Nat Noted - Nov. 19/12

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Unless, you're in the U.S., then you're planning for Thanksgiving!   ;-)

The blogosphere is filled with thankful layouts and cards and banners and place holders, but I did manage to find five projets you will love!!

1. Up first is this stunning bottle cap advent calendar from Maya Road. 

Photo credit: Jen Chesnick (Maya Road)

2. Evgenia Petzer just joined Bo Bunny's design team. I love this card she made using the Love Letters collection. Can't to see what else she creates!

Photo caption: Evgenia Petzer (Bo Bunny)

3. Love this Christmas diorama that Jen Chesnick made using LYB's Once Upon a Christmas collection.

Photo credit: Jen Chesnick (Say Chez)

 4. Lilith Eckles is fast becoming my favourite designer and this layout provides a good distraction from the Thanksgiving and Christmas projects. ;-) That combination of grey and yellow is amazing. I also love the layering on this layout.

Photo credit: Lilith Eckles

5. I love coffee and bought a super cute coffee cup mini-album so I can document my love of java. So you can imagine how excited I was to see this amazing art journal page. So many great ideas here!

Photo credit: Lynn (Scrappy Happy Mom)

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Hello Fall - We love the fall - Little Yellow Bicycle

One of the two favorite seasons in my home is fall (the other is spring) we love the warm "second summer" that you get in late September or early October, and love the pumpkins and the beautiful leaves turning colour.  This month Emma challenged the Design Team to make their own titles, and while I typically will use my Cricut for something like that, I decided to use a cut out and hand write the remainder of my title.  I don't do enough journaling on my pages.  The sketch was very circular, and since this paper from Little Yellow Bicycle had the perfect pumpkin orange in it, I decided to make a pumpkin out of one of my circles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to squeeze out a second layout out of the leftover papers - this one was not based on the sketch.  I entered it in the Newington fair and received a blue ribbon (that's 2nd place for us Canadians!)  I was very pleased how this layout turned out.

 

 



 

If you would like to see either of these layouts or any of the others that you see on the blog in person they are all displaying proudly at Auntie Em's Scrapbooking in Cornwall.

 

You too can play along with this challenge, create a layout using product purchased at Auntie Em's based on the sketch from Scrapbook & Cards Today calendar (September) and your challenge is to make your own title!  I can tell you that the prize from last month was amazing - over a $45 value!!!  Who knows what Emma is going to give away this month, you still have two weeks to bring in your layout - you can't win if you don't play!

 

 

 

It Happens

I love PageMaps! Ever since my friend Natalie introduced me to the site, I've used their sketches as inspiration for my layouts. I really like the layouts from the 2012 PageMaps calendar...except for September's. Yeah, I'm saying it out loud: I did not like the September sketch. But I marched forward anyway and created this layout:

The collection used to create this layout is Hello Fall! by Little Yellow Bicycle, aka my favourite scrapbooking company. I used a die cut available with the collection and cut 2 more circles and placed them on the page slightly overlapped. I added the orange transparency on the right side of the page. Transparency pieces are usually available with every LYB collections. I love them because they aren't your typical embellishment.

I cropped my pictures and sanded the edges with a file.  I also create a journalling piece by using a piece of chipboard and covering it with yellow cardstock. The cardstock was a bit too yellow so I used Old Paper Distress Ink to tone it down. I added a piece of brown rickrack ribbon and some buttons.

 

The technique this month was to create our own title. I followed the instruction in the PageMaps calendar for the month of September. It was an easy technique and worked pretty well. I cheated a bit by using a transparency available with the collection.

I'm going to say something a little controversial: I don't really like my layout. Yeah, I said it. Maybe it was inevitable because I wasn't a fan of the sketch. I usually like everything I create because, as I've said many times, scrapbooking for me is about the memories. Art has very little to do with scrapbooking for me.

I used to be bothered when I created a layout that I wasn't pleased with. I've been guilty of redoing more than a few layouts because I didn't like the end result. Now, I see things a little differently. A while ago, I went to a crop and my friend Andréanne was there. Another friend made a comment that she didn't like her layout. Andréanne's reply: "It happens." I loved her nonchalant response! Really, she was right, it does happen. No big deal. You need to move on.

It was a great scrapbooking lesson to learn!

Happy scrappin'!

 

Why, Hello Fall!

That's right it's Fall .... well almost.  The kids are back in school, the air is crisp and your Auntie Em's Design Team has been hard at work with the Hello Fall collection from Little Yellow bicycle.  The theme this month is to make your own title for your layout.  Using the PageMaps calendar the girls have come up with these various takes:

Lorena's Take: "We Love The Fall"

Sarah's Take: What Autumn?

I made my own title by following the instructions in the PageMaps calendar. It was really easy and I was happy with the results!

Stephanie's Take: 

I'm not very good at drawing, and I have terrible hand writing, so I decided to use button to create half of my title, the other half, I cheated and used my Cricut.  

Nancy's Take: 

What a perfect opportunity to create a thanksgiving page with such beautiful fall paper. I loved the sketch cause it used a bunch of images and allowed me to get lots of pictures into just one page.

I decided to get fancy with making my own title and used some chipboard letters I already had and traces them on raw chipboard and cut them out then I roughed up the edges drew some stitching and inked them as well. Love love love the result.



Remember you can play along too, there are fantastic prizes up for grabs each and every month at Auntie Em's when you bring in your layout inspired by the PageMaps sketch - this month be sure to make your own Title!

Let us know what you think!

Love

Hello fellow scrapbookers!

The featured technique for Auntie Em's design team this month is stamping. I must admit, I don't stamp much. However, I do own stamps and really, it's high time I use them! Following the July sketch in the PageMaps calendar, I created this layout:

It's no secret: I love my little guy! Unfortunately, I don't have that many pictures of the two of us. Most of the time, I'm the one taking the pictures. So, the pictures I used in this layout are close-up but that's because I took them myself. Yes, I have long arms! But, short of nagging my husband, it's the only way I'm going to get pictures.

I digress...The Saturdays collection from Little Yellow Bicycle was a perfect fit for these pictures because it's the right mix of masculine and feminine.

I used stamps in three different areas of the layout. The first is on the circle piece of chipboard. I used Glimmer Mist on the chipboard. Here's a tip: when stamping on top of Glimmer Mist, make sure the mist is really really dry. Or else, your stamping will bleed (trust me, it happened to me!).

The used a second stamp on the bottom of my journalling box. 'Consider yourself hugged' just seemed appropriate.

I used two different stamps to create the title piece. First, I used the shape stamp and cut out the shape using my Tim Holtz scissors. Next, I used white pigment ink to stamp the word 'Love'. I'm really happy with the result!

Now it's your turn! Submit your layout following the PageMaps sketch of the month to Auntie Em's for your chance to win a prize!


Happy scrappin'!

Double Trouble

I love the look of a well planned and balanced double page layout.  However most of the double page sketches that are out there have too many photos for my liking.  This months pagemap challenge had just two photos on it, which is great.  But I had three photos that I wanted to use. So... I stretched the sketch into a double page.  And using a technique that I saw on "Live With Prima" a few weeks ago, of building your double pages at the same time (can't believe I've never done that before) I thought I would give it a try.  Well I must say it came together very quickly and it does hold it's balance and continuity well.

I didn't put a title on my page (I may later) but I have dubbed it Cake Face.  These are photos of my son at his first birthday party and the next day when we were just hanging out at the local garage getting the oil changed in the car - he wanted to climb in those stacked tires so bad!

Using the Little Yellow Bicycle collection called Saturday's made it so easy to make a boy layout (or two) and the theme of this month's challenge is to use stamping on your layout to create your own embellishments.  I did just that with the previously naked chipboard circles and stars, and I also stamped and fussy cut (I know what were you thinking Lorena?!) a 'little yellow bicycle' .... psst it's actually a Prima stamp!  On some of the chipboard I did three layers of stamping - see the first photo where I did stamping and embossing on top of embossed background on top of a brick wall stamp.


You too can participate in this challenge, simply bring your layout based on the sketch to Auntie Em's scrapbooking by the end of the month and make sure you use stamping somewhere on your layout to enter!  There's going to be prizes!!!


Hope you enjoyed,


~Lorena~

July PageMaps Challenge - Your Design Team - Stamping

July is upon us and your Auntie Em's Design Team has been put to the challenge of using the July PageMaps sketch and using stamps to make your own embeslishments.  Featuring the Little Yellow Bicycle collection "Saturdays".  Here is what your design team girls have come up with!

Sarah's take:

I like to use stamps to as accents. On this layout, I used a stamp to create the 'Love' title. I stamped on a scrap piece from the Saturday collection and then used scissors to create my very own personalized die cut. I also stamped on chipboard that I first covered with Glimmer Mist. Finally, I stamped the words 'Consider yourself hugged' on the bottom of the journaling box.


Lorena's Take:

I decided to switch it up this month and convert the one page layout into a double! I used various stamps to add layers to my chipboard pieces including several Prima Marketing stamps and My Mind's Eye .  Infact my "little yellow bicyle" is a Prima stamp too!  Although I have not put a title on this layout, I've been calling it "Cake Face" if you read the journaling - you will see why! 

Stephanie's Take:

For this challenge I decide to stamp on the chipboard stars.  I don't like stamping directly on my pages because I usually end up messing it up.   Although the stars don't look like I had imagined they would, they actually turned out better.  For Instagram users out there, the photos were printed after being processed with Instagram and a little editing with Photoshop, because the photos are square, online printing wants to make them 4x6. Check out my individual post in the next couple of weeks for a full description.

Nancy's Take:

This months challenge was fun and easy the thing I love about stamps is that you can use them in so many different ways it's incredible. Oddly enough my july layout is all about the snow village but eh there are no rules as to when you have to create your pages as long as they get done :)

YOU can participate in this challenge too by bringing your layout based on this sketch to Auntie Em's Scrapbooking before the end of July.  Make sure to use stamps somewhere on your layout to qualify! There's going to be prizes!

Swoon

I love weddings! They are happy events filled with hope and love. There is something awe-inspirering about watching two people stand up in front of their family and friends and promise to love each other for the rest of their lives.

Last summer, I attended the wedding of my friends Glynis and Simon. This wedding was a long time in the making! The pair met in high school but didn't start dating until later on. I myself have known Simon for almost 25 years and Glynis for almost 18 years. It was a privilege to be invited and be a witness to this very happy day.

I had a few pictures to scrapbook from that day and when I saw the Swoon collection from Little Yellow Bicycle at Auntie Em's Scrapbooking and Beading, I thought it was perfect. This collection is absolutely stunning! Every single paper sheet is gorgeous and the embellishments are to die for! Because it's so neutral, it doesn't matter what the wedding colours were. The line goes with any colour in my opinion.

I'd like to share two layouts that I made of Glynis and Simon's wedding with the Swoon collection. 

The first page features the bride and groom walking down the aisle minutes after being pronounced husband and wife. The happy couple was all smiles and I managed to snap this picture myself from my seat in the church as they walked by.  



As a backdrop, I used the 'Always' paper, which has foil accents. My picture does not do this paper justice. It's simply beautiful! Because the foil accents were so beautiful, I didn't want to cover them up with multiple pictures. To me, this paper was meant to be used for a single picture layout.

I started by matting my pictures with the 'Black Tie Stripe' paper. I then placed it on the 'Always' paper as to not cover up the foil accents. I added a doily, the chipboard piece and the paper flower (that are available additions to the collection) to the top-left corner of the matted picture.

Next I added the horizontal border at the bottom of the picture. I layered silver ribbon, a Swoon chipboard piece and a string of pearls.

I then clustered paper flowers, chipboard pieces, stickers (all available with the collection) and pins on the bottom-right of the picture.

At the bottom-right of the 'Always' paper, there's a little foil accented box that I thought was perfect to write the date of the wedding using a silver pen. I also used bling (also available with the collection) to accent the 'Love'.

I went in a different direction for the second page I made with the Swoon collection. I wanted to create and layout using many pictures - in this case, six.

At the top of the paper, there are the words 'Wedding March'. I wanted to play this up so I added bling on each end.

The key to creating a layout with numerous pictures is to crop your pictures as much as possible. I selected pictures that were cropable (not a word, I know, but I'm taking creative license). After my pictures were glued in a kind of a grid, I added a ribbon with large white flowers as a horizontal border at the bottom. Believe it or not, the ribbon is from the Winter Joy collection by Bo Bunny from a few seasons ago. It just goes to show that you should aways go through your stash to see what you have!

Looking at the white space underneath the ribbon, it felt it was a little naked so I added the title 'Love' using the chipboard pieces available with the Swoon collection.

I then used a doily again and clustered paper flowers, chipboard pieces and a sticker on the top-right of the page.

After I was done that, I felt like the page was still missing something. So, I added a small string of pearls as a border between two pictures and capped it off with a chipboard butterfly. I added a few pieces of bling to the butterfly to make it stand out more. 

I hope you are now inspired to create your own wedding layouts, whether they be from pictures of your own wedding or the wedding of friends or family. Weddings are such important events. They deserve to be scrapbooked. Having collections like Swoon to work with doesn't hurt either!

Check out the Swoon collection at Auntie Em's.

Happy scrappin'!



Let's Go Buffalo!

My husband Matt says that he's lucky to have a wife who likes to watch sports. He's right. He is lucky! In all seriousness, I do love my sports, my favourites being hockey and football.

During the NFL season, Sundays in my household are reserved for watching football. Matt has been a life-long Buffalo Bills fan. If you know anything about football, you know that he's a long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan! Anyway, he talked for years about going to Buffalo to see an NFL game live.

This past October, we did just that. We drove to Buffalo to experience the NFL in person. It was amazing and Buffalo actually won the game...which, if you know anything about football, doesn't happen all that often!

I took lots of amazing pictures. So, when I saw Get Your Game On collection by My Little Yellow Bicycle Auntie Em's, I thought it was perfect! Here is what I came up with:

I love Little Yellow Bicycle paper! It's so thick and of high quality. That being said, creating these pages was challenging. The colours of the paper are not the colours of the Buffalo Bills! As you can see, the papers are green, a sort of beige and brown. Buffalo's colours are blue,red and white. I decided not to fight it and combine all the colours.

On the first page, I used pictures of Matt and I all smiles after the Bills won the game.

This paper didn't need much embellishment. Plus, this is a football page so flowers weren't exactly appropriate. I think I was pretty successful at adding embellishments that were masculine enough to go with the theme of the page.

Here is a list of the techniques I used:
- Sanded the edge of the pictures
- Used the Big Shot to cut the blue tag
- Used a border punch to create the mini-border is red cardstock
- Used Distress Ink on a piece of chipboard and journalled on it using a white pen
- Repeated the colour blue by using a piece of rickrack ribbon
- Used a fabric covered button and covered it with a green Distress Ink
- Sprayed the corrugated cardboard piece with Perfect Pearls
- Covered a piece of rope with a dark brown Distress Ink and tied it around the star
- Layered the embellishments
- Used a green Distress Ink on the Basic Grey letters (they were white originally)

The second page features Matt moments after the Bills officially won the game. To say he was excited is an understatement!

I repeated a lot of the same techniques that I did on the first page. Here's what I did differently:
- Used a Tim Holtz die and the Big Shot to make the tickets
- Used the Cricut to cut the flags for the banner
- Inked the edges of the flags with Distress Ink
- Ties the banner using rope and eyelets

Even though I had a challenge with colours, I'm really happy with the results! Check on the Get Your Game On collection at Auntie Em's!


Happy scrappin'!