Friday, August 22, 2014

Two Little Girls

Two little girls I know are going to Tokyo Disneyland for a day in the near future.  I remember the first time I went; I didn't know the characters would sign their autographs for you. I think I still have the park maps with their signatures on them (some 20+ years later). I didn't want them to be in the same boat as me when I went unprepared to get autographs so I decided to make them autograph books to take with them. 


I whipped these up in record time and used leftovers in my stash.  The cover cardstock is K&Co packaging, the letter stickers are from a design team kit (I didn't have enough a's so I made an extra one from a b), and the patterned paper I used on the left hand edge and the inside cover is from a class I went to a few years ago.  The notebooks I had in my stash. Unfortunately, I was worried about the notebook pages falling apart so I decided to rethink the binding. I cut them apart, separated the notebook pages, added another notebook's worth of pages (doubling the size of the notebook), and bound using my [new] cinch. In fact, I got the cinch in June after wanting one for a year or more. Today, I actually took it out of the box and used it! So easy!


I preferred the notebooks as they were originally but now I know they will stand up to handling by young girls (under age 5) and they also have the added bonus of having more paper.

I am entering these notebooks in 2 challenges as they both have the theme of Anything Goes!
The details for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog is here .
The details for the Inspiration Emporium Challenge blog is here .
Can you tell I am desperate to win a shopping voucher at either of these stores? Tim Holtz has released an alphabet die set I just have to get my hands on!

PS I haven't spelled Ema's name wrong! Ema is the short version of her name and her full name wouldn't fit!

Materials:
Paper - K&Co, Bo Bunny; Alpha's - Doodlebug; Plastic Coating - Quikutz; Binding - Cinch; Notebooks.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Olaf - Anything Goes

Someone I know had a Frozen themed birthday - a 5th birthday. I thought to myself: I could make a snowman (apologies to anyone who now has that song in their head).  Apparently I can't make a snowman and I am very embarrassed with how my Olaf turned out. What do you think?



This will be the last and only snowman I ever make. It must be love.

The paper started out life as a cream doily print.  The birthday girl's favourite colour is purple so out came my ink applicator and a purple ink pad to re-colour it. I thought the doily pattern represented swirly snow.

Two challenge sites have Anything Goes as their current challenge so I am entering this card in both of them (even though I am embarrassed by it!). I am entering this card in Inspiration Emporium's challenge - the details for the challenge are here . The other challenge site is over at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - the details are here .
 
Materials: Paper - Prima, Glassine - Ranger, Cardstock - Stampin' Up!, Ink - Tim Holtz, Enamel Dots - Ranger, Crystals - Kaisercraft, Number - American Crafts, Journal Pen - Stampin' Up!,  Snowflakes, Punches

Friday, August 8, 2014

Using The Stash - Anything Goes

Last year I had a personal goal of using older items from my stash. Each blog entry would have a mention near the end of older , even never used, items from my stash. You remember that right? Then I seemed to have stopped. Well, I created today's layout using plenty of older items from my stash (some may have been previously unused!). I saw a layout by Geralyn Sy on Studio Calico's blog which had a lot of stamped circles on it. I pulled out my circle stamps. At first I worried I wouldn't have any or enough. Boy, was I mistaken. I ended up with a pile on my floor.  I sorted through choosing the circle designs I wanted to use. Then it was on to choosing ink colour which lead me trying to decide what order I wanted the colours stamped in. Originally I imagined this layout would come together very quickly as I had a design already - 'fraid not! After test stamping first, then switching to markers instead to choose the colours and order, I finally got around to stamping. Next up I had to decide about the corner frame accent. Originally it wasn't going to be added. I recently bought a packet of Heidi Swapp frames (on sale at Spotlight - bonus!) and thought: what about using one of those. Sadly, it was a fraction to small for my photo. Then I thought: what if I cut it in half and used the pieces as photo corners?. Then: 2 photo corners or one? - one. Then: which corner? Agh! Eventually it was done. Today as I went to photograph it I had thrown some tiny clothes pegs on the table and I thought to myself: what if I added one of those? I really need to stop asking myself so many questions and go back to using another goodie I used to pull out for my blog: just glue it down!

 
 
Older Items From My Stash: K&Co word, mini clothes peg, and most of the stamps! (one set is by Nic Howard for Crafting Connection in 2004!) 
New Items: Heidi Swapp frame and stamps, Ranger perfect pearls (love them!) and October Afternoon flair
 
I am entering this layout in the latest challenge at Inspiration Emporium - Anything Goes. It is quite apt as I ordered most of my perfect pearls from them (can't wait for the new colours to be released). The challenge details are here .
 
Materials: Paper - Glitz Designs;  Washi - MME; Word - K&Co; Frame -Heidi Swapp;  Perfect Pearls - Ranger; Flair - October Afternoon,  Ink - Ranger, Stampin' Up!, Versamagic, Colorbok; Stamps - Heidi Swapp, Kaisercraft, Mama Elephant, Martha Stewart, Little Yellow Bicycle, Autumn Leaves, 3 Bugs in a Rug, The Paper Company Studio, Fiskars; Resin Flowers, Mini Clothes Peg - unknown.

Friday, August 1, 2014

#society52

I've been plunged into the world of Instagram by my American niece. Does that make me hip? Probably not, sadly. I started following @society52 which puts up a new challenge every week then puts up a twist in the middle of that week. I decided to load my recent layout to their challenge this week. My Instagram privacy settings are set at private so I don't know if they can see my entry! I'm not very techy but I'm wondering if I load it to my blog with their hashtag it will show up if they searched for it? Here goes:

 
#society52
 
 
 
I hope @society52 get to see my entry! The challenge this week is to use no patterned paper. The background paper is the [folded over] excess paper from a tourist map which I used for the background for the next page. I added Project Life cards to fill the gap in the middle then threw on items from my travel theme stash and some luggage souvenirs then I glued them down. It came together really fast - always a bonus. Their mid week twist is add black and my 4x6" cards have black on them already!
 
Materials: Film Strips, Post-It, Gold Border Strip - Teresa Collins; Cards - Kaisercraft, Simple Stories; Flair - October Afternoon; Veneers - Studio Calico; Chipboard Stickers - Michels.