and masks like nobody’s business – beautiful cards and layouts. And she regularly shows you how to maximize your die cutting machines too (have I mentioned how much I love my Silhouette?? And they just released new software that’s compatible with MAC!!! Woohoo) ;D
Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielske are both great at simple, effective design that tells a story, and is beautiful in it’s simplicity and small details. Love their stuff…
Lastly is the Silhouette blog. They have awesome ideas, and tutorials on how to use your silhouette’s tools – great tips on how to do print and cuts, using the sketch pens (they have new metallic ones I can’t wait for Photo Express to get!), and details on the new software too. Check it out for sure. I finally downloaded all of my images into my library so I can’t wait to play around with it and see what it does ;D
That’s probably it for now, I have so many that I follow but these are the ones that come to mind first and foremost. I’ll do another post like this one with some of my favourite paper companies soon. In the meantime it’s time for Matthew to have a nap so I can play!!!
I’m sorry I haven’t posted my usual Thursday post. I’ve been working on a post of my favorite websites, It’s taking longer than I expected since I had to work yesterday during the day and it was my husband’s birthday yesterday so we went out for dinner and I just haven’t gotten it finished yet. I should have it up tomorrow morning ;D
Sorry for not posting yesterday, time got away from me a bit ;D I did however finish up a project I have been working on for a little while.
As some of you know, I’ve decided not to return to work (in the traditional sense, anyway) and I am working from home, usually in the evenings doing legal transcription. It’s working quite well, but I wanted to keep my creative streak going so I decided to open an Etsy shop as well. I now have a link on the right-hand side of my blog. You can also get to it HERE. I only have a few items up there right now but I’m working on other projects as well that should be up very soon.
In my Etsy shop you will find my Year In Review full paper pack. I will still have freebies here from time to time (including a new template next week). I hope you will visit my shop. If you liked the freebie kit, you’ll love the rest of the papers in the set.
That’s it from me for today. Matthew is napping so I need to get crackin’ on some more projects!
Thank you all so much for downloading my digi designs!! I’ve hit over 200 downloads now and I have a freebie for you all. AND, you get a sneak peek at my new brand for my digi stuff, DeAnna’s Design Studio. What do you think?? I likey ;D
Here is the preview for the kit. You can download it HERE. Just a quick note: It is for personal use only. Please read the terms of use that is included with the .zip file when you download it. Thanks!
There are six highly textured and distressed papers, two are solids and four are patterns. There are six elements, consisting of two journaling tags, one epoxy sticker, one stamped cork mat, one velvet ribbon and one sheet of month/year word art. The word art is super cool – they are word stickers and they are a bit crinkled and creased. I love them! This kit started out as a boy’s first year/year in review kit but as it evolved it kind of took on a bit of a retro feel to it, but I love the way it has come together. As I said in my previous post, there are a number of other papers, both solids and patterns, as well as a number of other embellies that are in the works for a full kit in the near future.
I’d love it if you could download it, use it in a layout or other project and link up in the comments so I can take a look!! I would love to have some feedback on my designs too, so feel free to comment.
I’ll be back next week with some new stuff. Thanks for looking!
Sorry for the late post today. Kyle’s first day of preschool was today and I’ve been trying to get the photos of the layout below just right, so it’s been a little busy here ;D
I am at 197 downloads of my digi stuff which you can find HERE and HERE!! When I reach 200 I will be posting my mini kit that I completed for the Art of Digital Design class at JessicaSprague.com. It will have 6 papers and 6 elements. I have way more papers than that, and several other elements in the works, so I will be posting a full kit for sale in the near future. You’ll be hearing more about that in the next few days when I’ve gotten everything set up. ;D Don’t worry, though, there will still be freebies available on my blog, and new freebies from time to time too
I completed another layout this past weekend. I decided to switch to doing mostly one-page layouts, with the occasional double page layout when I have too many photos. I think I’ll get more layouts done that way. And, I have to tell you it’s so much easier to layer when you’re working with one page!! See what I mean:
All of the papers are Fancy Pants from the My Family line. I used the papers called Father, Son and Family Tree. The title is plain white cardstock from my stash (stuff that I have been given while at crops or classes and I’m not sure what brand they are). I cut it out with my Silhouette (I used the text feature and created my own title). I inked it with Chocolate Ancient Page ink and then sprayed them with perfect pearls. I cut out a background and the funky circles from images I downloaded from the Silhouette store. I used two of my EK Success border punches (Okay, I’ll admit it – I only have two! ;D). I love the embossed bracket border punch, and the notebook paper punch as well.
I made the flower with my Silhouette, cut out the images, spritzed them with water, scrunched them up, then unfolded them and let them dry. Then I inked a bit with Faded Jeans distress Ink, sprayed with a bit of blending solution and let it dry again. The I sprayed each flower with Perfect Pearls and let them dry again. Lastly, I punched a hole in the middle of each layer with my paper piercer and then put a jeweled brad through all the layers. To make the frilly ribbon and the other flowers, I simply had some really soft, almost suede-like ribbon and I took some of my DMC floss, strung a running stitch through it, and voila! Frilly ribbon. It likes to curl up on itself so I took some of it and made them into pinwheel flowers. You can do it with almost any fabric, or even a thin felt.
Lastly, I added a Tim Holts tiny paper clip to the note paper and that was it!
I am super happy with this layout (I say that a lot, but this has to be my favorite layout right now!). Thanks for looking ;D
This is one of my favorite layouts lately. I was so inspired by this layout that I had to do something similar for my easter layout. AND Easter is one of those holidays that I feel like I can get away with a girly, glittery, butterfly-laden layout! Remember this post? Same thing. Easter is full of pastels and girly colors that it just works, even though I’m scrapbooking boys. Check it out:
I finished the layout and then thought about my journaling. I wasn’t going to do much journaling, but I decided there was an important story to tell. I was pregnant with Kyle’s little brother, and he had so much more fun participating in coloring eggs that I felt that I needed to do journaling. However I didn’t want to detract from my design at all, so to tie the white space together with the layout I did my journaling around the three sides. I love it.
I used papers and rub ons from Moxxie and the easter title, flower stickers and little chick tag are from Pebbles Inc. The punched butterflies are from Martha Stewart (classic butterfly) and Fiskars (the teeny tiny butterfly, it came in a set with my decorative scissors). I also punched some small flowers with a Fiskars punch that came in the same set. I used some stickles and glossy accents on the butterflies and the centers of some of the flowers. I used a bling brad from Making Memories for the center of the pleated flower (which was super easy to do ;D ).
Here’s another layout I did a few weeks ago while Rob was away in London Ontario supervising a national tournament. This one has been in the works for a while and I’m so glad to finally have it done.
I’ve wanted to do a layout with circles for a while, and of course, as usual I had a ton of photos. I played around with them, trimmed them down, played, trimmed some more until I finally had a workable grouping. I knew I would have a 5×7 of Kyle on the left and I decided to use a hand-drawn circle right against the edge to mat his photo with. I then cut a bunch of circles with my circle cutter in various sizes, on different patterned papers in the Piggy Tales Chicken Little line. i distressed some of the circles with my Heidi Swapp distressing tool. I inked the cardstock with some Fired Brick Distress ink and then laid down all the circles in small groupings. Then I put my photos down and put a couple of rub-ons from Imaginisce to border the main photo of Kyle. I put on a couple other birthday rub-ons from Scenic Route. I added a barndoor and a barndoor topper from the Piggy Tales line and my favorite photo of Kyle from his birthday (he’s {pretending} to read one of his cards – it was so cute! I’ll have to take photos of it when we get home as well). I wrote my journaling and called it a day! (You can click on the photo to enlarge it and read the journaling if you’d like ;D )
On Thursday I’ll be sharing another new layout, and next week there are a few new projects I hope to be able to share. There’s lots coming up from me; a few projects, my mini kit will be available for download probably next week, and the full kit (and a few other projects) will be available for sale in the next few weeks. Yes, I said for sale – more info on that soon… ;D
I am in LOVE with this layout. It’s so my style, clean, linear, simple with some beautiful touches.
All patterned papers and epoxy stickers are Little Yellow Bicycle’s Baby Safari, Boy line, cardstock and buttons are Bo Bunny, the Love You stamp is Daisy Bucket, and the So Precious swirl stamp on the library pocket and the baby feet are Hero Arts. The miracle/flowers is a Lasting Impressions rub-on. The Miracle expression on vellum is from Deja Views Little Ones collection. I’ve lost the packaging for the 100% stamp/precious and the ornamental arrow stamps, and the baby details stamp (I think this one is Imaginisce), so I’m looking into who they are made by. Inks used were Rusty Hinge, Peeled Paint, Ancient Linen and Faded Jeans, all Ranger Distress Inks I used my EK Success border punch and my corner rounder punch.
You may have seen the photos in a previous post of mine, from the Jessica Sprague Photo Frame Ups and Special Effects class.
I knew I was going to have a ton of journaling from Matthew’s birth (seeing as it was so eventful!) so I decided to use a library pocket I cut with my Silhouette. I heat embossed the so precious stamp in clear (Versamark Dazzle Champagne, AC Zing embossing powder) then I inked with the distress inks, and finished it off by spraying with Perfect Pearls. I had a strip of the lined patterned paper that I hand-wrote my journaling on and I folded it accordion style to place it into the pocket. When I put it into the pocket it didn’t look finished so I used my QuicKutz squeeze to die cut a folder tab with the cutout and I wrote Matthew’s name in the empty space. Here are some close ups:
I hope you enjoyed it. On Monday I’ll have a layout from Kyle’s 2nd birthday and next Thursday I’ll show you my Easter 2009 layout (which I also love and have wanted to do a layout like this for ages – it’s girly and I can get away with it because it’s all about easter in pastels and such ;D)
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