Card Swap - Grid Technique

Here is this month's card swap for the grid technique. Rather than use a scoring board to create the grid lines, I used a texture plate which essentially achieved the same look but saved lots of time. The two-step butterfly stamp is from Stampin' Up?. 

OWH - Sketch #187

Here is this week's card for sketch #187 from Operation Write Home. I used scraps from last week's card and stayed with the blue/green theme. The dragonfly is from the retired Stampin' Up! set called "Wonderful Wings (2001)". The double bow was tied using the bow maker from Lee Conrey.

Sketch 30

Here is the most current Sketch to Scrapbook page from Shimelle. The focus of this page is "A Design for Landscape and Portrait Photos." For whatever reason I really struggled with this page although I was initially really excited about all of the vibrant colors in the photos. Anyway, the papers, the stitching and the washi tape are all from Stampin' Up! and created using My Digital Studio software.

OWH - Sketch #186

This morning we took our girls for a quick hike in the Angeles National Forest so I thought this Adventurers stamp from Stampin' Up! would work well with this week's sketch from Operation Write Home.

OWH - Sketches #183 and #184

I finally went back and completed the cards for Operation Write Home's sketch #183 and #184. Both cards feature the new chevron border punch from Stampin' Up while most of the other elements are scraps from other projects.

Sketch 29

This week's Sketch to Scrapbook page from Shimelle is titled "A Gathering in 3x4" and features one of the latest trends in scrapbooking...the journaling card made popular by Project Life. I chose to use three vacation photos of the USS North Carolina that coordinated with the 3x4 card. 

Tim Holtz - 12 Tags of 2013 (Aug)

This month's tag from Tim focused on travel and summer vacations. Although I really loved his Route 66 themed tag, I knew I wanted to use the ship from Stampin' Up's "The Open Sea" set. The inspiration for enlarging the stamped image and the ship's 3D sails came from Melanie. I started with Night of Navy textured cardstock, added the background stamp "World Map" in silver ink and distressed the edges with the distressing tool and chocolate chip ink. I colored two versions of the ship and used the sails from the second image and adhered with Stampin' dimensionals. All of the remaining embellishments, except for the vertical piece of tape, are Stampin' Up! products.

OWH - Sketch #185

Here is a quick and simple card for this week's sketch from Operation Write Home. I am a few cards behind and will be posting makeup cards shortly. Hope you're having a great Sunday.

Sketch 28

Here is my layout for Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook Page, "A Vertical Design for Smaller Photos." Since we've been listening to water dropping helicopters for the last three days, I thought fire photos would be perfect for this layout. If you'd like to see a related news clip about the fire you can click here.

Birthday Butterflies

No sketch today, just a birthday card for my sister-in-law. The butterflies are recycled from a Thank You card that she gave us months ago. I had no idea that the newspaper DSP in the background was discussing butterfly caterpillars until I posted the photos.

Sketch 27

Happy Saturday! Here is my layout for Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook page, "Starting with a Mist." I chose to use a huge ink splatter as my "mist" and focal point for the layout. The photos are from the Matchbox Twenty and Goo Goo Dolls concert we attended in July.

Sketch 26

The focus of this Sketch to Scrapbook page from Shimelle is "Scrapbooking with a Favorite Patterned Paper." I used Stampin' Up's Sunset Serenade, applied a few layers of coordinating paper and finished it off with a sentiment.  

Grid Technique

This month's technique involves using a scoring board to create a grid pattern and a base for stamping images. Although it can be somewhat tedious the results are very nice. Please scroll down for the instructions.

Card Swap - Collage Stamping Technique

Here is my card swap for this month's technique. I used Stampin' Up's core'dinations cardstock with the new alphabet press embossing folder to create the background. The lobster, sea horse and script images are from the "By the Tide" set. You can view the instructions for the technique at this post.

OWH - Sketch #182

Here is this week's sketch from Operation Write Home. I used Stampin' Up's new core'dinations cardstock for the hexagons and lightly distressed the embossed image on the reverse side with a sanding block. The bicycle die cut is from the card I mentioned last week. Yeah for recycling.

 

Sketch 25

Here is Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook page, "Scrapbooking with a Title on the Photo." For this layout I used photos of our dog Kobi each with a different effect applied by RadLab.

Sketch 24

Here is Sketch 24 from Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook series. The focus of this sketch is "Scrapbooking with 4x6 Photos and Square Photos." All the products used are from Stampin' Up!

OWH - Sketch #181

For this week's sketch from Operation Write Home I recycled a birthday card (© Hallmark, Life Is Good) that my husband had received from one of my good friends. Although I didn't follow the sketch exactly I tried to stay true to the overall theme.

Gourd Necklace

A few weekends ago we attended Gourdstock at the Bates Nut Farm near San Diego. I purchased this gourd necklace from Barbara Prestridge. If you're curious, the rectangular piece around the turquoise is made of gourd. If you want to see more in person you should check out the Davis Ranch Gourd Festival in September and the Yucca Valley Gourd and Art Festival in November.

OWH - Sketches 179 and 180

I spent the last week catching up on two other projects so sketch #179 was delayed for a week and has been posted below. If you'd like to see what else I've been doing you can see my July tag here and my digital Sketch to Scrapbook pages here.

For Operation Write Home's sketch #180, directly below, I used Stampin' Up's new Strawberry Slush ink, cardstock and the new stamp "By The Tide".

Sketches 21, 22 and 23

I am finally caught up with all of Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook Pages and  I actually got a nice little tweet back from her after my last post. Of course, I'm now noticing that Shimelle is behind by a month (oh no).

Sketch 21 :: Adding an Angle
Sketch 22 :: A Corner Gathering
Sketch 23 :: Mixing "Proper" Photos and Phone Photos

Sketches 18, 19 and 20

While I was on vacation Shimelle released a ton of Sketch to Scrapbook Pages. Fortunately I have a ton of great pictures to scrap. I used Stampin' Up's MDS Software and digital products to create all three pages.

Sketch 18 :: Adding a Sunburst to Your Page

Sketch 19 :: A Design for Photo Booth Strips

Sketch 20 :: A Twist on Patterned Paper Quadrants

Tim Holtz - 12 Tags of 2013 (July)

Happy Fourth of July! This month's tag from Tim is very patriotic. I used the flag stamp from the Stampin' Up! "Liberty for All" set. I stamped the image onto acetate with StazOn, added color to the reverse side and layered it over a piece of white tissue paper. For the background I used black cardstock, applied hexagons punched out of HVAC tape and ran the whole tag through my BigShot using an embossing folder. I punched the stars out of whisper white cardstock, added silver ink and a layer of crystal effects and a few drops of ink, and placed a star shaped piece of acetate on the top to create the marbled effect. I used all Stampin' Up! products to make the tag except for the piece of tissue tape with the number 4.

Collage Stamping Technique

This month's technique is really simple but the results are quite wonderful. We used several large background stamps and a coordinating flower stamp on the right hand edge.

Card Swap - Foxy Oxi Technique

Here is this month's card swap for the Foxy Oxi Technique. I have to admit this was not one of my favorites. I tried the technique on three different types of paper with mixed results. Honestly it seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. I would recommend using dark inks, applied very heavily since the Oxi Clean lifts the color off like bleach. I also found that applying a heat gun accelerated the bleaching.