Bling it on!!!

Glitter, sparkles and twinkling items are a huge thing on scrapbook pages and cards these days.

I've made some cards that use little bits of bling here & there.

I tend to use rhinestones/pearls as embellishments on certain design aspects of my cards or layouts. And I admit it is used sparingly at times.

Supplies used: Core'dinations Cardstock, SRM Stickers, lace & flowers(Prima), Rhinestones (Queen & Co.), twine, EK Success punch

Supplies used: Core'dinations Cardstock, Imaginisce patterned papers, chipboard and rhinestones using i-rock tool, May Arts (ribbon), EK Success punch

Supplies used: Upsy Daisy Designs (patterned papers and rub-ons), Rhinestones (Kasier Craft) ribbon, decorative scissors, Spellbinders (die-cut flower shape)

Hope you enjoy looking at these.

Have a great day!

Bling It On Card Challenge by Susan Tutt

Todays card challenge is to bling it on!! I love bling on anything but especially a card. I chose to bling up my simple card with chunky silver glitter and Heidi Swapp chandelier jewels.

I love how the glitter gives the card a vintage glamour.

Glamour up a card today, maybe even a Christmas card.

Winter/Christmas Themed Challenge by Virginia Wong

Well this past week in Calgary was a ccccccc-old! Not just a wee bit cold but frigidly cold...as in cold enough to take your breath away when you walk out the door. I am probably a bit unusual but I'll go out on a limb and say that I actually don't mind winter. Our family participates in traditional outdoor sports to make the winter more tolerable. We ski and skate...and I am an exemplary Lodge-Girl who happens to make amazing lunches (if I do say so myself!!!)  LOL

Here are a few layouts celebrating Winter. (Did I also mention that we seem to travel to alot hills within a 7 hr radius of our home? THAT is how crazy we are!)

Supplies:  Little Yellow Bicycle (alpha, pattern paper, die cut stickers; transparency stickers); American Crafts (journaling pen); Bazzill cardstock

Supplies:  American Crafts (pattern paper, alphas); Prima (gems); Bazzill cardstock

Let's talk Christmas now...every single year, we make a gingerbread creation. One year it is a house, another a train and another is a ginormous amount of gingerpeople cookies.

Supplies:  My Minds Eye (pattern paper, die cuts); American Crafts (alphas)

Supplies: My Minds Eye (pattern paper, die cuts); American Crafts (alphas)


We love counting down to Christmas with an Advent Calendar. Through the years I seem to have started a collection fo advent calendars - here is one of my newest advent calendars.

Supplies:  Kaisercraft (advent calendar); Graphic45 (pattern papers, chipboard numbers); Tattered Angels (glimmer mist)

And I cannot forget Christmas morning!

Supplies:  Fancy Pants (pattern paper, die cuts); Heidi Swapp (alphas)

Thanks for letting me share!
-Virginia

Challenge: Winter/Christmas Theme - by Cari Locken

Wow!! I can't believe that it's already the end of November! Yikes!!

I still have so much christmas shopping to get done and was hoping to get it done this week however this winter weather we're having here in BC is not allowing me to get around in my van too easily (because I don't have winter tires on it yet!) I know, I know. You'd think being an Albertan for 10 years I'd be used to this white stuff ... but I'm not! I really don't like driving in it and would much rather stay at home - all nice & cozy!

Anyways, on to the fun side of snow - at least for my kids! ;) They enjoyed tobogganing today after school as the snow was falling. It was a perfect day for it. I didn't have my picture along with me 'cause I wanted to join in on the fun but I do have some layouts to share with you that involve winter and christmas.

Hope you enjoy them.

"Home Sweet Home"

My children had a blast building a fort from the snow that my husband had piled onto our front lawn.

"Snow Buds"

My son and his cousin enjoying a huge fort that my husband built one night in my folks backyard.

Supplies used: American Crafts (paper) Cuttlebug embossing folder and die-cut (alpha), Core'dinations cardstock, Fancy Pants felt embellishments

"Flakes of Fun"

I did some embossing on this layout.

"A Chilly Day"

A picture of my son last year when we were cutting down our christmas tree. It was cold out but we had a great time hunting for our tree. I tore the cardstock to make the little trees on my layout.

Supplies used: Core'dinations cardstock, Jenni Bowlin (ribbon, alpha stickers), brads (American Crafts), Queen & Co. felt

"Anticipation"

Christmas Eve is always so exciting for the kids. I love how giddy they get!

Supplies used: Imaginisce (stamp -used with Versamark on green cardstock; papers, stickers, ribbons, i-top brad, flowers, i-rock & white glam rocks), Core'dinations cardstock

"Our Tradition"

Growing up we would always cut down our Christmas tree and now that we live in BC we've enjoyed cutting down our own christmas tree.

Supplies used: Imaginisce (papers, flowers, snowflake sticker, rub-on), Core'dinations cardstock, Cuttlebug die-cut & embossing folder (trees), EK Success scalllop circle punch, Basic Grey chipboard alphabet

"The Perfect Tree"

After a quick look around (because it was chilly out) we found the tree that was just right for our family.

Have a great weekend!

Inanimate Object Challenge ~ Jo West

Every once in a while i find myself taking pictures of inanimate objects ... and very random inanimate objects at that. The challenge this week is to dig through your photos, find a picture of such an object and scrap it ... that's right, scrap it!  It doesn't have to be your best picture ... it doesn't have to be something in your home, as long as it is totally inanimate.



In this layout I scrapped my daughters new sneakers ... i just wanted to do this to capture a moment in time and fashion where these classic old sneakers were having a major fashion revival ....

This next inanimate object is a telephone pole downtown that was filled with flyers ... the art on the pole really caught my eye ... the journalling (which is almost always on the back of my layouts) is a commentary on communication styles from the old billboard to the current message board/social network.  Sometimes scrapping photos such as this bring a lot of interesting thoughts forward, and they are fun to document ... i can only wonder what someone reading this 25 years from now will think of the evolution of communication.  Sorry for the quality of this photo, I get very poor light into my home during the grey days of fall and winter.  This page is actually done on white cardstock ... there are no yellow tones.

I did some old school stuff on this layout ... using paint around the edges of the photo & acrylic butterflies ... I also heated the acrylic butterflies so that the wings look like they are swooping in air.  I also used a kraft shopping bag from one of my fave stores .... i just really liked the graphics!

I hope you all get a chance to get out and take some interesting inanimate object photos, enjoy documenting these little glimpses of your life & your opinions or musings ... cheers!

Winter Inspired Cards ~ Jo West

Brrrr.... feel that chill in the air?  Winter is coming ...  Time to light those fires, cuddle up with a blanket,  and a warm cup of hot chocolate ... but first, lets pull out all of our christmas papers and make some quick and easy winter themed cards!  Having a supply of winter themed cards comes in really handy, especially if you find your November and December too busy to make cards ... Each of the cards shown here can be made in 10 minutes or under ... like i said "quick & easy"



Got strip scraps?  I know i will want to send out some general cards later on in winter ... for this card i just used strip  paper,  punched the lower border, filled the holes with clear stickles, put a little bit of glossy accents on the cheeks of the faces and the blue dots.  I punched out a tag, stamped "hello", added a ribbon boy and its ready!



Got leftover chipboard?  I used a lot of little chipboard accents from last years Cosmo Cricket line ...  they look so cute and add a great big punch to the card without having to do a more time consuming technique.  I also used a little a die cut  acrylic snowflake.



Got leftover packaging?  try saving those clear acrylic packages that embellishments come in ... you can run them through your big shot to make inexpensive embellishments .  Before I attached these three snowflakes to the card, i heated them for a few seconds with my heat gun to bend them a bit ... this gives the card a little more dimension and it creates more shine for the light to bounce off of as there are more angels to catch the light.

Got bling?  I know i will be sending out lots of thank you cards come January ...  and i wanted some glimmer and shine to my cards ... so to get the glimmer going I grabbed my smooch  (glimmer glaze works really well too) and  I painted the rim of a diecut tag and the coloured areas of the snowflake ... I then added three little self adhesive pearls and its all shiny & pretty ... 

Got Birthdays??? Your left over Christmas or winter themed papers and embellishments can still work well for winter birthdays.  In this case i used a snowflake themed paper,  and a chipboard christmas present which can easily pass a birthday present once the sentiment on the card front is clear! ... I added some glossy accents and glitter to the outline of the diecut and the bows on the present, through on a hand made flower and ribbon and again, made a super quick and easy winter themed card.

Got Vintage???  Sometimes i just want to do something vintage looking ...  to make this card, I just went to a free download site, in this case The Graphics Fairy ... downloaded and then printed the card for free ... stamped the sentiment in the bottom corner and painted the snow with smooch and stickled the border.  Once dry I adhered it to cardstock, border punched the edge, added ribbon, a bow and a pin!

So dig out those leftover christmas papers and embellishments and whip up a few super easy and quick cards today! Thanks for reading!

Hello, and welcome to another challenge at The Inspired Scrapper! This week's challenge is a colour challenge using this photo (taken from the Internet, source unknown) as inspiration:



Here is my layout, based on these colours:



The photos are of my beautiful little niece, Olivia, and were taken by the amazingly talented Karen Dyke, of Karen Dyke Photography. The colours in the inspiration photo are quite deep and bright. I used 'quieter'/more muted shades of the brown, pink, and green. I also based my layout on this sketch from Becky Fleck's August 2010 Pagemaps:



Sketches are such a great starting point if you are lacking your own creative mojo, or if you are pressed for time and want to shorten the design process. Sometimes I'll start with a sketch as a leaping point and the end result won't resemble the original sketch at all, but in this case, as you can see, I stayed very close to the sketch.

We would love to see what this week's colour inspiration brings out in your creativity - share with us using our November linky!

Colour Challenge by Karen

I love a great colour challenge!  It inspires me to go through my stash and find papers and embellishments that work.  Instead of reaching for my newest papers or my favourite companies, I find that I end up using a mix of papers and in the end it feels great to use the supplies I have at hand.

This week we have this great photo as inspiration.   I love how bold the colours are and seriously how beautiful is that arrangement.

Here is my take on the colour challenge.  I stuck with the main colours in the inspiration photo, dark brown, fushia, red and green.  Since the colours are so bold, I kept the embellishments to a minimum and just added a few buttons.

suppplies : bazzil, rouge de garance, chatterbox, prima, basic grey



We would love to see how these colours inspire you!

TFL

Imperfect Photo Challenge - Jo West

Happy Friday everyone!!!  scrapping imperfect photos is something i do on a very regular basis ... when my child was born there were no digital cameras ... I had an old point & shoot film camera that took poor quality photos ... so if I am scrapping younger years photos, they are almost always flawed in more than one way.

My daughter and her friends are always snapping shots of each other ... and thats just it ... snapping shots ... caught up in the moment, having fun, forgetting to change camera settings .... and the results can be horrible .... but the thing is ... they capture a moment ... a memory that is so good that the "not so perfect photo" becomes perfect as it encapsulates the memory, the sight, sounds and feelings of the moment ...  And hey, like my daughter always tells me ... life is not perfect, either are photos ... scrap the ones that resonate with you (yes, all of this from a 21 yo non-scrapper ... gasp ... but that's a story for another time.)

The photo i used in this layout was one of her faves from a special night out with friends ... and as soon as she showed it to me i knew i would use it ... see how the photo is blurry going up and down ... totally reminded me of that classic old tv show Star trek and the whole "Beam me up Scottie" line that i ended up using as a title.

This photo is almost square in shape ... That's because i cropped off a whole lot of the rest of the picture.  Cropping is a fave technique i use when working with imperfect photos.  There are other little techniques i employ as well ...

For the tech minded people, try fixing your photo as much as possible through Photoshop or other similar program.  You can also try painting out the background of an imperfect photo ... paint it out in a colour that matches the papers or embellishments you are using, or paint it white and journal on top of the dried paint.  You can also use embellishments & rub ons to disguise a problem photo ... you can even place your title over a problem area.  And my final technique is to just cut out the figure and use only it on your layout ...

so use those not so great photos ... remember that you are scrapping real moments in real life and not perfection and just have a whole lot of fun with it!  Have a great weekend all!

Imperfect Photo Challenge by Erica Perkins

When I saw this challenge, I knew it was made for me. If you are like me, you are on a mission to capture great photos of your little men. The problem is they don't stop moving do they? Even with my flash on,even with my ISO set on high, or shooting on the action setting of my camera, I still struggle to get a clear photo of my son that isn't blurry or a photo where he isn't missing a limb.

The photo I chose for this challenge is a little blurry, my son appears to be missing his extremities and the tip of his head, but it was perfect for a quote that I have wanted to use for along time. Trust me, there are a lot of imperfect photos in my photo box to choose from, but this one stood out. I loved that he was leaping so happily from something (see even that is missing in this photo). It's the look on his face that is perfect to me (and it's not even looking at the camera)...he was challenging himself to jump off something that was a bit high and he was overjoyed that he did.

Supplies used: Cardstock: Bazzil; Patterned Paper: Collage Press; Alphas: Basic Grey and Carolee's Creations; Punch: EK Success.

So next time you are looking through your photos and you say, "oh this would be perfect for the layout, if only ________________ (insert complaint here)", use the photo anyway, it's part of the memory making, it's part of your experience and sometimes, it is still the perfect photo to use.

Imperfect Photos Challenge by Susan Tutt

Happy November everyone!! Todays challenge is using imperfect photos on a layout. I am the ultimate mamarazzi, but as many photos as I take sometimes I don't always get that perfect photo. Occasionally I use imperfect photos because they capture an emotion or a memory that I just want to remember.

On this Fall Days layout I used photos with heads cut off!! Oh my....I know thats bad right. But these photos capture the excitement and action of my kids playing in the fall leaves.

This Christmas layout uses snipets of photos that capture favorite pieces of our holiday season.

I cropped photos that I would not have used as full sized on a layout because they were not visually pleasing.

Today rethink about those photos that you have put in do not scrapbook pile. Use a photo that may not be perfect, but captures and emotion or an unforgettable event!

Card Challenge - Christmas inspiration by Cari Locken

How many of you have started making your christmas cards? I haven't. :( I taught a class this past Saturday and was surprised at how many ladies are almost finished making theirs (if not done already!) That's wonderful!

However, if you're like me and haven't started yet OR maybe you never thought about making them before and figured you'd try it out this year then I hope that I can share a bit of inspiration with you right now.

Remember, you can keep them as simple as you want and then they're easy to mass produce.

Or you can make them all different if you'd like. You also don't have to make cards using the typical red & green combos. There's so many different colors that are being used to decorate christmas trees these days that you can use that for your inspiration as well.

I'm going to share with you a bunch of cards that I have made.

This 1st collection reveals 7 cards that I'm currently teaching. I've used product from Imaginisce and their new christmas collection called Cottage Christmas.

This second set were cards I made last year using Imaginisce's Polar Expression collection.

And these cards I did a lot of embossing using the Cuttlebug embossing folders and then just added a few pieces of cardstock here & there along with ribbons, buttons and stamped sentiments.

I hope that you're inspired to start creating. ENJOY!

November Linky

Welcome to a whole new month of challenges here at The Inspired Scrapper! This month features two great card challenges as well as four scrapbooking challenges - jump in and share with us!!