Embossing Love

| cristina

A couple months ago, I took the plunge and bought a manual die cutting machine. After considering the options (namely the Cuttlebug, which is smaller and less sturdy), I decided to get the Big Shot. My main motivation to buy it was to use it with wafer thin dies, but I also bought an embossing folder, just to try it out… and I have fallen in love with embossing!

I really love the results! Here are a few cards I made for my Project Life album.

Embossing folder: Amy Tangerine

Embossing folder: Tim Holtz

 

Embossing folder: We R Memory Keepers

Embossing folder: Cuttlebug (left)          Tim Holtz (right)

I have been playing with creating a faux letterpress look. I just used some Hero Arts shadow inks for this card.

This one is probably my favorite plate set! By We R Memory Keepers

Seriously.. embossing, where have you been all my life?? 😉

Heck Yeah

| cristina

Yay for the weekend! And yay for the World Cup.. are you a soccer fan?? I sure am! 😉
Anyway, back to scrapbooking.. here’s a lovely new kit that I had fun playing with this week! I love the orange, teal, yellow and gray combination! Here’s the card I made with it.

Enjoy your weekend! I am alone this weekend so I’ll make sure to get my craft on, yay!

Why I Love Wednesdays

| cristina

Hello and happy Wednesday! This is my favorite day of the working week, because it’s SOSN (Something Old, Something New) – 50% off selected products at The Lilypad. I love it because it’s the best way to grab some gorgeous products I missed when they first came out, and add some new ones too! Here’s what I made with today’s goodies.

Credits:
The Roots fonts by Heather Joyce

Yes, I used a cleaning kit to make a page about a haircut. 😉

Credits:
Mini Dot Alphas by Amy Martin
The Roots fonts by Heather Joyce

This gorgeous kit was from last July’s BYOC and I had not scrapped with it, I was so happy to do it now because it’s gorgeous!

June BYOC

| cristina

I scrapped this week. Oh yes I scrapped. And I bet you will want to too, once you see the June BYOC at The Lilypad. :))

I really am not much for purple at all, but I’ve fallen in love with this BYOC!

Credits:
Drift Away Elements by Sahlin Studio
Summer Days Badges by Stolen Moments Designs

Such a great mix of papers, elements, alphas and templates!

Credits:
Painted Rounders v2 and Mended Around by Amy Martin
Summer Days Pocket Cards by Stolen Moments Designs

I also made a card for my MIL with the BYOC products by Sahlin Studio.

Credits:

Next up, I have a page documenting a very special happening.

Credits:
Timeline templates by Paislee Press
Sprinkles v24 by Valorie Wibbens
Dreams Do Come True Elements by Little Butterfly Wings

We have a robin nest on our deck, and we’ve been able to look at the progression. It’s just so sweet! The nest is quite high and we’ve only been able to sneak phone pictures there (sadly out of focus), but it was worth documenting! And this timeline template was just perfect!

OK.. last page now.

Credits:
Sassy Pants Papers by Amy Wolff
Painted Rounders v2 and Mended Around by Amy Martin
A Bit Worn no. 7 and Sprinkles v24 by Valorie Wibbens
Dreams Do Come True Elements by Little Butterfly Wings
Summer Days Badges by Stolen Moments Designs
And for being someone who doesn’t like purple.. I am digging the purple on this page! 🙂

King of the Woods

| cristina

Today is Wednesday – the middle of the week, and SOSN (Something Old, Something New) at The Lilypad. Select new and old products are 50% off today only. I picked one that is a classic, but for some reason I had never used it before.

This kit made me go and pull out this photo from three years ago, because it was a perfect match!

 

Credits:
King of the Woods by Karah Fredricks and Anne DeJong
Font: The Serif’s Sister by Heather Hess

I love the pretty grass stamps included in the kit; I used them to create a border for the bottom of my page.

Anniversary Week – Day 5

| cristina

{this is part of a series I wrote for write.click.scrapbook. You can find the full post here}

Welcome to the last day of this Anniversary Week! Today I am sharing some ideas for anniversary gifts.

Some of these projects don’t require photos, and others do, so you can pick the project based off of what you have available.

Let’s start with a photo-less project. Here is a set of personalized coasters I made. I bought the tiles at Lowe’s and covered them up with different digital papers.

Last year my in-laws’ celebrated their 50th anniversary, so I collected a bunch of photos from their family and friends and made a photo collage. We had it printed and framed for them. They loved it!

Next, I want to share two frames I decorated. These make a great gift too. I got the frame from Michaels and it’s very easy to cover up and embellish.

This other frame was from the dollar store, and I covered it up with paper.

Finally, I wanted to share the wall heart-shaped photo display I put together. I prepared photo and paper squares of ~3 inches side and arranged them in a heart shape. I just love how this looks in our living room!

I hope you enjoyed all the anniversary inspiration this week!

Graduation

| cristina

The lovely new releases at The Lilypad this week prompted me to finally get this picture from last year scrapped! 🙂

Credits:
May 2014 challenge freebie template by Amy Martin
Little Graduates by Kate Hadfield

I’m very happy to be nearing the week’s end.. this will be my last Saturday in class for the next three months and it feels good! 🙂

Anniversary Week – Day 3

| cristina

{this is part of a series I wrote for write.click.scrapbook. You can find the full post here}

Welcome to Day 3 of this Anniversary Week! Today I will be sharing some inspiration for anniversary cards.

I find it especially meaningful to give a homemade card to celebrate the sweet milestone of an anniversary.

Some of the tips I shared on Day 1 still apply to cards. In particular, focusing on the numbers is always a nice way to build a card.

Here’s an example from me for our 6th anniversary.

For my in-laws’ 50th, I made a card that featured gold – the color of the 50th anniversary.

Finally, this is the card I made this year for my husband.

Come back tomorrow for some mini album inspiration!

Anniversary Week – Day 1

| cristina

{this is part of a series I wrote for write.click.scrapbook. You can find the full post here}

Hello! Our theme for the week is Anniversaries. I figured this would be a fitting theme for this week, given that write.click.scrapbook’s 5th anniversary is coming up, and it happens to be my wedding anniversary as well. 🙂

Throughout the week we’ll be talking about documenting anniversaries and relationships, how to scrap milestones, anniversary cards, mini albums, and ideas for anniversary gifts.

Documenting Anniversaries

Here are a few tips for your anniversary pages: focus on the photograph, feature the numbers, and tell a story.

Focus on the Photograph

This tip is simple enough: just let the photo speak. Here is my Second Anniversary page.

And here is our Third Anniversary.

Feature the Numbers

I also love to feature the anniversary number on my pages.

Can you spot the number 5 on my Fifth Anniversary page?

The numbers on my Sixth Anniversary page aren’t as subtle. 🙂

Tell A Story

Another tip is to add some journaling about your couple, or about what you did on your anniversary. For my Fourth Anniversary page, I wrote a couple sentences to document how we celebrated it.

Documenting Relationships

All these tips work not just for anniversary pages, but also to document relationships in a broader sense.

A Word About Taking Photos…

As you may have noted, all my anniversary pages feature photographs of my husband and me. But I don’t think I am the only one with a husband who hates being in photos.. am I? So I wanted to share a few tips on how to get those photos taken.

  1. Choose your camera wisely. My husband has a particular aversion to my D-SLR, while he is much more ready to take iPhone pictures. So I pick my battles and only insist on using the big camera when I feel it’s worth it.
  2. Be prepared. Whenever I want a photo with my D-SLR, I know I need to plan in advance, set up the tripod, etc. and have everything ready to snap quickly.
  3. Keep it light. Don’t expect to take 100 shots, one or two good ones will suffice.
  4. Set the mood. The best way to get some good pictures with my husband is to make him laugh. I remember a particularly tough photo session – I had my tripod set up, the cherry trees were in bloom, but he was in a lousy mood. But while I was taking a couple shots of him alone, he started taking a selfie, and I took a photo of him taking a selfie, and that made us laugh. After that, everything went smoothly and I got some great shots (check out my Sixth Anniversary page above for proof).
  5. Share/Motivate. Show him the previous photos you took and how you documented them, and perhaps he will be moved to take new photos. (Sadly, this one doesn’t work at all with my husband..)
  6. Bribe. If your husband is anything like mine, he’ll be open to posing for a few shots in exchange of something he wants – in our case, it’s usually a nice meal ;).

I hope you enjoyed these tips and the inspiration! Tomorrow we will be talking about how to scrap milestones!