The Color Room 91

I am always very excited when I get the colors almost spot on with a palette. I feel that I have done it with this layout for the Color Room 91.  I also used products from many manufacturers for this layout which really reminded me why I love these color challenges: it forces me outside of the "collection" box. 

Speaking of collections, I splurged right before Christmas and bought a bunch of stuff.  I dove in shortly after the package arrived and made a couple of new projects!  It sure is nice to have time off from work! 

During my break, I have already tried three different fitness classes at my local YMCA.   My most favorite new class is BodyStep. That class kicks serious butt! Too bad it is not offered at any time that I could normally attend!  I am absolutely loving working out every day. It feels absolutely wonderful and completely luxurious. It's like a mini taste of retirement!  Oh bliss!

Coming Up for Air...

Christmas 2011 has finally come to an end.  I am so tired that I slept most of the day today!  I'm not sure what caused this fatigue because I neither shopped for presents nor cooked holiday meals.  I did go to the YMCA four days in a row, but surely that could not be the reason why I collapsed the way I did today! 

I have hardly done anything creative in the recent weeks, but I do have this layout for the Color room palette 90.  This was a very challenging color palette for me so I kept it as simple as possible.  I used mostly Doodlebug's Classic collection and a sheet of magenta colored patterned paper from Santa's workshop. 

I am keeping this post short because I am still so tired and I need to gather my strength for the Body Pump class in just two hours! lol.  Have a wonderful week everyone!  Let's get ready for 2012! :)

Christmas Cards, Part Last

Back in October, Alexandra asked me to create a sketch and a Christmas card based on the sketch for Scrap Rendez-Vous.  I'm totally going to admit it, I felt that I needed to overachieve, lol.  At a minimum, I was going to do two cards with vastly different styles.  So that was exactly what I did.  First is the card sketch.

The first card uses Graphic 45's Christmas Emporium collection that Aimee had sent me. The 8x8 paper pad is just way too awesome for making mini-albums and cards! It's wonderful that manufacturers make their collections into these smaller formats.  The cool vintage looking buttons came in a kit from Scrapbook Attack from probably two years ago now! 

Next I tried out my new Cricut Winter Frolic cartridge. I admit it, I like cutesy things, very very very much! I don't think I will ever tire of that trend, even when it is no longer a trend!! I would like some suggestions on what kind of papers to use for faces, you know, natural skin tone colors.  This is something I struggle to find every time I want to make cut a person!  I used an SRM Stickers sentiment for this card as well.

Lastly, unrelated to Scrap Rendez Vous, I have a Santa card using Santa's workshop collection from Doodlebug.  And have you seen the newest collection by Doodlebug: Sweet Cakes? Oh my, Valentine can't get here fast enough!  But before we go there, ho ho ho, I wish a very merry Christmas to you and yours!! 

The Color Room 89

Winter firmly arrived here in Minnesota a few weeks ago and the kids rejoiced and welcomed it with open arms!  Even I, the grumpy mother, couldn't resist going outside and snapping some snow photos.  I must add that winter must have decided to take a Caribbean vacation because it's been unseasonably warm here this week!  Anyway, here in the photos, Second Child is completed outfitted by clothes from a dear friend of mine.  That hat is just so adorable!  I called it an Eskimo hat, though it really looks more Russian? Who knows, she looks cute in it :) 

Here is another beautiful palette from the Color Room.  I feel like these are shimmery winter colors, especially given the inspiration photo, so that's why I chose these photos for this layout.

Here is a close-up of the title area of the layout.  How adorable is that Cosmo Cricket chippie bird. I really miss their products!  I sure hope they will have new stuff out for the winter CHA coming up!

Christmas is fast approaching and I am furiously working on getting a big project wrapped up before I take Christmas break off for the first time since I started working!  There's always the 23rd for shopping! lol.  Have a wonderful evening and I hope to be back soon, which means I should probably make a project or two first! :) 

Doodlebug Tutorial and Project

Every year after Christmas, I pick up a few boxes of empty glass ornaments at Michael's for the following year's holiday season's DIY craft project.  With some glitter, they really make some seriously cute and easy ornaments.  One year, First Born dropped a couple and it has become the family lore!  Second Child who wasn't even conceived in our consciousness at the time of the "incident" will solemnly tell you the cautionary tale of her older sister dropping and breaking Mama's ornaments! LOL.

Doodlebug first came out with their sugar coating glitter in 2008, and they were extremely popular and difficult to find!  I would know because I was in market searching and buying, lol. I did manage to amass a lovely collection of Doodlebug glitter.  To think a few years later, I would serve on its design team and create a glittery tutorial, oh the full circle! :)

1.  Gather supplies needed: empty glass ornaments, glitter, and embossing fluid refill.

2.  Pour 2 teaspoon of embossing fluid into the empty ornament. This was a little hard to photograph, but you can sort of see just how much I have poured into the little bulb.  You can actually dilute the embossing fluid with water to make it stretch.  I recommend diluting it first before pouring into the little glass bulb.

3.  Gently rotate the ornament so that the entire interior of the ornament is coated with embossing fluid. This could take a while if the embossing fluid is thick.  (Yes, some embossing fluid is thicker than others.)

4.  Add more embossing fluid if it is needed. Pour out the extra when it is completely coated.

5.  Pour in the glitter quickly and abundantly but quickly swirl the ornament so the glitter coats the interior of the ornament.  It's important that a lot of glitter hits the wall of the glass ornament at once.  Otherwise, a little glitter hits the wall and the wall loses its stickness, which means more glitter won't stick.  So to create the most consistent thickness of glitter around the glass wall, use a lot of glitter and work fast.

6.  Pour out any excess glitter.  At this point, the ornament is actually ready to go on your Christmas tree!There's no waiting for drying, it's immediately done.  You can tie some twine on it, put a ribbon on it and hang it up.

7.  Optionally, you can decorate the outside of the ornament if desired with glittered stickers and jewels like I have done here.

Other ideas on decorating the exterior of the ornament: white rubons, permanent markers, glitter pens... I have tied wide ribbons at the top of the ornament, they look really good that way.  I hope this is helpful and that you will enjoy making your own glitter ornaments!

Before I go, I have another Doodlebug project to show.  I altered a kraft box into a gift box with papers from Doodlebug's Santa's Workshop collection.  I put this under the tree and the kids said that it is just decoration!  Who knows, eh?  Santa might just come on Christmas Eve and put something in there, so no one should discount an empty box!

Now if only we can fast forward so Santa can bring us more toys :) Have a wonderful week everyone!

Christmas Cards Part Two

I have another batch of Christmas cards to share with you using the December Work in Progress kit!

There were a couple of dark draft tags in the kit and I immediately decided that they should be used for holiday cards!  One of the little Ormalu flapper is "each and every day" which is just way too perfect as a sentiment for any card! I paired it with the tiny letters from Echo Park and created this card. A fair amount of 3-d foam adhesive is used, and you can see the depth on the close-up photo.

Next up is a failure apparently. I asked DH if he could tell for which occasion is this card. He stared at it for 10 minutes and told me that he had no idea! Really? I was a little appalled! Maybe I should have moved the number stickers closer together, but I thought the gingerbread man would have been a good clue that it's a Christmas card? Ugh, like I said, apparently, this one is a failure!

I put a couple of 3-d foam adhesive behind the little number flags to make them stay "flapped."

Then I have this relatively obvious holiday card using three tiny tags. I wonder if the non-traditional colors are what threw DH off in the previous one?

Lastly I will sneak in one more card that isn't a holiday card, but kinda cute anyway.

I have thoroughly enjoyed making these cards.  I hope this weekend will bring me some needed inspiration and creative energy.  My parents are leaving in just a few days to spend their winter in Shanghai and I will have significantly less free time soon!  Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Oh Christmas Cards... Part One

I have been making holiday cards, in fact, since last month, ever since Alexandra asked me to make a sketch and cards for Scrap Rendez Vous.  I will share those in another post soon.

First check out my card creations using the Sweet Peach Crop Shop's December Juicy kit. First is a square card with the silver Hambly reindeer rubon as the focal point of the card. I added a few brads to accent its antlers.

Next, I have a card that focuses on the colors red, kraft, and white. I hand stitched the border around the patterned paper to frame it. I used my trusted My Favorite Things die set for this. 

You can see the 3-d depth here in this close-up.

Lastly, I used the image of this elk in a sheet in Prima's North Country collection as the focal point of this card. A few scallops from the My Mind's Eye paper, ribbons, and a brad all add up to enhance the main image. This one is my personal favorite.

Here is a close-up of this card.

I have thoroughly enjoyed making these, especially using some non-traditional Christmas colors :)  Thank you for stopping by.  I have more cards to share with you yet next time!

Work In Progress Layouts

It's Friday which means that I survived a full work week after having quite a few days off for Thanksgiving!  Now that the weekend is here, I hope I can squeeze in a few minutes of creativity in the packed weekend schedule. Meanwhile, I have a couple of layouts using the December Work in Progress kit to share today.  Both them are documenting our summer trip and our day in historical Philadelphia. 

I used the tags as frames in the first layout.  The kids were just goofing around on the pebble street and I took some pictures.  I finished it off with drops of mist.  It's a pretty simple layout.

We would have loved to visit the Franklin Museum but it was under renovation so we just hung out at the Franklin Court. I really like the picture I took of First Born sitting there, definitely one of my favorites from the trip.

I layered a few stickers from the Echo Park and the etsy tags included in the kit. I guess these stickers reminded me of invention which is a huge part of Benjamin Franklin's life. 

I should say that I quite enjoyed all the chevron stripes included in this kit and I tried to leverage them wherever I can in these layouts.  Chevron stripes seem to be all the rage right now in scrapbooking.  I bet my friend Deana would tell me that they are all the rage in the fashion world as well, she would know, that and twine! ;)

Have a great weekend everyone!  Stay warm!  Count your blessings if you are warm already, lol!