Selfie Love

Scrapbook layout for Scrapbook Nerd  - Selfie Love -

Hello there!

This is my last entry for my week showcase at Scrapbook Nerd.  For this layout, I wanted to showcase the beautiful paper from the collection, so I went for simplicity and lots of paper in the layout.

A close up of the paper cuts in this layout.

I started by cutting a corner of one of the patterned papers,  I did the same to 2 more papers, but each time I increased the width and length of the cut, keeping the angle.  I glued them to white cardstock in an ascending order from large to small.

Here is the cut that inspired the layout.

The residual paper was then glued in the same fashion at the opposite corner side of the corner cuts.  I used the same technique of staggering the papers .  This created a beautiful angle in the page, and I used the corner of the angle to position the picture there.

I used a gold paint marker to color the wood veneer;
the other letters were fussy cut from one of the patterned papers.

To balance the layout, I added a small cluster at the bottom of the angle of this page.  Once again, I added fussy cut pieces, ephemera and stickers.

A little creasing of the edges of the paper, a few lines of journal at the bottom of  the title,and  the date of the picture completed the page.

This page came together rather quickly, and having papers from the same collection take some of the guess work from the planning.

I hope you like it.

See you soon.

The final layout

Materials Used:

Patterned papers,  Wonder collection, Crate Paper

Ephemera, stickers, chipboard pieces,  Wonder collection, Crate Paper

Ephemera camera, Market Place collection, Crate Paper

Project Life Week #16

PL Week 16

Hello there!

 It has been a rather busy week in our household.  Between soccer, guitar, deadlines, and renovations, there has been very little time for anything else.    However, I have squeezed some time to capture our everyday life, not as detail as other weeks, but at least the week's highlights.

With all those pictures in hand, I was able to create an entry for this week's Project Life album using mostly cut-outs from My Mind's Eye old collections.

This week's layout

I hope you are also documenting your every day, even if it is a handful of pictures.

See you soon...

Cute Girls

Scrapbook Layout for ScrapbookNerd.com  - Cute Girls -

A project created for Scrapbook Nerd.

Hello once again!!

I continue to share with you all my projects created for ScrapbookNerd.com using the "Wonder" collection from Crate Paper.  

I love cut files,  I enjoy how i can manipulate them to highlight my layouts.  For this particular layout, I am using the Cut Shoppe's "Any Which Way" cut file.  This background arrow cut file was perfect to create a geometrical and interesting mat for my picture and ideas.

A close up of the cut file

I used the cut file to get a background for a 12x12 layout, and went and cut it into 4 different sections.  I backed the cut file in an alternate formation.  The arrows with vellum were backed directly to the back of the cut out, while the ones with pattern paper were not backed, instead, i chose to pop the cut file with foam dots on the color paper.

A side look of the layout.

I chose to use one of the geometric pattern papers as a mat for the layout.  The contrast of the cut out and the mat work to create contrast on with the picture.   The picture was matted and layered with the same patterned paper  and vellum as the cut out.

A simple cluster on the top left corner of  the picture.

This picture was depicting my daughter and niece at Christmas dinner showing off their present (they got matching hats).  So I chose the large word chipboard word "Cute" as part of the title.  I fussy cut  the letters for girls from one of the papers.  Using Heidi Swapp's Ink Toner marker,  I painted half the letters and added gold foil.  The result works perfectly in this layout.

The picture doesn't catch the light to show the gold foiling.

 

To balance the page, I added a small cluster of fussy cut pieces, chipboard and tags  at the  other corner of the page.

I created the tags by cutting one of the patterned papers.

Finally I added my journal at the  opposite side of the cluster.   Since I wanted to highlight the picture and cut out, I stop there and was happy with the result.   I hope you like it too.

Materials Used:

Patterned Paper,  Wonder collection, Crate Paper

Ephemera, chipboard, stickers,  Wonder collection, Crate Paper

Cut File,  Any Which way, The Cut Shoppe

Title,  Ink Toner Marker, Heidi Swapp MInc Collection

Gold Foil, Heidi Swapp MInc Collection

Smile

A Crafting Tutorial for ScrapbookNerd.com  -Smile-

A close up of the title for the page.

It is my week for showcase at ScrapbookNerd,com ( I am so thankful for the opportunity),and this is the first tutorial that i will be sharing with their customers and my readers...  

I saw this idea of paper folding some time ago, and i folded a scrap piece of paper just like i remember and put it in my bits and pieces box, so i will remember.  Once I had finished all my layouts for Scrapbook Nerd, I was left with a large number of scraps of paper, so I re-purpose them into a scrapboook layout as follows:

• Cut about 15-20 pieces of  different paper scraps into squares of about 2.75 inches for this  particular layout  (you can go up to 4 inches to get a balanced look for a layout).  Note that the patterned papers work together because they belong to the same collection.

Mark the center point of each side; in this case 17/8 inches

• Using a bone folder and a scouring board mark a line uniting the center points of the lines as follows..

• Fold the squares about the marked lines (make sure that the patterned paper is showing on the outside of the fold.

• Since I wanted to form a "heart shape" with the squares, I penciled intersecting lines at 45 degrees at the center of the bottom edge of the layout.

• Start placing the squares on the lines making sure that no two matching patterns are right next to each other.

• I wanted the picture to be part of the heart, so I cut one my picture to fit in the place of two of the hearts.  I backed with a large piece of foam, so it will be raised from the folded hearts (this is personal choice, the picture also looked great when placed just on the layout)

• For my title,  I chose this large wood veneer from the collection (it is coincidental that it fits instead of two of the folded hearts).  I used white acrylic paint to cover the entire surface, once dried, mark the middle of the piece -width wise- with some washi tape.  Use the marker to color just one of the halves of the piece.  I set my MInc machine to 5, and placed the envelop with the wood veneer covered in gold foil in between the rolls.  I had to push the envelope a bit until the rollers caught the piece.  As the veneer was about to exit the machine, I set it to reverse so the foil will be completely attached to the veneer.  NOTE;  this work only for the MInc machine.

• Finally I added a small cluster of embellies, ink splatters, and a few lines of journal to the layout.

It was fun to create this layout, and it gave a great opportunity to use all the little paper scraps.

If you have any questions, please just leave me message in the comments section below.  I hope that you use the technique for your crafting projects.  I would love to see pictures of them.

See you soon!

Materials Used:

Patterned paper,  Wonder Collection, Crate Paper

Ephemera, stickers,  Wonder Collection, Crate Paper

Wood Veneer Title, Wonder Collection Big Words, Crate Paper

Ink Toner Marker, Heidi Swapp MInc Collection

Heidi Swapp's Color Shine in black and gold.

My Week in Pictures #16

My favorite picture of the week.

Hello everyone!

The last week of April is starting...  Time seriously is flying!  Here in Toronto, finally Spring is in full bloom, and the weather is cooperating with us.  As usual i have been busy running many errands and working on some projects for ScrapbookNerd.com, and coming to the blog soon.  However I have made time to capture a little snap of my every day.  So  here are my favorites of  the week.

As the weather is improving, my daily doggie walks are also getting longer.   My baby loves the walk, but he is more interested in finding sticks and trying to be friendly with all the strangers we find in the river path.

This is my view during the walks.

Part of longer walks is coming upon little brooks that feed the Humber river.  I love seeing how the leafs float by.  The top picture is my favorite, the sun caught the leaf, creating a cool effect. Here is another one of the shots.

Love the look of the dead leaves under the clear water.

And to close up my week, Soccer!  Yes, our weekends are full of soccer; and when you spent at least 5 days of the week with the same people, you tend to adopt them as part of your extended family.  Here is a picture of Vuc -one of the younger soccer siblings- watching the big boys play to win...

We always have gone as a family to all of our son's games;   my daughter is lucky to have a good friend to spend time with while the boys do their stuff.  These two have been  together since they were 7 and 6, and used to smile for the camera then.   Now they hide their faces when they see my lens come around...

my daughter is the one hiding from my  lens.

I hope that you have a great weekend, and take time to pick up your camera and take snapshots of your blessed life.

See you soon!

Welcome to Adventure

Scrapbook Layout for ScrapbookNerd.com - Welcome to Adventure -

The best title for the beginning of a beautiful creative adventure with Scrapbook Nerd

Hello everyone,

I am excited to share my first layout as part of the designing team for Scrapbook Nerd (ScrapbookNerd.com).  I am very thankful -first and above all to God, and then Barb and Joy for taking a chance with me- for this opportunity to express some of the crazy ideas that are always floating in my head...

We all received Crate Paper's "Wonder" collection as our first kit.  This is such a beautiful collection with rich colors and beautiful patterns that can be easily used to document  memories.   This kit and this month's theme, "Welcoming" worked hand in hand to create this layout about my kids' first visit to my native country, Ecuador, last year.

I started by using a simple handwriting font  from the silhouette store to form my title, welcome.  Once I had it perforated by the machine, i hand embroidered the letters with orange thread.  I fussy cut the large title, and set it aside.

Creating a background for the layout

I had chosen papers that were rich in orange and green to mat and layer my black and white picture, and chose to create my background, on watercolor paper,  using Heidi Swapp's Color Shine in Mint and Coral.  I used the packaging method to obtain the watercolor effect and added splatters of the ink as well.

Texture is key in this layout

I wanted to add texture to the page, so I went ahead and used Tim Holtz's collection "Plus" stencil (that is the name) with a bit of Heidi Swapp's white Texture paste.   The dimension and texture this adds to the page is beautiful.

A close up of all the papers used in the layout.

I used at least 4 different papers to layer my picture,  I added tags (I love them), some of the stickers and bundles of thread  in between the layers,   It was all about adding dimension and interest to the page.

I enjoying creating little bundles of ephemera on my layouts

Once the title was placed right below the picture,  I constructed a little banner bundle with stickers and pieces of ephemera (I even cut the Crate Paper logo -shaped as a banner) and attach it to the top left corner of the page.  I chose to add my journal lines at the bottom of the title.  As a final touch I splatter some black ink , and called it done..

The final layout

I had so much fun creating this page, I hope you like it, as much as we do.  If you have any questions, just leave me a comment here, my instagram feed or at Scrapbook Nerd forum.  I will be happy to respond.  I also am attaching a list of all the  materials used (everything is available at ScrapbookNerd.com, but the embroidery thread, and water color paper)

See you soon.  :)

Materials Used:

Water color paper, Canson

Patterned Paper,  Wonder Collection,  Crate Paper

Stickers,  Wonder Collection, Crate Paper

Ephemera, Market Place Collection, Crate Paper

Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Mint and Coral

Plus Stencil, Tim Holtz Collection

White texture paste, Heidi Swapp collection

Black India Ink, Higgins

Project Life Week 15

PL week 15

Hello!

It has been a rather busy week on my household,  though this week's entry was finished on Sunday night, I was finally able to photograph it and added to the blog.

To start, I used the side B of the small insert of my niece's birthday celebration.  I used some cut-outs from different paper collections to build the page.

Using a lot of black and white this week.

Since most of the pictures of this week were printed in color, I chose to use black filling cards, and to back the picture on white cardboard.  Also, by using a single size of pictures (3x4) made it rather easy to complete the page.

The filler cards come from Heidi Swapp collection and Teresa Collins collection

Here is the complete layout:

A week in pictures.

I hope you are also documenting your everyday.

See you soon

Happy

Scrapbook Layout - Happy-

Part of the process for creating this layout

Well hello back!!

I don't like to throw out cut-outs especially when they form such a beautiful pattern, as the one from the Spin wheels cut file from the Cut Shoppe.

the residual from the cut-out of the spinwheel cut file

I had so many ideas as to what i wanted to do with this cut-outs, but first i temporarily glue them to a patterned paper so I can play around with some ideas.    I was inspired by all the spring colors showing around, so I used Heidi Swapp Color Shine to achieve a watercolor look on the spinwheels

I gesso the cut outs before adding the color shine.

Once the ink was dried, I drew a border inside each piece following the edge of the cut.  I fussy cut all the pieces, and started to form the pinwheels using the tiny attacher to held them together.
For the main layout mat I used the back of a Craft Smith patterned paper.  I gesso the page, and once dried used the same colors to create  a water color effect on the page.  I added splashes of the colorshine where i had planned to add the spin wheels.

a few black ink spots were also added to match the colors on the spin wheels

I am starting to document my niece's 8th birthday, so I printed one of the pictures in black and white, and backed/layered it with papers from the same collection.

I staggered the papers to make it look that they were flying along with the spin wheels

I created soft waves with the spin wheels. making sure that they did not end at the corner of the page.

the spin wheels follow the path created by the color shine splatters

To add some interest to the page, I ripped and folded the bottom edges of the page, and added pieces of the layering patterned papers.  The look just completed the page.

i went for simplicity on the page to highlight the picture and the spinwheels.

Finally I added my title and some journal lines.  I love this page (one of my favorites by far).

I hope you like it too, and re-purpose all the parts of a cut-out.

See you soon...

The completed layout

Materials used:

Cut file, Spin Wheels, the Cut Shoppe

Color Shine in rose, butter, mustard and lime green, Heidi Swapp collection

Patterned paper, Sherbet Dream collection, Craft Smith, Michaels

Title,  Becky Higgins Project life kit ephemera

Happy Walker

Scrapbook Layout - Happy Walker -

Hello everyone,

I hope you all are using your creativity to document your life.  Lately, the weather is finally changing in Toronto, that translates into longer doggie walks.  My fur bay loves the extra outdoor time, and I love capturing his exuberance.

Since Spring is in full bloom, I wanted to use vibrant colors on the layouts, so I started by using a cut file from The Cut Shoppe -Spinwheels-.  I set the cut so that only every other spinwheel was cut, and the other was perforated.   I saved the cut outs for the next layout (you can read all about it on the next blog entry).   I used embroidery thread in yellow, green, teal and light blue to stitch the border of the cut outs in an alternating way.

A close up of the stitching on the layout

I wanted to  bring color to the page, so I created the background paper that mats the cut-out.  First I gessoed a My Mind's Eye paper.  Once dried i used the cutout as a template to mark, with a pencil, the limit of each spinwheel.  I, then, used acrylic paints to create a swirl  in each of the marked spots.  I used colors more vibrant than the embroidery floss as I wanted to pop the cut file.

Here is a look at the painted swirls.  

Using foam dots, I attached the cut file to the painted mat.  The effect of different heights on the layout works hand in hand with the texture from the embroidery.  I chose to keep the picture and title cluster simple not to lose the details of the layout.

Just a few pieced of ephemera and stickers help highlight the photo.

Finally I added a few sequin to the center of the cut-out spin wheels and added my journal lines at the bottom of the page.   I love the results.

The completed layout

I hope you like it, as much as I enjoyed working on the page.

P.S.  the next blog entry shows what i did with the cut-out spin wheels.  

Materials Used:

Cut file,  Spin wheels, The Cut Shoppe

Patterned paper,  Now and Then collection, My Mind's Eye

Stickers and Ephemera, My Mind's Eye collections

Title -Happy- Heidi Swapp color Shine paper resistant collection

Title -Walker-,  Recollections, Michaels

Acrylic paint,  Artist Loft collection, Michaels

My Week in pictures #15

It has been"magenta" week on my Capture Your 365 photo-a-day challenge..

Hello everyone!

it has been a rather super busy week and weekend in my household.  There has been renovations, appointments, shopping,games, and family visits all in a week.  Through it all, I always carried my camera with me -to the dismay of my kids-, so that i can capture a glimpse of the moment that rapidly gets written in our memories.  Take a look at the highlights of my week.

As always, i had to photograph food in some way this week.  A simple onion serve as my muse for the layer prompt of my photo-a-day challenge.  It takes a second to elevate the ordinary into extraordinary.

My kids are growing into teenagers, and slowly we are becoming less of a parent and more of a friend at times.  My Gabi now is able to express her desires, needs and wants;  so shopping is a way to bond and spar at the same time.  Here she is showing her latest purchase.

As always my little ones (niece, nephew and fur baby) provide plenty of opportunities to capture the moment. I enjoy capturing and later documenting the pictures .  Here is the littlest member of our family with his cousin. They love each other.

As soon as my nephew arrives, my baby follows him everywhere

One of the reasons for my sister's visit was to take my niece to the photo studio for Communion portraits. I sneak my camera to capture some of the poses, but the candid pictures at home were so much nicer and natural.

She looks beautiful and peaceful in this pose

Sadly we had to leave my mom with the visits as my son is wrapping up his indoors soccer season, and we have been at back to back games the entire weekend.  It is amazing to see his development through my lens..

Josh playing soccer at Wild Water Kingdom

What better way to close the week than with a beautiful sunset.  Though there are no beaches or landscape,  there are perks on being in the road (coming home from a soccer game) while the sun is setting in the city.

I hope you are also taking the time to enjoy the little moments life has to offer.  Sometimes the snapshot of your life seems insignificant, but with time it becomes a  cherished memory.

Enjoy your week. 

See you soon...