New Year, New Skills

Hope everyone's New Year is off to a creative and exciting start. The start of the New Year brings so many opportunities for change and growth. Many of us make goals or resolutions to to get healthy, save money, or to end bad habits. All of these types of resolutions are awesome, but don't forget about your crafty goals, too!

Well, I have several crafty goals for 2012 and one of them is to try new things and learn new techniques so that I continue to grow my skills and learn new ones. While flipping through the current issue of Scraps of Color E:spire I was reminded to take the opportunity to work on my goal of implementing digital elements into my crafting and also that I really want to take some Copic marker classes ( I have never used them). When I flipped to page 11 and saw the cool digital stamps that Robert Jackson shared with us, I knew I had to try them out! So I made a quick and easy birthday card for my son who will be 10 on Sunday! Since, I'm not so great at coloring images I printed the image out on kraft and just added a few pops of color. I really like how the image looks on the kraft and will be using this technique many more times. Oh, on a side note...have you seen some of the cool kraft based sheets of patterned paper lately? I think it's a great trend! What do you think?

So what are your crafty goals for 2012? What are some new techniques or products that you would like to try this year? If you have not already done so, please go and download your free copy of Scraps of Color E:spire today and find something that inspires you to meet your 2012 crafty goals! Cheers to a happy and crafty year!

Easy Holiday Fun Frame and WINNER!!!

Are you running around with the Holiday hustle and bustle or are you an early bird who prepared way ahead of time for the season? Well, either way, I have a quick project for you today that you can prepare months ahead of time or within a few minutes if you need a quick little holiday treat to give or to add to your own space. You've probably noticed by now that I love to recycle and upcycle! So for this project I used a little frame that cost me less than 33 cents from Target Dollar isle to create a dry erase board to post silly little holiday sayings for my boys.

One of our amazing sponsors for the upcoming issue of Scraps of Color E:spire is Signify Pink - Glimpses! I had never used their products prior to this issue and let's just say I'm a fan now! I love the coordinating  fun, bright colors of their Merry and Bright collection! It was really easy and fun to create with this line! And for my project all I had to do was cut one of the 4x6 journaling tags from the 12x12 double sided tags/journaling frames page and stick it into my little frame! Bam! An instant holiday fun dry erase board. The cute little stickers are from the Merry and Bright collection too. And, if you happen to pick up this collection another thing that you can do is personalize your frame with names or initials- it's a great way to use up your sticker sheet! These little frames make great teacher gifts too and of course you can add even more embellisment to suit your taste! If I had about 25 more I would use this as a holiday project for my son's class and maybe hang a few candy canes or other treats from the frame and a mini dry erase marker! Hmmm....I think I need to make an impromptu trip to Target! :)

Anyway, I hope I have helped you with a quick little project that you can make for gift giving, crafting with your kiddos, or something fun for your craft space! What are your go-to quick holiday projects? I would love to hear about them or better yet see them- so if you've created some holiday crafts be sure to link them up in the comments so we can be inspired by you!

Now it's WINNER time for last month's Thanksgiving project Studio Calico giveaway.  We only had a couple of ladies actually link up their fall projects, and I appreicate both of them for playing along but unfortunately I only have 1 prize pack. So my 9yoa son and I did a very scientific drawing for the winner...I just wrote the names down on a piece of  paper and he picked randomly...So Congrats....

AJ please email at ngj9600 at yahoo dot com by next Friday, December 16  so that I can get your Studio Calico goodies mailed out to you ASAP! Again, thank you ladies for taking the time to read and comment on the posts! Have a beautiful and safe holiday season!

Gratitude Game and Giveaway

Happy Autumn, Ladies and Gentlemen! Autumn is one of my two favorite seasons! One of the main reasons why I love it is because of Thanksgiving! Of course, I'm grateful for my blessings and life experiences all year long, but the start of Autumn brings those things to the forefront for me. Last year I kept a gratitude journal for the entire month of November, and I'm making one this year too! I tried to "strongly encourage" my sons to keep one too, but that only lasted about a week! So, this year I tweaked my approach to getting them involved in recording their gratitude. Like most kiddos, my boys love games, especially when there is a prize involved! I decided to make a container to be placed in the family room (so it's always visible) that they can deposit a strip of paper with a gratitude statement each day.

 Supplies: Patterned Paper, Stickers, Chipboard: Crate Paper; 

Ribbon,Stamp: Maya Road; Ink:Jenni Bowlin; Embossing Powder: Tim Holtz

I recycled a chip container to be the deposit box. I used Mod Podge to secure the book paper and patterned paper to the container and then decorated it! I cut a hole in the lid of the container so that the slips of paper can be easily slipped in. Easy Peasy! The container is sitting on a table with a pad of paper and pen so that we can stop by anytime and drop a gratitude note it in the box! So, if your kiddos are motivated by competition or rewards like mine this is how I set up the "Gratitude Game" that we will play for the month of November (maybe longer):

1. Each person should deposit a gratitude statement into the box each day. I had to give my boys a limit for each day because my youngest son is a clever one and quickly thought that he would write a bunch in one day and fill up the drop box! So, I told them there was a max deposit of 3 per day and if they felt the need to document more then they should use a journal, too! Ha! Have to stay one step ahead of these kiddos!
2. At the end of the week we draw a random winner to win a little prize like a small toy, renting a movie, getting to have a later bedtime for a night, or getting to nix of a chore for a day.  My boys are  motivated by "winning" so I stress the point that the more entries they place in the container the more likely they are to win for the week! I love to hear the various things that we are all thankful for, so in addition to drawing a weekly winner, we read the sentiments aloud. It's a fun family activity that can generate great conversation at the dinner table. I'm keep the strips of paper and may make a mini album or tuck them in an envelope on a layout. I plan to make this a yearly tradition, and it will be fun to see how we change from year to year. I'm also thinking that we will take our Gratitude Game with us on Thanksgiving day! We will set it up at the door and have the guests write a statement and then at dinner of afterwards we can read everyone's gratitude statements and maybe do some random prize drawings there too!

Now... on to the GIVEAWAY!!!!!

A Grab bag of Studio Calico goodies!!!

I would love to see what Thanksgiving projects you have created recently. And, if you have not made any I would suggest making one of these little gratitude canisters because it's really easy and fun.. I didn't think of this until just this moment, but you could have each person in your family decorate a canister instead of having just one!  If you need a starting point check out page 12 of the current issue of Scraps of Color E:spire because Camille created a super cute digi that you can use an an element for your project! And, there are Thanksgiving layouts on page 28 to use as inspiration for creating a project, too.

To enter the giveaway leave a comment with a link to your new or recently created Thanksgiving or autumn project (altered art, card, layout, or anything else you create) and you are in the drawing to win these goodies! Easy as pie! 

And if you would like an additional entry blog and/or facebook (an additional entry for each one) about the giveaway and leave another comment with the link to your post!  


I will draw a winner on December 6 on my next SOC E:spire blog post, so you have plenty of time to get crafty! Again, thank you for reading and supporting Scraps of Color E:spire! I am so grateful for each of you!

***I can only ship within the USA.***

A Scary Fairy and a Giveaway

In the last SOC issue I had the pleasure of working with the Fairyopolis stamps, which are super cute! On pages 16-18 you can check out what Barbara, Karen, and I created with them. I also showed you a little bit more about them last month on the blog, too. Well, I don't know about you, but I like to make my supplies last, so I started thinking how I could dress up these cute little fairies into scary ones for the Halloween season!  I love products that are versatile and can be used for more than one purpose.

Just by stamping on a neutral patterned paper, embossing, and adding ink and mist I transformed this once cute fairy into a grungy one that fits right into my Halloween themed tag! I know I say this all the time, but every time I look back through the issues of SOC I am able to find a new inspiration or jumping off point! I challenge you to take a look back at the last issue and see something that you may have missed the first time or two! And to challenge you even more, I would love for you to create something based upon that inspiration and come back and share it with us here! And for doing these things you could actually win some scrap candy from me!
I have a little treat that I'm giving away on my blog. Please come over and check it out because there are several ways to gain entries! So hop on over to my place at www.myeyesandheart.blogspot.com and I have a treat not a trick for you!

Have a great week!

Fairyopolis Stamps are dreamy

Have you read the latest issue of Scraps of Color? Well, I surely hope so, but if you have not just click the icon on the sidebar and it will take you right the e-zine! There was so much information and inspiration in this issue that it's hard for me to focus on just one thing for this post! So, I made a birthday card that incorporates a couple of the topics from the issue.

I had the pleasure of working with Crafter's Companion's Fairyopolis stamps for this issue. The images are super cute and produce very clean images. The stamps are so versatile and the design team used them in so many projects which are featured on pages 16-18. Please, go and take a look at all of the projects! I really enjoyed working with the stamps and thought they would be perfect for creating a birthday card for my little cousin who's going to be 5 next week. For this card I stamped the image with Versamark on kraft paper for an instant 'fairy of color' and embossed it with bright purple. In this issue there is also an article on stitching, so I added some hand stitching to bottom of the card and a little faux stitching around the sticker, too. Please go check out all of the fab projects on pages 22-25 that the ladies created with stitching.

The fairy that I used on this stamp is one of my favorites from the collection because her hand is uplifted and it is so easy to add 3-D elements for her to hold. For the banner that she is holding I just cut a scrap piece of paper, misted it with water, and rolled it into a little pole to hold the hand cut banner. Bending the banner and embossing the sentiment also add texture to a very simple yet sweet card.

Would you like a chance to create with the Crafter's Companion Fairyopolis stamps? Well, you are in luck because there is a giveaway in the current issue of SOC! Go check it out on page 6 for information on how to enter to win! Oh, and there is a giveaway for a Fairyoplis 12x12 paper pack, too! Wow! So, what would you like to create with these cute stamps?

Take Note of Summer Fun

Hope everyone is having a fun-filled summer! Summer can be filled with so many little adventures right in our own backyards or big ones traveling across the country. Staycations and vacations both deserve to be documented, but sometimes when we are in the midst of having fun we can forget some of the fun little details that we want to capture in our scrapbooks. I'm notorious for writing notes down an scrap pieces of paper, but after seeing so many cool products on the market like the Smash books and the journaling notepad accessories I was inspired to keep my summer notes in one place! I love having my notes in one central location that is easy to carry in my purse, camera bag, or pocket. It makes things so much easier!

I used this once dull, drab and rather depressing little promotional notepad that I received from a vendor and transformed it into a bright, fun, and convenient way to record summer stories. There are tons of cute journaling cards on the market, but with a little notepad like this you can have all your notes in one place and then just tear out the pages and add them to your scrapbook pages when you're ready. It's also a lot cheaper, too!

Here are a few tips for adding a little summer fun to your notepads:

• Use Mod Podge to seal the cover if your notebook will receive a lot of wear and tear. (I did not Mod Podge this one).
• Use stamps, stickers, or doodling to pre-decorate your pages. If you are stamping or misting on pages remember to place a piece of card stock behind your page before stamping/misting so that the ink won't bleed through to the next page. Use a heat gun to make sure your ink/mist dries before moving on to the next page
• If your notepad is spiral bound use a piece of twine to tie a pen to the spirals so you will always have a pen ready when you're ready to record a memory. (Be sure to test the pen to make sure the ink doesn't bleed through the pages). If your notepad doesn't have spirals. you can punch a hole in the cover with a Cropadile and then loop twine through the hole to tie your pen on. Use reinforcers around the hole to prevent tearing.
• If you are using a notepad that has perforated pages you can reinforce the perforations by adding a strip of scotch tape or decorative washi tape across the perforations so your pages won't accidentally fall out of the notepad.
• Dollar stores usually have these little notepads very cheap if you don't already have them lying around. Also, if you have a binding tool you could actually make your own from your scrap pieces of paper, white card stock, or even kraft paper or a mixture of different types of paper.
  
• Making summer notepads is also a fun activity to do with the kiddos especially if you are going on vacation and want the kids to record their memories too. It will be fun to look back and see what everyone records!

So, I hope you all will make some notepads to record your summer memories! Please, leave a link to your creations in the comments if you decide to make one, two, or quite a few! I would love to see how you all are recording your summer fun memories! And don't forget to read the Scraps of Color E-zine for more inspiration and tips on documenting summer fun activities!

Get (Fire)Crackin' on 4th of July Layouts...

Hope everyone had a 4th of July filled with family, food, friends, fun, and fireworks!!! Now that the holiday is over, it's time to get fired up working on documenting all of those memories. Well, if you need some inspiration just turn to the June/July issue of Scraps of Color E-zine! Totally inspiring! Well, I spent some time flipping through the magazine this weekend and had so many ideas spark from the sketches, tutorials, 4th of July layouts and free digi downloads! For this layout I started with Tiare's sketch featured on page 8 and rocketed off with ideas from the 4th of July layouts featured on page 42, used the digi download provided by Camille on page 19, and (as if that were not enough inspiration) also tried out making felt brads with glue dot technique on page 21!


Have you started documenting your 4th of July already? I challenge you to go back and look through the SOC e-zine and create a project using several of the points of inspiration featured! Trust me, there is no shortage of inspiration there!

Oh, in case you have not printed out your digital pictures yet, don't let that prevent you from getting crackin' on your layouts. When I'm inspired, but haven't printed out my photos I go ahead and make the layout without the photos. Then I photograph my layout, upload it, and open it with Photoshop. From there I upload photos from my camera that I may want to use on the layout. It's great beacause I can drag and drop various photos onto my layout and get a visual idea of how the photos will look when I actually print them off and put them on the physical layout! So, don't let lack of printed photos keep you from blasting off into scrapbooking those 4th of July memories right now!

Glittery Summery Fun...

Hello Summer! Here in Texas we've already kicked off summer with temps over 100! A fun way to spread a little summer happiness is to make a quick card and add some summer fun effects.



For this card I wanted the look of the beach with some dimension. There are a lot of cool texture items on the market to create the look of sand, but I wanted to use what I had on hand, which was glitter! To make the little strip of sand I freehand cut a strip of paper and sprinked white glitter on it and then misted it with Studio Calico Barnwood Mister Huey and also Shimmerz bronze mist! I also cut another strip of paper and dabbed it with blue paint and sprinkled white glitter to create the water. The clouds are actually made from glitter paper. So, are you going to get out your glitter and add some cool summer fun to a layout or card? I hope so! It's quick, easy, and fun! And using spritz on white glitter makes it limitless!

National Scrapbooking Day...Share some Scrap!

Well, our special day is right around the corner! No, I'm not referring to Mother's Day, I'm talking about National Scrapbook Day (NSD)! Woohoo! I don't know about you, but I LOVE scrapbooking!!! I want to celebrate NSD by giving my best scrap friends a little something because I appreciate them and this wonderful hobby!

I went back and started looking at the amazing SOC April/May 2011 issue for inspiration! And I found it! One of this month's sponsors is Studio Calico http://www.studiocalico.com/and I have been a fan of this kit club for years! As I looked around my scrap space at my Studio Calico kits and other products I realized I wanted to share my 'scrap 'with my friends for NSD because like most scrappers I have more than enough to share!

I decided to gather a modge podge of items like chipboard pieces, rub-ons, buttons, and bling to make little mini embellishment bags for my friends. After re-reading Tena's article on fabric I decided to also make some handmade flowers. Oh, and the SOC inspiration didn't stop there because I learned some things about stamping from Lorie's stamping article too, so had to incorporate stamping on my project, as well. If you have not read every line of the SOC April/May issue, please go back and read it because it is jammed packed with inspiration!

Ok, so getting on to the project...Studio Calico kits come in a nice paper bag sealed with a sticker, so I decided to recreate this on a smaller scale by using a regular lunch sack and cutting about 3.5 inches off of the top. I used a Fiskars boarder punch to add detail to the opening of the bag and edged around the entire bag lightly with Walnut Stain Ranger Distress Ink. I then stamped the bottom of the bag with a Studio Calico exclusive stamp (November 2009).

I decided to add a tag to the front of the bag. I used a white medium sized tag as the base and misted it with Mister Huey's Sunshine. And in the spirit of NSD, I did something amazing.....I released my tight grip on Studio Calico State Fair collection (gasp- because I am a scrap junkie hoarder) and used the rub-on clouds, the chipboard alphas, and even opened up the cute little stamp set too! I reached deep into my stash for October Afternoon's Mini Market Stickers (Ledger) to add the date in the corner), and topped it off with a little twine from The Twinery (Pink Sorbet).

And to finish it all off I punched a couple of butterflies using Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe and added one to the front of the bag and the other to the back as a closure sticker! And now all I have left to do is continue going through my stash to find little treasures and make more fabric flowers to fill the bags! Can you believe the amount of inspiration that is at your fingertips with this issue of SOC? This quick little goody bag was inspired by the articles and even sponsors! I am looking forward to NSD and can't wait to share my scrap with my friends! How do you celebrate NSD! Do you celebrate with friends, crop at a LSS, participate in on-line crops, or do you grab a few minutes alone to scrapbook? Well, whatever you do, I hope that you have a happy, scrappy weekend!