Simple Stories Folder with Crate Paper

Hi everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today. I just wanted to share a layout / folder / mini book that I did. I don't know what to call it exactly, it's all those things put together.

The base is made up of a Simple Stories 12 X 12 folder. It fits inside of a page protector. I have stuffed the folder full of memorabilia from a trip that my son and my husband took. My son is a train fanatic, so my husband took him on this tour of the Credit Valley on a special train. Because we had so many good pictures from the trip, I decided to make a mini book and attach it to the front of the folder. I used Crate Paper's Little Boy Blue collection for this. I couldn't resist the chipboard train, it's so 'Eric'.

Here are the first two inside pages of the mini book.

And, here are the last two pages of the mini book.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Create Interest with 3D Elements

Hi everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today. I would like to share this layout that I made using Studio Calico's Hey Day collection, available at the Let's Capture Our Memories store.



I created the 3D butterflies with the Studio Calico Hey Day Ephemera Pack. The butterflies will collapse almost flat when I must my layout in an album, so they add a lot of interest but not a lot of bulk. Here's how I did it:

1. Take 2 of the Studio Calico butterflies and lay them on top of one another. 
2. Secure with a tiny bit of glue in the centre. 
3. Place them on your layout and machine stitch through the centres. 
4. Gently bend the edges up. That's it!

I added interest to the page title by popping up the title sticker with adhesive foam squares. I inked the edges to make it stand out a bit more.



Thanks for dropping by today! As always, I would love to hear what you think. :)

Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two Layout

Hi everyone! It's Kate here today. I just want to share a Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two layout that I just created.I love the colours in this line.



Here is a close up of the embellishment cluster. I used a Silhouette America fold and tuck file for the border and the blue doily. This is one of my favourite cutting files.



Supplies

• Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two Papers
  
• Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two Element deck
• Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two Ready-Set-Chip
• Cosmo Cricket Tea for Two Stacked Stickers
• Silhouette Cameo
• Color Shine Mists by Heidi Swapp
• Rhinestones by Prima
• Twine by Maya Road
• Pen by Faber Castell
• Adhesives by Helmar
• Carstock by Bazill

Thanks for dropping by! 

Crate Paper Pretty Party Mini Book

Hi everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today.

I did another mini book this month! It's a record for me. I don't do a lot of minis. The Smash book that I did earlier in the month was purposefully done, but this one just happened. Do you ever find that you change your mind about a project a million times before finally settling on a game plan? That's what happened here.

First, I started out to make a single page layout, my usual favourite type of project. I had too many pictures though. So, then I thought that I would do a double layout, but I haven't done one in so long that I just didn't know where to start and how to layout it out well. Then, I started out doing a single page layout with hidden pictures in a mini-book-on-a-page type idea, but it got too bulky and it turned into this mini book. Anyway, I'm rambling...I hope you like it! I rather like how it turned out.

I used this gorgeous new ruffled trim from Maya Road on the cover. I misted mine to make it a bit darker. It comes in a very pretty soft pink and a very versatile antiqued colour.



Here are the first two inner pages. I used a small kraft bag to contain my journalling card. The doilies and the pages were die cut out of 12 X 12 patterned paper with my Silhouette Cameo.



I used a lot of the Pretty Party chipboard on this project. I placed pictures of our cupcakes on top of the chipboard cake stand. A lot of the stickers on this project were left over from Crate's Emma's Shoppe line. I love that you can mix their lines like this.



I asked my daughter to write down all of her favourite moments from the party and then I copied them out on little strips of paper and added them to the last page of the mini book. My title was done with my Cameo as were the 1, 2 and 3 die cuts. I added epoxies from Epiphany Crafts on top of the die cuts for some interest.



Finally, here's the back of the book. I didn't want to leave it plain, so I added a half of a left over doily from an earlier page and an accent cut paper.



Supplies: Crate Paper papers, stickers and chipboard, trim by Maya Road, ribbons by Mokuba and Hug Snug, stamps by Stampin' Up and Hampton Art, Silhouette Cameo, Epiphany Crafts epoxies and tools, wood die cut by Kaiser Craft, cork by Lifestyle Crafts, twine by May Arts, alphabet stickers and die cut by Sassafras, mists by Ranger, thread by Coats & Clark.

Thanks for dropping by! As always, I would love to hear your thoughts about my project.

Some More Smash and Some Friday Faves

Hi everyone! It's Kate here again today. I would like to share more of my Smash book with you and show you some of my favourites in the store right now.

Here is one of my favourites from the shop. This is the 'Journal' Smash Folio. I like this one better than the pink one that I'm using. I find this one more versatile.

Here's another page out of my Smash book. This page documents how my horse, Cash, was really green (untrained) when I got him and that he was especially afraid of water. It took quite a lot of convincing to get him in the water. This is a must for an Eventing horse, so I was pretty determined to get him in! Once he was in, he thought it was fun to splash around.

You can see my background stamp a little better in this photo. I created the horse Silhouette file myself.

That brings me to another of my store favourites. I used this Pretty Party chipboard in my Smash book quite a bit. I can't get enough of Crate!

This is my favourite page from my Smash book so far. I love these pictures of my youngest on a horse for the first time. You can tell by the look on my face that I'm a lot more excited about it than she is! I want my kids to love the same things that I do so badly; scrapbooking, horses and skiing.The folded doily is a Silhouette America die cut. You can see that I used a lot of Crate's Pretty Party here and some of the new Studio Calico Hey Day combined with some Sassafras stuff that I have been hoarding.

Here's another close up.

If you miss Sassafras as much as I do, you don't want to miss out Studio Calico's Hey Day. It was designed in collaboration with Sassafras. Basic Grey's Soleil collection was also designed in collaboration with Sassafras, and it will be in the store soon as well!

Here's the last page that I would like to share with you. This one is a journal page about things that I want to change about myself or that I feel I need to work on.

Here's another of my recent favourites in the store. Aren't they the most amazing buttons ever? They are part of Basic Grey's Paper Cottage collection.

Last, but certainly, not least, there is so much new Maya Road stock in the Let's Capture Our Memories store right now that I don't know which one I'm most excited about. I think that my favourite item is probably this vintage trim. It would go very well with just about any of the paper collections currently out.

Thanks so much for making it down to the bottom of my very long post! Have a great weekend! Kate

Smash Book

Hi Everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today sharing part of my Smash book. It's still a work in progress, but I have quite a bit of it done to show you (more on Friday).

As you can see, I altered the cover. I found it a bit 'blah' and I wanted to hide the Smash logo. I coloured the kraft part of the book with a Faber Castell Gelato and then sprayed it with water to blend it in. This made the debossing on the cover stand out a lot more. I did the machine stitching on the Crate Paper Pretty Party chipboard pieces and the border stickers to make them look as though they are stitched right onto to the cover.

Here's a close up of the 'About Me' title on the cover.

These are the first two pages. These two pages are about my last horse. I don't own him anymore and I really miss him, so these pictures are very special to me. We are at a horse show here and my (new at the time) husband was helping me a lot at shows. He was there to hold my horse when I needed an extra pair of hands and to calm my nerves (I'm a bit of a nervous wreck at horse shows). I used Crate Paper's Pretty Party for most of the book, with a few odds n' ends added here and there.

Here's a close up. I hid some of the journalling in a small kraft paper bag. The heart is cut out of a piece of raw canvas and coloured with Dylusions ink. I used pink Jillibean Soup Alphabeans stickers for the letters.

These two pages are of my first horse. I have lots of fond memories of him. He was a sweet horse and he loved to do his job. He was a good jumper and loved to show off at shows. On these two pages I used more Crate Paper Pretty Party and I also used some Jillibean Soup Neopolitan Bean Bisque, a Maya Road kraft doily, a Jenny Bowlin stamp and some other random embellishments.

In this close up shot, you can see the Jenny Bowlin stamp that I used for the horse show ribbon. This stamp is so fun on horse-related and kid-related projects. I love using it.

That's all that I have got for today. I hope that you will drop by again on Friday. I have more to share with you then! Thanks for looking! :)

Friday Faves!

It's another fabulous Friday and time to swoon over some store favourites at Let's Capture Our Memories. I'm sure that you have already scoped out the latest goodies in the store, but just in case you missed something, I will point out a few of my own favourites. ;)

These cute little bottles from 7 Gypsies are a lot of fun. I like them for beach layouts or altered items. For example, when we went on our Caribbean cruise, I saved some white sand from St. Martin. I added it to one of these little bottles and glued it onto an altered frame. It looks really cute and adds a memento from our trip to the project.

Next up, we have Heidi Swapp Color Magic paper. I love this stuff! It's so much fun to play with and the possibilities are endless!

Here's an example of a project that I did using one of these papers for a background. I chose to do a soft colour effect. This paper takes bold colours very well as well.

These are new from Jillibean Soup, they're called 'Banner Bites'. You can't go wrong with these punchy little stickers for only $1.50! Add a toothpick to make them into a flag, or use them with twine or on their own.

Here's another fun product from the store, Studio Calico wood veneer cameras. These are fun and adorable. You can paint them, stain them with ink or leave them raw. I used them on my altered frame above.

Last, but not least, one of my must-have tools is the Ranger Inkssentials Heat It Craft Tool. I love to heat emboss on anything and everything. To create more interest and texture on a layout, I will often take a large background stamp, like the new Unity Christy Tomlinson stamps, and stamp all over my page with watermark ink, then I add embossing powder and heat emboss the paper. It's fun and satisfying. I had another heat embosser before this one and it died on me. Donna Downey swears that these are the best ones out there and I'm now convinced that she's right about that.

Thanks for tuning in!

Kate

Hello Sunshine with Simple Stories Summer Fresh

Hi everyone! It's Kate here today sharing a Simple Stories Summer Fresh layout. I think the thing that I love most about Simple Stories products is how fast and easy it is to come up with a really beautiful page. They really do make it simple. There's so much interest and fun elements on their products.

This layout is of my youngest daugher in her cute little strawberry bathing suit from Gymboree. I swear that Gymboree must look at scrapbook paper and plan around that, or maybe scrapbook companies look for inspiration from Gymboree! We are at Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls in these pictures. She loved the outdoor pool and wanted to spend most of her time there. That was fine with me, we had a lot of fun playing together in the water. The pool has a gradual slope at the front of it instead of stairs making it very toddler-friendly. It's almost like a beach. She doesn't want to be held all the time in pools - we're in the "I do it!!!" stage, so this spot was perfect for her.

I got some inspiration from fellow design team member, Michelle Gallant here. She added rhinestones to the centres of the flowers on her recent layout and I liked that idea, so I have done it here as well. Thanks Michelle! As usual, I have used my sewing machine a lot to add a little extra fun to the the page. I made the flower out of an old pair of jeans and a sizzix die. I just added some bling from My Mind's Eye, a red button, some pins and an epoxy shape from Epiphany Crafts. Fun and easy! The 'hello' part of the title is Simple Stories alphabet stickers and the 'Sunshine' part of the title was cut out of some Simple Stories paper with my Silhouette Cameo.

I poped up the mason jar sticker with 3D foam adhesive, and added the twine around the top of the jar and some brads to the centres of the pinwheels.

Thanks for looking.

Kate
www.scrapsation.com

Supplies

• Simple Stories Summer Fresh papers and stickers
• Twine from The Twinery
• Thread by Coats & Clark
• Silhouette Cameo
• Pen by Staedtler
• Adhesives by Helmar
• Rhinestones
• My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline stick pins and pearl stickers

Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic and Crate Paper Card

Hi Everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today and I would like to share some of my favourite products in the store and a card that I made.

First, the card. I created this card with Crate Paper's Paper Heart Collection (on sale in the store!) along with some Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic embellishments and a Sassafras die cut (I hoard these).  This card is a tri-fold spin card. I got the cut file from The Silhouette America store and cut it out with my beloved Silhouette Cameo. If someone asked me to decide between my husband and my Cameo, it would be a difficult decision!

Here's a photo of the card lying flat.

...And a close up shot.

Here are a few of the products that I used from the store. These papers are on for only $0.35! You can't go wrong! These papers are so versatile, you can mix and match them with a lot of different collections.

I also used these two products from Heidi Swapp. I love the sparkly Pennants and the Sugar Stix are a lot of fun too.

Another product that I'm really loving right now is the Sugar Chic Buzz Words. These are epoxy stickers with a lot of shine.

I find that they go with a lot of different papers and they are quite versatile. I love to combine them with alphabet stickers for page titles. For example, you could use American Crafts Thickers to spell out, 'You are' and then add either the 'Fabulous' or 'Beautiful' buzz word stickers.

Thanks for dropping by today! I would love to hear your thoughts on my card.

Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic and Color Magic Layout

Hi everyone! It's Kate Vickers here today. I just want to share a layout that I created with Heidi Swapp's Sugar Chic line. I love the bold prints and bright colours in this line. It's been a lot of fun to work with.

For this layout I started off with a base of Color Magic paper and I inked the edges with some blue ink by Stampin' Up. Next, I randomly sprayed the inside here and there with homemade pink mist (water + ink + a few drops of gum arabic + PearlEx powder). I love the subtle effect it created. It really brings out the colours in my Photoshop edited pictures.

 

Here's a little tip with photos, if your pictures don't match your paper - print them in black and white or sepia instead. My daughter was wearing a dark purple dress in this photo and it wasn't going to work with this paper, so I decided to go with black and white. However, both my girls have very striking blue eyes inherited from their Dad, and I didn't want to lose that in the close up shot used in this layout, so I edited the photos in Photoshop to be partially black and white and partially in colour (her eyes and her cheeks have colour).

Heidi Swapp's Sentiment Storage elements are a pleasure to use.  I love being able to hide my journalling with such a pretty embellishment.

 

I fussy cut a lot of the flowers out of one piece of the Heidi Swapp paper and then embellished it with Viva Decor Pearl Pens and some 3D foam dots.

 

I adore using the Heidi Swapp Color Magic alphabet stickers seen here. Don't you hate it when you can't find the right alphabet stickers for a layout? Well, this is the solution! Where was I going to get bright yellow alphabet stickers from?

 

Supplies 

• Heidi Swapp Color Magic and Sugar Chic papers, alphabet stickers, Sentiment Storage, banners, and embellishments
• Silhouette Cameo with a Heidi Swapp cutting file from Silhouette America
• Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic digital brush
• Photoshop CS5
• Pens by Faber-Castell, Tombow and Reminisce
• Inks by Ranger and Stampin' Up
• Windsor & Newton Gum Arabic
• PearlEx Powder
• Viva Decor Pearl Pen in Lilac
• Adhesives: Helmar 450, Premium Craft Glue, ZapDots and ScrapDots
• Rhinestones
• Thread by Coats & Clark
  

Thanks for joining me here today! Let me know what you think of my project.