See it. Live it. Doc|u|ment it!

A Pocket for Your Posies

OK, not posies! Actually a pocket for your memorabilia! Whenever we go on vacation we tend to accumulate lots of brochures, receipts, and postcards that I later want to incorporate into a layout. Here's one such layout with my solution:

 

I used a clear envelope (normally used for 4.25 x 5.5 greeting cards) lined with a piece of cardstock. I adhered it to the layout over a photo mat. Now we can reach into the page protector and pull out the ski map and remember all the great runs we had that day! You can make similar pockets with baseball card holders, pre-made pocket scrapbook pages, or cardstock cut and folded into a pocket.

 

If your memorabilia is important to documenting the story at hand, don't give up on finding ways to incorporate it into your layouts and mini albums!

9 Ways to Embellish Chipboard Die Cuts

Pop on over to the QuicKutz Blog to check out all my tips for livening up your chipboard die cuts! I'm sure you have even more ideas than the one listed. Leave a comment and share your creative ideas!

  

Something old. Something new. Maybe just a little blue.

Wanted to share a layout with you: it has mix-n-match pics from different events and years. It has new paper and old paper, patterned and solid, textured and not. It all supports the theme though!

I love all of these pics for different reasons. The first one is my son (who turned 15 yesterday!!) when he was 3 playing peek-a-boo with PaPa. The second is the girls at Youth surprising us with their creativity and strength on a game night. The third one is some friends & I trying on kiddie hats at Ikea when we were famished and tired from shopping. I have a confession, too! I chopped off my hubby from that last one! gasp...shriek!  But it's really OK because (a) he wasn't smiling and that would kill the theme and (b) he is still in the original layouts I did of the trip where that pic was taken so I think I'll be forgiven! ;) Something NEW I tried on this layout: Jillybean Soup paper (it's the backside of the school papers!) and Jenni Bowlin crepe paper ribbon (I ruffled it and tacked it with dry adhesive to the back of the scallop border). Something OLD I did (as in "a technique I use often" old): QuicKutz dies, drawn stitching,  and Maya Road rub-ons! I used the scalloped border and the scalloped journal circle by QuicKutz. I love the journal circle because it makes little cut lines that are almost invisible but make your journaling super-straight! Have you been trying new techniques on your pages? Leave me a comment with a link to the gallery where you've uploaded them! I promise to take a look!

Page Titles: Alcohol Ink & Acrylic Letters

I love playing with the Ranger Alcohol Inks! And I was very pleased to learn from Tim Holtz at Creative Escape that cheap shampoo gets the stains off your fingers (cheap shampoo is known for its ability to strip color!). So I have one example to share and one more that I'm saving for later (my CE album that's almost finished!). I created my layout, then added the title over the top. This is the cover page in my Belize album so I picked random snapshots from the trip.

In the upper corner I have the year which is made with Maya Road chipboard numbers and sprayed with Glimmer Mist (Olive Vine I think). The title in the center is made with Heidi Swapp acrylic ghost aphabet letters that were stained with alcohol ink and attached to the page with Glossy Accents. Staining acrylic is super easy if you use the Ranger alcohol ink felt pads and inking tool! Just lay it all out on scrap newspaper, a cardboard box, or better yet, a Ranger Craft Sheet. Squeeze a few drops of ink on the applicator and dab it over the letters. They dry quickly. I put my ink on the top side of the letters so that it wouldn't be laying against my photos. Sometimes I ink the backside when I'm staining acrylic. It just depends on the project!

More Alphabet Stickers

Yesterday I used the Creative Imaginations alphabet stickers on my Mirror Mirror layout. Today I'm going to play with American Crafts Remarks stickers in red leather! I have some pics from the Valentine's Banquet that should do nicely! I chose a really simple layout since there are about five 2-page spreads in this group of photos. (The facing page mimicks this layout, but without the big title at the top.) I scimped on patterned paper so it makes up for the splurge on the leather alphabet stickers! You can create a photo grid with any dimensions, but to make it all piece together just be sure your final height is the same all the way across. I even have a bit of red in each of the side pictures to help guide the eye around the whole grid, and then there is red in the title and the bottom patterned paper accent strip. Pretty sneaky, huh?!

Actually, to be honest, I didn't notice how I'd spread the color red out until after I tacked it all down. I just knew I liked how the layout flowed and when I looked more closely I realized that was why it flowed so well! So you see, scrapbooking is art and it is about life, so it is more aptly called LifeArt! Don't let anyone make you feel like it's just a silly hobby!

Mirror Mirror (2-page layout)

Love this double layout! The two pages have separate colors - not quite the opposite but close - and yet they look perfect next to each other because the right margin of the right page mimicks the same curve of the red notebook paper on the left page. The alphabet stickers are the same on each page, but one title is at the top and the other at the bottom. Then there's the blue elements scattered in each layout. The stickers and patterned paper are by Creative Imaginatins, Kraft paper is by Bazzill.

 

Look through your albums and see if you've done this too, whether on purpose or accidentally! If you haven't, maybe that would be a good challenge for you today! Comment with a link if you've posted any mirror mirror layouts to an online gallery - I'd love to see them!

Alcohol Ink on Acrylic

I was playing with my alcohol inks and some transparency scraps and came up with this card idea! I used Wild Plum and Stream with the Alcohol Ink Tool. I punched the butterflies out after the ink dried. I attached the butterflies with Glossy Accents. The colors matched the Basic Grey Wisteria papers perfectly! The sentiment was stamped with Stampin' Up ink in Perfect Plum. The label was cut with QuicKutz' Nesting Label cookie cutter die set. I'm still playing so watch for more examples soon! What are your favorite color combos of alcohol ink? Leave a comment and let me know!

A Flaming Good Card!

Decided to play with some Crackle Paint and my QuicKutz dies (with a little prompting from recent Thinking Inking videos) so here's a fun card with both! I used an old paper collection by Crate Paper called Static. The woodgrain in the cardstock is from a stamp and Broken China Distress Ink. The drums and guitar are cut from the patterned paper.

 

For the flames, I painted Spiced Marmelade Crackle Paint on cardstock and let it airdry. Then I cut the 2 flames from the painted cardstock and inked the edges with a CatEye ink pad (Cranberry). I stamped the Rock Star expression with Broken China ink and cut it out by hand. This will make a good card for one of the boys or any of our musician friends!

Wedding Layouts

Thought I'd post a few wedding layouts since I know it's wedding season! These I actually did for a customer. He wanted specific dates so his bride-to-be could add the photos later. You'll see on one layout I attached the date to a strip of acrylic, and attached the acrylic to the layout with ribbon at the sides. This way she can slip her photos behind the date! All the dates were cut with the Silhouette.

Layout 1 It doesn't translate in the photo, but I also added Stickles over the flourishes on the patterned paper(Creative Imaginations). The scalloped edge border was cut with a QuicKutz Border Die out of Doodlebug Sugared paper. There's also a closeup of the acrylic strip!

 

Layout 2 For this layout, I added some pearls to the pre-printed damask (Kaiser paper) and I went over the date title with Glossy Accents to give the letters an epoxy look. The back cardstock is Dotted Swiss by Bazzill. The large diecut is by Accucut. You can see the pearls and title in the close up shot!

 

 

Layout 3 The last layout has more sugared paper (QK Border die) and a dainty layered flower. I started with a Bazzill paper flower, added tulle, a patterned paper homemade flower, and a button. I tucked a couple Making Memories stick pins in there, too! The date is cut on the Silhouette from pearlized paper by Bazzill. You can see all the flower's detail in the zoom shot!

 

 

 

So, if I left off any details you need, like paper brand or technique tips, just leave a comment and I'll post an answer! In the meantime, love is in the air...

1 Shape 3 Ways

Thought I'd do a post about one of the new Silhouette Digital Download Shapes! I picked the tattoo_1867 that was released last week, and I'm going to use it 3 ways. Hopefully it will get you Silhouette owners to go cut some shapes and play with your machines!

First, I used it on a card. I resized it to be the same height as my card base. For the mat, I trimmed some of the mat away to match the tattoo lines. For the pattern on the mat, I layed the diecut facedown on the mat and inked over it with Distress Ink. After adhering the mat and diecut to the card, I added some Stickles (Vintage Photo shade) along the curves of the diecut. I also inked around the edges of the card with Vintage Photo Distress Ink on an Ink Blending pad. The crown diecut is by Making Memories. The stamped sentiment is from Stampin' Up (stamped with Faded Jeans Distress Ink).

 

Next, I used the tattoo diecut on a layout. Other shapes featured in the layout are the QuicKutz tattoo art set and the Frankie alphabet. The tab is a Marvy punch. I spritzed the tattoo diecut with some Glimmer Mist, too, to help it shimmer and stand out more. I traced the outer edges of the diecut with black journal pen to make the edges stand out more over the busy graffiti background.

 

 

The last way I used the same tattoo shape was as a mask on a layout. I decided to use some old pictures from when we were stationed in Hawaii! The patterned paper is by Rusty Pickle but probably not available anywhere anymore. Other diecuts on the layout are the tropical flower by QuicKutz available as a 2x2 die and as a digital download. I cut the tattoo and attached it to the edge of the layout's page with repositionable adhesive. I spritzed it with Glimmer Mist and then removed the diecut. Once the mist dried, I just rubbed the adhesive away. I added some dots of Stickles and a few Basic Grey pearls amidst the curves of the void left by the diecut, then added my patterned paper and photos. The font on the journal strip is called Hawaii Killer and it's free at dafont.com.

 

 

 

It's actually a 2-page layout, so here's a close-up of the mask on the second page! Anyway, hope your Independence Day weekends have been a blast! Now go play with your diecuts and see what kind of fun techniques you can invent on your pages and cards!