Valentine Make and Take

This is the Make and Take that I designed for the LSS near me. It has been going for about 3 weeks now. The stamped Bingo board is actually a combination of stamps. I took a Prima Bingo stamp and carefully cut off the word Bingo. (I kept that part in case I ever want a regular Bingo board later.) Then I used alphabet stamps to spell the word ADORE. I put them all onto one acrylic block, so the stamping went pretty fast. The stamped watermark at the top and bottom of the tag are a Studio G stamp. I used the Fiskars Apron Lace border punch, and threaded ribbon through the punched edge to lace up the center to form a sleeve for the tag. Cuttlebug embossing folders were used on both the sides of the sleeve and also to emboss the punched heart (Fiskars punch). After putting the brads through the punched (EK) flower centers, I dabbed the brads with red Stickles. The tag base is an Accu-cut design. The sleeve was just a straight piece of cardstock folded to fit around the tag. It was folded before the edges were punched.

Happy Valentines Day!

Sisters layout

This one is pretty simple. It's a page about my sister and me. I forgot to check the brand names of the paper before gluing it to the cardstock. The font for the title is Windsong. The font for the text is University Times Roman.

So far all three layouts I've done for the challenge have been made using only items from my stash.

Delaware Seashore layout

Materials used: CTMH stamp and versamark ink to stamp the background cardstock; Cuttlebug and Sizzix dies, Martha Stewart punch (title mat), Sizzlit wave border die, Sizzix wave embossing folder (title background), and I used the Grasshopper font.

The shell above the upper left photo is for a pull-out tag, which has my hidden journaling. The journaling on the other shells was done by printing first on cardstock, then lining up the die as best I could. It took several tries, and I wasted almost an entire sheet of cardstock, but it did finally work.

Basketball layout

Above is shown the finished layout, the background paper being the one I stamped (previous post). I used Close to My Heart stamps to create the "patterned paper" background, a Cuttlebug folder to emboss the letters and photo mat, and Karen Foster stickers. The blue weathered paper on the right side and at the lower left corner is called Blueberry Pie by the Paper Loft. If you click on the above layout image, you can see a slightly larger version.

2-step Stamping: Creating a multi-colored background with stamps

Above: Step 1 is to set up two acrylic blocks, one block for
each color you wish to use, with different stamps on
each block, spaced so they will "fit" within each other.
See additional instructions in my blog post below.

Above: Step 2 is to stamp one color, then stamp the other color
right overtop. If you set up your blocks right, they'll fit perfectly.

Below: Step 3 is to use a sea sponge and a stamp pad to sponge
and swipe additional color on, so there isn't so much white.

What do you do when you don't have the right paper, or the right colors to go with your photos?

Make your own! Today I wanted to work on a basketball layout, but the papers I had just didn't look right with my pictures. However, I had a couple of basketball stamp sets by Close to my Heart. I don't know if they even still sell them (I'm not a rep), but one was "Nothing but Net" and the other was called "Shootin' Hoops."

I wanted my paper to be two colors, not just one, so I set up two 4x6 inch clear acrylic blocks. One block had the stamps for the first color (Autumn Terracotta) and the other had the stamps for the second color (Outdoor Denim). They had to line up, but since the blocks were clear, that wasn't difficult. I just had to hold one above the other. They couldn't touch, since they would stick, and boy, would they be hard to pry apart! (Yup, I did it once--I was more careful after that.)

After I stamped each color, I used a sea sponge to dab specks of more blue so it wouldn't be so white in the background, and I swiped the ink pad on the outside edges of the 12x12 cardstock, too.

This kind of thing is one reason I'm such a slow scrapper. It's not that my pages are phenomenal, but I often end up making either my paper or my embellishments (or both).