The kit that keeps on giving!

Yes, I am still working with the June kit, Amusement Park! It's such a fun and colourful kit, perfect for summer photos like the one used here. were you lucky enough to get your hands on this kit before it sold out?!

The papers (except the grid paper), the chipboard numbers and the green edge are from the kit. The rest is from my personal stash.


I wanted to show you a close-up of my layout. I added some Diamond Glaze to the "bubbles", I tought it worked great with a pic of my daughter in the pool!


Enjoy your day!
Claude

tip of the day.....

tearing paper....I know pretty simple...BUT you can get different looks the way you tear your paper. for instance tearing lay your paper flat then pull the paper towards you, it will show the white core:

If you didn't want to see the white core you could just use the other side of the tear:

*other fun tips of tearing:

-ink/distress the white core

-roll the torn edges up towards you so they are rounded

-crumple the torn paper

Help with a title!

I really love how this layout has started out -- I saw a rainbow on another pp and copied it by tearing up random sized strips of colored paper from the JUNE kit and stitching them on to simulate a rainbow. 

But, now, I'm stuck! I can't think of what a good title should be -- what if anything -- should be added to the layout. It doesn't feel complete -and so I need your help! Any suggestions would be appreciated!!!

Thanks and hope you've already ordered your JULY kit -- it is simply fantastic!!!

"Vintage Sunrise" - get it quick!

July's "Vintage Sunrise" Scrapbook Circle kit is wonderful, of course! So many fun patterned papers including Cosmo Cricket Early Bird! I LOVE this paper! The colors are so pleasing to the eye...with so many options of combining this & that! I know there are a lot of you out there that are into the VINTAGE thing right now...this is perfect for you!

I decided that my first project with the July kit would be a card. I found that PageMaps posted some brand new CardMaps for June 2009, so I quickly found one that would allow me to use several pp's...like I said, there are so many, it just wouldn't be right to use just one!

Here's "You're Tweet!":

and a close up of the fun Jenni Bowlin button, Kaiser paper flower & tag:
Supplies used are all from the July kit:
Kraft cardstock
Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Cherry Pie - both sides :0]
Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Apron Strings
Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Sunrise
Sassafrass Cardstock Stickers Sweet Treats
Jenni Bowlin button
Kaiser paper flower - lime

To finish the card off, I did some straight & zig zag machine stitching and a hint of sanding.

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

July Kit >>>Vintage Sunrise<<< Is Here!

We are pleased to be able to share our July Kit with you. If you haven't seen the Cosmo Cricket Early Bird paper yet, you are in for a real treat!

If you want to be sure to get this kit and you are not a current subscriber, you can purchase it on the June Kit page of our site.

Kits will be shipping next week!

Cutting Out Patterns

I love cutting out patterns from pattern paper. Yes, this can be a tedious task but the end result is so very rewarding. In the layout below that I created with the June kit, I cut out the waves from the Fancy Pants pattern paper. I then proceed to highlight the edges with a white signo pen. This gives more definition to my pattern.

A couple of tips for cutting out patterns:
* you should use very sharp fine tip scissors or exacto knife
* working on a rubber type surface like a cutting mat helps a lot
* and the most important tip of all, don't rush!!! Because if you do go too fast, you might end up tearing the paper.

I hope this will inspire you to take your scissors to your pattern paper and cut out the shapes on it.



Happy creating!

Mélanie

Simple card - June Kit

Hello everyone, are you enjoying summer? We are having a blast here in the pool, it's nice to finally have a long stretch of warm weather!

So why did I decide to make a Christmas card this time of year? Was it to cool myself off? Am I going bonkers? No, that's not it at all, lol!

There are two main reeasons:
1. I wanted to show that a "summery" paper can be used for other things than summer layouts;
2. Cards magazine is having a call for holiday cards, so I figured I could send this one in.

I used the Snorkel line by Cosmo Cricket (Beach Towel for the background and Umbrellas for the ornements). The Jenni Bowlin rub-ons are also from the June kit.

As you can see, I hand-cut the circles for the ornaments so they are not even, but I don't mind that. I also pop-dotted the yellow one and the red one. You can't see it really well on the card, so here's a close-up


I hope you enjoyed, don't forget to link us to your work made with the June kit or even better yet, add it to our gallery!

tip of the day.....

today I want to talk about finding joy in the tools you have. Just recently I rediscovered some tools I owned. (Or in other words, I bought them or they were given to me and I put them away without ever really looking at them, sound familiar?)

This week I would like to talk about water color pencils. I'm not the best stamper in the world so we aren't going to look at my attempts. But did you know that you can color your stamped images with your water color pencils? Then, you can either paint them with a wet paint brush or with a water color blending pen? Here is a great video by HERO ARTS:

**Bonus tip: I have stamped and painted on cardstock and it works
too, but if you would like to buy water color paper you can**

a Title with a Flair

For this layout, I took my pencil and drew in the letters "HAWAII 1977" to fit into the wave. I love the way it turned out. You can try this by making your title to fit the shape of any of the patterns on your patterned paper! Make sure you use pencil first! Just in case!

Here is the whole layout:

July Layout Peek

Just wanted to share a layout I did yesterday using the upcoming July Kit. It features some paper from Sassafras Vintage Yummy and lots of paper from Cosmo Cricket Early Bird.

We are sponsoring the sketch at Inspired Blueprints this month and thought I'd use the sketch (#24) to create a layout. You can play along with them and enter for a chance to win our June Kit.Here's my take on the sketch. I don't usually start with sketches, but I really loved how quickly this sketch helped the layout come together. I'm also loving the beautiful colors of the Early Bird paper.
We only have 2 spots left for our July kit. Send me an email if you want to be on the list for this one. You won't want to miss out on it!

The full kit will be revealed on the 25th.

Chipboard as the Focus - Part 2

{I hope Danielle doesn't mind if I continue the theme of her fantastic post on Thursday which highlighted using chipboard! LOL!}

So today is FRIDAY...do I hear chants of TGIF? I so look forward to Fridays! For one, I get to share fun scrappy stuff with all of you here, and second, well, it's the start of another wonderful weekend!

Let's get to it, shall we? I'd like to share a layout with you that I created...inspired of course by a sketch! It is a wonderful sketch from the PageMaps blog: (& there's a contest, so you might want to go check it out!)



& here's my layout "age 14":



The chipboard accents are from the June kit here at Scrapbook Circle. Also from the June kit are the great patterned papers: Fancy Pants Summer Soiree-"Title Strips" & "Wave", Cosmo Cricket-Snorkel "Boardwalk". & I LOVE the Bazzill Edges in Lime...they are finding their way onto every one of my layouts lately!!!


& some close ups:



Like Danielle mentioned in the previous post, the chipboard included in the June Scrapbook Circle kit is AMAZING! It is perfect as is...but I just couldn't leave well enough alone :0) I sanded the edges of this kooky bird by Basic Grey-Lime Rickey. Isn't he just the craziest thing?




To anchor my title, I used a Jenni Bowlin Black Label Strip sticker from the May kit. The alphas are from my stash, but the fun chipboard numbers are also a part of the June Scrapbook Circle kit. Just love this chipboard by Sassafrass...so fun! & I thought perfect for a teenage birthday page!



& finally a close up of my journaling.


Well, that's it from me today! Here's wishing you a great weekend...hope you get some scrappy time!

Take care, Stacy

Using Chipboard As The Focus

I love chipboard. I love to embellish it, distress it, paint it. I just like to do whatever I can :D But then every once in a while, someone will come out with some chipboard that leaves me breathless. Well, hello, Sassafras Lass. Where have you been all my life? This chipboard is so gorgeous! I feel that you can take the chipboard and make your titles, and you can even use the chipboard as your focus. Here is one of my Layouts for June, and the chipboard I used. LOVE IT!!


I can't believe we are in the middle of June. It's nice and hot and humid in Texas. Here is hoping that you are ennjoying much more pleasant weather. I can't wait to show you what is up for next Thursday! Have a great weekend, and spoil your dad or husband. They deserve it :D Happy Father's Day!!
Much Love

Card Instructions *June Kit*

Hello everyone! Today I thought it would be fun to give you step by step instructions on how I created this card;



All supplies are from the June kit, except the white cardstock.

Instructions;

1) cut a 4.5 inches x 10 inches piece of white cardstock, fold in half
2) cut a piece of blue pattern paper 4.25 x 4.25 inches, distress edges with scissors or paper distresser, adhere to top part of the card, as done above (this creates the sky part)
3) cut a piece of green patter paper 4.5 inches x 1 inch, distress edges with scissors or paper distresser, adhere to bottom part of the card overlapping the blue paper (this creates the grass part)
4) using the bazzill deco strip, cut a piece to fit on card, adhere and outline with white pen (this creates the stem for the flower)
5) use Basic Grey chipboard of your choice to create the flower, in this case I used the Pin Wheel shape
6) using a butterfly punch and scrap paper, I punched out 3 butterflies that I adhere to the card in a random fashion
7) using the Jenni Bowlin rub-ons, I applied the sentiment to the bottom of the card

I hope you have fun recreating this card. I look forward to seeing your creations.

Happy scrapping!

Melanie

Scrapping the moments.

How are you on this fine morning? Have you gone swimming yet? We've been in the pool a couple of times now, the kids enjoy it so much! My husband Keith surprised me with a floating chaise lounge, so I've been enjoying the pool without having to actually submerge myself in the cold 72 degree water!

I'm here today to talk to you about scrapping the "little moments" in your life or your kids' life. We hear that a lot, people categorizing themselves as "moments" scrappers or "events" scrapper. Are they mutually exclusive? I don't think so. Although I consider myself a "moments" scrapper, I still scrap the occasional event, like birthdays, vacations, or holidays. What I absolutely *love* scrapping about, however, are the little things my kids do or say. Take this layout I created with the June kit. On one hand I had a random picture of Kira, a picture I loved, but had no specific story attached to it. On the other hand, I had a notebook with this little story inside. Put together, it gave me this:


I keep a notebook with me at all times to jot down all the little things I hear them say. That way, I always have something to write about. If you read my blog, you will notice that I also take a lot of my journaling directly from there. This is what happened with the following layout. I lifted my journaling from this post.


Here's another layout about a cute thing my son has said. I'm glad I'll get to read this again in 20 years and be reminded of how much I laughed when I heard him say this!


Now, you don't *have* to have a story for every picture. A layout like this next one, created with the May kit, is totally acceptable. I call these types of layouts "just because layouts". Just because I love the picture. But all in all, my favourite layouts are always the ones about real-life "moments".


Thanks for stopping by!

tip of the day.....

This June kit has been so fun to play with, I think I have strips left! I did however find one more use for the Bazzill edges that came with it:

I snipped the ends inked it to make a "Splash", fun huh?

using masks & paint

Happy Sunday! For this layout from the JUNE kit, I didn't have an A that looked good for my title. So, I dug through my alphabet stash and found a set of Heidi Swapp masks from a year ago or more. I simply placed the mask down and painted over it with the same paint I was using to paint my chipboard letters "M, U, I". I love the way it draws your eye to the a!  

So, get out those older masks -- use paint on that layout -- have fun bring back something from the not-so-distant past!

Making Economical Cards

Unfortunately we are living through a time, where every where we go, we are faced we the facts that our economy is struggling. People are trying harder to limit their spending, and when it comes to scrapbooking, that is one tough cookie to bake!! There are so many techniques that I love to use on my layouts and cards, and you can do these to create a card that will cost you less than $1.00. I did a couple of cards that I want to share with you.



In each of the above cards, I used techniques to save money. I love to make embellishments from patterned paper. The choices are endless! For the first card, I cut rough circles, a flower, and I layered. In between each layer is a glue dot to add more dimension. I also used a Sassafras Lass flower, and an American Crafts Flair Button for the middle of the flowers. For the frame, I cut it out from a card to add the sentiment.

On the second card, I cut strips off of a piece of patterned paper. I wanted them to be uneven, slightly distressed, but still have a very linear, stylish feel. I added the strips of paper, and then I cut out a sun from patterned paper, layered it with a Sassafras circular embellishment and a brad. Then I cut out the wave from a piece of paper, and even cut the sentiment from another piece of patterned paper.

Altogether for 2 cards I only used 3 sheets of patterned paper, a brad, 2 chipboard embellishments, and one flair button. This is a perfect time to figure out what you can to save money. Recycling is such a perfect way to save money. I love to recycle boxes and strip them and use the corrugated cardboard. You can use punches and make so many different shapes, or just use it as a background paper. Another thing that I LOVE to do, is to save the packaging that embellishments come in. I don't know if you have ever noticed, but they will have graphs, polka dots, lines, some funky designs, and you can use all of these with punches also. I did a card a while back where I actually used the packaging on a card as the card base.

I want to hear some of y'alls suggestions. Let's stick together and support one another. If you have a tip to save money, share. I guarantee that we could all use it :)

Well, I will be back next Thursday (Stacy was so excited about her post -which is fabulous- that she had her days mixed up and posted on my day LOL) I still love you girl :D I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.


Blog

Don't forget to use your kit supplies with other projects!!!

Hi again! Today I would like to share a few pages of a mini album that I am putting together for Pamela. She is the foreign exchange student from Germany that my brother-in-law and sister-in-law hosted this past school year. She leaves next Tuesday and I really wanted for her to have a scrapbook to take back home.

Because I knew that time would not be on my side (what's new, right?) I decided to go with an 8x8 album size and found the CUTEST "pre-designed" paper pad at Walmart by Best Occasions. It is perfect for teenage girls!

Of course, I couldn't just add photos....I had to EMBELLISH a little bit! So I added machine stitching, alphas, flowers, some bling, brads...you get the idea! It was so much fun to put this little album together....& I really hope that Pamela enjoys it!

So here are a few pages:



And here's one of my favorites! Cute kiddos, huh? & I used the Jenni Bowlin Old School mini alphas and the CUTE owl Flair from the June kit from Scrapbook Circle!



and a close up of the alphas and Flair!



and here's Pamela! They don't have school sports in Germany...so it was a big deal for her to get to participate!


Pamela with a friend at graduation...aren't those Jenni Bowlin alphas just perfect!?!



& at the lake...it was Pamela's first ever experience of being on a lake...she loved it!



& finally with her host family!



I left plenty of room for journaling...that still has to be done! Thanks for letting me share a glimpse of this album...we love you Pamela! & you will be missed!!!

Take care, Stacy

Reduce, Resuse, Recycle

Being "green" is something that is on a lot of people's mind right now. I know for myself I try to do my share by reusing or recycling as much as I can. This can even apply to scrapbooking! When I received my June kit, I noticed that the Sassfrass Las packaging paper was lined and I immediately thought it would be perfect for journaling on layout. So that is what I did, I used it on the layout below and wrote my journaling on it. Of course the packaging had some commercial writing on it but I managed to hide it with some embelishements and pictures. I would love to see how "green" you are and how you have managed to include this piece of packaging on a layout.



Happy Scrapping!

Mélanie

Ever use an anagram solver for scrapbooking?

How are you on this fine morning? I say "fine", but it's actually wet and gloomy here. My head is quite gloomy too: I'm fighting off a migraine for the second day in a row. So I hope you understand if I make this short and sweet!

If you're like me, you have tons of letter stickers. But what to do with them when most of the letters are gone? When you can't see what word you could make with the remaining ones? Sure, you could mix and match your alphas. Or (I shudder at the thought!) you could throw out what's left.

Before you do that, check out this anagram solver. Simply enter up to 12 of the remaining letters. It will give you all the 2 to 12 letter words you can make with those letters. Sooner or later, you will make a layout on which you can use one of those words as a title. Trust me, I've salvaged more than one alpha sheet that I thought was doomed!

Let me know how that goes!

Congrats Card

Just wanted to share a quick card I made for a neighbor friend who is graduating from high school.
Everything is from the JUNE KIT. (We have just a couple of kits left!)

I didn't have any letter A's left on the rub-ons, but still wanted to use the adorable Jenni Bowlin rub-ons on this card. So I just hand wrote the missing letters and used the rub-ons for the remaining letters.

I loved the texture the accordion folding gave to the card and wanted to be sure it stayed well attached, so I used a stapler to secure the paper.

Hope you are enjoying you June kit!

tip of the day.....

I am on a sun kick lately, almost every bright orange or yellow paper eventually becomes a sun!  Both of these are different techniques. 

 For this one I used a large button as the center of my sun with a little fiber, and I cut strips and rolled them.

For this second tag I cut the center with two different sized punches and then distressed them, then with the left over strips I made the rays.  Totally easy and TOTALLY fun!

I recently received my July issue of Creating Keepsakes and they have a whole article on ways to make suns!  I was SO excited to see that!  So fill your pages/tags/cards with sunshine!

Rip up those strips!

I'm really enjoying the JUNE kit! It is SO full of bright colors. One of my favorite 'looks' is bright colors against a black background. So, I pulled a piece of black cardstock from my stash and started making strips of bright paper. To add some dimension, I used my fingernails and 'distressed' both the ends of the each paper. Then, I randomly adhered them to the paper. I cut some shorter, left some longer, didn't even try to match up sizes or colors. 

Here is the finished project up close:

Here is the whole layout so you can see the 'look'.  This is a GREAT layout to do after you have done several layouts and have bits and pieces of patterned paper left over. 
ENJOY!!!!

Creating with the June Kit from Scrapbook Circle!

Happy Friday everyone!!! Hmmm...for some reason, I'm always looking forward to Friday! So today, I am going to share a layout that I created using the June Kit from Scrapbook Circle. This kit is packed full of lots of fun, bright and versatile scrappy goodness!

This layout was inspired by a sketch at www.52sketches52weeks. It called for a large square photo, so I decided to create 2 4x6 collage photos. From there, I trimmed a strip from one of the collage photos, which allowed me to create a square.

destination:


Gotta love all of the Fancy Pants Summer Soiree that I used on this layout! These patterned papers are so much fun! & pretty! & summery! LOL! & I LOVE the Bazzill Edges in Lime! So fun too!

Techniques that I used on this layout include stamping the title. & I decided to "stamp down" the image. So I stamped it the first time, then stamped out the ink two more times...I am really liking how that turned out!



I also did some hand cutting and then popped the image up on foam adhesive...& that little sun just couldn't go onto my layout without a little zig zag stitching!



And here's a close up of my journaling (& more zig zag stitching...you guys are just going to have to tell me when you are tired of it...because I'm addicted to stitching on my layouts right now!)



Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!!

Distrssing A Window Page

I hope that you are going to be getting your kit soon. There are so many gorgeous things in the kit, and I really don't want anyone to miss out LOL

I am not sure if there is technically a word such as 'window page', but I figured we create windows in cards, so why not do the same thing (well sort of) like that on a layout. This is what I did. I took a very bright piece of paper from the June kit. Then I took another piece of patterned paper from the kit, and turned it over to have a nice color combination of my layout. What I do then is probably the most fun. I Cut!!! Then I cut a rough circle out of the top page. I did a good size, but you can customize to your own fit. I distress and roll the edges, and even dampen the edges of the piece of paper. I love the way that the distressed circle patterned paper makes a layout look. It just adds such a fun little element. I love doing this, and have done a few different layouts where I have used this technique. It's fun, simple, and you can use punches, cut out large Circles or Squares. I have also used crackle paint on the top piece of paper or cardstock for an even more amazing effect. Here is my example of this technique using the Window Page.



Thank y'all again for stopping by, and I hope to see you next Thursday : D Have a great weekend, and if your kids are getting out of school YAY good for you and them!