All About Cupcakes

One of the things I love about Valentine collections is how you can stretch the theme of love into many aspects of your life. The Cupcake Love collection from Little Yellow Bicycle is one of those wonderful lines that you can create almost any theme and the bright, fun colors are perfect for pages about the sweeties in your life. My daughter is such a "little" consumer, that I had to make a project about her shopping addiction. She will save all of her allowance and "borrow" all of the spare change she can scrounge up in the house to save enough money to go on a shopping spree. Thus the title, "Real Cupcakes Love to Shop."

For the title I used a combination of the Cupcake Love cardstock stickers and the banners from the Heart Cut Out Sheet with Glitter. Together with some smaller alphabets, it makes a really fun title.

The Heart Stick Pins and Layered Felt Sliders really add some great texture to the page as well as a soft accent. I am in love with the details on these sweet little cupcakes. They were a perfect embellishment for the theme of my page.

Talk about fun! The Epoxy Sprinkle Stickers will make you giggle as you apply them to your project. I thought the best part of this "sweet" project was to add some Sprinkles on top. Even though it looks like I used up all of my stash, the truth is I have over half of the package left for yet another yummy project.

The Cupcake Love collection is a must have in your stash! Thank you so much for stopping by -

New Imaginisce, Two-Pager & Sketch

Aren't the new Imaginisce Garden Party papers beautiful?  The floral design and colors are such a pretty combination and perfect for the little girls in your life.  I thought these photos of my daughter playing golf in our backyard were a great match for the Garden Party collection.

Aren't these Florish Title Die Cuts 'adorable'?  All it needed was a little bit of ink, a ribbon accent, some chipboard to embellish and a few pop dots for dimension.  It's a wonderful embellishment to tie together the photos and break up the linear design.

The Daisy Chain Ribbons included with this collection are absolutely gorgeous.  I love the pattern on this one and what a great contrast it is with the many floral patterns in the paper and embellishments.  I also grabbed my Martha Stewart Pansy punch to create this complimentary border.  Don't you just love it when the stars align and your older tools match up with brand new products???  I would say this was a match made in heaven....

The Johnny Jump-Ups Sticker Stackers are a definite must for adding sentiments and dimension to a page.  I backed this one with a little brown cardstock to give it a bit more definition.  Then I used my trusty i-rock to add these teeny tiny Hot Rocks to the flower centers for a little extra special attention to detail. 

It wouldn't be the season of giving, if I didn't include a sketch to play with.  Please enjoy and hope to see some two-pagers out there using Imaginisce products.  Please drop me a line at my BLOG if you use the sketch so I can pop over and admire your work.

Thank you so much for stopping by - 

Jolly Good Times w/ Allison Davis

This fun, wintry layout is based on a sketch by the talented Allison Davis for her most recent sketch week.  I was so excited that she invited me to guest design and when I saw her sketch, I knew I was going to use the Christmas Delight collection from Little Yellow Bicycle with these photos of my kids playing in the snow.  The cut out snowman alone had me sold on this collection as the perfect embellishment.  Please visit Allison's blog for more inspiration.

The snowman is so darling on his own that I merely dressed him up just a tad with one of the Christmas Delight epoxy stickers and a bit of bling.  The journal strips are from the Christmas Delight cardstock stickers - I just backed them with a little white cardstock, inked the edges and pop-dotted them for some dimension.

The word 'JOLLY' is from the Christmas Delight fabric stickers.  I love the texture!  They definitely add a fun element to the page.  I also added a bit of bling to make them sparkle.   The snowman strip is from one of the patterned papers to continue the theme.

One of my favorite elements in all of the most recent Little Yellow Bicycle collections are the banners.  Isn't this one just gorgeous?  I love how it dresses up the page and expresses a wonderful  sentiment. They even come pre pop-dotted.  How is that for easy???

Thank you so much for stopping by - 

2011 Imaginisce Design Team

I'm very excited to announce the 2011 Imaginisce Design Team, which I feel very fortunate to be joining for another term. Wait til' you see what Imaginisce has in store for 2011! New tools, New collections, New DT members! You are going to love it! So without further ado, here is the new (with some familiar faces) line up - please feel free to visit some of the new member's blogs.

Please click HERE see the team list.

Thank you for stopping by -

Some Holiday Spirit

How about a holiday card with a little warmth despite the cold? Something I love about Echo Park's "Wintertime" collection is that you can make holiday projects that aren't specific to a certain holiday or religion. This card is meant to let someone know you are thinking about them or to include with a special gift of food or drink around the holidays.

To add a litle dimension to my card, I backed the journal card with some chipboard. Then I added an Imaginisce Snowflake Glitz to the hot cocoa mug for some extra sparkle on the snowflake. Finally I tied on some red gingham ribbon from Jillibean Soup to dress the card up just a bit. That is real Colorado snow in the photo! No worries, the card is safe and sound - LOL. Talk about super fast photography skills.

Have a wonderful Holiday Season!

Publication Call

I'm working on my March column for Scrapstreet Magazine and since I am new, I have missed the opportunity to place an official call along with the other Pit Crew members. So I thought I might put a shout out to my favorite peeps to see if any of you can help me out.

I am writing a brand new fixture at Scrapstreet called Backstreet Beat. Backstreets tend to wind through neighborhoods where it's important to be creative and thrifty to thrive. The column is all about creating amazing projects with practicality and frugality in mind.

I am looking for items that use real world print somewhere on the project, whether it be a newspaper clipping, dictionary page, advertisement, packaging, cereal boxes, brochure, basically anything that utilizes real world print that you found somewhere unexpected or for "free". I'd like to see a variety of pages, cards and altered items.

Please email any submissions to lizqualman@gmail.com by January 5th. Hope to hear from some of you soon.

Thank you so much for stopping by -

Naughty or Nice

I am just smitten with the Little Yellow Bicycle Christmas Delight collection and have a few projects to share this week. I really appreciate how versatile the collection is and can represent both the Christmas Holidays as well as the season of winter. I trying to get the perfect holiday photo when I took these pictures of my daughter. Ironically, my favorite photo is the one where she looks totally bored of the whole plan. Serves me right doesn't it?

Little Yellow Bicycle includes so many fun embellishments with all of their collections. I can easily make a page with 100% of their stuff - never anything needed to add to a beautiful page. I particularly love the chipboard swirls and bling that came with Christmas Delight. They were such a great accent. Not to mention the wonderful journal cards that always have the perfect sentiment.

The decorative edge papers were a great way to vary the look of my layers and I love how the soft blue color of the chipboard words contrast with the deep rich colors of the specialty paper with the ornaments. This collection will not disappoint.

Thank you so much for stopping by -

November Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Melissa D. for being the randomly drawn winner of the November Challenge. Your layout is absolutely beautiful and I love the Little Yellow Bicycle papers you chose for the layout and photo. Please email me your information and I will get a RAK out to you soon. Melissa's layout is based on this November sketch.

Thank you so much to all who played along this month. I know things get crazy around the holidays, so I am going to take a hiatus for December since we are already most of the way through. However, I promise to be back with more sketches and challenges in 2011.

Thank you so much for stopping by -

Wintertime with Echo Park

 

Sorry the sketch is just a tad late.  I had submitted this layout and sketch to the Echo Park Guest Blogger challenge and was waiting to see if it was selected.  This morning I found out that it is the first project selected for the 12 Days of Guest Designers on their blog.  Now that it is live, I can share the sketch with you all.  I'll be posting the winner of the November Challenge this week and putting up the December Challenge soon - although I am feeling like most people are too busy to scrap...

This is what the holidays look like in Colorado - pure Rocky Mountain fun, filled with fresh air and powdery snow. The "Wintertime" collection is a perfect palette of frost to make these photos of my son look even a bit chillier. I have been working on ways to add more photos to my layouts and since I am addicted to wallet-sized ones, I am always searching for more ideas on how to include them on my pages.  For this project, I decided to make a filmstrip of my son playing in the snow to compliment the larger 5x7 close up photo. I also tried to keep my embellishments fairly simple, but had to add this super cute sticker of the snowman. I also used some pop dots.

To increase the frosty feel of the page and to give it some sparkle, I added a bit of bling to this cardstock border sticker. I also varied the colors of the sticker alphabet to create a bit more interest to the title. The little circle snowflake sticker finished off the look.

Aren't these trees adorable? It is the little details like this that make Echo Park papers so fun. I cut up some of the paper strips to include this as a layer in my design and then added some of the sentiments from the cardstock stickers.

Hopping with Adornit - Day 3

We have one more day of fun from Adornit.  Today it is a Potato Sack Race to all of the blogs to check out the fun we have planned with the two Adorable Owl collections from Adornit - Carolee's Creations: Pink Hoot and Fern.  I really love both of the collections, but I opted for the more masculine Fern collection to make this sign for my son.  I know you will find projects from both of these super cute collections as you hop from blog to blog.

This Happy Wood Photo Plaque sign is also from Adornit.  It happens to be one of their wood decor items.  It measures 7 x 22 inches and has a lot of real estate to cover, but the design is so darn cute, you don't notice the size - LOL.  I thought it was a really interesting feature to hang these three little plaques from the sign, because I also thought it would be really practical to use the pegs on the sign to hang some of my son's hats.

I used this Owl Hoot B paper to cover the two little plaques below.  Isn't it adorable?  Then added a few cardstock stickers for the sentiment.  The owl motifs totally crack me up.

The larger Hoot stickers were great to decorate the word 'HAPPY'.  I used the one below to embellish the 'H'.  I think it is a perfect fit.

Win this wonderful collection by leaving a comment on each of the designers blogs and a final comment on the Adornit - Listen In blog.  

Melinda

Liz

Suzanne

Aphra

Robbie

Frances

Adornit - Listen In

One final thing I should mention about Adornit...you can purchase all of their collections and embellishments directly from them at their store.  They have wonderful customer service and I always receive my packages right away.  Plus they have some amazing bargains.  I recommend checking it out here - Adornit Store.

Thank you so much for hopping with us, especially those of you who have been here for all three days.  We appreciate all of the encouragement and hope to see some of these wonderful collections in your own work.

Hopping with Adornit - Day 2

We couldn't do just one day with Adornit - Carolee's Creations, because they have a few amazing collections to share.  So we had to plan 3 full days of fun (this being day 2).  Yesterday was hopscotch, but today we have a little Sock Hop to get our groove on.  All of the designers in the hop are featuring projects with the gorgeous and decadent Vintage Groove Collection.  It's the perfect combination of reds, yellows, grays and blacks that will take you back in time, maybe create some nostalgia and put a smile on your face, just like a Sock Hop...

I really enjoyed creating this set of cards with the Vintage Grove collection.  I love how different all the patterns are and how the colors complement each other so well.  Even thought these cards are distinctly different, they still have a wonderful complimentary color palette.

This is my favorite of the two, because I really love how Adornit makes a lot of paper with text and this one has such a sweet sentiment and works so well with blue paper and cardstock stickers.  All it needed to dress it up was a little ribbon and some pop dots to make the Family stickers stand out.

I also love the clear stickers that come with each of the Adornit collections.  They make the most beautiful flourishes and because they are clear stickers, they are such a great layer to any project and a wonderful and subtle embellishment.  I love the simple stem on this card with the over-sized sticker flower.

Now for the best part, you could be the lucky winner of the entire Vintage Groove collection.  All you have to do is complete the sock hop, leave a comment on each of the designers blogs and then a final comment on the Adornit Blog telling a little bit of what you saw when you were hopping around.

Just keep hopping, just keep hopping...

Suzanne

Robbie

Melinda

Liz

Frances

Aphra

Adornit Listen In Blog

Stay tuned...tomorrow we will have two collections to share and one more day of hopping.


Thank you so much for stopping by -