All BOY!

Camping is not a vacation.

My husband wanted to go camping with the kids (back when we had only two) for a vacation. I told him he could take the kids camping for his vacation and I'd stay home for my vacation (where I surprised him by painting the house...also not a vacation...but better than camping!).

He hasn't gone camping since...'nuff said!


Supplies:
Papers: Bo Bunny
Star Punch: Fiskars
Tools: Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, Craft knife (Fiskars), Scissors (Fiskars), Hole Punch (Fiskars)
Other: Cardboard (from JoAnns that I rescued from being thrown into the trash)

Say wha???

Do you know what a woodlouse is? You may call them pill bugs...or roly polys...but apparently the real name is woodlouse. Somehow that just doesn't work so great for a scrapbook page title.


All the papers are from Bo Bunny's Calypso collection. Honestly - when I bought the papers I figured I'd be using them on a layout for my daughter, not my son...but when I was going through my pictures I just had to use them for these pictures of Javan letting a roly poly crawl on him.

I love that with these gorgeous papers there isn't really any embellishing that needs to be done! Once I figured out what I wanted to do, the layout came together very quickly. I did cut out some pieces of the background paper (that was behind the pictures) for a few small touches, but for the most part, the background paper is just what you see here. Beautiful!


The title is done with Thickers. (Note: Bo Bunny does make "Chunky Chips" alphabets...but I couldn't find them locally.)

Oh, and I've got more Bo Bunny goodness coming soon...stay tuned!

The bunny...the bunny...

I don't know if you watch Veggie Tales (or have kids and/or grandkids that do), but lately I've been having a blast with some Bo Bunny papers, and "The Bunny Song" from Veggie Tales keeps getting stuck in my head. Totally not relevant to scrapbooking, but oh well...

I've created four layouts and a card and a home decor project all in the past week using Bo Bunny papers. They have such great designs and I just love the papers! They are so versatile! I still have a couple more projects in mind for the papers I have left. Hopefully someday I'll be able to play with some of their embellishments...especially the new stamps that they are releasing.


Lacie just recently learned to ride her bike without training wheels, and there's nothing like a big sister (who can do something you can't) to inspire little brothers everywhere to try...so Javan has been on a mission to learn to ride training wheel free at 3. (He is a little...okay, a lot...more coordinated than Lacie and is doing really well.)

This layout was created from some papers from Bo Bunny's Grease Monkey collection. I used a round Coluzzle template and knife along with my favorite Fiskars scissors to cut the gear shaped frames for the smaller photos. I don't know what it is about that blur of a photo (the 4x6 in the lower right corner), but I just love that picture! I did a double mat to help it stand out. A couple of the gear shaped pictures and the 4x6 picture are on pop dots to add some dimension to the page. I added a few Thickers for the title (my local scrapbooking store doesn't carry the "Chunky Chips" alphabets - I would have loved to use those for an all Bo-Bunny layout), and voila!

Polly want a cracker?

It has been about 5 years since the last time I saw my grandparents (my dad's parents), and they are now at my Uncle & Aunt's house just an hour away! I try to send them pictures of the kids regularly, but with the ease of e-mail and digital photos I sometimes just don't get around to getting pictures printed and put in the mail.

We went to visit them on Saturday and I wanted to bring them some pictures. I thought it would be fun to make them a box to keep them in, so that is what I did.


I started out with a cracker box from some of my favorite crackers - Wheat Crisps from Trader Joe's (basically their version of Wheat Thins). I also used some "chipboard" from a Joe's O's cereal box (again, thanks, Trader Joe's!). I cut the Joe's O's box to make a lining for the cracker box to give it a bit more stability and to add that little lip that holds the lid in place.

In order to cover the inside and outside with paper I wanted to use some thin paper since it is a bit easier to work with on all the corners, so I grabbed some Miss Elizabeth's paper that I bought at the Dollar Tree awhile back. I didn't have enough for the whole box, so I covered the lid with some plain tan paper from The Paper Company. I am a huge fan of ModPodge for adhering paper to chipboard (or cereal boxes) - I used it on the inside and outside of the box and it worked wonderfully!

After the box was assembled and the ModPodge was dry, I added a couple of finishing touches...a Prima flower and some ribbon (the ribbon was left over from my wedding...7 years ago!). I created the "We are family" tag with GIMP and a Hero Arts stamp and colored it with BIC Mark It markers. I added a few different Distress Inks to give the tag and the lid some personality.

I tried to resist!

That was a pretty lame attempt at a pun on the wax paper "resist" technique I used on this card. I don't own a heat tool/embossing gun, but I wanted to try a resist technique, and found out that a resist could be done with an iron and wax paper. I like the look it gave for the bear's fur. You might recognize the bear from the Bear Hugs stamp set from Cornish Heritage Farms that I've been having so much fun with lately :o)

Supplies:
Paper/Cardstock: Basic Grey, The Paper Company, Georgia Pacific
Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink
Other: Glossy Accents, Ranger Inkssentials white pen, Prima flowers, White Lace Stickles, machine stitching, scissors, craft knife

Happy Camper

I've been playing with the Bear Hugs set from Cornish Heritage Farms again! There is so much that can be done with this cute set...and if you know me very well, you know I am not really an outdoors-y type of girl!


Supplies:
Paper/Cardstock: Basic Grey, Shabby Princess, The Paper Company, Georgia Pacific
Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink
Other: Black Cord (IKEA), Zig Millenium Pen (Black 05), Craft Knife, Scissors, Corner Rounder

Guess what?

Scrapbook Dimensions has requested one of my cards for publication...yay! It's my first time, so I had to make an "Out for publication" image (to put in place of the image of the actual card that I am not allowed to share).

Here's what I came up with:


Hopefully you'll be seeing it OFTEN!

ProvoCraft / Cricut : Gypsy

Hmmm...what's this???

Gypsy from Provo Craft



How long until it's released? See here.

Information from Obsessed with Scrapbooking:

Features:
•Size – 8” x 3” x 1.5”
•Weight – 11 ounces
•Screen Size - 4.7”, 16:9, 480 x 272
•Stylus Length – 3.75”
•Storage – ~4000 Cartridges, 10000+ Designs
•Battery Life – 4 hrs cont. 18 hrs int.
•Compatible with all Cricut Machines and Cartridges
•Weld, size, slant, rotate, stretch, preview
•2 Full content cartridges preloaded


Benefits:
•No computer required
•All CDS (Cricut Design Studio) functionality on-the-go with no PC
•Interfaces with CDS when connected to a PC
•Stores All Content
•Stores All Overlays
•Stores All Manuals
•Stores CDS Projects

Happy 07/08/09 day!

Oh, and happy 07/08/09 day!!! What were you doing at 10:11:12 am (or pm) today???
(Javan wasn't happy about the picture taking process)

You Warm My Heart

When I saw this stamp set from Cornish Heritage Farms, I immediately started thinking how fun it would be to try to color the fire. I used some Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, and Fired Brick) to create a gradient effect for the flames and then stamped with Black Soot Distress Ink on top. I used Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo, and Walnut Stain for the logs and frame. I then cut out a few different images and pieced them together to get more depth in the flames and logs. (The photos don't show it well, but the logs are 2-3 layers thick.)


I used a Maya Road chipboard coaster book as a template to make my own window/frame (I used Mod Podge to attach the paper I had inked with Distress Inks to a piece of a cereal box and then cut out the frame I had drawn). I finished it off with some black cord from IKEA. I used the same chipboard piece to make the white background which I inked with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink to accentuate the fire.


Once I had the flames and logs pieced onto the background I attached them to the card (which is made from basic black cardstock and the red paisley paper which is from My Mind's Eye). I used the back side of the My Mind's Eye paper (the orange piece) to write the sentiment for the inside of the card. I wrote it with the white Ranger Inkssentials Pen and used a Sakura Micron 01 in Black for the accents.