Practical Scrappers: On Trend with Stencils (and Birthdays!)

Happy Monday! This is the start of a super busy week starting with the Broncos Monday night game tonight. Always a big one in the Peeples house. Can't miss a chance to watch the Raiders go down in flames. :) Homecoming is this week as well and that means a full calendars worth of activities for the high schooler. Can't wait to see him all decked out in his outfit Friday night.

Today you are lucky enough to get two posts in one. Somehow last week Blogger screwed up and the post I had scheduled for last Monday never happened. So I am going to share this weeks project as well as the one that should have shown up last Monday. First up is a layout I made using stencils. Stencils have become pretty popular and there are tons of ways you can use them. I chose to pull out my gesso and Tim Holtz distress pads to use with a Studio Calico stencil I recently purchased. 

I love the texture this adds to the layout. You can see it so much better in real life, but the gesso gives a little bit of dimension to the page and adds that visual interest. I tried to get the gesso on pretty thick to make sure the bubbles came out clear. After the gesso dried I dabbed a makeup sponge onto my ink pad and rubbed over the dried gesso. The gesso resists the ink pretty well so you get that great contrast. 

You can kind of see the roughness of the gesso here. That is the texture that I love so much. I think next time I will try a thicker modeling paste to see how that works. I think I've found a new technique and tool that I am definitely falling in love with! How about you? Do you work with stencils and what is your favorite way to use them? Share your ideas!!

Last Monday's On Trend was all about the birthdays. I definitely was glad to work on that one as we are in the midst of major birthday season for our families. Seems like we are celebrating just about every week! I chose to beef up my card supply and used my washi supply to help out. Here are the three birthday cards I created.

Love that washi! So practical and so fun to use. All these cards took were a little washi, a little ink, some stamps and a few embellishments. Simple to make and super cute. 

Don't forget to head over and check out the On Trend post at Practical Scrappers. There are some great looking projects on the blog.

Be back soon!

Lisa

S.W.A.T Drill with Fancy Pants

Good morning! I am excited to share the newest drill and layout from the S.W.A.T team today. It is a sketch with a twist challenge and the twist is to use twine. Bev Code provided our sketch and I loved it from the moment I saw it.

Awesome sketch, right? I knew right away which picture I was going to scrap because my scrappy friend Stacey had just given me a 5x7 picture of Chris and his best friend Creighton along with several papers and embellishments from the Fancy Pants Memories Captured collection. She had bought the same supplies for herself and we were each going to scrap our own layout and then see what we each came up with. It's a way for us to "scrap together" while still far apart. I have mentioned how much I miss my best scrappy friend, right?? Anyway, here is the layout I came up with.

What an awesome picture, huh?? Don't let those two cute smiles fool you. When these two are together you never know what will happen next. I love looking at this photo and remembering how super cute these kiddos were and how much fun they had growing up together. Now they are both in junior high and still cute in that junior high kind of way (wouldn't they love me saying that?)

I won't leave you hanging. I plan to share Stacey's take on this photo challenge soon. In the meantime why don't you take a stab at Bev's sketch and link up to the S.W.A.T. site. There is a gift certificate to 3 Scrappy Boys at stake! Don't forget to get your twine on there too.

Lisa

Crazy!

You know those periods in your life that just seem crazy busy? All of the sudden that is my life...non stop craziness. I just got back from a surprise trip coordinated by my husband to celebrate my 40th birthday which was last week and our 20th wedding anniversary which was a couple of months ago but went by mostly unrecognized because I was only a couple of days post surgery. He was awesome enough to plan a beach getaway, something I have been wanting to do for awhile now. He and I haven't been away on a trip together for years. We stayed at a friend's place in Del Mar, California and it was amazing. Less than a block from the beach, ocean views from the fabulous front deck. We relaxed, did a little exploring, mostly spent time sitting at the beach and just had some fabulous, uninterrupted catch up time together. There was a piece of me that would have stayed forever but alas we are back to reality and schedules and commitments. Yesterday alone I made 6 trips to the school and back...6! Ridiculous.

That isn't all that's taken my time. The weekend before we left on our trip I was surprised when my doorbell rang and my best friend was standing there, suitcase in hand and plans to spend the weekend hanging out with me. We had the best weekend! We met up with a couple of my super, amazing friends on Saturday for a fun birthday lunch, sat and talked and talked and talked, and this will make our husbands proud...even watched the Huskers game on t.v.! We made it to Archiver's to scrap on Sunday afternoon which was absolutely fabulous and so very normal for us. It made me miss her closeness even more. Thanks, Stacey for taking time to come and see me and for the surprise you were so good to keep! I know it was hard for you :)

I am behind in posting a couple of projects that went live while I was on my little trip. Forgive me for being late! First up is our first September drill at S.W.A.T. The challenge is to incorporate 3 S's into your project: stamping, stitching and spraying. I decided to create a two page layout of Grandpa's visit by train when the boys were younger.

I sprayed on the gray striped paper with a gray mist to give a little bit of the mist look without it standing out. The arrows are stamped and I faux stitched at the top of the page and stamped stitches over the arrows. I wanted the photos to take a little more center stage since they weren't super close ups. I liked the pop of orange against all the gray to give some fun interest to the page.

The second layout I have today is for the On Trend Monday at Practical Scrappers. We were to use gesso on the layout. I am pretty new to this stuff and did something pretty basic since I am just starting to experiment with it. You will definitely have to check out the other designers projects as there are some pretty amazing things they have done! For my project I used the gesso and painted a white frame for my photo. I took an embossing folder and pressed it into the wet gesso to add a little texture. When dried it didn't stand out quite the way I thought it would. I would go thicker for the next time and maybe add some color to help the pattern stand out. That's the fun of experimenting. It gives you better ideas for the next time.

That's it for me today. Heading out to run some errands and catch up some more from my time away. Have a super week.
Lisa

Catching up!

Last week was a whirlwind with the boys starting school and all the activities in full swing. Saturday we had Mom's camp with the football team and that night was the Silent Auction fundraiser for the team which turned out awesome. All that added up to CRAZY for me and a lot of catching up for this week.

Saturday a new drill went up on the S.W.A.T blog. The new challenge is a sketchy challenge with a twist. The twist? Pull out those stickers and use them up! Now we aren't talking Thickers here. That doesn't count.

Here is my layout. I doubled up on this one and used the sketch for the second half of my layout. I used an older Bo Bunny line that I bought long ago knowing that I had and would have more than enough zoo pages coming up since we love going to the zoo.

I used stickers to help make the border on the right side of the page and backed and popped up a few more stickers from the line to add some fun and dimension to the page.  Here is the sketch you will be working with if you come over and join in the challenge. There is a gift certificate to 3 Scrappy Boys up for grabs!

My second layout of the day is an older layout of Nathan and his fifth grade pictures for the Back to School post on Practical Scrappers. I look at this picture and then look at my 6 foot son who towers over me and has muscles and can't believe it's the same kid. (And yes, I am about that far behind in school pictures!) If only they would stay so young!  I also used an older Bo Bunny line for this layout. Bo Bunny seems to be the theme of the day.

Off to catch up on cleaning, bills, errands etc. Have a great week!

Lisa

Sunbursts with Practical Scrappers

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow.... ok. Done with that. But tomorrow is the first day of school and after a crazy summer with teenage boys I can't say I'm too heartbroken. Maybe a tiny bit, but the whole schedule thing and a little bit of structure is really needed here. And with school starting it means football games start soon and this football mama is looking forward to that!

Today I have a layout created for the On Trend post at Practical Scrappers. We are focusing on sunbursts today. I love the look of sunbursts and have created several layouts and cards using the fun rays. For today's project I decided to take a little different turn and created a cover for the notebook that I keep to house all of my crafty ideas, deadlines, random thoughts, title ideas, sketches...etc. Up to this point it has just been a boring red composition notebook, not much to spark creativity. Now I'm loving the look of it!

Love these papers from the Echo Park Here and Now collection. I decided to go bright and a little bit girly since I don't have that chance too often. I live in a boy world so I try to add some cheer and girl wherever I can! I love the sunbursts and the fun Epiphany Craft hearts. The only do over I really would love to have done is the background. My original idea didn't work so I had to cover it up a bit and make the best of it. I'm getting so much better at embracing my mistakes and moving forward but it sure wasn't easy to not just trash it and start a new one. Only the fact that my notebook is already half filled with ideas and begging for me to continue kept me going :)

Happy Monday and here's to a great rest of the week!
Lisa

On Trend: Negative Space Layouts

It's Monday and a very busy one at that! Making a quick stop in between haircuts and shopping for school supplies, groceries and orthodontist appts. to drop off a page made for the On Trend team at Practical Scrappers. This weeks trend involves using negative space in a layout or card. Negative space is the space left when something has been cut out or removed. It is definitely something we are seeing more and more of in the scrapping world.

First my layout:

Does that girl look happy or what?? This is my niece Mikayla on her twelfth birthday. If there was ever a little girl more obsessed with horses and dreaming of owning her own one day I'm not sure where to find her! This girl lived and breathed horses. She was more than surprised to find out that her present that year was her very own horse, and we were lucky enough to be in town on the day they took her to surprise her. It was such a fun thing to be involved in.

In the close up below you can see that I fussy cut a few arrows from my patterned paper and added some embellishments in the open space. I also used a chipboard title and backed it with cardstock and patterned paper to make a title piece. I don't have a close up here but the little heart is also backed in the pink chevron paper bringing a little fun to the middle of the heart.

I love the look of using negative pieces and though I didn't use it here one of the ways I've started to do this is by using my Cricut. There is so much that can be done with a die cut machine like the Cricut or the Silhouette. Are any of you jumping on the negative trend? I'd love to see some of your pages. Feel free to link them up here or on the Practical Scrappers blog.

Lisa

Trendy Triangles

August is here and I'm having a hard time believing it! I'm also having a super hard time believing that this is the last week of summer vacation for the boys. There is a piece of me ready for the scheduled part that comes with school and the other big piece of me that is wanting to slow this week down and pretend that it's not over yet. 

Today is the first Saturday of the month and that means it's new drill day on the S.W.A.T. blog. This time it is all about the triangles. Triangles are popping up all over the place so we want to see how you use them. I ended up using tiny triangles to make a small banner accent for a card. I used different shapes and sizes instead of going with uniform pieces. I like to think of them as small but mighty as I love the way they added such a cute look to the frame and filled up the open space so perfectly.

Now it's your turn. Head over to S.W.A.T. and check out the designs from the other team members. Big, small, background pieces, embellishments...there are tons of ways to use triangles. We'd love to see your ideas too. A $20 certificate to 3 Scrappy Boys is definitely a prize worth playing for!

Lisa