It's the Small Things

Tutorials to share

In December I created two different tutorials. Pink Paislee and Petaloo ran a blog hop together. The Petaloo team was given Pink Paislee's Father Christmas collection much to our delight. I was asked to do an altered home decor item and so I decided to make an altered milk carton house inspired by my children's preschool projects. The little trees and clear mica are by Melissa Frances. The step by step tutorial is here on the Petaloo blog.

For the Crate Paper blog I did a tutorial for a layout. The layout is a Fall layout and I've been into the quilt look lately. I love little squares whether they have stitching or layers of texture. I think they are just really, really fun and make any layout look great. It's a great way to add lots of color and keep it controlled. You can see the step by step tutorial here on their blog.

For all of the Crate Paper fans out there, I hope you sent in your projects. This upcoming week is dedicated to you. It's Customer Appreciation Week on the blog and I know it's going to be full of all kinds of brilliant inspiration! I hope you'll join me over on the blog. I'm looking forward to the inspiration!

Lori

 

12 Days of Petaloo and Pink Paislee

Nothing could be better than 12 days of inspiration from Petaloo and Pink Paislee. For the next 12 days visit both blogs for all kinds of gorgeous work featuring Pink Paislee's Father Christmas collection and Petaloo's Chantilly collection.

1. Petaloo blog
2. Pink Paislee blog

Have a wonderful time blog hopping!

Lori

New Petaloo

Petaloo's Summer release is outstanding! I'm really so very excited about all of it. You can see some of the release on their scrapbook.com blog. 

On this page, I got to use the gorgeous Chantilly Velvet & Lace Mixed Blooms and Hydrangeas, which you can see on the above link. 

 

 

Aren't these just gorgeous? Can you see the glitter on the tips of the hydrangeas? It's such a subtle detail that packs a big punch. 

 

What is not listed on the blog link above are the new sunflowers. They are so gorgeous in person! I love them to pieces. 

 

The sunflowers are little sprays. I love the different leaves and the berries that are part of the spray. It makes them really fun and unique. 

I know they are going to have an awesome show next week! 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

Lori

Lovely White

Petaloo challenged us to use white this month. The first thing that came to mind was wedding, which I think is very common. I decided to scrap some pictures of myself on my wedding day nearly 10 years ago. Petaloo has an amazing Celebrations line with gorgeous flowers and butterflies that are shiny dimensional. I think having the background and embellishments all white really makes the photos become the focus of the layout.

I had this big white doily in my stash, so I took a piece of BasicGrey Basics in White and trimmed it a be about 1/2" larger than the doily, then I added lace trim to the edges to soften the paper look.This is what I ended up with.

 

 

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Lori

The Ultimate Couch Potato

When I first saw the new Cosmo Cricket Delovely, I knew I would own it. I fell in love with the fresh and fun bright colors. I have a thing for yellows, right now, too. When I saw the chipboard, I kind of paused. "What on earth am I going to do with a couch?". There has definitely been a trend of home decor and I admit I have avoided it. I think it's cute conceptually, but I have no idea how to use it. 

 

Anyway, the Delovely couch didn't stop me from purchasing the product, but it's been sitting in my mind churning away for a while. No doubt how to use couches and lamps is glaringly obvious to many of you, but it really eludes me. I, however, like challenges. I was determined to figure out a way to use that couch!

This month, Petaloo, challenged us to do Pet projects. I have three huge cats, all of whom are girls and very, very lazy. They are more dog-like, than cat-like, for sure. I looked at the chipboard and thought "duh". These kitties are the ultimate couch potatoes. They wouldn't even stir if a bird flew in the room and buzzed over their heads. So, there you go. That's what I went with in a silly way. 

I started with a white background, cut down, so I could use some Creative Imaginations Luminarte in yellow and pink. I had fun with Petaloo's glittery flowers and blingy flower centers. My favorite is their sequins. I love the long, skinny sequins and thought they'd make a fun border instead of sewing. I'm not sure I love my layout, but I do love that I got a page about my kitty done. I tend to focus on the kiddos and have been neglect in documenting the other part of our family.

Have a great Memorial Day!

Sketches, Sketches, Get Your Sketches

Creative Imaginations started monthly sketch contests in January. It's been wonderful to see everyone's take on the sketches in the gallery. One super, cool thing that Creative Imaginations is, also, doing is giving away prizes to the winners. And, to appeal to more of us, they are running not one but two sketch contests each month; a card sketch contest and a layout sketch contest.

This month's layout sketch can be found here. The sketch is wonderful! Even better the prize is $50 worth of CI products AND a blog feature!

This month's card sketch can be found here. There is a prize package for this, too.

So, what are you waiting for? Get thee to CI and play along!

Last month, I did an example for both the card sketch and the layout sketch. For the layout, I used some pictures of my youngest playing in a Spring rain storm. He refused to wear a hood, but insisted on his dinosaur rain boots, so I went with a little humor. The journaling reads "Real men do not wear hoods in the rain, but they do wear dinosaur rain boots". I used the Real Wood for the background and sprayed it with Luminarte, which will be in stores very soon! I, also, used a bunch of Petaloo's fun glitter flowers and their glitter paper.

For the card sketch, I just did a simple "hey" card. I love having these simple cards around to send out for no other reason than to say "Hey!".

If you love sketches, I highly recommend checking into CI's sketch contests each month.

Thanks for the feedback on what you love to see on blogs. I've got my thinking cap on.

Playing with Crate and Petaloo

I've been having fun creating some projects using Crate Paper and Petaloo. I'm highly obsessed with pink, orange and teal at the moment. I think these three colors together are smashing. I like that I'm not afraid to use pink and flowers with my boys. 

I love this quote by Alexander Smith; "Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition". When I saw the Crate Paper "delight" chipboard word, I was excited to be able to finally have a fun way to use that quote. 

I wanted to play with circles. I get in the rut of thinking background with strips or rectangles of paper and wanted to create a different type of background with circles to add a bit more interest. I love the teal and didn't want it to get lost behind a lot of other papers, either. 

I outlined my photograph using an extra fine point sharpie. Since, there is a lot happening on this layout, I didn't want the photograph to be lost. I wanted it to stand out and be supported by the quote. The outline really helps draw attention to the photograph. I outline everything usually, except for photographs, but it needed it in this case. I love this series of photos of my son. Our photographer, Pascale Wowak had this little teal chair and she took the most amazing shots of Brody on it. I still need to scrapbook the others, but I love this one because it's his regular expression. He's a thoughtful little dude with a big sense of humor. 

 

I used Crate Paper's Paper Doll and Pink Plum collections. I accented it with Petaloo's Tiffany's Treasures Jewel Centers and Dazzlers Sequins. I heart the little sequins running up the diagonal and on the bigger butterfly. I used Helmar's 450 Quick Dry adhesive to adhere the sequins. It sets quickly and it's clear, so it was a great choice. I used the Helmar tiny square ZapDots on the layered butterflies and on the orange die cut to give them some lift. 

I'm working on a mini book. It's a huge, emotional project for me. It's something I've been meaning to do for years, but for some reason couldn't muster up the courage to do it. I'm excited to share it when I'm done in the next few weeks. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. 

Lori