Around the World on Wednesday--The World Around Us!

I really think this is a unique and interesting theme…the world around us! I mean one can go in so many directions. When I think of the world around me, I reflect on something that I do a lot of and I came up with drink lattes and take selfies :)

So I wanted to design a page that reflects my coffee loving selfies! I still have to print pictures, which I will admit is highly unusual for me. I almost always have my picture when I design a page!

When I think of coffee I think of brown tones so I started off with Early Espresso as my base for my photos and then I decided to add a girly feel by using Rococo Rose as my page base with accents of Pretty Peacock. Its sort of a unique color combo but I think it totally works with my coffee loving theme!

We have so many awesome stamp sets to support this super fun theme! I started with the Press On stamp set as the to go coffee cup is just the best and the coffee beans make terrific background filler.

Of course I had to use the little coffee cup from the Warm Hugs stamp set as a background accent too.

I chose fun and cheeky phrases to describe my love of a good latte!

If you take time to search through your stamp sets, you might be surprised in the different ways you use them. Take the “Lucky Me” sentiment, it is from the Game on stamp set. And really, sometimes I do feel that way about me coffee :)

I cut the word Coffee using the Playful Alphabet dies and beside its added the phrase “Life is better with you” from the Many Mates stamp set. Who else can relate to feeling this way about your morning coffee? Ha ha ha!

One of the key things I do when I am creating scrapbook pages is create little areas to convey the ‘theme’ of my page. I often say “its all in the details”! You can look at these spaces as little card fronts if you are starting to transition from card making to scrapbooking.

I added a circle of coordinating DSP, used a fun punch, plus a couple different embellishments.

The Nothings Better Than stamp set was another ‘must use’ stamp set in creating these fun pages. I had to stamp the ‘coffee’ stamp in the background!

I found the “I like you a latte’ in the Christmas set, Warm Hugs! And used the dies from the bundle to create a fun layer with some of the Faux Suede ribbon.

The Crumb Cake scallop border under the photo mat is from the Peony dies.

I just love this little corner! Because its true, ADULTING IS HARD! My kids have no idea how great they have it, hahaha!

I really hope you enjoyed my take on our theme, The World Around Us! I can’t to see what the other gals in the hop have created, so make sure you visit everyone and please feel free to leave a comment!

Tricia Butts from the United States is next up on the hop, click below to get to her creation!

Joy of Sets--Harvest Time!

Welcome to the Joy of Sets monthly blog hop! So happy to have you hopping along with us checking out all of our “Harvest Time” themed projects! This month I knew I wanted to create a scrapbook page. We have some beautiful wheat sheaves dies that I knew I wanted to incorporate.

I started with a base of Crushed Curry because I saw that color represented in the field in front of us and I accented our photo with Seaside Spray because I picked up that tone in the sky. While our outfits have grey, I also feel that Seaside Spray has a grey undertone to the blue. I don’t always match my pages to the colors in my photos but it worked out so beautifully this time.

This picture was taken about 4 years ago and my kids have just changed so much! I can hardly believe it and I am so thankful that I have made memory keeping a priority in my life.

I took the theme of “Harvest Time” literally as I added the word right into my main title. The term harvest immediately made me think of wheat sheaves and I wanted to highlight them on my page in the Crushed Curry and golden tones.

The Gather Together stamp set was a perfect fit for my design as it has a wheat sheaves image in the set and a cute little pumpkin.

The die cut wheat sheaves are from the Autumn Essentials dies. I have really gotten my value out of this die set. If you go back through some of my posts you will see how many times I have utilized it.

I cut the word “harvest” using the Playful Alphabet dies (another MUST HAVE) out of Soft Suede card stock and stamped them with the little collection of ‘spots’ that was also in the Gather Together stamp set. And of course I used the Foam Adhesive sheets with my letters. The word also pops because it is partially layered on a strip of DSP from the In Color 6x6 stack.

The log slice image is from the classic Rooted in Nature stamp set found in the annual catalogue. I cut it by hand. The words ‘happy’ and ‘blessings’ are from the Country Home stamp set, they are a part of single stamp that says “Happy Harvest Blessings”.

The pumpkin is stamped in Grey Granite and coloured with our water color pencils in Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive. I wanted the pumpkins to be subtle which is why I coloured them with the water color pencils.

My photo is also layered on a large piece of DSP from the Taste of Good DSP stack. I LOVE this paper, I would definitely recommend investing in it.

The sentiment “So glad to have you in my life” is from the Gather Together stamp set. I finished off the page with a few Gold Glitter Enamel Dots!

I really love how this page turned out. It has all the feels of fall and harvest and when I look at the photo I have so many wonderful memories of having these pictures taken with my In Laws. And I especially love my youngest sons hand on his chest as he had a piece of gum in his pocket he was allowed to have after the pictures. Haha. I love that he is making sure its still there!

I hope you enjoy all of the projects that everyone shares this month!

You can keep going NEXT to see the fabulous Angie Mackenzie!

Create with Connie and Mary--Fall Essentials!

Welcome friends! It is officially FALL and the most gorgeous season of all. While I LOVE summer, the sunshine and heat, bbq’s and all the fun stuff, I do truly love the beauty of fall. The changing colors of the leaves, the crispy touch to the air, pumpkins and sweater weather! And I find fall one of the greatest themes to design and stamp with. There are so many techniques to creating leaves and so many fantastic products to create amazing projects like this fall sampler!

Our blog hop theme this week is Fall Essentials—so creating a sampler was a great way to include many of my favourite fall things on one project!

Have you ever tried to create a sampler? There are so many possibilities! However, the easiest way to begin is to just use 3x3 squares and decorate them as you desire. It is like creating mini card fronts.

I started with a 12x12 base of Early Espresso and layered a piece of Whisper White over top. I used DSP from the Poinsettia …..and In Good Taste and then squares in many of our neutrals—Crumb Cake, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Early Espresso and some regals—Pumpkin Pie and Cajun Craze.

I leaned into two of my favourite fall stamp sets Love of Leaves and Gather Together. I stole the world ‘Autumn’ from the Autumn Greetings stamp set along with the cute little leaf clusters under the word FALL.

Here is a fun tip to try with the leaf dies from the Gathered Leaves dies. This dies cut and emboss at the same time so if you take the die and press it into your ink pad before placing it on your paper and running it through the Stamp Cut and Emboss Machine it will also transfer the ink onto the paper giving you leaf a really cool two tone effect!

I love how Stampin’ Up! has so many embellishments to choose from to help bring our projects to life. The Gold Hoops Embellishments are perfect to add a little flair. I loved adding a little gold bow onto the leaf above using the thread from the Forever Greenery Trim Combo Pack.

The Elegant Faceted Gems are the perfect touch to the square below with the pumpkins.

I really encourage you to give creating a Sampler a try. Its a wonderful way to showcase a lot of products and I love having one for every season to display in my craft room. They also make amazing gifts for those who love a handmade project.

I know the other girls have some amazing things to share with you! I can’t wait to see what their ‘autumn essentials’ are! You can visit Mellisa by going BACK and check out Connie by going NEXT.

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Create with Connie and Mary--Welcome Fall!

I believe the first official day of fall is September 21st, so we are almost there officially! Unofficially, I think as soon as September ONE hits we are bringing out blanket scarves, drinking our Pumpkin Spice Lattes and crafting with all things fall colors and pumpkins! At least that is what I am doing as there has been a definite chill in the air, especially on those early morning school drop offs!

That is why this weeks theme is Welcome Fall! I hope you don’t mind but I am on a scrapbooking ROLL so be prepared to see another page layout this week from me!

Out of all the seasons, crafting and home decorating for Fall and Halloween, are my absolute favourites! I especially love making layouts because there are just so many awesome ways to stamp and cut out leaves. This page looks so crisp with the white background and the medley of leaves, pumpkins. leaves and wheat sheaves.

For the color palette I cut or stamped leaves out in Crushed Curry, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake, Old Olive with Mossy Meadow edges, Cajun Craze with Merry Merlot edges, Crushed Curry with Merry Merlot edges, Terracotta Tile and of course, Pumpkin Pie.

We have so many fantastic options for fall creating! I used the Love of Leaves Bundle, Gather Together Bundle and the Autumn Essentials dies from the Handmade for You catalogue. I did sneak in one retired leaf too as I just can’t part with it…can you see it?

Notice that big leaf on the left? I cut it from the Festive Felt and then spritzed it with a mix of Crushed Curry and rubbing alcohol. I quick blast with my heat tool and it was dry.

I wanted to create sort of a fun boarder running underneath my pictures with all my favourite fall images, leaves, pumpkins and wheat sheaves. When I was mixing two colors together, like on the green leaves, I stamped in Old Olive first and then used a finger dauber in Mossy Meadow around the edges. I used the same technique with the Cajun Craze, Crushed Curry and Merry Merlot leaves. And I want to give a shout out to Merry Merlot, its definitely getting a good work out in my craft room as it is perfect leaf tone!

I added in a little splatter with Crushed Curry ink and my Water Painter across the background of both pages. I love the feel it gave, softening up the crisp white a bit.

This page had so many highlights with the leaves and pumpkins that I found it didn’t need much in the way of embellishments. I bit of Bumblebee Gingham ribbon and some Gilded Gems were all I added to this page.

I like to create little focal points on my pages, I often say “Its all in the details”, which is reflected here with the ‘friendship’ and ‘So glad to have you in my life’ areas. I used the same maple leaf on each, with a gem, and twine to create continuity between the pages.

I hope you have enjoyed my fall pages! I will probably have more to share with you over the coming weeks so make sure you check back! And if you are in Canada and need to shop for any supplies you can follow the link on the side bar to my store!

If you are starting here on our blog hop you can go BACK to see what Melissa has designed for us this week and NEXT to see what Connie has created for us! Thank you for hopping by!

Create with Connie and Mary--Fall Flowers

Hello my friends! So happy to see you again this Saturday, welcome back! And if this is your first time joining in on this weekly hop, please feel free to go back through my blog and see all of my weekly creations!

This week our theme is Fall Flowers and I knew right away I wanted to use the Autumn Greetings Bundle from the Handmade for You catalogue. What really sold me on this bundle was the Autumn Essentials Dies. I love the pumpkins and the wheat sheaves dies.

I decided to use my Stampin’ Blends to color the large image from the Autumn Greetings stamp set as we have so many beautiful fall colours that we can use.

I used the following Stampin’ Blends colors—Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Mango Melody, Rich Razzleberry, Cherry Cobbler and Cinnamon Cider.

I also added in a bit of Designer Series Paper from the Plaid Tidings collection which has definitely been a fan favourite! The pumpkins are created using two dies from the set in Pumpkin Pie and Terracotta Tile and the wheat sheaves are cut in Bumblebee, Crushed Curry and Mango Melody to get a range of golden tones.

I started my page on an Early Espresso base and added in a photo mat of Cinnamon Cider. Adding in the Bumblebee tone brought out the fall leaves in my photo and added a brightness to the page. And I found the Champagne Rhinestones were the perfect tone of bling to add to the page. I love that I created this whole scrapbooking page using ONE bundle!

Remember how popular these were? Don’t forget about them, they are the perfect fall embellishment and will take you back to the Annual Catalogue!

I can’t wait to see what the other gals have created this week! You can go NEXT to visit Connie and BACK to visit Melissa! Enjoy your day and please feel free to leave a comment!

If I have inspired you with my page and you want to order any of these amazing products, please click on the Shop Now button to head directly to my store in Canada!