Using Just Scraps

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I left all my goodies at my friend's house, but wanted to make something today. So I used a lot of my scrap paper I had piling up. A little Bo Bunny, Echo Park, My Mind's Eye, and my beloved Kraft. I decided to cut one inch strips then cut the strips into two inch pieces. Then I cut one at an angle and used that as my template for all the other pieces. Placed them all down with a smidge of glue for a faux quilting chevron look.

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After they were adhered pretty well, I sewed around the edge with my sewing machine. For the sentiment I used a Hero Arts cling mount stamp. I cut out a strip of Kraft and inked up the stamp with Versa Mark and sprinkled the image with Sea Foam White embossing powder. Cut it out and adhered it with foam adhesives.

Hope you like it and that it inspires you to use some scraps.

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

Entered into Create Magazine's chevron challenge.

ETA: This project was posted on Create's blog via Scrapbook Trends magazine. :)

Lawnscaping Challenge, Getting Texty!

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The new challenge with Lawnscaping is to make a project using text. I chose to spell out "thankful" with Sally's ABCs, use the "thank you" stamp from sophie's sentiments, and spell out "give thanks" with
smitty's ABCs in Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo to create the background layer of text for this card on Kraft cardstock.

After I stamped out all the text, I stamped and cut out six leaves from the harvest season set on scratch paper and used them as masks. I adhered the leaf masks down with removable adhesive and sprayed with Mr. Huey's mist in cream and Tattered Angel's Glimmer Mist in gold. I let it dry completely and removed the masks. I then stamped the areas that were under the masks with the same leaf stamp in Versamark ink. Sprinkled clear embossing powder on them and heat embossed.

Now that the background is complete I stamped out the cornucopia from the same Harvest Season stamp set and colored it in with Copic markers, cut it out and set it aside. I cut out a piece of textured cream cardstock and ran Tim Holtz's Distress Stain in Antique Linen over it. While it was still wet I took my foam tool and ran Vintage Photo Distress Ink over it ever so slightly, then spritzed it once with Sand Glimmer Mist. I blotted off the excess with a paper towel and dried it with my heat tool. Once dry I stamped it with the same leaf stamp as before with Vintage Photo, but stamped it off on a scrap piece of paper twice before stamping it on my cardstock. Lastly I edged it with the same Vintage Photo Distress ink and adhered it to another piece of cardstock from My Mind's Eye. Now it is perfectly distressed for that organic autumn feel. I adhered the cornucopia with foam adhesives and stamped the "Happy Thanksgiving" stamp on a piece of canvass tape with brown Stayzon ink and stuck it down. Glued it to the texty background and it's all finished.

Thanks so much for stopping by and happy first day of Autumn!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

Trick or Treat Bunny Card.

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For this card the stamps that I used are the Hero Art's woodgrain stamp, Lawn Fawn's Happy Haunting stamp set & Heebie Jeebies stamp set, and American Craft's Spooky Night small set. I started off cutting out a tree on my Cricut from the Cindy Loo cartridge. I sprayed the tree with chocolate chalk spray from Tattered Angels and let it dry. After it dried completely I stamped the tree with the woodgrain stamp from Hero Arts with Versa Mark ink and covered the tree with clear embossing powder. After heat embossing with my heat tool I went over it with Vintage Photo distress ink with a foam ink tool. Adhered the tree and cut off the edges that were hanging off. The next image I stamped was the bunny trick or treater from the American Craft's set, Copic colored it, and paper pieced it to the card. I did the same with the bat and the moon from the two Lawn Fawn stamps.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

Scraplifting, Card Edition:

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I get inspired by heaps of paper crafters out there in the blog world. I saw Kristina Werner's card on Pinterest and just loved it! I knew I wanted to scraplift it, but change it a tad to make it my own style. I guess kind of like American Idol ...sing a song, but make it your own.

I used Kraft card stock and stamped it with the Hero Arts woodgrain stamp in Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo. Then hand drew the curved piece of Echo Park green paper with the zigzag pattern on it and cut it out. Adhered it to the kraft paper and ran the curved part through my sewing machine and then gel penned faux stitches over it. Stamped stamps from American Craft's Amy Tangerine set ...the frame stamp was stamped with Stampin Up Rich Razzleberry ink and the Hello Friend stamp in Stampin Up Wild Wasabi ink. I cut it out and adhered it with foam adhesives. Edged all the paper with Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo to bring them all together and added the three colored brads at the top. Then adhered the whole thing to a piece of Amy Tangerine cardstock ...and of course edged that with my most loved ink pad.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

More color, Gaby!

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I was submitting some of my paper projects for a guest designer opportunity when I noticed I use way too many greens, turquoises, and blues. Of course I only realized this after I sent in my submission, I wish I could do a do-over! I did include my blog address so hopefully they'll look here, too! This Layout still has my favorite colors, but I mixed in some pink, yellow, and a touch of white. Sure, I still used Kraft, but I love it and it flows throughout all the layouts I've done so far in 2011. Plus it's good for the environment! :)

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I also decided I needed to put my embroidery skills into more of my layouts. I actually started embroidering about four years before I started scraping. I never said I was any good at it, but I like the dimension it gives to the paper. The tag I hand wrote in pencil, poked holes along the letters and went over it a few times with stitching to give it that thick rope look. The hearts are from an American Crafts tool called Sew Easy. I used Echo Park, Doodlebug, and Kraft cardstock. The lone flower button is from Pebbles and the adorable camera stamp is from Amy Tan's line, Amy Tangerine for American Crafts. I am such an Amy Tan fan girl! I can't wait to get more of her line!

Thanks so much for dropping by! Also you may have noticed the "pin it" buttons under most of my photos here on my blog. This is for pinning purposes on Pinterest.com. If think any of my works are pin/share worthy I would love for you to pin them! If you'd like an invite to Pinterest please let me know and I'll definitely send you one. Such an awesome site to share inspiration, recipes, cuteness, DIY ideas, home decor, and so much more!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

I love Halloween with all the black kitty goodness!

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When I saw last month's Close to My Heart stamp set I just knew I had to have it! The witch is a little on the sultry side and the sentiment is pretty cute. A little homage to 'Wicked', yea? However, there is a black kitty with a curly tail!! <3 I seriously love black cats. Isn't my kitty a beauty?

OK, I'll stop with flaunting my cat's beauty and get back to card making! The card base is Kraft and the background with the purple sky is Doodlebug. I edged the purple sky cardstock with Stamp'n Up's Rich Razzleberry ink. It's a very deep and rich purple and a perfect accent to the paper.

I paper pieced everything and that witch was one pain in the okole to cut out! I used a craft knife where my scissors couldn't go, it was pretty tedious! I didn't cut it perfectly though. A good trick to fix the little bits that you couldn't cut is to run a black Copic marker along the edges to fill in what you missed. I outlined the sentiment with an orange copic (YR07 Cadmium Orange) marker and also colored in bits of the witch's hat and her stockings.

The twine I used is a super cute Halloween baker's twine also from Doodlebug. It has black, orange, and white threads twisted together. I placed a Doodlebug dark purple gem on the center of the bow to draw the purple into the final accent to the card.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

This project was entered into:
Freshly Brewed Challenges

Products you love every which way, September.

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Here's another entry for the Products you love every which way class from Shannon Tidwell. This month's class at Two Peas In a Bucket focuses on tapes. There's tissue tapes, washi tapes, cotton tapes, canvas tapes, embossed masking tapes, and I'm sure many other decorative paper crafting tapes I didn't mention. For this layout I used Prima's Bare Canvas tape, Tim Holtz's Tissue Tape, and Amy Tangerine's by American Crafts Mixed tape (haha, get it? so cute!).

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First I cut down a piece of kraft cardstock by taking an inch off of two of the four sides. Then I took a ruler and made a crisscross pattern kind of like the top of a pie with a pencil. I misted the kraft with some Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Bahama Blue, then misted over that with a layer of Studio Calico Mr. Huey's Cream mist. After I let it dry I started adhering Tim Holtz's Tissue Tape diagonally up one side and back down the other to form that pie pattern crisscross I had sketched out in pencil. After that was all finished I inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and adhered it to a 12x12 sheet of plain Kraft.

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On my journaling tag is where I added the other two tapes. First I stamped out the lines on the tag with Lawn Fawn's Schoolhouse Backdrops. After that I used Amy Tangerine's Mixed Tape in the woodgrain pattern to the edges of the tag. Once I got that all stuck down how I liked it, I rolled out a piece of Prima's Bare Canvass Tape and stamped out Folly Beach using Lawn Fawn's Sally's ABC stamps and brown StayzOn ink. All I had to do after was peel off the backing and stick it on the tag as my title and fill in my journaling.

After all my tissue tape adventures I added some other embellishments and a title. The title is silly, I know. Ever since I heard that the storm was named Irene I couldn't get the song, 'Come on Eileen' out of my head. It probably doesn't help I was listening to Save Ferris (one of my favorite CDs from high school) the week before. I kept saying it sarcastically in my head, "Oh Come ON, Irene!" Hoping we wouldn't have to cut our vacation short to come home to NC to prepare. Sadly we did have to come home early, but luckily we had very little damage. So I'm not complaining!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

Lawnscaping Challenge, embossing.

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The current Lawnscaping challenge is using either wet or dry embossing on a paper project. I chose to use wet heat embossing. I used black embossing powder on the fence, the bats, and the house. I used Distress walnut embossing powder for the tree. The Lawn Fawn stamp sets I used were: Happy Haunting, Harvest Season, and Heebie Jeebies.

I distressed the night sky on the card with Tim Holt'z foam applicator tool using four different Tim Holtz distress inks (concord grape, stormy sky, broken china, vintage photo) and two mists by Tattered Angles (sand and peacock). Everything but the fence and the tree trunk were stamped, cut, and paper pieced. The ghosts and the large bat have foam adhesive behind them.

Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to check out Lawnscaping Challenges if you're interested in all their awesome challenges that come with fabulous prizes!

Inky and glittery fingers for all,
Gaby

Products you love every which way, August

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Shannon Tidwell teaches this monthly class at Two Peas In a Bucket that focuses on one different scrapbooking product each month. For August's class it was stamping.

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I finally got my hands on the elusive Hero Art's woodgrain stamp and I was dying to use it! It's a humungo stamp that's about as big as a standard greeting card. I knew I wanted to use it on a die cut of some sort. I chose a heart (awww, so sappy) because the picture I used for the layout is of my husband and I on the beach after our friend's vow renewal on Folly beach in SC. Love was in the air, what can I say? I die cut the heart with my Cricut and stamped it with Versa Mark ink then poured sea foam embossing powder on it. After tapping off the excess embossing powder I heat embossed it. Lastly I edged it with my favorite ink of all time, Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo Distress ink. After this step I knew I wanted to do the whole page white washed Carolina beach style ....and that is how the page was born. To start of the white washed look I mixed Jenni Bowlin's Malted Milk acrylic paint with Parrot color glimmer mist and dry brushed a square on kraft cardstock. Then I cut down a piece of cardstock that had a mish mash of text on it that was white washed and misted it with both Peacock and Apricot glimmer mists and let dry.

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For another stamping technique I used Lawn Fawn's teeny tiny backdrop hearts and stamped it on Prima's canvas tape with brown Stayzon ink. After matting my two pictures with a Pink Paislee Orange Nantucket paper and adhering them to the page I put down the stamped canvas tape in the middle of the page. Then I decided to go hog wild with the sewing machine stitching over and over again to give it more of a worn feel. After I put down my woodgrain die cut heart and went from there. I distressed the Amy Tangerine die cut camera with some of the paint I used earlier and filled in the heart with the same paint. Then stamped Ali Edwards 2011 stamp on a sticker, cut it out and adhered it to the top of the heart.

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On the other side I used a Jenni Bowlin days of the month bingo card and thought it would be cute to dab on some blue distress ink on the 21 (the day of the month the picture was taken) as if it were those bingo dot paint things they use to mark the numbers. It took a while, but I decided on the yellow Nantucket die cut from Pink Paislee and distressed it like I did the camera and then adding some Vintage Photo (ha, what else is new?) distress inks to the very edge. I wanted to give it a lil more depth so I added a paper clip from Stamp'n up and a tin from October Afternoon to top it off. Lastly I added the chipboard letters.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
-Gaby

ETA: Yay this project won the challenge at Two Peas! :)

4x6 Photo Love, August.

Every month in 2011 on the 30th Shimelle Laine does a free class that uses 4x6 photos. Each month you add another 4x6 photo to the layouts. For example, in January we had one 4x6 photo on the layout and for August's layout we had eight. This is my layout for her challenge for August 30th's class which consisted of eight photos. My husband and I took a road trip down to Charleston, SC and this layout is from the day we spent at Boone Hall Plantation.

Here's the sketch. Basically it's one 12x12 page and two smaller pages (about two thirds smaller than a 12x12 depending on your positioning on your larger page), the smaller pages act as an interactive flap that works with your large page. It's best to sew the smaller page protector to the 12x12 along the binding. This was the first time I've sewn since home ech in intermediate school, so I was pretty nervous! I picked up a small sewing machine at a garage sale last month and I thought I would dive in and try it out. I practiced a little on some spare cloth and then just went for it. Luckily it went well! yay!

Pin ItHere's the layout all tucked into the sewn page protector with the smaller paper resting on top of the 12x12 page. I really like how it turned out! Shimelle is awesome!

Pin ItAnd this shows how it looks when the smaller page is open. Cute, yea?

Pin ItThe front of the smaller page with my adorable husband playing along with my nonsense for me. I asked him if he could grab the fence ala Ryan Gossling from "The Notebook". He loves me, he does. ;)

Pin ItThe back of the smaller page with a pretty opening of some trees down a road the tractor uses to get to the farms which are still in use today and a shot of the only member of the Boone family buried on the plantation. He was the son of Col. Boone that planted the avenue of oaks. They take 100 years to form and the son wanted to be buried by them to watch over the trees he planted.

Pin ItThe 12x12 page by itself. This has photos of the Boone Hall home, the front porch (Where they filmed "The Notebook", "Queen", and "North & South"), the original slave cabins from the 1700's, and the gorgeous Avenue of Oaks. Some pretty with some history that shouldn't be forgotten.

Pin ItI used my Amy Tangerine stamp set finally, yay! I stamped the camera from the set on green vinyl ribbon with brown StayzOn ink, cut and placed on some kraft cardstock, then inked the edges with Tim Holtz's distress ink in vintage photo. Stamped it again on some kraft and cut out the heart only. Then inked the edges again and paper pieced it to the camera. I thought this added a nice touch as the Avenue of Oaks is one of the most photographed driveways in the world.

Pin ItI also did the same technique to the camera from Lawn Fawn's say cheese two set and adhered it to an Ormolu button to match the woodgrain camera button of theirs I used.

Thanks so much for stopping by and looking at my projects, I really appreciate it!

Inky and glittery fingers for all!
Gaby

My take on beach botanical ...

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My friend Tamra asked me to make a birthday card for her friend somewhat like the card I made for her birthday last year. That her friend liked the beach and flower gardens and that she wanted her friend's name, April, on the front of the card. This is what I came up with and I'm pretty happy with it. I used a mask from Prima and a bunch of acrylic paints to make the background. Then I misted over it with gold and apricot colored glimmer mists. I really like how it turned out. It was trial and error for me though! I first tried to use the masks with mists and it was a no-go as the mists just rain under the plastic mask. Then I tried using distress inks with a foam tool and that just bent the fine bits of the mask ....so that's when I thought gently dabbing on acrylic paints with a stiff brush would work best.

I first attempted to hand write the "happy birthday" on the card like I had done for Tamra's card last year. Sadly I messed up and had to cover it. I had received these canvas sticky back rolls from a Two Peas challenge win and thought I could save my card by stamping out the sentiment with Stayzon brown ink with Lawn Fawn's Smitty's ABCs. The only problem was that the canvas was a wee bit too transparent so I had to adhere it to a piece of paper first then cut it out and adhere to the card. In the end it looked really cool seeing the tiny white flowers on orange through the canvas. I added some Stamp'n Up corduroy brads to add a lil something extra to give it the look of it being tacked up by the brads.

For the bottom embellishment I used a die cut from the Paislee Nantucket collection, a wish ticket from Tim Holtz, and a metal butter fly from Close to My Heart.

The green outer border is washi tape from Amy Tangerine.

Every thing was edged in Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo before adhering and lastly I sprayed it ever so slightly with the Gold Glimmer Mist. Of course I felt it wasn't enough so I sprayed it once more, but this time with Sand Glimmer Mist.

I just sent the picture of the final product to my friend, I hope she likes it!

Inky and glitter fingers for all!
Gaby