Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Big Picture Classes | Hoppy Easter Party


Last fall I debuted my first class at Big Picture Classes (Clean and Simple Cards), and my second class, Hoppy Easter Party, is now live! 

Hoppy Easter Party has four lessons, tons of step by step photos, a super cute stamp set you can purchase to help create your projects, and lots of inspiration! 

Check out the cupcake topper I created. Oh, how cute are these?!? I purchased cupcakes from my local grocery store, added the toppers and voila! The perfect accent for your Easter celebration. 


If you're a subscriber to Big Picture Classes I hope you will check out my class! Feel free to leave questions in the comments below. See you there! 

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Love Captured | Traditional Layout



I mentioned in this post from January that I want to start posting scrapbooking pages/layouts on my blog more frequently. My personal time (and therefor my crating time) has taken a hit this past year, but I have been creating more layouts when I do sneak away to my office for a few minutes. I took a definite break from traditional scrapbooking from 2010-2013(ish) to focus on cards and digital layouts, and frankly, I was burned out. I still took a ton of photos, which are safely stored on an external hard drive, but now I'm ready to dive back in and turn some of those photos into layouts.

This month's Studio Calico scrapbook kit, Savannah, had me panicking a little when it arrived in the mail. So. Much. Pink! And red, and peach, and gold. With two boys at home I rarely use floral paper on my pages, although I do use a fair amount of red. The patterns are beautiful, though, and I am particularly fond of the puffy alphabet stickers. I love sans serif fonts, and these tall, skinny letters are even cuter in person than on the screen. 


I started with a piece of 8.5x11 inch textured white cardstock. I trimmed the photo down to 8.25x5.5 inches and matted it on a piece of white cardstock, then adhered it to the top of the page. 



To create the bottom of the layout, I trimmed patterned paper from the Savannah kit into 8.5 inch wide strips, with varying heights. I think I ended up uses every single piece of paper in the kit! The gray strip I trimmed shorter than the other strips to allow for the title. Under the title I added the "captured" sticker. Then I added a couple of labels, also from the sticker sheet, on the photo and black and white striped paper.



The teeny tiny hearts were the perfect finishing touch. This photo is one of my favorites from 2015 and I'm happy the page I envisioned in my head translated so well onto paper.


Check back later this weekend for a card for Retro Sketches. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Retro Sketches | Challenge #202

Happy Valentine's Day! We don't typically celebrate Valentine's Day with much fanfare around here, but I did pick up a box of chocolates and some conversation hearts for each of the kids. They will appreciate the gesture (or at least appreciate the candy!) and I feel better as a mom knowing we are celebrating a silly holiday together. 

I'm slowly carving out more time for myself to spend in my office. I have a couple of big projects coming up that I can't share just yet (I know, I'm such a tease!), but I did have time to whip up a stamp-less card for this week's Retro Sketches challenge


I started out with a piece of light blue patterned paper from the Amy Tangerine Better Together 6x6 paper pad, adhered to the bottom on my card. I die cut three butterflies, from Studio Calico's Origami stamp and die set, from the same paper pad and added large enamel dots to the center of each. I picked up the silver glitter tape from Michaels around Christmas, and it added the perfect amount of sparkle to my project. After adhering the butterflies and glitter tape I added strip of black and white thin washi tape, some clear gems, and several layered "hello" die cuts (from Papertrey Ink's Wonderful Words: Hello die).


I hope you can join us this week! Make sure to check out the Retro Sketches blog for more inspiration and a chance to link up your own projects. Have a wonderful Sunday and thanks for stopping by!