Verve Goodies

I love when you stumble on something unexpected while blog hopping. My find the latest release from Verve Stamps. I love great quotes and sentiments, so the new Words of Wisdom and the coordinating notebook papers and dies, caught my eye right away. So I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parcel so I could have a play. The cards actually turned out quite different to the idea I started with but as is my usual style I pulled pieces out of my stash and had a play to put them together. I liked the end design so much I put together my own circles with the same design to make another version.

Colours: very vanilla, rose red, certainly celery, baja breeze, blushing bride
Stamps: words of wisdom and graph paper (verve), grunge (PTI), impressions (bella)
Finishing touches: stitching, buttons, blushing bride stitched ribbon, wire words, paper (heidi grace), white signo pen, rounded rectangle die (verve)

Colours: so saffron, baja breeze, riding hood red, pumpkin pie, early espresso, white
Stamps: words of wisdom and notebook paper (verve), grunge me (PTI)
Finishing touches: stitching, button ribbon, rounded rectangle die (verve), wire words, buttons, papers (kaiser)

Some pages I started a while ago.

I have been trying a different way of scrapping. Doing several pages at once. First the layout, then the titles, then the journaling and finishing touches. It works well in terms of being able to focus on one aspect at a time. But I don't always get pages completed when I have gaps in what I am doing. So since adding some much needed things to my space, I have finally got back to them. During the holidays I had a huge clean out of my scraps and put my punches and dies to good use cutting out the little details that I like to use on my layouts. I found this fab flax basket and they now have a spot on my desk for easy access.

A birthday card to make

My oldest was off to a birthday party . I had sorted the present and needed to make a card to go with it. Trying to come up with something girly I decided to start with a crochet flower. Thanks to a comment from Lyn who suggested to pop a pin on the back to make it part of the gift on this post.
With the flower started I was inspired by a colour combo in the new Stampin Up catalogue using their Pocket Full of Posies DSP on page 84. I used my background stamps from PTI to put together some papers of my own. Card sorted.

Colours: rich razzleberry, baja breeze, white
Stamps: background basics - retro (PTI), vintage labels (SU)
Finishing touches: crochet flower pin, button, grosgrain ribbon baja breeze, apron lace punch (fiskars), photo corner punch (SU), distress tool

Loving my new space

One of the words for the Big Idea Festival was Wonder. It had me stumped for a bit til I was inspired by my recent additions to my scrapbooking space. Click on the images to see details. Working in digital I had been at the computer and hadn't actually had a chance to try it out. I have since had a session scrapping and cardmaking. And I love it! Just having a little bit more space to work on is great as I'm not tripping over myself. Look what I came up with here and here.

Digital elements from Computer Scrapbook and Jessica Sprague Blog Hop

More Pages from the Big Idea Festival

So after a few late nights I have completed the Big Picture Scrapbooking, Big Idea Festival. 12 days - 12 words - 12 layouts. You can see my other pages here. Such a great opportunity to try out digital a bit more and see what others came up with. Amazing the difference in design and interpretation of the different words. Wishing now that I had got the kit and done it as a mini album. It had some great elements in it. Some great ideas for next time. I have been checking out some of their other classes. So many great ones to choose from. A wealth of talented teachers.

Digital elements from Computer Scrapbook and Jessica Sprague Blog Hop

Skater Dude

I came across the ribbon for this card in my stash and thought the colours would team up well with Boy basics - skater dude from Papertrey ink . My second son Logan is doing well on his wheels. I had him in mind when putting together the different elements.

Colours: white, pumpkin pie, brocade blue, wild wasabi
Stamps: boy basics - skater dude and grunge me (PTI)
Finishing touches: diamond plate and pop culture embossing folders (cuttlebug), ribbon, apricot embossing powder (american crafts)

Game on

Wanting to put together a pick me up card for a teen I had a chance to play with my new Papertrey Ink set Game on. Love the elements. I teamed it up with the grunge me set to add more colour. I am enjoying having the stamp sets to create the cards that I want to do.

Colours: basic grey, black, cherry cobbler, white
Stamps: boy basics - game on and grunge me (PTI)
Finishing touches: spiral punch (SU), red embossing powder

Big Idea Festival

I am loving being a part of the Big Idea Festival at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Not too late if you want to play along. Click on the image on the right hand side bar for info. I love getting new inspiration for pages. The idea is a mini book of pages using words to inspire you. These are my first pages. I decided to do them digitally as I could use the pictures that I wanted to. Looking forward to doing more.

Digital elements from Computer Scrapbook and Jessica Sprague Blog Hop

Birthday cards for sale

I had a request from a coworker at my husbands work for a couple of birthday cards. One was something with owls and the other to do with gardening. Owls are about in all shapes and sizes. The Wise Owl stamps set from Papertrey Ink is on my wish list. I also found this great card from Jennifer McGuire. In the meantime I got creative putting together some bits and pieces on a variation of this card that I made a while back. The colours were inspired from a recent purchase of buttons {some you can see on the card}. Love how the chevron stripes pulled them all together.


The gardening card started with the gardening stamps from elzybells {such great stamps, shame they closed down}. I had the mesh in my stash for just such an occasion {it is actually builders tape}. Lavender came to mind and so the colours followed. Very pleased with how it turned out.

Colours: certainly celery, almost amethyst, concord crush
Stamps: barrow and pots & seeds (elzybells), sense of time, natural beauty, background sampler and vintage labels (SU), impressions (bella)
Finishing touches: mesh, dazzling diamonds, button, certainly celery stitched-poly ribbon, linen thread, rhinestones

Colours: very vanilla, certainly celery, early espresso, bashful blue, blush blossom, blushing bride, rose red
Stamps: little pieces, vintage labels and trendy trees (SU), chrevron stripes (PTI)
Finishing touches: woodgrain embossing folder (provocraft), buttons, stitching, blushing bride stitched-poly ribbon (SU), heart , flower, round tab, scallop oval punches, oval cutters (creative memories)

August Stamp Club

Time for another round of Stamp Club. With Father's Day next month the challenge was to come up with something masculine. Seems to get alot of people stumped as to what to use. I have already put together a couple of cards. You can see them here and here, but I had some more ideas that I wanted to try.

I usually start out with the colour combo. Keeping the lines clean you can still add details with stitching, buttons and embellishments like staples and paper clips. The 'dad' card started with the all in the family dad image. I saw this card on Maureen's blog, Buttons and Bling and changed the eyelets for buttons. The award card was inspired by this card at Stamping a Latte. I had loads of fun putting them together.

Colours: going grey, basic grey, tempting turquoise, old olive
Stamps: circle of friendship, background sampler, little pieces, rough type alpha
Finishing touches: scallop circle punch, circle punches, star punch, faux stitching, paper clip, patterned paper (october afternoon)

Colours: night of navy, sahara sand, old olive, cajun craze
Stamps: all in the family, trendy trees, background sampler
Finishing touches: alpha stencil, spiral punch, mat pack, buttons, linen thread, staples, faux stitiching, patterned paper (3 bugs in a rug)

A chance to have a play with my PTI goodies

The grunge me set from PTI is definitely one of my favourites. You can see here my attempts at putting together grunge style cards wtih what I have. This set adds so many possibilities. So my first card I actually went with a girl theme. Works just as well. Perfect for teens.

Colours: white, pink pirouette, rose red, chocolate chip
Stamps: grunge me (PTI), le chateau (kaiser)
Finishing touches: grosgrain ribbon (SU), button, clear embossing powder, large corner rounder (fiskars)

Take one icecream

My darling husband surprised me with a treat after taking my youngest on a bike ride to the park and diary at lunch time before he headed back to work. I had so much to do to get ready for our busy Wednesday afternoon but I am so glad I took the time to sit down and enjoy the moment in the sun with my son. Delicious. And the moment was such a good one that I was inspired by the design on the paper. It wasn't until I had been out for a fabulous dinner with friends that I knew I had to put it together as a thank you card. It was fun putting together all the different parts. Usually I just take some of the elements but this time I had all the right bits to create it. I realised after giving it to them what a great idea it would be to get them one of these icecreams and let them enjoy the moment too. Good friends are worth celebrating.

Colours: very vanilla, rose red, handsome hunter, basic black, going grey
Stamps: leaves (megilo), baroque motifs, lots of thoughts, vintage labels and art by design (SU)
Finishing touches: sponge daubers, white signo pen, white embossing powder

Somewhere to start

Having started making cards to sell I decided to put together some starter ideas just like I do when I am scrapping. This one started with the ribbon. Having a match in my big and little pieces stamp sets (SU), I had a play with different combinations for the background. The i-top brad and tag from tiny tags (PTI) finished it off beautifully. Liking it so much I made another for a friends birthday. I found out one of her favourite colours is orange! Love that.

Colours:pumpkin pie, white
Stamps: big and little pieces and whimsical words (SU), tiny tags (PTI)
Finishing touches: i-top brad, ribbon (unknown), white embossing powder