Digital Pages

Here are a few Digital Scrapbook Pages I've been working on...several RAKs for some good friends and one of my little guy...

This first one is of my friend Season's daughter, Sophie, and uses the new Berry Crush collab by Mari Koegelenberg and Erica Zane, available at the Digichick.

This layout is for my BFF, Brandi - pics of her son Balin riding his first trike, which was waiting for him when he got home yesterday evening... The page mostly uses the Rock-a-Motion kit by Cinnamon Designs. I also used the new Embossed Acrylic Alpha by Mira Designs. Both are available at the Digichick. The red frame is from Boys in the Sun by Dreamscape Designs, available at Digital Candy. The journal strip is from Autumn Falls by Bren Boone Designs.

This page uses more beautiful Revert Imaging photography of my friend Alanna's little boy, Micah. I used the Henny Penny kit by Mikkel Paige, available at the Digichick.
Finally, this last one (my personal and *unbiased* favoriate) uses the new Dude! Mini kit by Juno Designs, part of the October Mini Grab Bag available at Elemental Scraps (I'll be back later to add a link)...

Altered Composition Book

Here's a quick little project I finished up yesterday afternoon (busy day, my day off!!)...Dean got ahold of my Creative Team notebook, tore out several pages and either crinkled up or colored all over the remaining pages. Being the extremely anal, OCD, Type A person that I am, this required that I make a new one!!!! I used the ADORABLE Midwest Farmer's Daghter kit by Krystal Hartley and Libby Weifenbach, available at Funky Playground Designs. Be sure to check out the other kits in their fun California Girls collection (East Coast Girls, Northern Girls, & Southern Girls) - they're all super cute!! I also used an old Folded Corners template by Karah Fredricks. I printed the finished digital project on matte photo paper and put on a thin coat of mod podge to protect it. Once dry, I cut it out and used Mod Podge to glue it to the cover of the composition boon and it's done! Oh wait, I typed up the names of my various Creative Teams on some of the coordnating digital paper, printed it out and punched them with my Stampin' up tab punch to make the divideres. And now it's done for real!!

Calico Verve Card

Just wanted to quickly share this pretty card I whipped up last night using some digital papers and one of my favorite Verve sentiments...

Stamps: Verve's Floral Whimsy; Paper: Close to Cocoa CS, printed digital paper from Calico Harvest by Sugarplum Paperie; Ink: Close to Cocoa; Other: Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon, circle nesties, stampin' dimensionals, sponge for inking edges.

Digital Pages

Thought I'd share some digital pages I completes over the past week....

The first page was for the Sugarplum Paperie New Beginnings Blog Challenge last week (which I completely forgot to blog about - sorry guys!!! But there's another great challenge going on right now with a chance to win a Sugarplum Gift Certificate, so head on over to this post and check it out). Credits: Calico Harvest by Sugarplum Paperie and Autumn Blooms collab by Sugarplum and Kelley Mickus, all available at the Digichick. Frame cluster recolored from Kim W.'s Giant Cluster, available at Scrapbook-Elements. String is from Juno Design's Stringy Thingies, available at Elemental Scraps.

Yep, I'm on a roll with FINALLY getting those wedding pages scrapped!!! Here's another one...

Credits: Field of Dreams kit and Oh So Chic Word Art by Mari Koegelenberg, available at the Digichick. Frame cluster from Randomness Multifoto Frames No 2 by Anna Aspnes, available at Designer Digitals.

These next two pages bring me to an exciting announcement - I've joined the site Creative Team for Digital Candy!! So you'll be seeing lots more Digital Candy goodies in the coming months!

This page was for the Digital Candy Sept 15 Scraplift Challenge. I chose to lift this layout. Here's my take on it:

Credits: All About Funk kit by Web Designz by Kristi, available at Digital Candy.

Finally, this layout was just for fun....

Credits: Boys in the Sun by Dreamscape Designs, available at Digital Candy.

Purple cards....ugh!

The latest Meet the Verve Divas challenge, put forth by the famous Jen del Muro, was to use PURPLE on your project. YUCK. OK, so purple SOOOO is NOT my color, but I had this retired digital kit by Mikkel Paige that I love and it actually has purple in it, so I decided to give the challenge a shot...I mean, that's what a challenge is really all about right...CHALLENGING ourselves!?!? I'm pretty pleased with how the card turned out. In fact, I liked the first one so much, that I made 2 more using the same digital papers!!!

I used Kelleigh Ratzlaff's Pretty Cards #1 card templates, available at the Hybrid Shoppe for all 3 of the cards.

Papers: Digital papers from retired Lavendar Sunrise kit by Mikkel Paige; Stamps: Verve's Thankful Blossoms , Grateful Elegance, All About You, and Happy Thoughts.

So there you have it folks - I did it!! I used purple on a card!!! I didn't think it was possible!! Oh, and be sure to stop by Jen del Muro's blog and wish her a Happy Anniversary!!! :-)

Summer Name Badge Album

OK, have you guys heard that Kelleigh Ratzlaff FINALLY opened up her own store at the Hybrid Shoppe!?!?!?! I am soooo excited!! You'll be seeing lots of little projects with her templates here on the blog in the coming months. A couple of my "traditional paper crafting" blog readers have expressed an interest recently in learning to digi-scrap, well when you decide to take the plunge and want to get your feet wet, kelleigh's templates are a GREAT way to get started. They are soooo easy!!! And as you can see, the end result is FANTASTIC!!! I literally completed this album (start to finish) in about an hour! If anyone needs a little help getting started, please feel free to send me an e-mail with your questions to JenniferTapler@msn.com. I still have a lot to learn myself in this big world of digital scrapbooking, but if I can't help you I can sure point you towards someone who can!!

Ok, on to the project.....I used Kelleigh's Badge Album #1 Template to create this adorable summer mini album using pics of my son from this summer...

In addition to Kelleigh's template, I used the Funny Friend digital kit by Sarah J. from the Digichick. It's such a fun kit with lots of great colors (but not too loud!). Here's a peek at the digital images of all of the inside pages....


So what do ya think??

Verve Product Parade

Have you checked out the September Product Parade going on over on the Verve blog??? If not, you HAVE to see it - it's totally Kraft-tabulous!!! The deal is that you are supposed to use Kraft (or other natural-ish fibers) in your project and link it up to this post by noon on Sept 30. There's $15 in Verve bucks up for grabs!!!



So I bought these really cute frames a few weeks ago at our local Ben Franklin - it was a great find as I typically don't have much luck in that store (don't get me started on the lack of craft related shopping on this island!!!). Anyway, I bought a few thinking they looked like perfect alterable projects, and you all know how I love my alterables!!! When I saw that the Product Parade Challenge was to use Kraft, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. We recently decided to redo our master bedroom. While my MIL was here this summer I picked out some really RAD fabric for a new quilt (yep, I have the best MIL in the WORLD). Anyway, the colors are nice soft browns, creams, and blues (think Kraft and Baja Breeze). I'm going to be throwing in some reds for accents. Soooo, the idea for this little number was born...

I kept the project pretty simple because I wanted the main focus to be the photograph of my son and I. It is one of the first pictures taken of us - my husband snapped it about 15 minutes after he was born and I just love it. Also, it's the ONLY picture of me taken within about 4 days of his birth in which I don't look hideous and that I will ever allow to be viewed by the public!!! (if we're honest, this is probably the real reason I like it so much!). Anyway, obviously I used some Kraft CS along with Riding Hood Red CS and some Baja Breeze ribbon. I stamped the background stamp from Verve's Artful Elegance in Versamark Ink and embossed with white powder on the Riding Hood Red for the bottom portion of the frame. The sentiment is from Verve's All About You set, stamped in Chocolate Chip ink on Kraft CS. The Riding Hood Red and Baja Breeze flowers (which are popped up on varying depths of dimensionals) are from Verve's Grateful Elegance and were also stamped in Versamark ink and embossed with white powder. I used my nestabilities to cut out the scalloped Chocolate Chip mat for the sentiment box. The whole thing was Mod Podged to the frame and it was done!!! Oh wait, I almost forgot...I added some pewter brads to the flower centers. Here's a closer look:
So there you have it. What do you think?

On another note...I tried selling some of my things in the Lahaina Craft Fair today (it's once a month at the Lahaina Civic Center for you local folks). What a complete and total waste of time!!! I sold a grand total of $10 (yes that's correct...ten dollars) worth of stuff and not one single card. I was very shocked. I feel that my prices were quite reasonable (my cards were priced at $2 each). I did hear from several of the craft fair veterans that it was an extremely slow day. However, when the booth rental is $80....well, I doubt I'll be doing that again. Now what to do with all this darn stuff I made???? I have missed out on so many things (challenges, chats, etc etc etc) in the past month because I've been so busy mass producing cards and notebooks, etc to get ready. I really anticipated doing quite well. Trying not to take it personally. Ugh. LOTS to add to my Etsy store in the coming weeks I guess!!!

Exciting Mikkel News & projects

So, not only did I have a huge announcement today, but one of my fave designers, Mikkel Paige, is spilling the beans on a little announcement of her own! She's opened her own store at the Digichick! WE GET TO BE CHICKS TOGETHER!!!! YAY!! As part of her grand opening, Mikkel is also releasing some great new kits. Here are a few projects for ya....

I made this adorable Coaster Album for my good friend Alanna using these amazing pictures of her son, Micah. Photography is by the oh-so-talented Zach Wear of Revert Imaging (You MUST check out his work - AMAZING - and if you're in the Denver area - book a session. I'm still trying to convince him to fly to Maui for a photo session with my family!!!!). Anyway, I used Mikkel's new Henny Penny kit for most of the project, with a few elements from Frog Prince thrown in as well. I used Mod Podge to adhere my printed pages to the Coasters, punched some holes with my Crop-o-dile, added some book rings and some coordinating ribbon - and Alanna has herself a great little gift on it's way!!! Here's another mini album using one of Mikkel's newer kits, this time Swim Fins. I used a Cosmo Cricket Jack's blackboard album for this cute little project. (this time, photography by the not-so-talented Jen Tapler....please come to Maui Zach!!!!!!).
Here's another cute little Swim Fins project...some Post-it notes and bookmarks. You can see a tutorial on how to make these simple post-it note covers here.
And finally, another cute mini album with more Revert Imaging Photography. These pics don't do this project justice - it turned out sooo cute!!! And the colors from Mikkel's new Neighborhood Groove kit were PERFECT for these beautiful photos of Micah and his parents in downtown Denver! This album uses 2 pieces from the Stampin' Up Book Basics (small) pack. The inside pages are just the printed pages glued back to back! I used my bind-it-all to add the binding and threw on some ribbon and twine to finish it up.Don't forget, all of Mikkel's kits (and there are seriously A LOT of them) are 20% off this weekend at her Digichick store!!!

Another Announcement...

I'm happy to announce that I've been asked to join the Hybrid Creative Team for Bren Boone Designs!!! Bren has so many great kits and I can't wait to get started!! Here's my first project as a member of her CT...
I used the Brand New Boy kit to create this adorable Baby Gift Set. I used the Avery Stretchable Iron-On transfers to iron the digital images of the animals onto the front of the onesies, then I printed out some of the cute papers and altered this clear pain can as the gift packaging. So simple and yet such a great baby gift!!! I'll definitely be making more of these gift sets in the future!!!

New Sugarplum

Sugarplum Paperie has done it again - another AMAZING collab - this time with Kelley Mickus!! Check this out:
Wow, huh!?!? Now, head on over to the Digichick so you can snag it this weekend while it's 20% off!!!! Here are a few cards I made today with the new kit....

This first one also uses Clear White Alpha and some Stampin' Up Kraft CS.
This one uses Wooden Alpha and REAL stitching (are you impressed yet!?!?) ha!

Digichick Goodness

OK, here are a TON of digichick hybrid projects for you to check out...I've been holding on to these for a few days and can finally share them with you!!!

First is this cute Halloween Party Invitation, tin, and covered Hershey's nuggets. I used the new Hocus Pocus kit by Karen Lewis for this fun project. And in case you can't read it, the invite says "Join us for a Totally Witchin' Party!!!" - thought that was cute. I added some Stampin' Up ribbon and jumbo eyelet to the punched tab at the top of the invite.
I bought some basic wooden letters at K-Mart a few days ago, sponged them up with some black ink to make them look dirty, and then used the new Sweet Halloween kit by Mari Koegelenberg to alter the letters - so cute!! The picture doesn't really do this project justice - you just can't see the vibrant colors in those papers.
These 3 cards use the new Boy Wonder kit by Sarah J. I also tried out some of Kelleigh's AWESOME card templates, available in her store at the Hybrid Shoppe. Kelleigh's templates make digital cards soooo easy - just use your clipping mask tool to add your papers to the premade template in photoshop, print it out and you're done - I seriously made these cards in less than 10 minutes!!!!! The link for the templates I used is here.


This last card uses another new kit by Sarah J., Go Green and Word Arts No. 1 by Lia Designs. I also used another one of Kelleigh's card templates.

Remember, all of these great products are 20% off all this weekend at the Digichick!!! (except for Kelleigh's templates - those are available at the Hybrid Shoppe).

I'm a Chick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, {drum roll please}, it's been KILLING me all week not to shout this at the top of my lungs but they had me under a strict gag order until Saturday not to spill the beans!!! The Digichick has asked me to be on their Hybrid Creative Team! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!! I am so excited I can barely contain myself!! Keep your eyes open for a shiny new blinkie to add to my growing collection this weekend over in the right-hand column!!! AND - along with the big reveal of the new Digichick Creative Team comes the HUGE launch of the new website - they've redesigned the whole place and it's AWESOME!!! Head on over and check it out! The entire store is on sale all weekend, there are lots of great challenges and games (with prizes!!!) going on, chats and just tons of fun!!!

Post-It Notes Tutorial

ETA: after posting this, I realized the the scoring instructions on the second picture were incorrect. You should score at 2, 2 3/8, 5 1/2, and 5 7/8 (NOT 5 1/5 as previously listed). The picture has been corrected now. Sorry for the mistake!!!!!!

I've had a few requests for a tutorial with pictures on how to make the cute little covered post-it notes, so here ya go....



For this covered post-it, I used Kraft cardstock from Stampin' Up and digital paper from the NEW Autumn Blooms collab by Sugarplum Paperie and Kelley Mickus, available this Saturday at the Digichick!!

Lost MoJo = CASEs!!!!

I've been crazy busy lately with my digital projects having a blast working with my new Creative Teams (Nicole and Mikkel are AWESOME!!!) and I have a super secret exciting announcement coming later this week....but you'll have to wait a bit longer before I can spill the beans!!! It's about to kill me though!

Anyway, the point is that with all of my creative energy going into my photoshop projects, my paper MoJo seems to have disappeared. I sat down to play with some of my new Stampin' Up goodies today and just couldn't come up with anything! So what do I do when I lose my MoJo? Start CASEing like crazy, of course!!! (CASE = Copy And Selectively Edit).... so here's what I've been up to today...

One of my favorite people to CASE is Dawn McVey. I just love her simple, clean style! These first set of pictures is almost a direct copy of a set she did recently, which you can see here. Pretty much all I changed was the ribbon!!! These cards were SOOOO quick and easy! I love how they turned out.

Stamps: Eastern Blooms, Best Yet. Ink & Ribbon: Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss

This next card is also a CASE of Dawn's. You can see her original card here. What did I change? I actually made it Simpler (is that a word??). I just did away with the distressed edge, ribbon and rhinestone flower centers. I also changed up the printed paper a bit. But it works, right?

Paper: Kraft, Chocolate Chip CS, So Saffron, Certainly Celery & Riding Hood Red DP. Stamps: Best Yet. Ink: Chocolate Chip. Other: Trio Flower Punch, Curly Label Punch.

This next card is based on an AWESOME card set that you watch a video tutorial for over on Kiyomi Krafts. I love it that Jenn's a fellow Hawaii resident (and of course has a GREAT name!!). She also has tons of great projects on her blog, so check it out. I changed the card size/shape and color scheme used.

Paper: Riding Hood Red DP, Chocolate Chip & Whisper White CS. Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes. Ink & Ribbon: Riding Hood Red. Other: Curly Label Punch, Scallop Border Punch, Corner Rounder

This card was actually based on one of the Verve Anni-Verve-Sary sketch challenges (Number 8 to be exact). I just moved the sentiment.

Paper: Hawaii Papaya DP, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Kiwi Kiss & Tangerine Tango CS. Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes. Ink: Tangerine Tango & Chocolate Chip. Ribbon: Chocolate Chip poly-twill. Other: Nestabilities, Big Shot, Word Window Punch.

So there you have it folks...some SU goodness, and none original ideas. So see, it's really OK to have an "off day" and CASE something - you still walk away with some pretty amazing cards/projects!!!

Third Street Cottage

One of my favorite new kits released this past week at the Digichick was Andrea Burns' Third Street Cottage - it's perfect for beach projects!!! Here are a few things I made with the kit...

As you can see, the first 2 cards are basically the same... I used Andrea Burns' Swirly White Alpha with the kit and added some Martha Stewart Crafts white ribbon.

Here's a fun little altered composition book that I thought would be perfect for someone who owns a vacation rental condo or cottage here on Maui...you know, one of those guest books for people to write where they're from, what they liked most about their Maui vacation, etc...
Finally, this was my favorite of the bunch... This little Mahalo card was made using the leftover scraps from the other 3 projects along with Andrea Burns' Swirly Brown Alpha.