Birthday Inspiration

Welcome to the Studio!

Saturday the 24th was my birthday and I received a bunch of sweet wishes from lots of friends, both scrappy and non. I just wanted to share some of the lovely cards I received and the inspiration that followed.

Starting in the top right-hand corner, the shabby chic cupcake is from my friend, Joy. She goes to the same aqua-aerobics class that Mom & I do. She refers to us as her "swimmin wimmin." She has some awesome photos of this beautiful card she made for me up on her blog, Purtty Papers. She also has pictures of the cool gatefold thank you card she made for Mom & I as well. She's super-talented and very Cricut/Gypsy savvy.

The next card I want to talk about, bottom right-hand corner, is a sweet little cupcake card from my friend, Stacy. And of course, it's in my FAVORITE COLORS, hot pink and lime green. And I know that under all that yummy pink icing is chocolate! It's absolutely wonderful. Stacy even added Liquid Glass to the cherry. All I can say is YUM!

The card in the bottom left-hand corner is from my BFF, Julia, in Louisiana. She came to visit over the summer and we had a totally scrappy, fantastically fun time together. I miss her bunches!

The last card is from my mother-in-law...it's a cute card about the nutty family I married into...and that's no lie;)

I had such a wonderful birthday and thank all of you for the good wishes and all the love! And the other amaZING thing that happened, my loving (enabling) husband has done the pre-order for the new KNK Zing electronic diecutting machine. It can cut all sorts of materials, chipboard, grunge board, stencil material, fabric, felt...the list goes on. If you're in the market for a new cutter, check out this sweet machine.

Even though it was my birthday, I took some time to make, what else, birthday cards! Here are two cards and a gift bag I was inspired to create...



The card and gift bag set above was for my hubby's boss, Shannon. She's quite the sailing enthusiast. She's also kind of a techie like him, so the iSail t-shirt was a must.


The second card I made is for another of my hubby's co-workers. I used the "For the Record" paper collection by Echo Park. I love the colors! I didn't have any flowers to match, so I had to make some. I used the Posey Patch stamps and dies from Heartfelt Creations. And thanks to Joy, I had the perfect color of seam binding to match too! I like the way it turned out and I hope you liked it too.

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time, Scrap Sassy!

Technique Blog Hop - Multicolor Motif

Welcome to the Studio!

It's Technique Blog Hop time again. This month there are fourteen of us highlighting the Multicolor Motif Technique as shown on page 110 in the Autumn/Winter 2011 Idea Book! This blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start wherever you want and continue through to see all the fabulous artwork incorporating this technique. If you would like to start from the beginning, please visit Debi's Blog.

You will also find a listing of all participants and their blog addresses at the end of this post if you should get lost or want to reference a blog along the way. Let’s get started!

If you are coming from Judy Faye's Blog, you are on the right track!



I love autumn with its crisp chill in the air, the crunch the fallen leaves under your feet, and Halloween. How could a holiday that revolves around costumes and candy be bad? {Notwithstanding the fact that I eat ALL the left over Halloween candy and gain 20 lbs.}
For this fall season, I decided to make a Halloween card showcasing the Multicolor Motif technique. I used both CTMH Sunset ink and Versamark with black embossing powder to create my "Happy Halloween Bat" sentiment.

The easiest way for me to ink my stamp was to turn it over on my scrap desk so that the stamp was facing up. Using the corner of my ink pad, I carefully inked the "Happy Halloween" portion. Then using an embossing pen (or you could use the Versamark refill and a paintbrush) , I "colored" the bat. I huffed and puffed on the stamp a few times and stamped my image. Then I used embossing powder on the bat and heated it.

I used a new technique I just learned to cut out my bat/sentiment. I used a Spellbinders circle die. First, I trimmed the edges of the bat's wings and slid them to the top of the die (the non-cutting side) and centered "Happy Halloween" inside the circle die and ran it through my Bigshot. It didn't cut off the tips of the bat's wings since they were on top of the die and I got a perfect circle too! Cool, huh? Why didn't I think of that sooner?

Supply List: Mischief Workshop Kit, G1029; Beware stamp set, D1381; CTMH Stamp Pads in Grey Wool, Black, Sunset, and Red Barn; Bitty Brads Metal Assortment, pewter, Z1368; Embossing Pen, Z724. {The little "flags" and the "Haunting We Will Go" were zip strips and leftover scraps from the Mischief paper.}

My card was based on a sketch by Becky Fleck. You can visit her site, Pagemaps, to get sketches for layouts and cards too! If you look at this month's edition of Cardmaps, you may just recognize one of the sketches;)

Thanks for stopping by! Please continue onto Melissa's Blog where you will find some additional artwork highlighting this technique! Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of my variation and happy hopping!

The Hopping List:
1. Debi Barber
2. Shirley Ross
3. Neely Dean
4. Judy Faye Garner
5. Kelly George {You're Here!}
6. Melissa Robinson
7. Rebecca Sorge
8. Tonya Whitehurst
9. Sheila Wilkerson
10. Cherri Hardcastle
11. Rachel Ventura
12. Michelle Battatori
13. Wendy Kessler
14. Bethaney Harlan

More Inspiration for Christmas

In my usual cyber-travels, I came across a blog devoted to Christmas cards. They post weekly challenges and their design team gets the creative juices flowing. This week's challenge is vintage. I love the shabby chic/vintage look. I can't wait to started on my vintage creation. Please stop by their blog, Christmas Card Challenges, for some great ideas!

Fall Card

Welcome to the Studio!

This is just a quick post to share a card I finished today. I love fall! It's awesome that the weather is FINALLY cooling of here in central Alabama. I've been playing around with the CTMH Bliss paper pack, using up a few leftovers. That's what I used for this card. I also used CTMH Nature's Vein stamp set for the leaves, one of my faves. The flower is a stamp from Heartfelt Creations, Grande Flora and cut out with Spellbinders Blossom 3. I used it in one of my Nashville classes. I also used an old Hero Arts fall stamp that I've had forever. I did a resist technique on it by heat embossing with clear detail embossing powder on colonial white cardstock and then inking with creme brûlée and chocolate.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by. See you in a few days for the technique blog hop:)

Something To Hoot About!

Welcome to the Studio!


If you’re visiting from the Card A Day Blog, thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you come back again soon. If you haven’t been to the Card A Day Blog, please stop by over there. There is a bunch of very talented ladies doing some awesome creating. I’m so excited to be a part of it.

For this week, we have a theme to follow, which is owls. I adore owls. You’ll get to see my creation, Olivia the Owl, below. We also had an optional sketch to use by one of my all-time favorite sketch/scrapbook artists, Becky Fleck. So how could I resist? I use her sketches all the time for my layouts and just adore her. She’s a sweetie, and oh so talented. You can find her and all her cool sketches for both cards and scrapbook layouts over at Pagemaps.

Here’s the sketch my card was based on…

And here’s my card…




Supply List:
(All products are Close To My Heart unless otherwise noted.)
Cardstock: Colonial White, Crème Brulee, Desert Sand, Cocoa, Sorbet, Olive, Sunset
Inks: Chocolate, Desert Sand, Sorbet, Sunset, Crème Brulee
Patterned Paper: Elemental Collection
Cocoa grosgrain ribbon
Other: White gel pen, Alene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue, Thank you stamp (Stampin Up),
Tools: Bigshot, Quickutz scalloped border die, Spellbinders scalloped circles, EK Success oak leaf punch, Electronic Diecutting Machine, Make The Cut Software

When I do a project, I like to start by cutting out all my pieces first, laying everything out and glue them down last. That way I can move everything around when I’m adding embellishments, etc.


My card is 6x6 (card base cut at 6x12) out of Colonial White cardstock. I inked the edges in Desert Sand using a sponge dauber. The next layer is Crème Brulee cardstock cut at 5.5 x 5.5. I inked the edges in Chocolate. The patterned paper is from the Elemental Collection. It is cut at 5 1/8 x 5 1/8. I inked the edges in Desert Sand as well. I used Sorbet cardstock cut at 4.5 x 4.5 and inked in chocolate for the last square layer. I again used paper from Elemental to cut out a scalloped border strip. The scalloped circles are cut out of Colonial White and Cocoa cardstock. I left the Colonial White scallop in the die and colored the edges using a sponge dauber and Crème Brulee ink. The die acts as a stencil. I like the extra dimension it adds without any bulk.

I attached the patterned paper to the Crème Brulee cardstock and then the Sorbet cardstock on top of the patterned paper. Then I attached my scalloped strip and ribbon. Fold the ribbon over onto the back of the cardstock to hide those pesky “ribbon bits.”


{NOTE: I have not attached anything to my card base yet.}


I then glued the two scalloped circles together and got ready to put my owl together. She is 14 separate pieces. The bottom layer was cut out in Cocoa and is the entire owl shape, like a shadow. The rest of the pieces were cut out in various colors and inked with chocolate. The branch was cut out in Desert Sand cardstock and I used a woodgrain background stamp and Desert Sand ink to give it a tone-on-tone “woodsy” effect. For the leaves, I went totally old school and used a EK Success punch.

Remember these?!? I still have decorative edge scissors and I use them too!

I used my Xyron sticker maker for most of the owl pieces and put her together just like you would a paper piecing. I attached the branch to the scalloped circles and sat my owl on top. I used Fast Grab Tacky Glue to attach the leaf punches. When it was all together, I put adhesive on the back of the branch and the scalloped circle and attached it to my card front. After I had my entire card front together, I used my glue runner and put glue on my card base and then attached my card front.

Olivia The Owl:
She is a cute little piece of free clipart I found on the internet. Using Make The Cut (MTC) software, I pixel traced the image several times in order to make layers. I was then able to cut her out in several different pieces/colors. The branch is a file from Silhouette.

If you’d like to make your own “Olivia the Owl”, please email me at SassyScrapperAL@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to send the cut file to you in either .mtc (Make The Cut) or .svg (Scalable Vector Graphic). If you need it in another format, let me know and I’ll try to convert it;)

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time, Scrap Sassy!

Technique Blog Hop - Glossy Dimension

Welcome to the Studio!

It's Technique Blog Hop time again! This month there are 13 lucky bloggers highlighting the Glossy Dimension Technique as shown on Page 23 in the Autumn/Winter 2011 Idea Book. How many times have you purchased a product because you thought it was so cool and when you sat down to use it got that doe-in-the-headlights look? It's happened to me MANY times. I hope Liquid Glass (or Glossy Accents or Diamond Glaze) won't be one of those products.

This blog hop is a great big circle, so you can start wherever you want and continue through to see all the fabulous artwork incorporating this technique. If you would like to start from the beginning, please visit Debi's Blog. While there, you will also find a listing of all participants and their blog addresses if you should get lost or want to reference a blog along the way. Let’s get started!

If you are coming from Melissa's Blog, you are on the right track!



Here is a layout I worked on in Nashville. I've been "saving" my wings paper for the perfect layout and this was the one. What's a better way to show-off a fluttering Christmas light display than with this beautiful butterfly paper. The photos were taken at Bellingrath Gardens Magic Christmas in Lights.


I chose to use Liquid Glass on my title and to accent my diecut butterfly. It's like using a marker and coloring (And yes, you have to stay in the lines). Using the fine tip applicator, I just "traced" my letters and the detail top layer of my butterfly. Here's a close-up. You can see the shine on the letters and black area of the butterfly's wings. Now, did you know that Liquid Glass is a great adhesive for glitter (especially the glass glitter) and microbeads? Wanna stir things up? Put a few drops of Liquid Glass in a small container and mix in some Pearl Ex or Perfect Pearls to give your project a glossy, pearl-like finish. The possibilities are endless!



Supply List: Wings WOTG, Liquid Glass, colonial white buttons, CTMH Black Stamp pad, Cricut Expression, Make The Cut software, Quickutz/Lifestyle Crafts, border punches (EK Success and Fiskars), glitter (PK Glitz).

Thanks for stopping by! Please continue onto Tawnya Payton's Blog where you will find some additional artwork highlighting this technique! Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of my variation and happy hopping!

In case you got lost or want to start from the beginning, the hopping order is below:

1. Debi
2. Cherri
3. Rachel
4. Tonya W
5. Shirley
6. Judy Faye
7. Marianne
8. Melissa
9. Kelly - You Are Here!
10. Payton
11. Neely
12. Sheila
13. Becca

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time, Scrap Sassy!

Plans of Mice and Men...

I'm back in the Studio again. I had everything all set and ready to go so I could blog while in Nashville, post pictures, and keep everyone in the center of the action. NOT! Thanks to a wi-fi snafu, I could get and send emails but that's about it. Blogsy, my iPad app, gave about thirty error messages I had never seen before and couldn't update the blog.

So, without further adieu, here's the "missing posts."

We arrived in Nashville on Thursday afternoon, took a quick tour of our surroundings, and headed to the CKC check-in to get our tickets. Here are some photos of the hotel. It is HUGE and absolutely beautiful. This was my second time visiting the Gaylord Opryland Resort and it still took my breath away.

The food court and shopping area.





The stained glass portico in the lobby that greeted us on check-in.

One of the many water features.

Since we had arrived early enough, Mom and I decided to take the Thursday Night Technique Workshop. It was three solid, fast-paced hours of new techniques. We did so many layouts, I lost count! My favorite techniques were the crepe paper flowers, a glass pendant, and a really cool (and simple) piercing technique, which I intend to share with all of you.

Mom and our new friend, Carol, at the Thursday workshop.

We got back to the room and crashed for the night. I wish I could say I slept. I kept waking up every few hours and looking at the clock to see if it was time to get up yet.

My second day began in the vendor faire at 9:00 a.m. I made a quick trip in to a few booths that were on the top of my shopping list, Nicole Peterson Designs (awesome vintage findings and kits)and to Purple Daisy Designs to pick up some scrappy apparel, then it was off to my first class, In Bloom. I really enjoyed all my classes and got some uber hauls. We'll have show in tell as soon as I can photograph everything;)

Here are some shots of the vendor faire...

I don't want to give y'all sensory overload. I'll be following up soon with pictures of class projects, purchases, new techniques, and some finished layouts! And I'll be sharing some of my favorite vendors (and their websites) so you can get all the cool stuff for yourself.

Until next time, Scrap Sassy!