Digi-collab Week 3

Ok, guys - still waiting for submissions from all but Emily and Casey! (Casey was so ahead of the game I almost forgot she'd already sent it!)

Here's mine:



Journaling reads: "Is it weird that rays make me so happy? It's the same with seahorses, but I love that I can interact with rays and feed them, at least when we're in Galveston."

Emily's LO:



Lo Credits: SP Modish Girl Kit; LO template from SMJ's 365 project; black paper from SMJ's love potion; Ribbon from SMJ's Flea Market Studio; Happy Wordart from SMJ's Birthday Wishes; tag and pin from SMJ's Pickled Petunias; Photos by ProSpec Photography; Font

Casey's LO (I'm happy to make it bigger if you want to put it up on your blog so I can link to it):



Credits: "Funky Chic" kit by Shabby Miss Jenn; Font: Pea Olson
Journal reads: I love it when I see their smiling faces smiling back at me. Could anything be any better?

And Kristen's LO:



Journaling:
It Makes Me Happy
When I...
See my boys together.
Nothing brings a smile
across my face faster
than this. They are a
joy in my life!

And next week, we're over to Casey for the real week 4!

Assorted

I have a little basket on my desk of elements I've made - sometimes if I'm just doodling around, I'll come up with bits and pieces of projects, with no bigger project to put them on. Or I'll come up with a piece that doesn't fit with whatever I meant to use it for, so it goes in the basket for next time. I've got a couple of these vintage-y button tags...



...and this sugar-glitter heart, which turned out too bright pink to use on its intended card, but is so cute I'm waiting to have something else to use it on.



Playing with buttons and ribbon, I came up with this little bookmark - the end button here:



is from a dress I had when I was little.



These owls are the product of more doodling around - I traced the owl from my tote bag onto pattern paper and put together some scraps from my scrap box. I haven't been making many cards lately, or even stamping very much, but I'm having fun!

Digi-collab Week 3

My theme this week? "It makes me happy when I..."

What delights you? What lifts your spirits? What's the one thing guaranteed to cheer you up when you're down?

Lovin' It

This week's Digiscrap Challenge is hosted by Kristen, with the theme "Lovin' It." What I'm lovin':

Vintage Bingo Card

I've been inspiration-less lately, but my prize necklace came wrapped around this vintage bingo card. I've seen some really fun stuff done with bingo cards lately, so I thought I'd pull out some of my antique-store finds and play.



I found this purple ink that my sister brought from Paris, and decided to do some dyeing. No particular reason, I just haven't done it before. I diluted it a bit, since I didn't want such a deep color, and dragged some of my vintage hem lining through it. Since the hem lining is so lightweight, it didn't take long at all to dry. I used my newly dyed lavender and some rose-colored lining to make ruffles on the bottom, then covered the middle between them with the end of the lining that I hadn't dyed.



The sweet little girl and boy are from a little picture book that I picked up at Junkadoodle (my favorite junk/antique shop, near where I work), and I glittered the word "BINGO" and added a lace scrap. The antique-y letters are from a grab bag I got at Joann a long time ago, and the vintage velveteen flower is popped up on dimensionals so it stays in shape.

Wow!

I received the GORGEOUS necklace I won from Rebecca Sower today. It is just BEAUTIFUL. I have the perfect top to show it off, so I'm going to wear it tomorrow. My photography can't do it justice, so check out the link to see how pretty and unusual it is.

Digi-Scrap Collab

Emily's Digi-Scrap Collab challenge this week was: Find your oldest digital photo and scrap a LO that tells how long ago it was and what memory it holds.

I'm really terrible at journaling (terrible, terrible), so I didn't add much to this, but it was from the night before Mothers' Day in 2006. My sister, cousin, and I decided to get together at my apartment and make enough lasagna for the whole extended family. We had a ton of fun, and got this great picture all dressed in my aprons.

Concept & Execution

I recently bought this little bag of green and pink buttons - it's been worth its weight in inspiration. I already love the green/pink color combination, and this little bag has so many different sizes and shades and styles of buttons, I can do just about anything with it. So I decided to run with the pink/green theme, and I've been loving glitter lately too, so this is what I came up with.



I actually started out with a completely different glittered focal image - I'll probably still use it on something. I used a really bright pink glitter, though, and it didn't work as well as I'd hoped with the rest of my concept. Once I embossed my top layer with my Swiss Dots folder, and pulled out my PTI Ocean Tides dotted ribbon, I wanted to do something more dainty and feminine than the shocking pink I'd started out with. The pink in the cutout is sponged for a softer look, and I went over the stamped "Create Art" with a glitter pen to make it stand out. The buttons are also stuck on with Stickles glitter glue to give them a little extra sparkle.



After I finished my first concept, I decided to try the same thing as a shaker card. I still think this was a great idea, but the execution was kind of flawed. I was doing great at first - had my dimensional foam set up just right and my window cut out - but rather than setting everything up on the front piece and then having to stick on the base (because you obviously can't turn it over to stick it on, once the shaker space is filled, or glitter will go everywhere), I should have set everything up on the base so I could see where my front was going to end up. So it's kind of crooked... I'll see if I can come up with a fix, though, because I still like it.

Home sweet home

I actually stamped this week, then forgot to blog about it! I'm such a slacker. I had some binding left over (well, I thought I did... turns out I screwed up putting it on, so I may need to redo it anyway) from my quilt, and thought it was so cute and quaint and homey, I'd put it on a card. I love this house image from Papertrey's Boards and Beams set - I used it for my Christmas cards this year. This time, I stamped it in Dark Chocolate on white, then distressed it with Ranger's Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and Old Paper (Old Paper all over, then the darker Vintage Photo at the edges) and shaded the house just a bit with chalks. The old buckle probably came from a Stampin' Up Hodgepodge Hardware set a long time ago, but I don't really remember. It's kind of heavy, so this isn't a good card for mailing, but I think it looks cute, and would make a great housewarming card.

A Week Without Stamping

This is what I've been doing this week - getting my quilt sandwiched and quilted. My mom did a quilt last week that she backed with flannel, and it was so cozy and comfy, I decided to use flannel on this one. It really is amazingly soft! I used a cotton-poly blend batting that allows me to space out my quilting a bit more and is still really cushy.



Today's goal: To get the machine-sewing done on the binding before work. The hand-sewing will take a while, but at least if I can get it on, the rest is just a matter of finding enough episodes of NCIS to get me through the stitching.