Monday 16 September 2013

Normal looks like...

I actually finished a scrapbook layout during the Great Scrapbook Carnival this year, and have it posted within the same week! I hope you're impressed because this is a vast improvement over last year.

The photos in this layout were taken during April 2011, which is the last time my family were all under the same roof. Bo Bunny's Family Is... collection was used throughout this layout, from the papers to the chipboard and pearls. 

Sunday 15 September 2013

A new shop and Glitz-y Christmas cards in a whirlwind.

Hey all! Yeppers, I'm back in Edmonton but only for another 10 days before I head back to the lake. It's been a whirlwind since we landed just before midnight last Wednesday. Between driving Hubby to work three hours away, two days of scrapping goodness thanks to Canadian Scrapbooker, a morning filled with learning from Cathie Allen, and an evening football game between my two favourite teams... oh my! During the next 10 days, my list includes: leading games at AWANA (x2) and prepping a plan for when I'm away; cleaning out my flowerbeds (don't want to come back to snow-covered plants); catching up with friends; starting up an Etsy store; laundry and more laundry, plus all those other domestic-type things; a long list of errands that each take about an hour... better get started!

You can now find me on Etsy as SnippetsnPitts, with my offerings just starting to be listed. Setting up the store, payments and listings is easy, but just takes time. You'll see a few things from here being offered for sale there. Of course, if you see anything here that you don't see there, leave me a comment or drop me a line and we'll see what we can do to get it into your hands.

That said, I had some time on the plane to design a few new Christmas cards on the plane. Tell me what you think of these:
Everything you see comes from Glitz's Hello December collection, available from Jessica Sprague (who is awesome). You'll be able to find some of these in my Etsy shop too. Loading the rest is part of my plan for this week.

Sunday 1 September 2013

More Picture Collage Maker

I am at the lake right now, but yesterday was overcast and rainy so I had to find something to keep me busy. Little did I know that I would be starting a new obsession. If you read yesterday's post, you'll know how I started to play with an new app called Picture Collage Maker Lite (PCML). Even though it was sunny today, I had to force myself to stay away from it until after dark.

Figuring that my rationale to scrap would sound better if I were using camping-type photos, I searched through my digi paper collections and found Echo Park's The Great Outdoors mini-theme. Didn't take but two shakes of a stick to find photos too. Then I remembered a challenge by the gals over at Drunken Stampers... go give 'em some blog luvin' for their fabulous cards!

Picture Collage Maker Lite

I've been playing, but because I'm at the cottage and away from my stash, it had to be with new software. I downloaded Picture Collage Maker Lite for my Mac from the App Store and began to click the buttons to see what they would do. It came with a how-to video but my inner Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor came out and so I just ignored the instructions and dove right in. I have a wide assortment of digi designer paper collections (I think Jessica Sprague is awesome) from which I could click and drag papers and elements into the app. Don't get me wrong! I've never done a digital layout in my life and believe that paper crafting is - and should be - a tactile art. Even so, there are times I want to picture a layout before printing pieces. I figured that I wouldn't lose anything but a little time with this free app... yep, it was my favourite colour!

Saturday 31 August 2013

Silhouette Flower Pot notecards

Here's a quartet of notecards made in my favourite ways - simple, easy and frugal!

These lovelies began life as plain and simple card stock. A few minutes with a Silhouette Cameo began to give these rather rectangular characters a little more definition and interest. Throw in some ink, Pearl Pen, and a few Dew Drops, and - Viola! - something to cheer someone's day.

More Rooster Cards

I recently picked up a stack of papers while on vacation for a very specific purpose, but then was left with a huge bunch of paper. I know, that's just a terrible situation! But I faced that adversity with a smile, and here are a few cards that came out of that stack: 

Thursday 29 August 2013

Rooster Birthday Card

Happy Birthday to my Hubby! I whipped up this card for him while we were travelling after stopping at a Micheal's in the area. The cardstock stack, Tsukineko metallic inks, stamps and brads were all on sale. Since I never travel without a few crafting tools, I was set!

I cut a 6x8 inch card base and a 5x7 inch mat with my handy dandy paper cutter, then fussy cut the various sayings. A little scissor-edge distressing around the edges, a couple of stamps, and a few button brads later - well, the card says it best: Ooh la la! 

Here are a few close-ups to show some detail: 



Hubby has a love of all things chicken-y (he even had one as a pet as a child!) so this card was perfect for him. And since I was able to add to my stash AND play with paper while on vacation, I came out a winner too!! 

Wednesday 28 August 2013

A washi-ed Rooster

I bought a Recollections stack full of chickens, roosters, and all things French last spring. Here's one of the cards I quickly pulled together from that stack and a little washi tape from Tim Holtz:

The 6x6 inch base and the 4x4 mat were quickly sliced into shape with a paper cutter but the rooster required fussy cutting. Yes, I actually fussy cut sometimes... but not much and not with pleasure. Unfortunately, this fella didn't stand out much on the black background of his original paper (see the bit left between his feet) and so needed to be set free.

Sunday 25 August 2013

Car Rally Thank You Cards

My church holds a community car rally each summer. This year, I was asked to make 50 thank-you cards to help show our appreciation to all the participants. Not a problem, right? How about having less than a week to complete this project? Yeppers - planning this project suddenly became important because I am not the kind of gal who backs down from a challenge. So here's the lot of cars, ahem, cards:

Saturday 24 August 2013

Fab{U}lous God-daughters

[Note: this was written November 2012 but it's taken this long to get the photos uploaded. I did say I was catching up... ;)]

It's been a lo-o-o-o-ong dry spell in terms of my craftiness, but I'm ready to let loose my crafting freakiness right quick! Okay, so maybe it's not freakiness, but I am happy to back playing with paper and glue and glitter and my Cameo and pearls and buttons and... well, you get the picture.

I saw this November monthly kit at a local scrapbooking store, Scrapbook Memories and More. Since I have always loved Simple Stories's paper designs (this comes from their Fab{U}lous line) and a recent photo of my 'adopted' daughter popped into mind as soon as I saw the papers... well, I just HAD to scrap. Playing with the paper and ribbons and buttons and charms... well, it didn't take long to come up with this:


And best of all, I had enough supplies left in the kit to do a second layout, this one inspired by my original muse's sister:


And for the details...

Weekend Market Cards

I'm not usually a fan of pre-designed card kits, but this Bo Bunny kit caught my eye and so it came home with me. I liked the masculine feel to most of the cards, and needed a couple of {mostly} self-contained projects I could bring on the road with me. This kit was a lifesaver when I needed to vent some creativity while visiting Hubby at work in Calgary and living out of a hotel room.

Of course, I had to add a few of my own touches - distressing, inking, ribbon, jewels, or pearls - to each of the cards. I was very pleased with the final results and hope you enjoy them too.

The Beach... in December

We visited our stretch of sand during December 2010, but it took me almost two years to scrapbook the photos and another year to take photos of the layouts to share with you. It's tough to find a wintery paper collection that also has sandy colours in it, but Bo Bunny came out with the perfect paper - Snowfall. I scrapbooked these photos {finally} at the Great Scrapbook Carnival in 2012, and now you finally get to see them too! Remember how I wrote that I was so very far behind in sharing my projects? This is a rare peek into my finished scrapbook pages so please tell me what you think.

Some snowflakes were fussy cut from the papers in the collection, and others were cut with Spellbinders dies. Fussy cutting doesn't happen very often at my craft table - believe me! - but the effect was well worth the effort. I used chipboard from the set and Dusty Attic, and some inks and glitter. The detail in the Dusty Attic chipboard used as the title shown here is so delicate.

Friday 23 August 2013

Happy Paper Anniversary!

Hubby and I just celebrated our second anniversary, but since I'm soooo far behind in posting my crafting adventures, you get to see what I made him last year instead of the simple card I made for him this year. The traditional gift for a first anniversary is PAPER - yep, my favorite-est artsy medium - so this was a no-brainer.

Here's the outside of the explosion box, adapted from designs available at the Silhouette online store and a Spellbinders borderabilities die.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Crafting but not blogging

I've been crafting but not blogging. My aging desktop decided to quit on me a while back (still waiting for Hubby to rescue the independent drive with my files on it) and so I didn't have equipment or a space for oh-so-long. Since then, a bright white apple greets people watching me on my shiny laptop, which I totally love. Learning a different (non-PC) way to do things took a little while, but this seems fair since I'm totally non-PC ways not related to electronics.

My next reason for not blogging: There were people to see and places to go. During the first six months of 2013, I spent about 50% of my time at home. And now I'm getting ready to fly east again so I don't promise when you'll see my next blog post. I promise that I'll start writing up some of my crafty pursuits so that they'll only be waiting for photos and can be published lickety-split when I return in mid-September.

I could give you a few more reasons, but let's face it, they're really just excuses. Let the typing, photo-editing, and coffee-drinking begin.