A Monochromatic Crafty Challenge

Good morning, I hope your week is starting out OK.

Today over on the Two Scrapbook Friends Forum, as well as our ongoing Online Crop, we have a brand new Crafty Challenge for you........and I'm delivering the goods.

So, I may have given you a little hint in my title, as to the theme of today's challenge, but just to be sure we're all on the same page, I'd like to see a project showing a monochromatic colour scheme.

Your creation may be a card, scrapbook page, or any form of altered art, as long as there is only one dominant colour.  I will allow a neutral to be included i.e white/cream etc. and even a single accent colour if you feel the need, so long as there's an obvious monochrome look to the finished product..........see I'm going easy on you really! :)

I have a sample for you of course, a scrapbook page, where I went for the traditional 'Black and White'......can't go too wrong with that I guess.

As you can see it's definitely 'Monochrome'!  The only touch of colour appears in the editing of the photograph.

Papers are from Bo Bunny and the title is Maya Road chipboard covered with some of the patterned paper.  There's lots of layering, and the date is recorded with the trusty Dymo.

I die cut a couple of butterflies and used mini clothes pins for the body, together with a layer of sheer fabric for extra dimension.

The banner is also made using a die cut, together with a circle punch, some zig- zag stitching and brads.

Finally, the large flower is cut using the Slice and layered with a handmade felt center.

I hope you're feeling inspired to choose a colour and stick with it.  I can't wait to see your projects, but don't forget to upload to the Two Scrapbook Friends Gallery and Forum, to be in with chance of earning buttons.  We all know that buttons turn into gift certificates for the store, so what are you waiting for?

Have a wonderful day and I'll see you soon,
Jayne.x.

National Scrapbook Day Online Crop with Two Scrapbook Friends

Hope you're having a good day so far.  I'm a little late posting on here, but there's a reason for it.
In honour of National Scrapbook Day on Saturday 5th May, Two Scrapbook Friends are hosting a week long On-line crop filled with fun, prizes and of course a few challenges along the way.

The crop goes live at 3.00pm today (hence my delayed post) and you have until midnight on Sunday 6th May to upload your beautiful creations, and be in with a chance of winning some goodies.  All you have to do to be able to play along, is become a member of the Two Scrapbook Friends Forum (if you're not already) and get scrapping!

So now that we have all the deets out of the way, let's get down to business.

Each of the DT are issuing a challenge and this years theme is focusing on techniques.........a little nudge to encourage you to try something old, new, or just forgotten on your project.

My challenge, I'm thinking is pretty simple and will 'have you in stitches'!

Are you with me?

Yes SEWING.  Machine or hand but definitely not faux!  This challenge requires the real deal, so it's all or nothing baby.  Your project may be a scrapbook page, card, altered item or any paper related craft, so without further ado, here's mine.

A layout entitled "A Perfect Day".

I love this line of papers from My Minds Eye......'Follow Your Heart', so versatile.

Instead of machine stitching, as I have on most of my pages/cards recently, I decided to go back to the old hand sewing.  The letters for my title are cut from a piece of canvas (using my Slice) and then I stitched through the center of each one.

I added a couple of banners to the top corner wrapped with a little twine.  The hexagons, which are a really popular trend right now, are individually cut from a sheet of the paper, then glued or randomly 'popped' onto the page.

Journalling is printed using Word and one of my favourite fonts 'Batik Regular', onto a die cut (again using my Slice), with another banner, a button and a few dew drops.  Before I show that photograph though, I have to share a little story.

You know you've been married a while when:

You've completed your layout and you're giving it one final look over before it disappears into the album, when, you look at the journalling date and think "I don't think that is the date of our Wedding Anniversary?".

So then you have to go and ask your husband "What is the date of our Anniversary?".

You then realize you've got it completely wrong (!) which means you have to re-type, re-print and re-stick the new date over top!

But of course, I was going for the random layered look all along! :)

So that's all from me, I hope you'll get a chance to join in with the festivities as we always love to see what you create, but most importantly have fun.

Enjoy your day and I'll see you next week (unless I make the effort before then!).
Take care,
Jayne.x.

Sketch Day!

It's Wednesday which means it's time for another Sketch Challenge over on the Two Scrapbook Friends forum, and yes, you have me to put up with again, for today's effort.

So without further ado, here we go with my third sketch..........

What more can I say, except.....circles.....and lots of them, but feel free to use your creative licence and change them up for embellishments, or whatever really.

Now, my layout using today's sketch is not exactly my usual subject matter........no cute kids, hubby's or even general family members, but it's something that just had to be scrapped.  Quite an important factor in my life......or at least anyone that knows me would think so!

Here goes........an 'Ode' to 'The Iced Cappucino'!

Yes, I can see my family members right now, nodding their heads in agreement, with that look on their faces that says 'Yep, she has a problem!', but I'm sure there are worse things in life.

I don't actually use circles that often, but I felt the need for a little collection of them on this page.

There's also an accordion flower created using a border punch and scoring board.........

I actually competed this layout at a crop on Saturday at my favourite store (Two Scrapbook Friends of course!) and whilst I was driving there, inspiration struck........I need a straw.........a genuine 'Timmies' straw!  So after a quick visit to the nearest location, this took pride of place on the page.........

Stitching and a piece of trim adds a little more texture, and we're done..........

I do hope you'll get a chance to play along with today's challenge and remember to upload your creations to the Gallery and Forum.  Every entry can earn you buttons toward a gift certificate to the store, and I for one am always thrilled to see anything using one of my sketches!

Have a great day, happy scrapping and I'll see you again soon
Jayne.

Christmas in April!

Hello there, how's your Saturday going so far?

I meant to get this post on here yesterday, but got carried away at the indoor playground with my girls.  I tell ya, if I wasn't feeling my age before, this convinced me!  15 minutes of crawling around on all fours, I had to admit defeat....my knees were killing me and my back was that little voice in my ear saying "OK you do know how old you are right, and that you're gonna pay double for this tomorrow?!"

I always listen to the voice in my head (!) so I sat down and had a coffee......much more civilised!

I've been quite productive on the scrapping front this week, so I thought I'd hop on here with one of the layouts I did.

It's not my best, it's not exactly current.....the photo's are approximately 6 years old, and the subject is Christmas, but it's one of those that I've kept on the back burner, waiting to eventually scrap.

So here we are, with my Christmas Angel (well one of them at least!).............

As you can see it's a pretty simple page that was put together fairly quickly (you can probably tell that too!).  The layout was inspired by a sketch from One Page Sketches For Scrapbooking by Allison Davis.  Papers and chipboard embellishments are more than a year old, from Cosmo Cricket's "Mitten Weather" collection.

It's hard to see part of the title, but they're clear epoxy letters.........

I've also added a little hand stitching, together with some more chipboard elements.

.......and there you have it.

Have a great weekend....I think we lost our sunshine!
I'll see you next week,
Jayne.x.

One of those days!

Not for me today actually....happy mood again!

This is just the theme of today's card.....I've certainly had a few days like this believe me!

The current challenge over on the Saturated Canary Challenge Blog is April Showers, so as this little lady has been coloured and sitting very patiently on my desk, waiting for you know who to finally put her on a card, I thought I'd better.
It's time to 'Cheer Up'..........

As the title suggests, the name of this digi is 'One of those days', and you can find her as also previously mentioned, over at Saturated Canary.

She's coloured with Copic markers and I've added a little distress ink around the image too..........

Papers are some of my favourites right now from the Authentique 'Gathering' collection, and the card layout is inspired by a previous sketch from The Deconstructed Sketch.  I've added a little bakers twine together with a couple of delicate tea roses ($1.50 bargain from Michael's!).

There's also a bargain butterfly (Dollarama) which I blinged a little with tiny pearls, and some machine stitching.  I'm not sure if you can catch it in this shot, but I forgot to mention there's Glossy Accents added to the raindrops in the image too.

That's it for today, so have yourself a good one and I'll be back on Friday.
Take care,
Jayne.x.
-----------------------------------------------
Challenges entered:
Saturated Canary - #15 April Showers
Rubber Redneck - #69 Colour Roundup
Stars and Stamps - Colour Challenge
Crafty Sentiments Designs Challenge Blog - Use a Digi
Scrap-Creations - April Showers
Papertake Weekly Challenge - Stitching real or faux
Bunny Zoe's Crafts - #23 Ribbon or Twine
Incy Wincy Designs - #142 Digi's Only
Karen's Doodles Challenge Blog - #102 Something Spring
Lollipop Crafts - #76 Spring Fling
The Hybrid Chick - #17 Spring
Cardmadfairy's Digi Days Challenge - April Showers
Delicious Doodles - #17 Loads of Layers

Knitting and Crochet vintage style.

Monday seems to have rolled around again....it's amazing how quickly the weeks are flying by!

I had a busy but fun weekend.....Scrapfest on Friday and Saturday, did some shopping there, met loads of new and familiar faces, folded many paper flowers for a demo, and generally had a blast!  Sunday was payback.....a sore stiff neck and had to be at work for 8.00am....can't have it all I guess!

Today I'm showing the last of my recent Design Team creations for Two Scrapbook Friends, using the Echo Park "This & That - Charming" collection, and this one's a card...........

A touch of vintage for this one.  The image is actually cut from the reverse side of one of the sheets of  patterned paper.  I used my Copic markers on there to add to the vintage feel, together with a little distressing ink.

The canvas flower is another lovely from Prima, to which I added a teeny spool of thread, and a couple of stick pins..........

Some delicate pink lace makes an appearance, together with a paper strip also cut from another sheet of PP.  A die cut (Spellbinder), sticker (available in this collection) and machine stitching, finish the job............

So that's all from Echo Park for now.....can't wait to see which collection I get to play with next time.

I'll be back later this week with a little of this and that.......just have to create something first!
Have a great day and I'll see you soon,
Jayne.x.
--------------------------------------------------------
Challenges entered:
Craft your Passion Challenges - #106 Die Cuts and Punches
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes
Catered Crop - Use Kraft (I used this for the base of my card)
Dream Valley Challenges - #30 Earth Tones
Sugar Creek Hollow - #7 Die Cits or Punches (with vintage or shabby chic)
Alphabet Challenge Blog - E is for Embroidery (or stitching)
ATC's and Cards with Attitude - #11 Anything Goes/Faces
Joyful Stamper Inspire Me Fridays - #54 Anything Goes
Lily Pad Cards - Simon Says Stamp presents a Flower Challenge
365 Cards - Day 43 Just a touch of Colour
4 Crafty Chicks - #85 Material Girl
Crafty Purple Frog Challenge - #38 Let's Get Distressed
Delightful Challenges - Delightful Stitches
Moving Along With The Times - #144 Shabby Chic and/or Vintage
Rainbow Lady's Challenge Blog - A touch of Vintage
Crafts and Me Challenges - 3D Embellishments
Crafty Creations Challenges - #165 Flower Power
Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog - April Showers Bring Spring Flowers

My Family.

Hello and Good Morning to you....I hope!
I'm feeling in a good mood.....again.....Wow that's twice this week, so better not jinx it!

I have a scrapbook page for you today, the last LO from my Two Scrapbook Friends DT kit, using Echo Park's "This & That" - Charming collection.
Hexagons are a big trend right now, so of course I had to jump on the band wagon and give them a try.......fortunately I have a Slice to do the cutting for me, otherwise there was no way I was attempting those babies!

The photograph is one I've had for a couple of years, a family shot of my 3 special folks, and for once everyone is co-operating by looking at the camera (not necessarily smiling, but we can't have everything!).

Here goes.....My Family..........

The hexagons are all machine stitched onto the page, then distressed a little around the edges.  There's a few different embellishments on here......stickers popped in various locations, from the co-ordinating sheet in this collection.  Also, butterflies made using a Martha Stewart punch, together with some of those cute teeny tiny thread spools, wrapped with twine.

The yummy canvas flower is from Prima, to which I added a touch of co-ordinating lace trim and a couple of stick pins......the heart pin is handmade (a heart punched from another sheet of PP)...........

There are Dew Drops scattered here and there, and the banner popped along the bottom edge of the photograph is also from the sticker sheet.

I couldn't resist adding this 'sliding pull out' which was cut from another sheet of PP..........

Well that's my final layout from this collection, but I still have one more card to show you, so I'll be back at some point with that.

This weekend should be a good one as Scrapfest in Kitchener starts tomorrow till Saturday.  I'll be there at the Two Scrapbook Friends booth, looking pretty :) and maybe doing a little shopping, so please drop in and say Hi if you happen to be around.
Have a great weekend,
Jayne.x.

Flowers for Easter

Good morning, hope you're enjoying your Easter weekend so far.

We had fun yesterday hunting for eggs......the Easter Bunny thinks she's smart in our house, by leaving written clues for the kiddo's to try and figure out where the eggs are.  Makes no difference....the stash was still found within 5 minutes, but at least fun was had by all.

The day was rounded off with a trip to the cinema, to see The Lorax.......quite a good movie by adult standards.......I stayed awake which is a good sign!

So today I'm continuing with the projects from my recent  Two Scrapbook Friends DT kit, using Echo Parks "This & That" 'Charmng' collection.  Today's project is every one's favourite (not mine at least!), the altered item.
I saw these paper flowers on the Authentique blog quite some time ago, and knew I wanted to try them some day.  As I had a fair few scraps left over in this kit, the time was now, so I created this little pretty..........

These flowers are a little time consuming to make and use a fair amount of paper, but they are pretty simple and look quite effective.  If you'd like to give them a try, check out the tutorial on the Authentique blog here.

As mentioned before, I used the leftovers from my Echo Park paper and added a variety of buttons, together with a double punched butterfly using a Martha Stewart punch.

The tiny plant pot is a Dollarama bargain.  It was purchased unfinished so I painted it pink, then added a layer of crackle medium, before finishing with a layer of cream paint.  I did cover the whole thing with a layer of ModPodge just to seal things nicely.

The polka dot ribbon ribbon finishes the job......sweet!

I have a couple more projects left to show you from this collection, so I'll be back during the week sometime.
Enjoy the last day of the long weekend, and I'll see you soon,
Jayne.x.
---------------------------------------------------------
Challenges entered:
Always crafting - #5 Anything but a Card
Cupcake Craft Challenges - #187 Spring Is In The Air
The Pink Elephant - #143 Flowers
Truly Madly Crafty Challenges - Handmade Flowers
That Craft Place Challenge Blog - #8 All About Spring

Happy Easter!

Happy Saturday to ya! The sky's blue, the sun is shining and I am in a good mood.

I thought I'd hop on here today, to wish you all a very happy Easter with family, friends and wherever you may be.
With our round of sickness recently, I realised I hadn't even made, yet alone posted a single Easter card.......needless to say my family will be receiving the digital 'Smilebox' variety.....shameful I know coming from a card maker, but that's how it has to be this year!

Anyhow, I did manage to grab a little time in my craft room yesterday, in between the chocolate nest making and egg decorating, to create one little Easter card for my girls, so that's what I'm sharing today.

I couldn't believe my luck when I found this particular sentiment tag still sitting in my stash from recent projects....couldn't have picked anything better to pair with the digi I'd coloured.

So for any 'doubter's' out there........'Believe in the Bunny'...........

Lot's of pretty pastels on here, just what two girlie girls like.  The digi is another I'm loving right now from Pollycraft - so cute that I think I have another 75 of therm waiting to be coloured. It's coloured with a combination of Copic's and Promarker's.

Papers are from the We R Memory Keepers 'Cottontail' collection, as is the tag.

A few pretty buttons and some of my fave seam binding ribbon, finish the job.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend, and I think I'll be seeing you on Monday.
Take care
Jayne.x.
---------------------------------------------------------
Challenges entered:
Allsorts - #149 Colour Bingo.....I used Green/Ribbon/Pink
Craft Your Days Away - #42 Easter
Di's Digi Designs Challenge Blog - Easter
Secret Crafter - #180 Easter
Card Makin' Mama's - Easter
Glitter Geeks Blog Challenge - Wk14 Easter
Raise The Bar - #99 Cutesy Easter
Simply Create Too - #10 Eggs and/or Bunnies
Sweet n' Sassy - #48 Happy Easter
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - #149 Easter/Spring

Friendzy Friday at Two Scrapbook Friends - Tickets please!

Good morning, we interrupt the current programming.....(that is my recent DT creations using the Echo Park line) to bring you something different.

It's time for another Friendzy Friday over on the Two Scrapbook Friends blog, and it's my turn to deliver the goods, so here we go.........a quick and easy way to make tickets for your cards or scrapbook pages.

All you need is paper of your choice, mine being Authentique which I love right now (and you can find of course at the store!), a perforating blade on your trimmer, a hole punch and basic computer skills.

 

First of all I created two rectangular shaped text boxes in Word and added the text I wanted to appear on the tickets.

I then cut around these using the perforating blade on my trimmer.

When you've torn away the extra pieces, you should end up with something like this.......

I then used my hole punch on each of the corners to take out a small section, and inked along all the edges.

You can then use them for whatever you like.........I placed them on a card which was literally put together within 10 minutes.

I do hope you'll give these a try as they are super easy and perfect when you're searching for that elusive sentiment........invent your own!

Don't forget to upload your creations to the gallery as we always love to see what you come up with.

Have a very happy Easter weekend,

Jayne.

Featuring you.........

Remember how I said yesterday's scrapbook page captured my eldest daughters personality perfectly?  Well there's definitely no question about today's!  My youngest....apparently quiet, but just enough mischief to keep things interesting!

So as mentioned previously, this is another page using the Echo Park "This & That" 'Charming' collection from my recent Two Scrapbook Friends DT kit.  When I saw the wording on one of the stickers available in the collection, I knew just the right photo's for the job.

So here's today's layout......'Featuring You'..........

I chose one of the fairly plain sheets of PP for the background on this one, but spiced things up slightly with a touch of Glimmer Mist, and of course, there's that machine stitching again..........

The 'film strip' across the bottom of the page is made using a Fiskars border punch......one of those you would normally punch to feed ribbon through.  The stickers are from the co-ordinating sticker sheet, you can find in this collection............

Here's the previously mentioned sticker that started it all, together with some Tim Holtz 'film strip' ribbon.........

That's it, two down, a few more to go.
I know tomorrow is Good Friday, but I may just be back, gotta make it a hat-trick!
See you then
Jayne.x.

Post traumatic stomach bug stress.....but things are looking up!!

Good afternoon happy bloggers!  Last week was not a particularly good week....I've had better for sure.  Slowly one by one we all came down with a delightful variety of tummy bug, shared by my youngest.  You've gotta love the bugs that are shared via Kindergarten.....such a great variety, new one each week!

Anyhow today is looking much better, the sun is shining, we have a long Easter weekend to look forward to, and hopefully I may even get some crafting done.....you never know.

It's safe to say I didn't manage any over the last week or two, but I had finished my recent Design Team projects from Two Scrapbook Friends, so I thought I'd show those during the next few days.

For this kit I was given a great selection of papers and stickers from the new Echo Park "This & That" 'Charming' collection, together with some yummy trim and Prima canvas flowers thrown in....just what a girl likes!

So after getting down to business, I came up with a few scrapbook pages, a card, and of course the usually dreaded (for me anyhow!) altered item.

Today though, it's a scrapbook page.....'Beautiful Daughter'.......

I've had these photo's of my eldest forever, sitting on the back burner, waiting for me to maybe get around to putting them on a page one day.......finally.....done!  They're not a particularly astounding example of good photography, but I just love how the camera captured her personality perfectly........beautiful! (and I know I'm biased of course!!)

I layered a couple of the sheets of PP over one another, and turned to the good old sewing machine
to stitch together.....can't get enough machine sewing these days since I dusted it off a few weeks ago.  I slotted a little sentiment tag between the layers, which I'd cut from another sheet of PP.

Most of the embellishments on the page come from the sticker sheet you can find in the collection, some of which I popped with foam dots to create a little depth.

I made the little 'poofy' border by using a single hand stitch, periodically along the tulle.

So that's about it for now, but I'm going to be a really well behaved blogger, and get tomorrow's post all prepped and ready to go.

See you then
Jayne.x.