Contrasting Coasts

What a contrast!  Last week I shared a layout of the sunny California coast.  I used bright blue and soft yellow colors to pick up the colors of the sky and our clothing.  While I know that was an atypical day for them, it created quite a contrast for us.

One of my favorite photos from the entire trip.

I used Photomerge in Photoshop Elements to put together two shots of the coast taken from the bottom of a twisty, steep trail my husband wanted to try.

In this layout we have moved further north to just above Trinidad and the coast closest to Redwood National Park.  Apparently the climate in this part of California is often foggy especially in the late summer and fall.  The fog provides provides a mist that nourishes redwoods.  We got just a little glimpse of a clear coast when we went to one of the state parks later in the afternoon.  However we weren’t there very long until the fog rolled right in.

It really is beautiful just in a different way than the sunny day we spent on a Sonoma County beach.

Project notes:

• ·         I just could not find enough of the right paper to go with these photos.  Also I knew that I would need to reprint many of the photos from the 4x6's I already had.  This seemed like good layout to do digitally.  However I did have some great Thickers and chipboard letters to use for part of the title.
• ·         Foggy has been added when creating the digital layout.  After printing I added the chipboard letters.
• ·         I did use one paper that looks great with these photos by adding strips of border punched paper to each side.

I really do try to get a lot of our location photos scrapbooked.  If I put them in another photo album, we would never look at them.  Which of course reminds me that there are some photos from our early trips that have never been properly scrapbooked.   I guess we never 'catch up.'

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients: digital background by  from two peas in a bucket

Lettering: Oliver chip stickers by Basic grey; nutmeg Thickers by an American Crafts

DSP: Penny Black

4 Trees Birthday

When working with Trendy Trees set, I always seem to use lots of colors and have to use the Stamp-a-ma-jig so it pays to make several cards at a time.  I did a few of these yesterday for our birthday stash and for OWH.  I think they make good masculine cards.  That Sweet Pea DSP just keeps on giving.

The center piece of brown is Close-to-Cocoa stamped with Chocolate Chip from a new set of 'stitching stamps' I picked up.  This is supposed to look like grosgrain ribbon.   It gives a nice little tone-on-tone visual texture.

The layout is from Splitcoaststampers sketch challenge this week.  I flipped it on its side and stamped the trees purposefully off center.

It's a rainy Friday here in NC but we are hoping for a pretty day tomorrow.  My Mother and I are planning a little shopping trip in Charlotte.  She is fun to shop with as she has such wonderful and somewhat unconventional taste.  We are both the type of shoppers who can cover a lot of ground in a little time.  We can walk into a store an instantly decide if there is anything that will be of interest.  My favorite thing is spotting something unusual for her that she might not otherwise have purchased.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Trendy Trees, On your birthday by SU!; Stitches by Hot off the Press
Cardstock:  Baja Breeze, Close to Cocoa
DSP:  Sweet Pea by SU!
Ink:  Tempting Turqouise, Choc Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive

Giveway winner

The random comment number chosen was "2" that is Mary!  Mary, please check your inbox and respond to my message requesting your mailing address and the package of paper, ribbon, etc. will come your way.

I appreciate everyone's comments!

the Coast is Sunny

Apparently getting a sunny day on the northern California coast is a matter of luck.  We were certainly lucky last September.

I've been watching Nichol Magourik's videos each week on Two Peas in a Bucket's YouTube channel.  She is doing a scrapbook page from "Start to Finish."   My two page layout is based on one of her layouts.  I just love the half circles for anchoring the title. They really made this one.  I also took the vertical border from another of her videos.  A band of photos really keeps the focus on these shots of our bright and sunny day at the beach with our friend, Susan (shown on the left).  I just loved the expression on Lenny's face when he tried wading in the Pacific.  I knew that water would be cold so I just walked through the course sand and explored a little.

As I mentioned yesterday, I seemed to be hooked on spritzing.  After cutting the 'sunny' title on the Cricut in cardstock, it looked a bit dull compared to those glitzy Thickers, so I spritzed the letters with iridescent gold Angel's glimmer mist.

Thanks for visiting with me today.  Be sure to leave a comment on Monday's post - linked here - for a chance to win my blog birthday candy.  Comments must be posted by tonight at 9 Eastern time.

Ingredients:  DSP:  Delicate Dots by Stampin' Up!
Cardstock:  Bashful Blue, So Saffron
Buttons:  various sources including Delight by Fancy Pants
Stickers:  October Afternoon
Fonts:  Blackjack and Royal Acid from dafont.com

Rose Artichoke and Plum color challenge

Lately, I've been obsessed with spritzing!

Splitcoaststampers color challenge this week is to use Rose Red, Always Artichoke and Perfect Plum.  I played with my watercolor crayons.   For part of the stamped image, I colored the stamp directly with watercolor crayon and then spritzed with water.  I stamped on watercolor paper.  At first I thought I'd have a mess but it dried nice and, well, watercolor-like.  I used some regular ink to stamp the complimentary images.

I didn't have any Rose or Plum ribbon but I did have some Rose Red spritz I had mixed up over the weekend in some of my experiments.  I wanted to see if you could create a mist with pigment (Craft) ink and water just like you can with dye (classic) ink.  You can, it doesn't spritz quite as smoothly since the pigment ink isn't as water soluable as the dye ink.  Still it does the job.

So for the "ribbon,"  I ripped off a piece of muslin and spritzed it thoroughly with rose red mixed in water.  After drying, the ink does not come off on your hands. Of course this would not be waterproof so it is fine for papercraft projects but not for any fabric projects that are going to get wet.

Thanks for visiting today.  Be sure and leave a comment on Monday's post for a chance at blog candy!  The giveaway ends Thursday evening, Feb 24.

Ingredients:  Stamps: Petal Prints
Cardstock:  Perfect Plum, Naturals White
Ink:  Rose Red, Always Artichoke and Perfect Plum
Hardware:  Hodgepodge hardware in Vanilla

TIPsy Tuesday - Inside of your Card

My friend, Judy, always decorates the inside of her cards.  I used her idea to help me out of a little jam on this design.

The pattern paper for this card was the inspiration for the color scheme.  However, after I finished stamping, I thought the paper was just too busy on the outside.  So I added a strip of pattern paper and a decorative border to the inside.  (The border is punched with an EK Success border punch which I think is called the 'bracket' punch.)

The inside of the card is a great place to:

• use up a little extra of your main pattern paper or a coordinating paper.
• stamp a complimentary image - such as a small flower from the same stamp set as you used on the outside of the card.
• stamp really small images that don't seem to work anywhere else.  I have some 'bargain' stamps I got a couple of years ago which are really small and should be colored in if used on the front.  I can use them on the insides of a card or the envelope for an extra touch without taking time to color.
• create a pocket to hold a gift card.  
• add stickers or other flat embellishments that accompany your papers.  I always seem to have a few cardstock stickers left I'm trying to use up.

Thanks for visiting today!  Be sure to check out yesterday's post for a chance to win my blog birthday giveaway.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  

DSP:  Indian Summer by Basic Grey

Cardstock:  Scarlett Jewel by PTI; Naturals White by SU!

Ink:  Scarlett Jewel; Crushed Curry and Groovy Guava by SU!

Ribbon: Scarlett Jewel by PTI

Blog Birthday and Giveaway!

Two years of blogging!  I just love posting and reading other blogs.  To celebrate, I'm doing a little giveaway.   We have to call it a 'giveaway' and not blog candy.  The first time I won blog candy, my husband was distressed to learn that no actual candy would be coming our way!  He doesn't understand that to crafters pretty paper and ribbons are just as good as candy - and non fattening.

Please leave a comment for your chance to win the following.  I'll pick a random winner on Thursday.  (I ship to US or Canada.)

The prize includes:

• American Crafts fabric Thickers in Ladybug
• Autumn Leaves stamp set:  Mindy's Flowers
• Pink Paislee 6" square 365 Degree paper pad
• Making Memories Passport trims.  6 yards of gorgeous ribbon I'm forcing myself to save for one of you!

Comments must be left on this post by Thursday, February 24 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time.    I hope you will take a moment to look around a bit and hopefully come back for another visit.  I love to have visitors and comments.

Thank you for reading my blog.  I'm grateful for all of you.

Part of a Perfect Day

My husband has asked me several times already, "Where are we going this year?"  "When are we going....?"  It's funny that I was always the one who traveled and had to talk him into taking time off for a vacation! The first long trip we made together was to California in the early 90's.  I thought he would faint when I told him what the plane tickets cost.  I think they were about $350 each.  He had only ever been on one or two vacations in his entire life.  He soon found out that travel was one of my passions and he has apparently gotten the bug, too.

I'm still the travel planner so I guess I'd better get busy planning some things.  We are very fortunate to be able to take some trips.  So with travel in our minds, I got back to our California pages.  I'd done the lead in for this wonderful day a few weeks ago.  These photos and journaling provide the details.  When I read my journaling, it seemed like all we did that day was eat and drink!  I hadn't even mentioned the ice cream.  We enjoyed the scenery, company, weather and browsing stores, too.  It was just lovely.  It inspires me to plan our next adventure.

For these pages, I used Basic Grey's Marrakech collection.  The photo frame is cut on the Cricut from a frame I found in Photoshop Elements and imported into SCAL software.  I stamped it with a woodgrain stamp and painted on Glossy Accents.    Some rub-ons and stickers helped finish up the two page spread.

The date is written inside a stamped frame.

Thanks for visiting.  Be sure and visit tomorrow; there is a special opportunity...

Ingredients:  DSP, stickers and rub-on's:  Basic Grey
Brad:  Vintage from Stampin' Up!
Font:  Storybook cartridge and Segoe Script
Stickers:  October Afternoon Mini Market