Here We Go!

I'm playing a little catch-up on my blog today, with two stamping projects that were featured on the American Crafts blog a couple of weeks ago. The first is a layout sporting the colorful Plus One collection from Amy Tangerine. The bicycle stamp, from the Dear Lizzy Daydreamer collection, is a perfect fit for this page, especially with the assorted brightly colored embossing powders! 

Embossing on vellum, and then fussy cutting the stamped images is a stress-free way to add a lot of stamping when I would otherwise be terribly nervous about the many opportunities to mess up! This way I could play with my design, moving the images around and ultimately deciding on their placement before committing with adhesive.

My second project is a card. The fancy chalkboard frame holds a sentiment from the Dear Lizzy Daydreamer stamp set (the same one with the bicycle). Embossed in white, it resembles chalk!

What tricks do you have for stamping on scrapbook pages and cards? I'd love to hear your favorite tips!

Go See Do

Oh, for the love of maps! The page I'm sharing today uses one of my favorite papers from this month's kit from Scraptastic. The map paper from Fancy Pants is so colorful! I couldn't very well cover up all those beautiful countries, so I added scrap strips of patterned paper and cardstock on the left and place my photos just slightly overlapping the map paper on the right. Title up top,  a trio of  embellishment clusters, and then on to that nice empty space in the Atlantic Ocean...the perfect spot for a little stamping, chipboard and a geotag indicating our destination...Bermuda.

The cork pieces in the Let Me Go kit are some of my favorites! There's a bike, globe, geotag and more. Here are some page closeups:

Everything came together so easily! I'm glad that I finally pulled out some travel photos for this, my fourth page with the Let Me Go kit. 

Mardi Gras Times Two

Scraptastic's Let Me Go kit came shortly after I had photos printed from this season's Mardi Gras parades. How perfect! Included in the kit were papers from Fancy Pants' As You Wish collection, and there couldn't be more beautiful colors to highlight my pictures.

First up is a selfie (yes, I did!), taken just after the Thoth parade. The weather was gorgeous, the crowds were heavy, and we had a great time with a large group of family members. But, the smartest move we made that day was to leave the parade just a teensy bit early and beat the traffic out of there. Tommy and I made a break for it several floats before the end. To further speed things up, Tommy left me alongside the road near the zoo, resplendent with chairs, ice chest, and large bag of beads. Meanwhile he high-tailed it empty-handed to retrieve the car, parked blocks away across the railroad tracks on the Fly. Getting bored waiting, I attempted a selfie. Yep, I got half a head, no head, out of focus, and finally a halfway decent shot. Hee-hee. Here it is:

A few brightly embossed vellum pieces (one using the iphone stamp from a previous Scraptastic stamp set) were tucked in among the postcard, die-cuts, and stickers, embellishing where the patterned paper meets cardstock. An umbrella embellishment, leftover from the page to follow, was glued and stitched in place. In this case it represents the sunny day need for shade and/or the second line celebratory atmosphere of the parade season.

On this next page, umbrellas represent the continuous rain we experienced on Mardi Gras day a week later. That's me and my sister, decked out in orange ponchos, trying desperately to stay dry at the Rex parade.

It was SO cold...and the rain never let up. There were a lot of other "crazy ones" out there, dressed in rain gear and holding umbrellas...thus the five on this page. Here's a closeup:

A stitching template from Amy Tangerine and American Crafts was used to add handles, and glittery gold enamel dots top each umbrella. These were easy to piece and not at all as hard as it looks. Fun stuff!

I hope I don't need umbrella embellishments for next year's Mardi Gras pages. ;)

Embellishment Love

Today I'm sharing my first page with this month's Scraptastic travel-themed kit. A favorite part of every Scraptastic kit has to be the plethora of embellishments, so carefully chosen to compliment the colors, patterns, and theme. April's kits are no exception, and I can't say enough about those selected for the Let Me Go kit. I used die-cuts, a cork shape, stickers, chalkboard flags, gold glitter enamel dots and exclusive flair and stamps in a few carefully placed clusters on the page below.

Creating interesting clusters are easy when you combine elements with different sizes, textures and shapes.

Here are two more cluster close-ups:

With the assortment of decorative elements in each Scraptastic kit, you can embellish any number of pages. Here's a peek at the page I'll be sharing tomorrow:

  

I see stamping, mist, stitching...and lots of color!

Sunday Fun Day with American Crafts

I've been eyeing up this die-cut paper from the Amy Tangerine Cut and Paste collection for a long time. The many little notches can be used in a variety of ways-to tuck papers, photos, and/or embellishments! I ultimately decided to thread an assortment of colorful tear strips through the slits and fold back the notches.

Even more tear strips make up the frame around my photo. Three little yellow-inked chicks were added to the journaling block. 

Additional details include die-cuts, flair, a puffy sticker, button, washi tape feathers and a hand stitched arrow design courtesy of an Amy Tangerine stitching template. All in all it was a lovely mix of American Crafts' colorful collections.

And it was indeed a fun day...an Easter Sunday crawfish boil. I guess it's about time for us to begin planning this year's Easter celebration!

Great Times

Here's another page created with last month's Scraptastic kit, It's My Life. I love all the camera references...in the patterened papers, flair, die-cuts, etc. And the turquoise colors are beautifully reminiscent of the water in the next picture I chose to scrap with this kit.

Kevin was standing along side the swimming pool, getting ready for the second day of their District meet, all "bright eyed and bushy tailed", ready for some great swims.

I accented the two flair on this page by adding a couple of punched circles beneath them. And that striped paper...used on THREE of my pages this month, is now all but a memory. ;)

I don't think I will ever tire of camera-themed products; they are just so versatile. As long as I'm scrapping, I'll be taking pictures. And as long as I take pictures, I'll be scrapping them. So bring it on!

Scrapping Lists and Surveys

Quite a while back I "interviewed" my children and asked them to tell me their favorite book, color, TV show, candy, sport, etc. Somehow, it was a scrapbooking project that never came to fruition...until now! When I came across this list in an old notebook recently, I immediately set about arranging and printing this chart. And wouldn't you know it, but the March Scraptastic kit, It's My Life, with it's fabulously fun colors and speech bubble paper, was perfect for scrapping it! Never mind that there is no photo. I couldn't possibly pick one photo to represent this list. Instead, I arranged a fun title and embellished the speech bubble border at the bottom, creating a bright and interesting layout.

Ooops...I don't know how "green" was placed in the sport column! Gotta make that little correction and put soccer in there, as Brendan was a big soccer player back in the day. 

Hmmm...the only thing missing is a list of favorites from Tommy and I. That could be a fun thing to scrap too.

Only I couldn't POSSIBLY pick only one book. No way! ;)

Have YOU ever scrapped a survey or questionnaire? I'd love to hear about it.

And be sure to check back all this week. Believe it or not, I have a post scheduled for every single day. Yes, I have a bit of a back-log! :0

Scraptastic's April Kits!

Oh my...this was a hard choice, but my pick this month from Scraptastic is the kit below. Even though our traveling has slowed dramatically these past few years, I still have wanderlust, and just looking at the papers and embellishments in the Let Me Go kit have reignited that passion. I don't care if it's a drive down a two lane highway to a little town no one heard of! It doesn't have to be anywhere specific. I just like to GO!

Let Me Go Main Kit

Let Me Go Add-on

 Here's a look at the rest of this month's Scraptastic kits:

Worth Wondering Kit

Worth Wondering Add-on

This Life Noted Kit

Worth Wondering Stamp Set

Let Me Go Stamp Set

 OMGosh. Those stamp sets are amazing! Can't wait to play!