Guest Designer at Sketch~n~Scrap!!

I was thrilled when I was asked a few months ago to be a guest designer on this awesome blog. It came at the perfect time as I have really been lacking in my mojo since the summer. I THINK about scrapping and crafting a LOT but have not put it into action that much. I love working with sketches and this sketch was no exception!!

I love the simplicity of it yet it has so many possibilities. As soon as I saw the snowflakes I knew I would be breaking out my snowflake die! I have a thing for snowflakes- you may see them again ;)

The pictures I used are of my daughter Kate, who is now 17!!!! Oh where does the time go??? She was such a chubby little thing and now she is tall and beautiful. This was her first Christmas- she was 7 months old and of course fascinated with the tree ornaments. 

All the papers I used are by MAMBI, which is not a brand I normally use, but it was left over from a Christmas craft last year and thought it was great for this layout. 

I had super fun doing this layout and have my next one almost completed. Thanks so much to the girls at Sketch-n-Scrap for having me, and I hope to be around more often. 

Have a scraptastic day!!!😊

Darlene

It's been too long......

since I have posted, but my mojo left me at the end of June and it is only now SLOWLY coming back. I began to worry that it never would! I did a couple of small things over the summer, only because they were prior commitments lol

So, this is the first thing I did because I wanted to! It's for the tag challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create- the most awesomest blog :)

The bats, fence, tree are die cuts that I cut at my friends house one day- not sure what company made it. The "Boo" is cut from a piece of Tim Holtz Coredinations paper and sanded over. And I had a bag of various sized googly eyes that I thought I would finally use. I glittered the bats with some glitter glue for added interest, and a bit of inking on various parts made it look pretty good I think.

And aren't those little treat bags adorable?

Happy Halloween everybody!!!! Have a spooktacular day!

Bakery Shop......

is the theme for the tag challenge this month at Catherine and Cathy Create. Your project has to include anything edible. As I have only 1 stamp of anything edible, well, here it is lol. I love this Stampin'Up birthday cake stamp- it's so simple and elegant. I stamped it with a VersaMark stamp pad first, then a Color Box stamp in gold and then embossed it with iridescent embossing powder. The Happy Birthday sentiment is also from Stampin'Up's Remembering Your Birthday stamp set. I just love the font. I stamped it in the same gold ink. I threw on a few pink pearl dots, a Prima flower and a little lace at the bottom to fancy it up. The background is a cool watercolor look paper from Crate Paper. I like how it turned out

Long overdue update......

 So I went to my first weekend scrapbook retreat on the 23rd of May. I didn't want to come home lol. I enjoyed it SO much!! What a wonderful group of ladies. We scrapped all day and all night, had a laugh, had a drink, ate lots of food, played games, made new friends, it was wonderful!! I really hope I get to go again in the fall. I was really pleased that I got 14 layouts done while I was there. The majority of them I cannot share right now because it is for an album I am doing as a surprise. I can share one layout- one of myself and my daughter, and it happens to be my favorite one of the weekend.

I used Graphic 45 papers from the Olde Curiosity Shoppe collection, all the flowers are Prima. The birdcage is embossed with a beautiful white shabby chic embossing powder from Stampendous that one of my friends at the retreat let me use. Unfortunately you can't see it very well in the picture.

I also took a couple of classes at the retreat. One class was to make two layouts. I cannot share the other just yet. The layouts used Bella Blvd materials. The class was held by the awesome Deidre Edison Clarke - for you fellow Newfoundlanders, she has a scrapbook shop that you can find by looking up Scrappy Dee's at the Floral Boutique on Facebook. And she does orders by email too! She can get you just about anything! She is also the awesome hostess of the scrapbook retreat that I attended. She holds them at the beautiful Riverwood Inn in Springdale three times a year. A LOT of work goes into hosting one of these and she does a fantastic job!!! I was thoroughly impressed and look forward to my one.

This picture is my son and his girlfriend- aren't they adorable?? :)

The other class was my favorite. It was so much fun! It was a mixed media class which is right up my alley, and we made art cards using a bunch of different techniques. The wonderful Rhea Skomorowski taught the class- she is awesomely talented. You really should go have a look at her blog ReAson. I put all of my art cards on a canvas to hang in my craft room so I cab look at them because they are so pretty! 

Aren't they cool??!! My favorites are "be brave", "art journey" and "what is possible in art becomes thinkable in life".

I only have a few pictures from the retreat, and here they are. I was held at the Riverwood Inn - I can't say enough good things about that place- beautiful!!

Can't wait to do it all again someday!!

I am a "Scrapper in the City"....

My scrapbook friend, Stephanie Ho, has featured me on her blog. Her "Scrapper in the City", a monthly series, features a scrapbooker whose work she admires, and she has an informal Q&A. SHE admires ME- that is extremely flattering to me because I think her work is absolutely stunning!!! Be sure to check out all of her other posts to get a look at her beautiful layouts and cards. Stephanie's work is bright and fresh- it makes me happy just looking at it!! It's so fun! She is the queen of layering and using different patterned papers together. Just go look at it already :)

Thank you so much Stephanie for featuring me this month- it was fun!!

Oh, one more thing- check out her awesome shop, she has the most darling things!!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Starlight, Star Bright.....

I love this challenge over at Catherine and Cathy Create. As soon as I read it I thought of the star stamp collection I have by Sarah Hurley. The hanging stars and the sentiment are both part of the set. I saw a post that Cathy has made on a private scrapbook group that we are both part of, were she showed pictures of the Prima doll stamps by Julie Nutting, and I happen to own 6 of them, and then the idea for this stamp popped into my head. I think of it as a girl at her high school graduation dance and the stars are part of the decorations hanging from the ceiling. I used papers and the flower stamp from Prima's Stationer's Desk collection - I just adore that collection! Even the crystal jewel is part of that. The small flower is also Prima. Her dress is cut from papers from the collection too. Her hair and shoes are colored with Copic markers. The stars were stamped with a clear Versamark pad and then embossed with silver American Crafts Zing! metallic embossing powder- I just looove this stuff!!

Have a look over at Catherine and Cathy Create and see all the amazing creations by the designers this month- very inspiring!!!

Happy National Scrapbook Day!!!!

 

Ooh La La......

When I read the about the tag challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create, this poodle stamp came right to mind- mostly because it's the only animal stamp that I have haha. Then, when I thought of what to put on the tag, the Ooh La La was the first thing I thought of- you know, French poodles, Paris, you get the idea! If I had an Eiffel Tower I would have added that too. I knew that I wanted it all pink for some reason, even though there is no such thing as a pink poodle ;) The frame background I cut with my Big Shot using the Spellbinders Floral Ovals die, and I brushed it with Stampin'Up ink in Pink Pirouette. The Happy Birthday sentiment is also Stampin'Up's "Remembering Your Birthday" stamp set. I decided to stage the photo to make it look a little prettier :) You can't tell from the picture put the poodle is embossed with Tsukineko Iridescent embossing powder- it looks purdy!!!

Have a scraptastic day my friends!!

Top Blog Pick......

My layout was chosen as a top pick for march at Catherine and Cathy Create- yahoo! That makes me happy- I love those ladies and their awesome blog. It is my favorite one to follow and they have three awesome challenges to do every month. I try to always do them but sometimes life gets in the way, as you all know. So, go check them out and their cool Spring challenges this month!!!

This is the layout that was a top pick...

I can proudly display their badge for the rest of the month!

I have been published again....

all my Facebook friends know lol- sometimes I forget about the blog, so this is old news for a lot of people.  I should have posted it here before this!! I was absolutely THRILLED when I got an email from Life. Paper. Scrapbook that they wanted to publish one of my Disney layouts- yahoo!! I love those layouts, and I love being published :) For those that don't know, LPS is based in Australia and they publish an online magazine chock full of gorgeous scrapbooking, so I was honored to be included. My layout is on page 82- and they made a little boo-boo and said I was from the USA. I emailed them to point it out, and received a very nice email and they posted on their blog about it, correcting where I am from. I am very impressed with them- a class act!!

So, here is the link to the publication- http://issuu.com/lifepaperscrapbook/docs/lps_march14

Have a look on page 78, at a beautiful layout by my friend Stephanie Ho- she is an amazing scrapper!!

Have a beautiful day!!

March Card Challenge- Digit-a-lize!

My nephew's 12th birthday is tomorrow so I took this opportunity to do the digit-a-lize challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create. I struggled with what I was going to do- after all, he's 12 so not a little boy, but not a big one either. He is a huge video gamer so i figured I would go that route. After finding the free Minecraft printable online, I was like, what the heck do I do with that? I wanted more than that on the card, so this is what I came up with. For sure, not my best work. but I think he will like it. Or at least what will be inside of it :)

Oh, that enamel dot- I made it. Yep, true story lol. Check out Pinterest for a tutorial!

Use the negative......

the March tag challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create this month is an awesome one! I struggled with the idea for awhile. I only have 4 punches (I know!!)- two labels and two edgers- so I couldn't think of any way to use those. Then I figured I would use a die. I am a fairly recent Big Kick owner and my die collection is very small. Soooooo, then I figured I would do this- I had some chipboard letters that I laid on the tag and then sprayed some Glimmer Mist over them, and then removed them- AND ta da!!! lol Then I just inked a white number sticker and there you have it :) The flower I traced from one that I had and I used Core'dinations paper, sanding it in places and crumpled it a bit, putting them together with a brad.

Check out Catherine and Cathy Create, it's my fave blog :)

March Sketch Challenge.....

I did this layout for the March Sketch Challenge at Life.paper.Scrapbook. I love doing sketch challenges. It's great to see everyone's interpretation of a sketch. Mine was pretty straight forward. I used my newest papers collection- Tim Holtz French Industrial. I am a huge TH lover!!! The gear and ticket are also TH, the half flowers (at the top and side) and the round coin type embellishment are dies that I had borrowed from a friend and cannot remember the names of :) The key paperclip is Prima. I used a couple of different distress inks on various parts of the page and the tag at the top- Vintage Photo, Brushed Cordoroy and Evergreen Bough. oh! the alphas are American Crafts.

The picture is my son, taken last year, prior to the beard which now covers his handsome face :) He's still handsome though!!

I'm Going to be Published Again- eeek!......

I was just a little excited to wake up a couple of days ago and read an email from Life.paper.Scrapbook saying that they are going to publish one of the two Disney layouts that I submitted to them. Woohoo!! I am very proud and had to brag a little :) This is the layout that they are going to publish....

It's one of my favorites- I just love the picture of us, and the paper collection is just so perfect for Disney!! Ahhh, I wish my girlie and I were back there right now!

The magazine is an online edition, the blog is from Australia- I am not sure of you have to pay to subscribe to it or not. When I find out if I can link it up tp my blog, I will let you know.

Thanks for looking!

A Long Overdue Update.....picture heavy!

Again, I have been slack in keeping the blog updated- too busy creating! Not to mention working- you know, that thing we do to keep ourselves in scrapbook and craft supplies :)

Hmmm, where to begin? Oh, my term on the design team of Nuts About Sketches was over at the end of February. I had a great time designing for that blog and she wanted a whole new design team this time.

Enough outta me, I will just post my new creations since my last post :)

Kate meeting one of her favorite super heroes at Universal Studios

Extended hours for resort guests at the Magic Kingdom!

Kate's actual first time behind the wheel!

Made for my Mother-in-Law's birthday

Our resort at Disney- Caribbean Beach Resort- LOVED it!

HARRY POTTER - need I say more??

Kate got her Bernie Botts Every Flavor Beans and a Chocolate Frog!

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HARRY POTTER!!!!

My sweet babies :)

Me and my girlie at Disney!!

Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too!!!

Magic Kingdom <3

Love this picture!!

My sweet, sweet Soda- loves her pillows!

I love these doll stamps!

Made two of these at the request of a friend

Card Sketch.....

I love to make cards!!!! And I needed to make a birthday card for my mother-in-law, so when I saw this sketch at Sketch~N~Scrap, I knew it was perfect!

This stamped image was one that a friend of mine sent me - she stamped a few on white cardstock and I had it for the longest time before I did anything with it because it's soooo pretty- I LOVE corsets- that I was afraid to touch it. We scrapbookers are like that, aren't we? We get pretty stuff and then we hold onto it because it's too pretty to use lol So, I didn't do anything fancy, just colored it and added the tiny roses. I absolutely adore these roses- perfect for card making- but they were given to me and I have not been able to find them anywhere. If anyone knows where I can order them, please let me know! The doily and stamp are from Stampin'Up and the papers are Pink Paislee's London Market. The cardstock is Coredinations so I lightly sanded it in places and added some bling. So there! I hope she likes it.

Hearts-a-Flutter....

this card I made for the monthly challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create called "Hearts-A-Flutter". I'm guessing it has something to do with February being Valentine's month? I could be wrong, I was wrong once before ;) So, it can be any kind of project- card, tag, layout, etc, you get the idea. I went with a card because I just love making the suckers! I make way more cards that I can ever use, but I just love doing it! The card I made was very heavily influenced by one I saw on Pinterest. What crafter doesn't like Pinterest?

I also made this card for a challenge at A Cherry on Top. The challenge was to create a non-traditional card- no pink, red or ribbon.

So here it is.

DT Call Little Blue Button Stamps 2014

`I have decided to apply for a DT spot at Little Blue Button Stamps. I just love to make cards and their stamps are so darn sweet!!! This first card was made with a free digital stamp from Little Blue Button Stamps (I said thank you on the blog lol!!) I think it is just adorable for a little girl's birthday card. Or for a big girl, for that matter! I colored mine with a combo of pencils and Copic markers. The card really did not need much in the way of embellishments due to the size of the stamp. I embossed the paper underneath to give it some more depth and I really like how it turned out. It's called Forever Friends.

  

This next one is a stamp from Kraftin Kimmie stamps. I had to have this one as I adore London and have been there a couple of times. Again I used a combo of Copics and pencils. I decided to do a little distressing on this card, I just thought it would be appropriate as London is an old city lol I thought that the map paper added a nice touch to it.

And below is another stamp from Kraftin' Kimmie on this birthday card. This stamp was the hardest to color because of all the tiny details. I used all pencils for this one. I decided to cut around the stamp but leave a small edge around the picture to make it a little bit easier to cut out. I like how it looks.

Now I have two more cards that have stamps from Little Blue Button Stamps. The first one was  another freebie!! and I did purchase the last one :) SO, firstly is Miss Lily and teddy tea party- isn't it adorable?? I love tea parties and teddies so I picked this one to make a cute little Valentine card. I used paper from My Mind's Eye for the background, embossed a piece of white paper for the heart and used some Prima flowers. The hearts are cut from a piece of embossed Tim Holtz Coredinations paper- I sanded the hearts peeking out on the right to highlight them. It's difficult to see in the picture, but the strip of white on the bottom of the girl's dress in done with clear glitter glue for a little sparkle.

Now this last one is my FAVORITE!!  I loooove anything steampunk, so when I saw this I snatched it up. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I do not yet own many Copic markers- I actually only have 8!!- AND I do not own a skintone marker so all my faces are white right now. So the skirt is not how I really would like to do it, but overall I am happy with the whole thing. I again embossed some paper for the background. It's also Tim Holtz Coredinations paper so I sanded it to highlight the hearts. The design is by Olga Ishenko at Little Blue Button Stamps- she's  called Steampunk Jessica! Here she is!!

I just looooove her!! People that know me and my scrapping style, know that I love anything streampunk :) I ha vea gears die that was perfect to use for this card. The two on the bottom are embossed with iridescent embossing powder so they have a nice little shine to them. The small one on top is covered with Tim Holtz distress glitter in vintage photo- love that stuff!

So, these are the 5 cards that I am submitting for the Little Blue Button Stamps DT Call. I will no doubt be competing with some awesomely talented ladies, so I am not holding my breath that I will get picked. But as they say, "you will never know until you try" :)

Thanks for dropping by!!

The Studio Challenge sketch challenge.....

I decided to enter this sketch challenge after seeing Stephanie Ho's awesome interpretation on her blog, Skyline Paperie. I love Stephanie's work and I really liked this sketch so I decided to do it and post it on The Studio Challenge blog. So, here is the sketch and my interpretation.

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but the word "sweet" is on the banner in white. It shows up much better IRL. I smeared a little paint around on the cardstock prior to laying down any paper.I really like how the color looks against the cardstock. All the patterned paper is My Mind's Eye, as is the arrow sticker and the "My Boy" die cut. The sequins are compliments of Stephanie- I had never used them before and I LOVE them. I don't know why I hadn't tried them before as I love a bit of bling!

So there you have it. I love this picture of my son was 2 or 3 in this picture. Now he is 28!!! Oh how time flies!