Digital Mini Album

Guess what!?! I'm still alive!!! I can't believe it's been 10 days since I posted something. I can't believe I've only made 1 paper project (a card) in those 10 days!! I've been feeling lazy and not too creative. I have, however, been catching up on some digital projects I've been meaning to do. I'm sharing one of those with you today. This is a Summer mini-album designed to fit the Cosmo Cricket blackboard "Jack's Album". This album was SOOOO easy to do! It's a quick album, so you just drop your photos into the "holes" in the predesigned pages and presto chango, you're done!! This will make great gifts for the grandparents!!! Details are at the end of this post. here are all of the pages...(they are in the order they will be in the album, so you'll just have to imagine them side by side).





I use Photoshop Elements 6 for all of my digital scrapbooking and converted these photos to black & white using adjustments layers for hue/saturation, removing the saturation, and then another adjustment layer for levels and making changes to highlights, shadows, etc on individual photos. I'm still fairly new to the world of digital scrapbooking, so these quick pages and quick albums are great for getting my feet wet and completing cute little projects FAST!! This quick album, Tiki Wiki, was designed by Traci Reed, Christy Lyle & Shauna Clingerman. I purchased it (and the fabulous Tiki Wiki kit) from The Sweet Shoppe. All modelling done by my adorable 19-month-old son, Dean.

Kristina Werner Color Inspiration #16, take 2

OK, trying this again...

I absolutely LOVE the color's in this week's color inspiration challenge from Kristina Werner!!! Here's the inspiration photo, courtesy of Martha Stewart's website...

I've made 2 cards so far, but am loving these colors together so much that I just might have to make a few more!!! I can't decide which card I like better. I love the hodgepodge hardware on the 2nd card, but I really like the star and the way it overlaps the horizontal elements in this card. What do you think??

uggghhh!!!

OK, I'm having trouble uploading pics to blogger. I keep getting an error message....anyone else having this problem or is it just user error??? I have a couple of cards for Kristina Werner's color inspiration challenge to share with you, but I can't get this stupid thing to work. So I uploaded to my SCS gallery instead! You can view one of my submissions here and you can read about Kristina's latest color challenge here. I'll be back with my official post later. Thanks!!

3 cards, same layout

You might remember my baby boy card here that I made several weeks ago. I loved it so much and it was so simple that I decided to change it up a bit and make a baby girl and a birthday card using the same basic design. I think they all turned out great!

The baby girl card uses Pretty in Pink CS and ink as well as Chocolate Chip cardstock and ink. The main image stamp is from SU's Nursery Necessities and the sentiment is from Verve's Family Phrases. I paper pierced the bottom, added the scalloped edge to the bottom and some American Crafts gift wrapping ribbon to the top. I also used my square nestabilities on both cards.
The birthday card used Verve's Polka Stars (stamped in Rose Red) and SU's A little Birthday Cheer along with Glorious Green and Basic Black CS.

Just a duo of notes

I made these VERY simple cards in about 5 minutes, literally! I stopped by my local Ben Franklin craft store yesterday and picked up some yummy new American Crafts A La Carte paper and couldn't wait to do SOMETHING with it.

I simply cut some of the DP paper to size, adhered it to the card front and rounded the bottom corners. Added some Chocolate Chip ribbon with a simple loop bow and stamped "Just a Note" from Verve's Asian Flair set in Chocolate Chip ink and voila! It's done. The only annoying thing was that the yellow American Crafts paper is printed crooked!! That really bothered me for some reason. I think a repetitive pattern like that should at least lay on the paper straight. I tried to angle my cuts to line it up, but it didn't work so well. Now that I look at the picture of the finished card, I don't think you can tell that much. But trust me, I was annoyed.

A Vervalicious Birthday Gift

My husband's 26th birthday was yesterday (yes, he's a few years younger than me...I like to refer to him as my "boy toy"). I've had this great chipboard album for several months now and I was itching to make something with it. When I saw the Meet the Verve Divas challenge over on Splitcoast, I had an idea for DH's birthday gift. I often struggle with masculine projects and this project was no exception. The challenge colors (Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie & So Saffron) were great masculine colors, so that was a good start.

The hard part was resisting the very strong urge to use my Petals and Stems or Floral Whimsy stamp sets (even though I did sneak in a couple of butterflys). I think I was able to accomplish my goal of a fun, masculine mini album with pictures of our 19-month-old son, Dean that my husband can maybe tuck away at the office. Anyway, here are the pics of my finished project. He LOVED it by the way!!

I'm sorry that I have no idea who makes this cute little chipboard album. I bought it at a random scrapbook store in San Diego last year when I was on the mainland visiting my BFF. For the cover, I used some So Saffron, Chocolate Chip & Old Olive CS along with some great DP from Scenic Route. The sentiment, stamped in versamark ink and embossed with white powder is from the Asian Flair set. I used my nestabilities and added some Pumpkin Pie grosgrain. The ribbon on the jump rings is probably a little feminine, but it needed SOMETHING.

This set of pages uses some more Scenic Route DP as well as some hemp twine. The "smile" sentiment on the tabs is from All About You.
For these pages I used Filagree Fantasy and Seeing Stars along with my SU large star punch. The tab sentiments are from Starlight Starbright Remixed. This set of pages has more Scenic Route DP and the other sentiment from Asian Flair. I also stamped the overlapping circles from SU's So Much set.
More Asian Flair on this page..
The last page / back cover has one of my all-time favorite pictures of Dean at the beach and another sentiment from All About You.Well, I hope you liked it!!

FINALLY a card

I FINALLY got some stamping time this afternoon while Dean was napping. My husband's Mom and stepdad were here from the mainland for 2 weeks and just left a few days ago. Immediately after that, my husband's Dad and his Dad's girlfriend arrived for 2 weeks. So it's been a little crazy around here!

I've missed out on Kristina Werner's last 2 Color Inspiration Challenges, so I REALLY wanted to participate this week. I didn't have much time and I'm barely getting this in before the deadline. Between the time constraint and my limited creativity after nearly 2 weeks off, I'm not sure I'm crazy about this card. Here's the inspiration photo...

This week's challenge was to use Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Really Rust, Certainly Celery and Whisper White. I think I accomplished that and I really do like these colors together. I kept it pretty simple, using some Certainly Celery DP and Really Rust textured CS layered on top of a Chocolate Chip textured CS base. I stamped the images from SU's Always stamp set in Versamark ink and embossed with white powder. The circle "a" was stamped on Close to Cocoa, punches out and rimmed with a metal tag then popped up on dimensionals. Some Chocolate Chip grosgrain finished it up.

I'm hoping to have some more time to myself this weekend while my husband and his Dad have some "guy time", so hopefully I'll catch up on some of the other challenges I've been missing out on. Thanks for sticking with me!!

Sneak Peek at my NEW creative space...

I am SOOOO happy with my new custom-designed creative space that my DH & his stepfather built for me this past weekend. I still have lots of organizing to do and I'll post pics of that later this week. But for now, here's a peek at my new space....

The space takes up 15 feet of one wall in our master bedroom (and there's also a large linen closet to the left of the built-ins that I also use for craft storage). The space features a single 10-foot-long counter-height work surface (I like to work both seated and standing, so counter height is super nice). The far left tall cabinets have my printer, computer stuff, office stuff, etc. The center base cabinet has a file drawer with my SU 8.5x11 CS and my punches are in the center drawer. To the right of my stamping work surface is a 3-drawer base cabinet. The top drawer holds all of my most frequently used items (adhesives, cutter, etc). The tall cabinet on the right-hand side is FULL of 12x12 paper divided mostly by manufacturer (I'll post pics of my organization "system" later). The wall cabinets directly above my stamping area hold all of my most-used stamps, lots of embellishments, cuttlebug & accessories, Cricut, etc. It's so nice to be able to have everything in one place but also able to put it all away behind cabinet doors so it's not such an eye-sore when I'm not working. I especially love that my computer is now easily accessible when I'm working on projects AND all of the computer "stuff" (CPU, printer, etc etc etc) is hidden away in cabinets. It's going to be such a functional space (and of course, extremely ergonomical...I am still a physical therapist at heart). The only thing left to do is to come up with an organizational system for all my ribbon (any ideas????) and then just get everything put away and organized so I can actually start doing something crafty again!!! So what do you think?

Still Alive

It's been a week since I posted....I AM still alive! It's going to be a few more days before I have anything creative to share. My in-laws are here and we've been so busy I haven't had a chance to do much. Not to mention the fact that my creative space is normally in the guest room, which is otherwise occupied. But I do have some really exciting things in the works.... My husband's stepdad, CR, is building me a new custom creative space!!! We have a HUGE master bedroom with lots of wasted space. There is a 15-foot wall that's pretty much unused. So CR is building custom cabinetry the entire length of that wall. I designed what I wanted and it will incorporate a countertop-height work area (I sometimes like to stand while I work) with wall cabinets above, computer area, lots of base & wall cabinetry & drawers as well as tall (pantry-style) cabinets for tons of storage. I am SOOOOO excited!! My computer will be off for a few days while he's working, but I'll post some pics as soon as it's done (I'm thinking Monday or Tuesday). Hope everyone had a Happy and Safe 4th of July!!!