Heard it on the Grape Vine...

Number 3 in the countdown of top 10 Classic Rock-inspired cards... Don't think I'll actually get to TEN but I've been having fun!  You can see card #1 HERE and card #2 HERE.

I was inspired this week by the challenges at:

• CAS-ual Fridays CFC56 "Sweet Spot", where the challenge is to use polka dots;
• There She Goes Clear Stamps TSG160-Circles, where Debby Hughes has specified the use of circles; and 
• Paper Smooches July Guest Designer search, where you have to use Paper Smooches stamps.

I made two versions of this card: on both, the grape vine leaves were cut from CTMH "Dotty for You" polka-dot paper, with a leaf die from Sizzix.  The grape vine itself is made with "honeydew" twine from The Twinery.  I used circles punched from textured cardstock arranged in a cluster of "grapes," but wasn't too happy with them--they looked a little flat.

So I made a second attempt using a Paper Smooches free digi-stamp ("I love you BERRY much"), which I printed out and coloured with markers. Better.

The head-phones for the groovin' grape were made using a shape punched from silver metallic paper and a length of black "Memory Thread."  The face was created with one of the stamps from There She Goes Clear Stamps' "Perk Up" set .

The sentiment was stamped in Garden Green and Smokey Plum inks (pretty fruity!) from CTMH, using a discontinued font called "Doodle Alphabet." I've been paring the edges off my polymer alphabet stamps (what? cut your stamps?--thanks to Emily Leiphart for that great idea) to allow closer spacing on the block.

Off to listen to XM Radio's classic rock station, for more inspiration...

Back from the "dark" ness...Album Tutorial Part II

I did not mean to "go dark;" sorry to have been absent for so long! Lots going on in the last month. BUT! I'm back on the blog-track, and eager to share some of the lay-outs I created during my annual scrap-booking retreat with my scrappy girlfriends in Milwaukee, WI. This happened at the end of January, and I was able to fly down to the USA to join in the fun.
My project for the weekend was to scrapbook photos from our vacation at our cottage in Prince Edward Island, Canada, last summer.

I had lost of fun with a Close to My Heart paper pack called "Elemental," the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge (also from CTMH) as well as one called "Go Canada!" and lots of twine from The Twinery...
Here is a close up of the featured photo:

I wanted the page to reflect the layers of red rock, sand, seaweed and water in the photograph. I used some "crinkle" and "pearlescent" papers from Wausau Paper's Creative Collection (made in Neenah, Wisconsin!) amongst my layers of kraft and patterned paper.

Here are some details of the embellishments. The awesome laser-cut wooden starfish is from Close to My Heart (item Z1693); I used quilling paper to make the sand dollar. The chipboard shapes are also CTMH. The "caribbean" twine was easy to adhere using Glossy Accents glue--just draw your swirl with glue, then lay down the twine.

I used the Cricut cartridge to cut out the banner shapes and glued them to chipboard; the letters are also featured on the Art Philosophy cartridge. More  twine in "cappucino."

Here is the companion page. I was able to finish my project (over 30 pages in the album) in the one weekend by using pocket pages for every other page or so. This allowed for inclusion of LOTS of photos, room for journalling, and I saved time by NOT agonizing over making every single page a work of art...


I'd like to share some more pages in the next week--hopefully you will enjoy them!

Catching up with Clean & Simple

Due to LIFE getting in the way, I have not been doing my daily "homework" for the Clean & Simple online Card Classes, running this week and last. However I did have some time today and will try and get caught up, going backwards!
So the topic yesterday was creating your own simple embellishments.  Kristina Werner (see her blog HERE) created a simple dimensional flower by punching out six circles from double-sided paper and pinching in the sides, along two edges. When I tried it, my pieces fit together to make a five-petaled, rather than a six-petaled flower, which I preferred. 

The front of the card was stamped with "Intrinsic Backgrounds" from Close to My Heart. Kristina's card was stamped with a back-ground stamp on the left side only, and twine was wrapped vertically (I tried to cut and paste her original card for illustration, but wasn't able to). In my version, the stamp lent itself to stamping on the lower half of the card, instead. I outlined the cut-away with running stitch in Lemondrop twine from The Twinery. 
Simple yet satisfying. Enjoy your day!