Wonderful | JustNick Studio Design Team

Happy Thursday crafty readers!  I'm sharing a scrapbook layout today on the JustNick Studio blog - head over for some close ups and details on how it came together!

I used a background cut file and an alpha cut file, along with the bold and colorful Amy Tan's Slice of Life collection by American Crafts to highlight this cute photo of a Sweet Shop we visited in Banff back during our family vacation in 2016 (best vacation EVER!). And of course I had to buy some chocolate yummies.  :)

 

Have a great week!

Majken 

 

{2 Cute} Creative Scrappers Sketch 300 Design Team Reveal - Clarity Stencil Brush technique

Hello everyone!  Welcome to November.  I can't believe it's November either.  Lots to do in the next two months!!  But first, grab just a few minutes and a tea or coffee to see a new sketch from Creative Scrappers.  It's a fabulous grid design!

This month's partner is My Creative Scrapbook, and I opted to create with their October Creative Kit which has a lot of Doodlebug Design Flea Market.  The colors are so bright and cheerful!  I chose my kitty Oreo as my layout subject.  

The first thing I did was cut the Creative Scrappers Lucky Stars cut file from textured white cardstock, peel out the star cuts, and then sew over another piece of white cardstock.  On the top, I created a border from a strip of paper with clouds and sewed over it as well.  See the lightly inked star?  I'll share how I did that later in the post.

Then I trimmed my photos and started creating my grid.  I used a few of my die cuts to create with:  Papertrey Ink's Noted: Scalloped Square and Technique Tuesday's Flair Maker.  Here's a little banner I made from the flair set.  You can see a couple more lightly inked stars...

Those faux stitch lines are awesome on the Noted set!  I added more machine stitching as well as a Heidi Swapp "noted" wood veneer from the kit...plus a couple of the white cardstock stars that were cut from the background.

How cute is this mouse in the bottom left corner?  And another grid square with some stickers, flair die cut, star, and enamel dot.

And a grid with a circle, some stickers, a star, the heart from the center of one of the flair banners, and another enamel dot.  More lightly inked stars in the background...

I used my Cameo to cut the title "2 cute".  I layered the other centers of flair to use as flower centers, then added more enamel dots.  

Can't forget the cute birdie in the top right corner looking over my kitty!  I used 3D foam tape to pop up one of the cloud stickers.

I used the typewriter for a cute journaling spot!

Once I had the grid layed out most of the way and before I adhered everything, I chose a few stars to lightly "paint" with ink using my new Claritystamp Clarity Stencil Brushes - they ink so gently and subtly for a beautiful finish - though you can add heavier ink if you wish just by adding more ink and brushing repeatedly.  I used CTMH Lagoon, Pear, and Creme Brulee.  And then I glued the stars into a few places left open in the cut background where I wanted them.

Here's the wonderful sketch Kristine created:

That's all for me, creative sweeties!  Don't forget to head over to the Creative Scrappers blog to see the other designers' takes on the sketch.  And create your own layout to link up!

Have a great week!

Majken

Absolutely Amazing - Scrapping Our Stash Blog Hop

Hi and happy Friday!  Today is a blog hop where we highlight projects using our older stash.  You might be here from Wendy's blog - if so, welcome!  If not, you can see the full list below to make sure you see all the designers' projects.

I'm digging back into my BasicGrey Vivienne stash again (that's how much I have of it, y'all!!), because I had so much fun creating a layout a couple of months back using the same collection!  I had some of the pieces from the Delicate Floral cut file left and decided to use them with another photo from the same series I had printed of my daughter at five years old.

The brown cardstock was left over from the flowers I cut for the last layout then backed it with white cardstock.  I decided to cut the insides of the flowers slightly offset on the inside to leave a white edge.  Then I started filling in the pieces.  I watercolored the stems and leaves lightly with green ink.  

This time instead of green grass, I used gold thread for my zig zag grass blades.

I did fill in some areas with enamel dots, like the center of the flowers.

The left bottom was made for an embellishment area.

I used one of the frames, some stickers and enamel dots and sequins, and sewing.

I used acetate shapes, paper, frames, stitching, staples, sequins, and ephemera to help frame my daughter's pretty face.  The 6x6 papers are perfect for matting.

I still felt like something was missing, so I found a bumble bee cut file, backed the wings with vellum, and dotted it with gold ink and backed with pop dots to help it stand out from the background.  Some more gold stitching to show its flight path helped tie it together!

That's my layout!  I hope you get some inspiration to use some cut files and machine stitching in your next layout!

Now head over to Alison's blog to see what she created!

Have a wonderful weekend, and don't forget to include some chocolate.


The full blog hop list:

Wendy www.stampingrules.com

Majken http://chocoscrapaholic.blogspot.com/

Alison http://alisondaydesigns.com/

Wendi http://scrappydayinparadise.blogspot.com/

Laura http://scrapaddict4life.blogspot.com/

Christine http://scrappingwithchristine.blogspot.com

Our New Happy Place - Creative Scrappers Sketch 298 Design Team Reveal

Hello, hello, lovely scrappers out in scrappy-land!  I hope you have come with a serving of chocolate to see what I (and the rest of the Creative Scrappers Design Team) have designed for you today.  This month we are partnering with Cuts 2 Luv, makers of some really fun badges!  I've used a few on my layout for this month.

In June, our family made the extraordinary trip to Banff, Alberta, Canada.  It was absolutely stunning - our favorite vacation we've ever had the fortune to have.  So much so that it is definitely our new happy place.  For real...we are already hoping to go back. 

So today's layout is in honor of this new happy place of ours.  The photo I chose of me and my husband was perfect to pair with various blues.  I pulled two pieces of paper from the Echo Park Summer Party collection - the ombre "swimming" paper (which is the largest circle in the center) and the pink/blue solid paper - I used the blue side of course.  Here is the full layout: 

To start, I took a piece of AC white textured cardstock and cut a circle from it using my Cameo - it was about 7 1/2" in diameter.  At this point, I played with many different papers and thoughts - it took a while to come together.  Does that ever happen to you?  I hope I'm not alone!  In any case, I settled on using a piece of ombre cardstock from Echo Park's Summer Party called "Swimming Fish" (the B side) and layered that behind the cut circle.  Next I used my Tim Holtz Distress Inks to watercolor the trimmed left edge of my white cardstock.  I layered 4 different colors to help blend the blue from the sky in the photo to the patterned paper and the navy pieces (Dark Blue paper also from Echo Park Summer Party).

To finish the circles, I cut a smaller circle from vellum with gold stars as well as a thin circle from the dark blue paper.  Then I got to stitching!  I used gold thread to stitch around the circles, along the left edge, and in the embellishment area in the bottom left (shown above).  I love that "love" badge from Cuts 2 Luv above and the blue ombre one shown below.

Here's a quick look at the stitching on the left as well as the journaling area.  I used several pieces of ephemera from the Pink Paislee Citrus Bliss.

Here's a peek at our "perfect photo" and my title.  I used alphas from BasicGrey Urban Luxe and Simple Stories then cut the "happy" using my Cameo.

Take a look at the top right embellishment area.  I used "beautiful" from Citrus Bliss and BasicGrey alpha to create "Banff".  I stitched some more and then added some acrylic stars and enamel dots.

Here is sketch 298:

That's all for me - now go create your own version to link up on the Creative Scrappers site.  We'd love to have you play along!  And please check back with the Creative Scrappers blog on Sept. 15th to see what the Cuts 2 Luv team creates!

Have a lovely week and Labor/Labour Day weekend if you are in US/Canada!

xoxo,
Majken


Materials used:
Papers:  American Crafts, Echo Park Summer Party
Distress inks:  Salty Ocean, Evergreen Bough, Faded Jeans, Scattered Straw
Embellishments:  Cuts 2 Luv, Pink Paislee Citrus Bliss, Simple Stories I Am, Jen Hadfield Home Made, American Crafts
Alphas:  BasicGrey Urban Luxe, Simple Stories
Other:  Gold thread, unknown vellum; Gems - Queen & Co and CTMH

Cherish This

Hi everyone!  I'm so excited it's Friday.  We've fallen back, there's a feeling of winter in the air (even in Texas), and doesn't the time just go so quickly?  I found a couple of photos from Easter last year that I hadn't yet scrapped, and decided they would work well with the My Scraps & More Sketch #92.  Alas, I finished it on Nov. 1st so I didn't get my link in before the deadline, but such is life.  :)

Here's my layout:

And here is the sketch by Tracy Rhodes:

This was one tough layout to photograph!  The foam stickers that make the title kept throwing shadows and the die cut transparencies reflect the light.  I did the best I could!  I love, LOVE, L-O-V-E the Basic Grey Highline collection.  It's so vibrant!  It's certainly not a collection that screams "Easter", but it worked really well for my two photos.  :)

I started off with textured white cardstock from American Crafts and splattered a mix of two Heidi Swapp Color Shines, black Glitter Mist, and my own homemade ink mixing red and orange reinkers.  Next I created the bottom border area mixing a couple of the patterned paper from Highline.  To help it stand out, I added black machine stitching.

Next I chose the paper to mat my photos and inked the edges with black ink.  Once I had the placement right, I adhered the back middle square and stitched around it just past where I knew the photos would cover it.  Here's what it looked like before I added the matted photos:

Here's a close-up of the photo area with a foam heart sticker from the Amy Tangerine Plus One Twins Thickers.  I backed the heart with contrasting paper to help it pop even more.

The title came together quickly, inspired by the Thickers!

And the top left corner seemed a little bare to me, so I added a triangle corner and stitched along the long side.  And I knew I had to use the "Love this" transparency!  So I added it and stitched along the top and bottom there, too.  I love how the splatters show through!

I hope you are inspired by the bold - it's okay to scrap non-Thanksgiving, non-autumn, or non-Christmas things even in November!

Here's another layout using Highline for more inspiration.

Make it a chocolaty, happy, scrappy day!

Majken

I Love You More Than Ice Cream

Mike, what day is it?  Hump DAAAY!  Yes, happy Wednesday everyone.  We are now on that downward slope of the hill headed towards the weekend.  I'm really looking forward to some scrappy time this weekend - my hubby will be out of town, and the kids and I will just have a relatively quiet weekend hanging out.

Today I wanted to share a layout I created with a photo from our recent trip to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo.  It's been a yearly tradition for us to take a day off (usually during spring break) and head to the show.  This year, all four of us enjoyed a day eating, riding the carnival rides, and watching Paxton in the Mutton Bustin' contest! Towards the end of the day, the boys left for home, and Presley and I headed to the Maroon 5 concert!  We had so much fun.  If you haven't been to the HLSR, you definitely need to check it out if you visit Houston.

I decided to play along with the Sketchabilities sketch this week because it was very inspiring!  Here's my full layout:

I took the base page from American Crafts Cut & Paste line ("On the Edge" paper) and trimmed just about 1/16" from each edge - I didn't want to lose the paint/washi tape effect edge.  I layered that over a piece of black cardstock and stitched along the bottom and right side following along with the sketch.  

Next, I mixed paint and CTMH Smoothie and Sorbet reinkers to create a matching pinkish/orangish color.  I painted a large area under where I knew I wanted to put the photo and embellishment cluster.  After it dried, I sewed a large heart.  You can see part of the paint and the sewn heart below.

I used some of the Bella Blvd Snapshots collection (Family Chaos paper) to bring out the colors on the page a little more.  I cut an arrow and sewed over it on the top area with a journal card "I love you more than ice cream", which I decided would be my title.  Twine, a dot, and a black epoxy heart finished the cluster.

The photo area is layered with more Bella Blvd paper that I scalloped the bottom edge of, a heart journal card, CTMH Lagoon zipper lace, a Heidi Swapp "loved" clear pop tab, and a row of fussy cut hearts from another journal tag with a large black epoxy heart on top.

Here's the sketch:

I hope you were inspired by my layout!  I think sketches are a great way to kick-start a layout.  It's just a good way for me to launch how I want to put together a page I have in mind.

Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week!  Happy scrapping!

Majken

Card Sketch: You Are My Happy

Hello fellow choco/scrappy friends!  Today I wanted to share a card with you, one I created for the Practical Scrappers card sketch for April.  I love Basic Grey, and when I saw the sketch by Christine Meyer, I knew the Mon Ami collection would be perfect for it.

Here's the "You are my happy" card that I created with it:

I took the gray paper and cut a 4.25" x 6.5" piece for the card base.  I cut the flower paper (2.75" x 4") and the green paper (3.5" x 4") and adhered them to the gray base.  I then stitched twice in dark gray thread around the inside of the rectangle created with the two pieces.  Next I cut a strip of the orange paper (5/8" x 4.25") and adhered that over the seam of the two pieces.

I put a piece of Fancy Pants Artist Edition filter paper (pinking edge) in the center and then stitched lines from the center in dark orange thread to create a sunshine effect.

Next I fussycut several of the flower clusters from the patterned paper and layered them over the center using 3D pop dots.  I cut a flower for the center using gray paper, green paper, a punched flower, and an orange circle from the paper.  I inked a few of the edges and used a 3D pop dot to include it as my center layer.

To finish the card, I stamped "You are my HAPPY" (from the Close To My Heart National Stamping Month special stamp set from 2013) in Juniper ink in the bottom right corner rather than the top center since I used a patterned paper on the top.

I hope you liked my rendition of the sketch.  I'd love to see what you make with it and what papers and color combinations you choose.  Share the sketch and link up what you create on the Practical Scrappers blog or Facebook page.

Have a super, chocolate/scrappy-filled week!

Majken

Sweet You Layout

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Don't you just love a good sketch?  I do!!  Isn't this sketch by Christine Meyer wonderful?

I wanted to do a two-page layout with it, so I decided to flip it 90 degrees and stretch it...diagonally!  And here's the end result (which you can also see on the Practical Scrappers blog, along with some other fabulous renditions of the sketch in-use):

I have a bottomless My Mind's Eye paper stash going, so I dug into that to highlight me and my daughter meeting my niece for the first time.  She is soooo cute!  Her chubby cheeks are truly a beautiful sight.  I'm not even biased.  ;)

I cut circles in many sizes with my Cameo using MME Lime Twist "Happy Go Lucky" collection (love it so much!), and inked all the edges with CTMH Outdoor Denim ink.  I cut four 3/4" strips of the dark blue patterned paper to put along the edges, and I machine stitched in pink thread zigzags.  The bottom had a 1/4" strip of the light blue paper, and I cut circles from the purple paper (from the 6x6 paper pad), inked them, and cut them in half to create a scallop border to help anchor the bottom.



I used the stickers to create the "Sweet You" title, along with some gems.

I matted the photos with squares and rectangles rounded at opposite corners.  I completed the layout using some butterfly stickers, buttons, twine, and enamel dots.

I also stamped with a circle stamp "Smile Giggle Laugh" from the CTMH D1217 Free Spirit set (retired) in pink ink around a few of the circle edges.  You can see one of them below.  I also plan to journal in the large flower circle you see here, but I needed to edit my text, so I ran out of time to include that in the photo.

I hope you enjoyed this 2-page rendition of Christine's sketch!  Don't forget to check out the Practical Scrappers blog post regularly for sketchy ideas for both layouts and cards.

See you soon!
Majken Pullin

Exploring Freeport - A Two-Page Layout along my Scrappy Time Warp

Hi everyone!

I have a new two-page layout to share with you that I created during my last crop visit to Archiver's (not sure I'll ever get over my sadness about it closing) where I dug out my honeymoon pics to focus on.  Well, here we go back in time again along my scrappy time warp to the year 2000.  The place: Freeport, Bahamas.

I chose some photos of my husband and me exploring the city of Freeport.  To pull out the blues and reds in the photos, I dug into my stash and loved the Simple Stories Urban Traveler collection to go along with them.

I chose to use the red in moderation to complement the photos, and to offset the red, I chose to use the blue papers as my background.  I chose red for my stitching and used the gray paper and some gray embellishments to help ground the photos separately from the blue backround.  To help round out the layout, I included my favorite vellum - the chevron vellum by Studio Calico from the Darling Dear collection, which you can see on the left of this close-up:

I love the look of the stitching on layouts.  The nice thing is that it doesn't have to be perfect or straight!  It can overlap, zig zag, etc.  Below I machine stitched over the vellum frame from the Basic Grey Capture photo frames pack and topped it using my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher (one of my favorite scrappy gadgets!!).

On the right-hand page, I put a subtitle of "Look, See, Do" by fussycutting the circle letters from the patterned paper. layering them over some fussycut arrow borders, and stitching over them.

I finished the layout with a title cut using my Cameo ("Exploring") and the letters from the Simple Stories Sn@p! letter pages ("Freeport").  Finally, I did some journaling in the photo frame in the bottom right and stitched around that one as well:

I hope you enjoyed today's 2-page layout!  Thanks for visiting.  

See you soon!
Majken Pullin