Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Saying goodbye to summer...

Eight more days until school starts! We are officially trying to make every moment of it before it's over. Yesterday, we had a sprinkler-fun, dance-outside-with-loud-music kind of day. Today we are going to have a lounge-in-the-pool, bask-in-the-sun kind of day! It's going to be 90 all week here.

Kati starts Kindergarten this year and I'm so sad! I don't want my baby to leave me. I know she's ready...and I know she'll have fun...I know she'll make all kinds of friends and people will love her. But there will be something missing in my heart when she goes!

That's it here. Just wanted to pop in and say hi. I'll be back tomorrow with LOTS of Jenni Bowlin projects that I did with September's kit(s)!

Enjoy your day,
Danielle

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Congrats to the two winners of the Ella e-books!

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Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:
59
18
Timestamp: 2010-08-28 14:12:01 UTC


Mara... said...
Looks like a fantastic book!! I love to scrap my daughter and would love some new ideas. Thanks for the giveaway!!


Leah said...
yes...please! that's all I have and I need some new ideas!
August 25, 2010 8:13 PM

Thanks for your comments, everyone! Mara and Leah, please e-mail me at dflanders71@hotmail.com!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Another pretty palette...

For the Ella e-book give-away, see the post below! I will take entries until Saturday morning, Aug. 28th.
The next palette is up over at the Color Room! This one is a can't-miss. Just looking at these colors make me happy, so I had to try my hand at this color combo. I am really enjoying stepping out of my box with these color combos! This one is a combination I have never tried before.

I was at AC Moore the other day and spied these wool flowers! I just about died when I saw them, because the colors were PERFECT for this challenge! They jumped into my cart and I'm so glad they did, because it was a great jumping off point for my card. They were a little spendy, but I bought them thinking that I could make my own in the future. Great inspiration.
I had fun with my butterfly punch again and used the negative paper on the card.
Supplies: Orange paper - Creative Imaginations, Narratives by Karen Russell, dark purple paper - Hocus Pocus 6x6" paper pad by Pink Paislee,  light purple paper - My Mind's Eye, Penny Lane - Maggie May "Lola Jane" Delicate Dots paper, Ali Edwards stamp by Technique Tuesday - Simply You, wool flowers - EK Success, swirl - Artisan Elements by Pink Paislee, twigs - cut from Crate Paper's Pink Plum paper, family chipboard - Dusty Attic, butterfly punch - Martha Stewart, pearls- Melissa Frances, black ink - StazOn, machine stitching.
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Next is just a card I made for fun! I couldn't sleep one night (after being woke up several times by my daughter!), so I got up and played with some vintage book paper. I stamped the sentiment and then added some cute Pink Paislee - Sweetness rub ons (house and frame).These stamps are quickly becoming my favorites - as you can see I used this saying on both of these cards!

Supplies: Vintage book paper - Jenni Bowlin kits, misc button, Ali Edwards Simply You stamp set by Technique Tuesday, black ink - StazOn, rub ons- Sweetness by Pink Paislee, twine - Studio Calico, stick pin - , distress ink-Antique Linen by Tim Holtz.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

91 super sweet ideas....


Yay, it's finally here.....I'm so excited to be a part of this!!
I hope they don't mind if I give you one little sneak peek to one of my favorite pages in the book!
 Got girls? This handy-dandy guidebook is here to help you make sure you capture all the essentials of who they are—the facets of their lives and personalities that matter most—in between all the holiday and event photos that describe what they do.
 
We invited five moms of girls (and only girls) to brainstorm a list of 20 essential “girly” topics and create stunning layout examples for each. They offered up their best ideas for making their girls’ layouts meaningful, authentic, and unique. And with 13 daughters, ranging in age from 3 to 16, these women know a thing or two about buttons and butterflies, princess costumes and prom dresses. Let's get girly!

p.s. Ella has an Essential Guide for Scrapbooking Boys, too! 
Watch for it in September 2010.
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If you'd like to purchase this e-book now, please click on the link in my side bar! I also have 2 copies to give away, so leave a comment and tell me why you need this e-book! I will choose 2 winners by Saturday morning, Aug. 28th.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

a little sneak peek...

The September kits over at Jenni Bowlin are going to be so much fun! Here is a little peek!
Check back on the 31st to see more!
The flower you see here isn't a new idea...I know I've seen it somewhere before, and I'm thinking maybe from Betsy's blog? What I did was punch nine 2" circles from vintage book paper. One of them will be your base. With the other 8 circles, you will fold each of them in 1/2 and then in 1/2 again. Layer 4 of these on your flower base and glue around, covering the base circle. Layer the next 4 on top of those and glue. I used a strong, quick holding glue by Helmar called 450 Quick Dry Adhesive. Worked awesome!  When dry, fluff them up a bit and top off with a button and a sticker.
I tucked 2 little star stickers in my sentiment for a little extra pizazz. :)
Did you guess what line this is? It's Jenni Bowlin's new Family Tree line. Love, love, love!

Buttons and butterflies...

Morning! It's another rainy day here in New York. I've been crafting up a storm, some things I can't quite show you yet, but soon! Today I have a couple of cards to share. The first one is mostly all Jenni Bowlin products. I love the warm, textural look here...cozy like a rainy day.
I added a silver rub on to the background cardstock and used it sideways, so that more of the pretty background would show after adding the journaling card over the top.

Jenni Bowlin supplies used: Rub on -Silver Photographer's Mark, buttons- Vintage Sew On Buttons Creme, stick Pinks - Antique, journaling card - Farmer's Wife. Other: White and cream cardstock, twine - craft supply, thanks rub on and pearls - Melissa Frances, flower - Fairytale Roses by Prima, ink - Tim Holtz Distress Ink.
                                       _________________________________________

Next is a shabby card using felt butterflies and these gorgeous vellum butterflies by Jenni Bowlin. The doily is cut out of the Sweetness paper by Pink Paislee and the chipboard is by Dusty Attic. If you haven't before seen Dusty Attic's chipboard, you are MISSING out!! Such gorgeous things!!! Here I layered a big swirl over my card and trimmed off the edges, after lightly painting it with white paint. I love the kraft color it comes in, so I let that show through a little bit.


Supplies: chipboard swirl - Decorative Scroll #1 by Dusty Attic, Vellum Butterflies by Jenni Bowlin, Felt Butterflies by Jenni Bowlin, Sweetness - Paper Heart by Pink Paislee, Friends chipboard - Mini Words, 14 pieces by Dusty Attic. Ribbon rose made by me. White acrylic paint.

I have lots more to share, so I promise I won't be gone as long as last time! See you soon.
Danielle

Monday, August 16, 2010

monochromatic Monday with sunny yellow...

Yellow has been one of my favorite colors for a long time now! For the Pink Paislee blog today, my assignment was to do a monochromatic page. I dug through my Pink Paislee stash and found lots of yellow - in the Sweetness, Old School and Starlight lines.

When I think of yellow, I think of happiness! I found some pictures of my girls jumping on our trampoline that we bought in April. Love their expressions in these pics! I used Candlelight Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels to spray over the background paper and a Crafter's Workshop stencil. It creates more interest to the background and allows a fun place for journaling! The Sweetness background paper has lines on it, which was awesome for journaling and easy to get my lines straight. I stamped some stars from the 365 Degrees set and layered them down the page. The large stars were from my stash and I liked the gray color, but wanted it a bit deeper of a gray to pop off the page, so I sprayed them with Graphite Glimmer Mist.

Pink Paislee supplies: Sweetness - Pretty lace paper (background), Old School- Prep School paper (lined), Artisan Alphabet ("lucky"), Artisan Swirls, Old School cardstock sticker alphas ("happy go"), 365 Degrees stamp set (stars), 365 Degrees Cork Buttons, Starlight Cardstock Stickers (star strip). Other: Graphite Glimmer Mist and Candlelight Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels, Crafter's Workshop (stencil), Prima flower, Cosmo Cricket chipboard stars, cardstock, StazOn ink (black), Close To My Heart ink (honey).
                         ______________________________________________________

Last is a quick card made with the new Sweetness line by Pink Paislee. I dry embossed the background with a swirl embossing plate (Cuttlebug), then added the Sweetness rub ons, ticket, 1/2 of the sticker, twine and a brad. Super easy!
I LOVE this twine from Studio Calico!

Supplies: Cream cardstock, Cuttlebug embossing machine and swirls plate, rub ons and stickers - new Sweetness line by Pink Paislee, Baker's twine from Studio Calico, brad is Sassafras Lass.

I appreciate you stopping by today!
Danielle

Sunday, August 15, 2010

a little about my scrap space...

I recently set up a desk in our basement, because I didn't have a place to call my own. I was scrapping in our dining room for a long time and decided it would be nice to have my sewing machine out and ready whenever I need to use it. (And then we could actually EAT at our dining table again too, a bonus!)
The desk is set up right where you come down the stairs and I share the room with my girls' big toys -- like their kitchen, lego table, art easel, etc. They love to hang out with me while I'm down there working. The easel and lego table are behind my chair. I'm lucky enough to have a storage room right next to where my scrap space is, so I have larger things like all my mini books and such stored in there, out of sight. The 2 large bins you see next to my desk on the right hold all my Jenni Bowlin and Pink Paislee products. (Except I keep the most recent Pink Paislee lines in the box under my desk, so I can quick grab what I need!) I have bins for Melissa Frances and Tattered Angels too, those are located in the storage room.

I found these large white cubes at AC Moore. They were about $40 a piece, so I saved my 40% off and 50% off coupons and bought them one at a time. I love seeing all the pretty colors of cardstock! The bottom tray holds layouts ready to be filed away. The drawers hold my flowers, buttons, ribbons, brads/bling, stamps, and other embellies. I bought some 12x12" Cropper Hoppers to hold the patterned papers (organized by manufacturer.) Rub ons, stickers and transparencies each have their own Cropper Hopper too.

On my desk, I have a basket for glues and hole punches, a cup for pens/scissors, and a container for my embossing supplies. I also leave my sewing machine up on my desk. The keyboard drawer pulls out and that's where I store all my punches for easy access. My hot glue gun and embossing gun are there too, along with a bag of photos to be scrapped.

Since I had SO many ribbons, I made my own ribbon wraps with cardboard. You can fit so many more ribbons in a drawer this way. (I have 2 drawers of them!) See the 12x12" clear file folders next to the ribbon? Those are holding my paper scraps by color. I don't keep a scrap, unless it is 6x6" or so.

These are the girls' toys...
Still a work in progress, and NO it's not always this clean, trust me!! But now that I have it organized, I think it will be a lot easier to keep it clean. :) Do you have pictures of where you scrap? I'd love to see them.
Danielle

Friday, August 13, 2010

pretty palette...

Good morning! The Color Room has a new COLOR challenge each Friday, and I hope to play along with these challenges more often. It's great to have a jumping off point from which to start from sometimes!

Here is today's challenge for Palette #19 and what I made.

When I began, I pulled out some things that I had that went with the color scheme and just started playing and layering them. The colors were so pretty, reminded me of a summer wedding, so I decided to go with a wedding card. You could use this for an anniversary card as well. I made the flower myself again from some pretty ribbon, layered it over a piece of October Afternoon doily paper and a Prima leaf. (See below for complete supply list.) I'm having fun lately adding lots of texture and dimension!



Supplies: Light blue paper: October Afternoon – Thrift Shop, Collector’s Item. Dark blue paper: Creative Imaginations - Narratives by Karen Russell, China Blue Damask. Yellow background: Little Yellow Bicycle – Fresh Print Clothesline, 12x12 Decorative Edge. Lace: unknown. Alphas: American Crafts - Thickers. Button: Jenni Bowlin. Pins: Oasis Floral Products. Pearls: Basic Grey - Opaline. Leaf: Prima. Grey cardstock.Text Sticker at top: Basic Grey – Basics, Trims.

I hope you will come by and play along with some of the challenges over at the Color Room! We would love to see you there. This month, August's sponsor is the Midnight Rooster, so upload your projects to the Color Room for your chance to win. You don't have to follow the sketches, but you can if you'd like! Stop back tomorrow... I'll be posting some pictures of my scrap space.

Danielle

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

a couple more Kati masterpieces...

Speaking of Kati's art - from my post below, I thought it would be fun to show you a couple more things she has drawn lately. Our fridge is plastered with these beauties! :) The first one is a bunny holding a carrot- I love those eyelashes! The second one is a picture she drew of me with hearts. I just love these! I hope they give you a smile today too. :)


And I have one more card to share that I made with the Jenni Bowlin August kits. I used the big bottlecap from one of the add-on kits on a baby boy card. The little milkcap remind me of a boy's baseball team, so I wanted to go boy-ish on this card. I painted the background of the large Maya Road bottlecap a bit with white paint to shabby it up. The "sweet boy" saying is printed with my computer with a Typewriter font and strung onto the card with a safety pin. Background papers are Girls Paperie (plaid) and Jenni Bowlin (orange).


Check out the rest of the design team galleries here. Such great inspiration!

Monday, August 9, 2010

her art at age 5...


I have one more layout to show you made from the August Jenni Bowlin kit. I had an idea to use these cute little Maya Road chipboard outfits to create people - and then it dawned on me to have my 5 year old daughter draw some people with them! She adores drawing and coloring so much. She was so excited to do a page for me, and I could document her love for drawing at the same time. We painted the little outfits with acrylic paint. A fun project for both of us!

I punched stars from some of the patterned papers to go with the Jenni Bowlin star paper (orange). I wanted to use the cute "number" paper (by Girls Paperie) with some kind of number theme on my page, so the title worked out perfectly and I was able to use that paper that I loved! Love how colorful it is!
I used the stickers from the tiny red letters (by Cosmo Cricket) that say, "remember" and "you and me". My daughter drew herself and her sister in this picture. Little kid pictures make me SMILE! They are so much fun. I will probably be scrapping her art forever and ever. I can't get enough of it! :)

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

some fun news to share!

Have you heard of Ella Publishing?  They create these gorgeous E-books for scrapbookers that you can download right from your home very inexpensively. A couple of months ago, the ladies from Ella asked me to be a part of an upcoming E-book titled Ella's Essential Guide for Scrapbooking Girls! I jumped at the chance, because well of course I have two girls and we have all things girly at our house! How could I say no? :)

Anyway, I've been working and working on my pages for the E-book over the past couple of months and really love how they turned out. I have to say they are some of my favorites that I've done! The E-book will be coming out soon, in a week or two, so I'll definitely let you know when it is available. Most of the books are really priced right at $4.99 or $5.99! I hope you will take a peek at it when it comes out. Four other ladies who have daughters created some awesome pages in the e-book as well, so you will get PLENTY of inspiration from it, I promise!

After we finished the book, they asked me to create one more page for their free E-zine for August. Did you know they have a FREE one each month? Here is a peek, but you can see the whole layout and read some fun facts about me in the designer spotlight article in the E-zine HERE!

Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you!!!
Danielle

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

very merry...

Feels weird making Christmas things in the middle of summer, but it was kinda fun too! Here is a page made for Melissa Frances' booth at CHA. They have a new vintage looking line called Home for the Holidays!

I made this layout with the new Christmas papers, new stickers, new green glitter alphas, Melissa Frances tinsel, and one of the new Chandelier Drops. Love these! There are a few different shapes coming out, including moons, which would be great for a baby card or even Halloween.

The 2 chipboard shapes you see here on the layout are the new  "Back Drops." I think they were meant for wall hangings, but I used them on my scrapbook page here. I sprayed the scalloped one with Graphite Glimmer Mist to go with the silver in the tinsel. The one in the center is just covered with patterned paper and inked on the edges. (These are pretty large, about 7"x9" each.) My girls were posing by the tree last year after we finished putting it up.
And next up, a project that I couldn't wait to share!!
I made a few large snowflakes out of wooden spools and covered them with Melissa Frances paper, stickers, and a few more MF goodies.
So, tell me which one is your favorite? And would you be interested in learning how to make these? I will be putting some kits together in September to sell here on my blog when the new Melissa Frances line is available, so please leave me a note if you would be interested in one of these snowflake kits, then I'll have an idea of how many of them to put together! These are pretty large, about 9"-10" each.

Thanks so much for reading today! XO
Danielle

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Jenni Bowlin kit gallery...

Well, I only made 2 things so far with the JBS kit, but let me tell you, it's super yummy! I have a lot more ideas in mind! The other girls are simply amazing.... sometimes I don't know how I quite fit in with this team, but just feeling so lucky that they asked me to be a part of it! I wish I could be the messy, artistic type, but every time I try that look, it feels messy to me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it when others make pages like that! Mine just don't turn out looking "cool". I hope to practice some more. :)

These are pictures of Kati last year when we picked apples. She was 4 then and so cute. It was her first time picking apples!

Techniques: I made a flower out of the Pink Paislee pleated ribbon in the kit and used the check as a background paper. I cut little pieces of paper to look like "staples" on my page.

(Yes, I was lazy and took the picture before actually adhering the ribbon down. :)) 

This next page is about my nephew. We went to Devil's Tower, WY while we were in South Dakota visiting. It was almost 2 hours to get there, but well worth the drive! My nephew was a total boy and had to climb EVERY rock he saw. Isn't he cute with his lil hiking backpack on?

Techniques: I created arrows by cutting the plaid paper around the triangular design in the paper. The orange star paper is an exclusive Jenni Bowlin paper in the kit! I used one of the JBS chipboard stars in my stash to trace to create the star on my page. I had to cut a chipboard R down to a P, because I didn't have anymore P's left. I also flipped the cardstock over to use the backside.


Visit the design team gallery for more great inspiration!

In other news, we are working on updating our bathroom a little bit, so we went shopping yesterday for counters, fixtures, paint, etc. I think I'm going to go with a spa-like feel with tans and grey colors with white moulding. My hubby is going to put a window in our bathroom, which I'm SO excited for. Right now it's dark with no windows at all, it's painted red and has a wallpaper border around the top. Yuck. Can't wait for a change!

Today my MIL is picking up my girls to take them to a parade, and I think we are going to go see Inception. I ADORE Leonardo. Sigh. He's my favorite!!

Hope you enjoy your day!
Danielle