catching up

The October issue of Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine is now available online! Pretty impressive issue! There are so many tutorials, tips, and resources! If you haven't yet, consider subscribing today. Each month a new digital issue comes out and I cannot even keep up with all the inspiration! To subscribe, click here ----> Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine subscription

Along with having a beautiful and easy watercolor tutorial in the issue, one of my projects is this card. Shabby, chalkboard, gold, butterfly, and coral!?! That's my kind of card! :) The section this card is from is about wood. Wood is so trendy and I love it. The butterfly is a wood veneer and it has been covered with washi tape. Washi tape is a great way to add color to any of your wood shapes!

Well, the little man started 3rd grade almost three weeks ago now. He is happy and loving his teacher. He got the only male teacher in the building and they are both into golf and math. :) Its nice to have him come home and tell us all about his day and what he is learning. Very grateful! The Short Course season started for swimming last night. He was anxious to get back into the pool (after only a week off, haha) and about his new coach and new level. He did great and he will make new friends soon. We also headed to MN and the State Fair for the long weekend. We picked quite the day to attend as there was 252,092 people there! It is an all-time attendance record. I know that I personally have never experienced that many people in one place. Wow. Quite the adventure and memory for sure! Hopefully now I can hit my blogging and crafting stride. So much is coming up and I look forward to sharing it all!

thanks for always stopping by!

~kimberly

Supplies:

The scribble stamp and washi are both from Close To My Heart.

InLinkz.com

inspired by wood pallets

Welcome from the Paper Crafts Connection blog! You haven't been there yet? Head on over. I will wait for you here...

What did you think? Are you inspired by wood pallets yet? Did you come back for more ideas? I can tell you that I had way too much fun with this idea because this is only a few of the ideas I came up with! Maybe I will share a few more later on!

Idea: turn the light colored wood darker, like a pallet and add subway-style sentiment

To turn the wood veneer paper darker, I inked it with Distressing Ink (Vintage Photo) with a foam applicator tool. Its messy, but worth it! 

All of the stamps I used are clear, making it easy to lay them out and see what would and wouldn't work for my sentiment. Once the stamps were all in place, I pressed my acrylic block into them and they were ready to be inked. By doing that, I made sure they stayed lined up exactly how I envisioned.

Idea: inspired by a Pin to create an ombre look with ink and wood veneer paper strips

Again I inked with Distress Ink (Picked Raspberry) on the wood. Each piece received a bit more ink than the previous. The nice thing about the ink is, I could add more as I needed. So each piece started out very light until I achieved the amount of intensity desired.

And again, I lined up my stamps, pressed by acrylic block into them, inked, and stamped.

Idea: inspired by a Pin to create multicolored wood veneer strips, die cut wood strips

Each strip of wood veneer received ink, directly from the pad this time. (My Favorite Things) The dye based ink worked very well, but it did stay wetter longer, so watch that. (Messy, messy, messy.) The inked strips were adhered to a piece of cardstock and then run through a manual die cutting machine with a heart die template. It took several passes because of the thickness of the material. But it turned out awesome! The words love you were die cut from cardstock.

Ready to create cards inspired by wood pallet art? There are tons of possibilities! Be sure and visit the Paper Crafts Connection blog for your chance to win a set of stamps from Hero Arts!

thanks for stopping by!

~kimberly

P.S. If you are looking for more inspiration, check out my board on Pinterest, Wood Pallet Love.

Top 10 Favorites from CHA-W

My top 10 favorite products from CHA-W 2012, in no particular order, of course!

1. My Mind’s Eye all the collections, On the Bright Side, Miss Caroline, Follow Your Heart

Follow Your Heart “Be Amazing” 6x6 pad. Love the kraft, aqua, yellow color combo. And the hexagon patterns, bicycles, and kite images.

Miss Caroline. Love the distressed wood grain.

Miss Caroline Love. The colors of this are so soft and beautiful. And look at all the amazing shapes on the journal tags.

On the Bright Side. Great colors. More wood grain.

On the Bright Side One 6x6 pad. Again, the colors are exactly me. A fun denim print and a chevron pattern!

2. Lily Bee

Buttercup. Super trendy color palette. Text print chevron!!

Double Dutch. Another trendy color palette. Loving the oranges and navy blues.

Handmade. Works with the sewing theme trend. Great size patterns.

Victoria Park. AM.AZ.ING! Julia Stainton knocked it out of the park with not only the colors, but with the patterns too! Loving the new shade of green in this-that color was pretty popular.

3. Bella Blvd Button Market and Flags

Buttons are not leaving the scene any time soon and these are darling!! Perfect to have them packaged together as well! And then those flags! How cute?!

4. Jillibean Soup

Alphabeans and Soup Labels-cute alphabet stickers in fantastic colors, along with label stickers with cute sayings. Click here.

Game Day Chili-great kraft printed papers, perfect for those of us with little boys. Click here.

5. Crate Paper-Story Teller

Love the patterns and colors. Trendy.

6. Webster’s Pages

Clean and Simple designs. Such a fabulous concept. The great motifs of their lines, but more simple to use. At least for me. :)

7. Pink Paislee

Prairie Hill. Soft. Pretty. Chevrons, of course! More oranges too.

8. Simple Stories

Documented. Beautiful. LOVE LOVE LOVE the subway art pieces!

9. Basic Grey

Plumeria. Stunning. Look at the purple and orange!

10. Studio Calico

Take Note. So pretty!!!

There you go. Just a few of my favorites. Now the waiting and the shopping!

thanks for stopping by!

~kimberly

home from CHA

Hello again! I am home from CHA! What fun, what inspiration, what exhaustion! :) Working in the Spellbinders booth was a wonderful adventure. We got to meet so many amazing customers and show off all the fabulous new dies! AND Spellbinders took 3rd place in the Innovations showcase!! You should have seen Stacey’s beaming face! We of course had a great time, but what happens at CHA, stays at CHA! :) I will get to all the name dropping and people photo sharing tomorrow and maybe a few more products. Today, I will share with you some of my favorite finds.

Things I don’t have photos of, but LOVED!!

• Cosmo Cricket and 6x6 pads. Do I need to say more?
• Sassafras Lass with Wee Bundles, again yay!
• Nikki Sivils same thing. Her designs are fun and fresh!
• Fancy Pants, My Mind’s Eye, Pink Paislee, Crate=awesome!
• Love the new look that Darcie's is going with, check it out!! (I don't see it online yet)

Webster’s Pages has some gorgeous new lines coming out. The trims for this one are from their new line, Home for the Holidays. Vintage and modern all at the same time. I am also loving their new line, Nature’s Storybook. Gorgeous jewel tone colors that are once again updated for today.

American Crafts was new Thickers coming out. Love these Varsity letter looking ones. Be on the look out for SMALLER sized stickers. Can you say perfect for cards? :)

Yes, I really did hug this sign when I saw it. Nook and Pantry from Basic Grey is retro, 1940’s kitchen happiness. Love all the new doilies/circle look I am seeing.

DARLING paper from Crate. Isn’t that bumpy border wonderful? Would I dare cut it or would I horde it and just look at its loveliness? :)

More wonderful from Crate!! This makes me smile! :) Both are from the new line, Season. Bliss is just that too!

ADORABLE booth from Doodlebug. Check out the hot pink bar stools in the background! Sweet treats and candy motifs were prevalent.

Cherries and berries were another popular motif…this one coming from Hero Arts. Cuteness. Love the empty space in this image. I love this type of stamp. It gives you so many options. You could stamp and layer to your hearts content! Not to mention color or not.

That cute stamp is a new line of Stamps from Hero Arts, called Clings. There are several images that are a must-have!! They are also releasing a couple of large backgrounders that are WOWEE!

The release that knocked my socks off the farthest was Jenni Bowlin. Every inch of that booth was filled with oohs and aahs!! Here is a look at the new fall Bingo cards. They are coming 6 to a pack and the back to school versions are colored in darling primary colors!

Jenni Bowlin chipboard buttons….drool…

THIS will be coming home with me the second it becomes available. Red/yellow/green/brown seemed to be one of the most popular color combos at the show, but this line, Front Porch , has me head over heels!!! (Town Square is FAB too!!)

FLAMINGOS! Darling line, Pina Colada from Kaiser Craft.

Vintage was another popular look. Here is a shot of the Making Memories booth.

Tattered Angels booth was SO impressive. (and their booth was next to ours, so I could drool while working :)). WOW! WOW! WOW! That my friends, is a stamp. That butterfly is a big, beautiful, gorgeous, clear stamp!!!

Yes, that heart is a stamp and there are screens that coordinate with the stamps. At 6x6” you can use them for so many things!! The new Glimmer Mist colors are pretty amazing too. Some are in limited editions, so grab them while you can. Lots of possibilities that will be fun to play with!!

Hope you enjoyed a few of the peeks!! thanks for stopping by!

Check out THIS at The Scrap Review! :)

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday: Patterned Paper

"It is time for Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge(FTTC19)! This week Cindy Haffner is our host. She is challenging us to use designer papers. Now, I realize that designer papers are about as necessary to card making as spellbinders die cuts, but there is a lot that you can do with designer papers. You can stamp on them, use border punches, color them, paper piece, die cut shapes, cut out images to use as a focal point, or just to enhance the look of your card. Whichever option you choose to do, we would love to see what you create."
Check out the rest of the teams clever creations:
Betty Wright
Cindy Haffner
Dee Jackson
Silke Ledlow

I love patterned paper. I horde patterned paper. I have a hard time cutting patterned paper. I am trying to get better about cutting it up and using it! :) I grabbed some Webster's Pages paper to create this card for our challenge this week. The background of the topiary was airbrushed with a pale orange, in an attempt for a sunset/Tuscan feel, so the orange papers seemed to work well. (at least in my head :))
The thing I love the most about this card, is the way the Flower Soft works with the topiary image. LOVE the effect!
thanks for stopping by! :)

Supplies:
Stamps-Flourishes (diy Topiary)
Flower Soft-Christmas Green
Patterned paper-Webster's Pages
Cardstock-Papertrey Ink (Stamper's Select White, Ripe Avocado)
Ink-Memento (Tuxedo Black), Colorbox Chalk (Creamy Brown)
Twine-May Arts
Buttons-Le Button
Tools-Spellbinders Die Templates (Long Rectangles Small)
Copics-E37, E29, G07, YG91, YR02, BV23, ABS-1

ScrapLovers December Reveal

Creative Cafe has an entire year worth of stamps that work with the calendar shown on this project. Including, the calendar template stamp. I thought making a calendar with this circle magnetic memo board would be a great gift idea.

I started with the new Hello, Beautiful papers from Webster's Pages. Gorgeous colors, lots of cutting possibilities. I also adhered lace (inked) to the back of the board and some fabulous trim from May Arts down each side of the red polka dot paper.

I stamped the month with brown ink and added some snowflakes. The snowflakes got accented with my Spica Glitter pen.
The calendar was stamped the same way. The stamp is very large. My DH had a brilliant idea to use a brand new Cuttlebug B plate to hold the stamp. Isn't he the best?! It worked perfectly. The stamp took a bit of playing with to get it all (relatively) straight. These stamps are also incredibly soft, so literally no pressure needs to be applied, a simple kiss to the paper will work.

The calendar and the month title are both backed with magnets. That way, the month can be changed as needed.

This snowflake is also a magnet. A Maya Road chipboard snowflake was painted white and then distressed. A coat of Stickles was added for shine. A hole was punched in the middle of the snowflake. I tied twine around the 7 gypsies brad and adhered them to the snowflake. The magnet was adhered to the prongs of the brad with some serious glue! :)

thanks for stopping by!!!!!

Supplies:

Patterned paper-Webster's Pages (Hello Beautiful)

Stamps-Creative Cafe (Calendar, January)

Cardstock-Papertrey Ink

Ink-Palette (Dark Chocolate, Ocean Tides)

Chipboard Snowflakes-Maya Road

Brad-7gypsies

Twine-May Arts

Paint-Making Memories

Stickles-Star Dust Ranger