Birthday page from collection

Most birthday themed collections seem to me to be more for children. This one from Basic Grey works for all ages.  I was blessed to receive several Basic Grey page kits from a friend cleaning out her stash.  I was just delighted!  You know how I love Basic Grey and this is such a treat.  This is my first layout from the kits.

For Mother's birthday, I spent a lot of time planning her cake.  The rest of us are real chocolate people.  She, however, is not as much of a chocolate fan though she does eat it.  I thought I'd take the opportunity to do something different.  This is a coconut cake with raspberry filling (courtesy of Smuckers) and 7 minute frosting. The cake recipe from Bake Me More is here.  I looked at so many 7 minute frosting recipes and videos, I'm not really sure which one I used.  I think it was Martha Stewart's with the addition of cream of tartar.  I'd never made it before but it turned out nicely and everyone enjoyed it.  A hint from my DH:  leftover 7 minute frosting tastes wonderful with chopped bananas.  I can't eat bananas so you'll have to take his word for it.

This the only cake I've ever made that called for powdered sugar in the batter, a full pound of it! It worked.  The only objection I have to making it again is it takes every pan and bowl in the kitchen to make it.  Oh, well, that's why dishwashers were invented.

DH made mother a card based on a saying he saw somewhere else. He added the first verse himself.  It read:

On your birthday...

When you arise from your slumber

and totter around unassisted,

remember that age is just a number

And yours is ....Unlisted.

She got a little bent out of shape at the word "totter." While Mother's age remains a mystery disclosed to only a limited number of us, I assure you she looks marvelous and is ridiculously healthy for her age.  If only I had her strength!  Oh and she does not totter.

Here's the process video:


Another page coming along with this same kit soon.  Thanks for watching!

Challenge Card, Birthday Blooms and Video

For Splitcoaststampers Color challenge, I made this card with the Birthday Blooms set I had close at hand from....

making this card over the weekend.

For the first card, I used some of the extra stamps from the Stampin' Up! Birthday Blooms set. The color challenge included a pink/lavender color that I don't have so I used several watercolor crayons to achieve the color.  The cardstock is from Papertrey Ink and was the last scrap of that color I had.  The other colors are the In Color Mint Macaroon and the older color Pear Pizzazz.  A little lace was dessert for this challenge.

For the 2nd card, I stamped and colored on bookpaper which I've shared in this video:



I have some variety packs of bookpaper on my Etsy shop:  Lovely Layers Art.

Thanks for visiting today!

Sunrise page with a collection

Most of my beach sunrise pages use stencils, stamping or some other DIY technique to achieve the colors I desire.  Finally I stumbled upon a collection that looks lovely with the colors of sunrise.  This is a fall collection from Fancy Pants and it is perfect as the photo was taken on Halloween.

For the page, I also used some sequins and one of the sketches from the 2016 Sketchbook.

Here's the video:



Thanks for watching today!

Inspiration Challenge

It has been ages - maybe years - since I did a card challenge but I wanted to do something a bit different this weekend.  I took the Inspiration Challenge from Splitcoaststampers.  The inspiration came from a Pinterest board.  One of the pins had several Ranger ink colors.  I had two of the 4 and subbed in the other 2.  All of theses are the Distress Oxide Inks.

To make the card, I started with some bookpaper.  Packs available on my Etsy shop.  I stamped and embossed a background image and then put the inks on my craft mat.  I added water and dipped in my embossed bookpaper.  The flower is from Wild Orchid Crafts and it also got a good dose of Distress inks in Fossilized Amber, Marmalade, and Vintage photo.  The greeting is Stampin' Up!'s Year in the Life set.

I also made a scrapbook page this weekend with video so I'll have that up soon.  Thanks for visiting today!

Distress Oxide Sampler Card

For my Mother's birthday, I've created a card with vignettes from the In this World stamp set by Stampin' Up!  Almost all the ink is the new Ranger Distress Oxides.  I used a little regular distress ink as the oxides don't have any really pale colors.

I've used almost all the techniques in this card, too.  Originally I was using plain white paper for inking the background.  Then I thought that bookpaper would make a much richer look and really go with the images in this set.  For a variety of bookpapers check out my packs at Lovely Layers Art.

The flower is Prima and the cardstock is Dark Chocolate from Papertrey Ink.

Here's the process video:


Thanks for watching today!

Distress Oxides are Here

With everything going on around here in January, I didn't watch a single CHA video showing the new products. So I'd never heard of Distress Oxide inks until I saw them pop up on my Instagram feed as fellow crafters began getting them in.  So I went to check them out watching videos from Jennifer McGuire and Tim Holtz.  These inks can do almost everything you would want in an ink - all from a single pad so I just had to have them.

I say almost because the one thing they are not is permanent.  As I haven't been doing quite as much mixed media I'm not needing permanent quite so much so that doesn't matter to me right now.  What these inks do is:

High quality stamping
Add color to paper as a solid
"oxide" with a whitish look when water is added
Emboss as the ink does not dry immediately
and of course, Distress edges.

As a bonus, I only had a couple of these colors in regular Distress Inks so I got lots of new colors buying the set.  After getting them, I did a color palette to be able to easily choose the right color for a projects and see how each color works with its different features.

Video:



I had already been thinking that I needed to use my stamps and inks more this year as they are my single biggest investment in my craft room.  Now I really want to use them more!

Response to Question: Putting Album Together

I was recently asked on YouTube to do a video showing an entire album.  I've been asked about what I use on the back of pocket page layouts.  I also had a question about cutting out the page protector to reveal hidden journaling tags and such.  What good questions!

So for this video, I flipped through the 2016 album and shared the answers to those questions as well as what album I use, the order of the layouts and my front and back pages.  You've seen most of these layouts.  A couple of them were class layouts but most everything else was from regular videos released last year.

Here's the video:


I appreciate the questions and comments.  If you have asked a question that I did not respond to, please ask again.  I get emails from YouTube for most of the comments; however, I just found out that I don't get emails for ALL the comments.  I don't know why but I found out where to see all my comments without having to go to each individual video.  I'll be sure to check that in the future.

Thanks for watching!

One photo for a Repeated Event

Every year for at least 5 years my husband and I went to a departmental Christmas party in the early 1990's.  We looked forward to this event.  It was always a fun night with good company and food.  I found this one photo of us and I don't even know what year it was.

It was situations like this that prompted me to write the PDF, "No Photo, No Problem" a couple of years ago.  The 34 page PDF contains 17 layout examples on creating pages when you have few if any photos to go with your story.  The PDF has a bonus 45 minute accompanying video sharing how many of the pages came together plus techniques.   More information is here.

For this page, I created this process video.  Be sure to check out the last few minutes as I share a little about what is going on and what to expect from my videos in 2017.




Thanks for watching and as always I love to get your feedback.