NSD Challenge - Pink Paislee

Happy interNational Scrapbooking Day! Pink Paislee is celebrating with hourly challenges and a chance to win a fabulous prize! If you're scrapping this weekend and in the following week, I'd love for you to join in on my challenge:

The challenge is to ditch they typical squares and rectangles and make a layout out of circles! The gorgeous Fancy Free collection features a patterned paper that is patterned circles on one side and watercolor circles with phrases on the other side. I pulled out my scissors and fussy-cut my favorite circles.

Next, I used a punch to cut my photos into circles. I matted the photos on white vellum for a subtle touch. I used American Crafts colored twine to loop more circles and I secured the twine in place with We R Memory Keepers new Staple Board. The Staple Board lets you staple anywhere on the page without the limitations of your stapler's reach. It's awesome!

I embellished with round buttons and round splatters of mist. It was hard to stop with the circles once I got going ;).

If you play along with my challenge or any other Pink Paislee challenge, be sure to tag your IG post with #ppNSD2016 to be eligible to win. A winner will be announced on the 14th. Good luck and happy scrapping!

Mood Board - The Studio Challenges

Hello! I am really excited about today's challenge at The Studio. I had the opportunity of creating a mood board to inspire the design team, and hopefully you!

I was inspired by summer, the beach, relaxing and my favorite color palette (blue, red, yellow). I thought that this photo of Addie on the 4th of July would be perfect:

The flowers are Sassafras Lass (yes, I am still hoarding quite a bit from that beloved company), as well as the chipboard "4".

Adlyn's first Independence Day was a long day, so it was really fun to capture such a goofy, happy smile at about 8:30 pm while waiting for the fireworks to start. Just a week later she got her first tooth, so this is one of the last photos I have of her toothless grin ;).

I used my Silhouette Cameo to make the July part of the title. I wrote it out, scanned it, then cleaned it up using the software before cutting. If you'd like the file, let me know. I'm thinking about offering freebies like this here on the blog.

If you'd like to play along with the mood board challenge, you can find the challenge and the design team's takes post at The Studio here.

Have a great day! Tessa

Going Places, Trip to Sac Town - Scrapbook Circle

Oh my goodness, I am so in love with the July kit, Our Adventure, from Scrapbook Circle! Combined with the add-ons, there is so much good stuff! The first layout I made is up on the Scrapbook Circle blog today as inspiration for the current challenge, Nice Ride:

The challenge is to create a layout about traveling the open road - a road trip, getting your license, a commute - you name it.

I scrapped photos that I took on the day we drove in to the city (Sacramento) during Spring Break. We were parked, getting gas, when I snapped these. I can't get all three to give me a serious look at one time to save my life. I don't know what got into Jaxon, especially ;).

This is a Spring Break tradition for us, going back several years. We visit the California Railroad Museum and Old Town Sacramento, then try to do something new as well. This year we visited Sutter's Fort, and other years we've gone to Fairytale Town or the Sacramento Zoo.

If you'd like to play along, anyone - subscriber or not - is welcome! You can find today's post here and the original challenge post here. If you're interested in checking out the kit and add-ons, visit here.

Thanks for stopping by today! Enjoy your day! Tessa

Love - DCWV

Hello! Another National Scrapbooking Day has come and gone. I'm always a little sad when this "holiday" pops up because I work weekends teaching dance and it always seems like I miss out on all the fun. Well, I'm still having fun, just not scrappy fun. This year I did join in on a challenge, sort of. The May Stack-aholic challenge went up at DCWV on Friday and it's a great one to play along with in celebration of NSD.

I used the Gilded stack (think kraft, cream and gold foil) and the Limoncello stack (blue, chartreuse, white). I pulled my favorite kraft and chartreuse papers from each stack and followed this sketch:

Why is it that when a sketch calls for a 4x6 photo, I seem to always use a small square photo? Then, when a sketch calls for a square, I use a 4x6? I guess I'm just funny that way ;). I had fun with my Twinkling H20's to create a bit of a watercolor background:

While I had my watercolors out, I went ahead and painted my title, too. I used "love" to mimic the row of loves at the top of the page (from the Gilded stack; I filled every other word in with Faber-Castell marker and then some watercolor on top).

I used arrows to embellish the page because I had used an arrow patterned paper. I love arrows as masculine accents! I colored some of the arrows with watercolor or the Faber-Castell marker to tie in more of the chartreuse color.

If you'd like to play along with DCWV, you can find the challenge here. Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

True North - Scrapbook Circle

What do you get when you combine 1 large photo, 3 patterned papers, a dash of die-cuts and a pinch of wood veneers? The current challenge at Scrapbook Circle, of course! Yes, we are hosting an old-school recipe challenge and this is my take:

Over Spring Break, usually the first day, we take a traditional family day trip to Sacramento. We always visit Old Town and the State Railroad Museum, and then sometimes we also do the Sacramento Zoo or Fairytale Town. This year, because Carson is studying California history in school, we decided to visit Sutter's Fort. Sutter's Fort is located right in the heart of downtown Sacramento. Surrounded by modern buildings, it seems totally out of place. The grounds are beautiful, though, with water, ducks, flowers and dirt paths. You walk inside and it's like you've gone back in time. The exhibits were really informative and the boys had fun exploring. It isn't very big, so it only took a little over an hour, but we picnicked for lunch outside and had a good time before heading to Old Town.

I used this shot of the boys at the entrance for my 1 large photo. I printed it as an 8x10, but you don't have to use a photo that large if you don't want to. To me, large is anything bigger than the 3x3 instagram shots I typically print. I took advantage of the white space in the wall of the fort to design my page. I chose this diagonal blue stripe as one of my three patterned papers because my son is wearing a similar shirt in the photo. I love it when papers match clothes so easily!

I glued my "pinch of wood veneer" triangles in a meandering line across my photo. I thought the path with the triangles leading north was a good way to emphasize my theme. And the die-cut compasses and other travel die-cuts were my "dash of die-cuts".

You can read more about my page at the Scrapbook Circle blog today. You can find all the details for playing along at Scrapbook Circle here. You have two weeks left to play along, and there's a fabulous Oh Darling by Crate Paper prize package up for grabs. You don't have to be a subscriber to play, so I hope to see you join in! Thanks for stopping by :). Tessa

How's Life? - SRM

Honestly, life is good. I'm exhausted, tired and sleep-deprived, but I'm blessed. I'm trying to count those blessings - like her new habit of smiling and carrying on serious conversation in coos - instead of the hours of sleep I'm missing out on. Once her cold goes away, I'm sure we'll all sleep much better :).

Recently, while my hubby was wandering the aisles of a big box home improvement store, Adlyn and I wandered over to the paint section to find paint chips for some furniture projects I have coming up. I picked up these two paint chips because I thought they were pretty ;). And how darling are they together? They inspired the colors of this card (made with Heidi Swapp Color Shine).

And, of course, my sentiment is by my favorite sticker people - SRM! Have you heard about SRM's new adventure? They are starting a challenge blog! You can find it here. The first challenge goes up tomorrow. I plan to play along and I hope you will, too :).

Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

How Wonderful Life is - Scrapbook Circle

Hello! I posted a new challenge on the Scrapbook Circle blog today :). Inspired by the mix tape patterned paper in the January kit, the challenge is to channel a love song for a layout. Here is my page:

Lately I've been finding quite a bit of my music inspiration from tv and movies. While on bed rest several weeks ago, I Netflix-binged on the show Haven. At the end of one episode, "Your Song" comes on, but it's being sung by someone new and it's hauntingly pretty. So, I googled to discover that Ellie Goulding was the artist and I went to iTunes right away and downloaded it. I love it!

When I saw the "life" card in the kit, I knew I would use the line from "Your Song" that says, "how wonderful life is now you're in the world." I can't imagine my world without my hubby :).

I loved the aged masking tape that is part of the design of the mix tape patterned paper. To play with that look, I used some vintage paper and tissue paper to back my photos.

And this exclusive to Scrapbook Circle tag was my absolute favorite from the kit this month!

If you'd like to play along with the challenge, visit the blog here. Anyone can play - subscriber or not - and a $15.00 credit to the Scrapbook Circle store is up for grabs. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day! Tessa

Catching up at The Studio

Happy Monday! I love Mondays. I'm glad to see this Monday in particular because it signals the weekend is over. Between work, putting on a cub scout Pinewood Derby, another scout event, a water main breaking on my street, and my husband and son getting sick, I'm ready for a routine day. I was so busy playing nurse and napping when I could that I didn't share my latest layout for The Studio Challenges yesterday:

This challenge is a sketch challenge:

I took a little license with this sketch and basically shrunk the sketch and put it in the center of my page. What can I say, I really like my white space ;).

My grand achievement with this layout is the title. Do you see the word "love"? That is my handwriting, cut on my cameo. I am so excited to have pulled that off! I don't have one of those fancy tablets, so this is how I did it.

Using a felt-tip marker, I wrote the word on white printer paper. When I had one I liked, I scanned it. I uploaded the scan to the Silhouette Studio software, then used the trace function to trace the word. Next, I zoomed in to take care of all of the bumps and areas where the marker ink had scanned lighter than the rest. I clicked on the point feature then smoothed and deleted points until I liked what I saw. It was a little time consuming, but now that it's done, I can use the word over and over again without starting over.

You can find all the details for playing along with the challenge here. And if you're into recipe challenges, we also have a recipe challenge going this month. For this layout, I used kraft cardstock, at least one tag, two different alphas and mist or paint. Here's my take:

I love that a recipe challenge limits my choices right at the start. It's like working with a kit, or manufacturer design team supplies. A limited pool of materials gets me started on the project sooner, rather than stash-shopping.

As you can see, I followed the recipe exactly. I used kraft cardstock as my background, two tags act as my photo mat, two different alphas make up title, and I used mist.

I wanted the mist and the thread to be reminiscent of the waves and sea spray that my photo depicts, so I curled the thread to look like waves and splattered mist like water droplets.

As with any recipe, I like to add a bit of something special. For this page, it was this beautiful flair by A Flair for Buttons. I love the simple, typewriter font.

If you'd like to play along with the challenge, you can find all of the details here. Thanks for stopping by today! I hope your Monday is productive and happy :). Tessa

Collage Couture

Hello! I'm back at The Studio, and there's a new challenge for you :). It's all about using a new technique. I came across the work of an online friend who was on a collage kick. She was inspired by this book: Collage Couture. When I read the details for this challenge, I knew I wanted to try collage as my technique. I ordered the book and set to work:

The first part of the book talks about drawing the figures. The author/artist offers several examples and talks about the basics. I don't have a lot of confidence in my drawing skills, so I decided to simply trace one of the figures in the book. With practice, I think I could draw them on my own eventually. I did draw my own clothing, though :). The next part was transferring my drawing to patterned papers, fussy-cutting, then gluing her together.

The book also goes into detail discussing backgrounds and mixed media techniques. I didn't go into that for this layout, but I hope to soon. I just added my collaged girl to the page as an embellishment.

If you're in the market for a book on collage, with specific attention paid to girls/women and clothes, this is a great book. I keep going through it over and over again. The examples are plentiful and I like the artist's approach - not too fussy and technical, but enough information to get you going and inspired. To go with the necklace/clothes theme, I embellished with buttons and thread:

If you're interested in playing along at The Studio, you can find the details here. There is a Teresa Collins stamp prize up for grabs :). And you must see what the other gals chose as their new techniques. It's a really inspiring post! Thanks for stopping by today :). Tessa

August 31

There's a new challenge up at Scrapbook Circle today! The challenge is to use beach-themed products (like the AC Shoreline papers included in the True Stories kit) to create a non-beach layout. I love that Scrapbook Circle kits are great for holidays and seasons, but perfect for everyday-type layouts, too. It wasn't very hard to come up with this page:

The navy paper with colorful splashes was what inspired me to choose these iPhone self-portraits. I did a little tweaking at picmonkey.com to add some blue tones to everything, then paired it up with shocking pink and a neutral gray for the rest of the page. I fussy-cut the circles from more Shoreline paper and added the MME brads to the center.

The Elle's Studio cutouts were perfect for my title, which directed my journaling.

If you'd like to play along, you can find all the details here. And if you haven't picked up a kit yet, you really want this one! It's full of fabulous stuff, whether you're scrapping summer beach memories or not :).

Thanks for stopping by today! Tessa

P.S. - Don't forget my GOLDEN BIRTHDAY BASH.

Roses, Balloons, Broken Teeth...Oh My!

First, roses :).  The new sketch at Sketchy Thursdays is a beautiful one!  I was inspired to create an 8.5 x 11 layout this time, which is something I want to do more often.

These are the roses blooming right now in my front yard.  I wish I had yellow ones, too, but these pink and fuchsia ones are gorgeous!

Here's the sketch, full of possibilities.  You can see I opted for embellies instead of squares, but kept the circle and four photos.

Be sure to stop by Sketchy Thursdays for more inspiration and all the details on playing along.  And if you're up for one more challenge, join me at Scrapbook Circle (enter balloons).

A new challenge starts up today called "Set the Scene".  Create a layout with "scenery" like my clouds and hills and you could win a fabulous kit from SBC.  You don't have to be a subscriber to play, so I hope you'll join in on the fun :).

And, finally, broken teeth. You know that phrase, "When it rains, it pours"? Hehe, I think that is summing up my June.  Jaxon lost a tooth yesterday.  Sort of.  Mind you, he's only two.  He tripped into the library steps.  I didn't actually see the fall (yeah, I'm totally expecting the Mom of the Year award), but after a quick inspection I only found a bloody chin and a few tears.  Four hours later I happened to look at his smile and discover that one of his top front teeth is shattered.  Literally shattered.  Because he is so little and doesn't do well at the doctor's, we are scrambling to find a good pediatric dentist.  Luckily, besides not being able to do a sippy cup and needing to chew on the side of his mouth, he's pretty much fine.  He's so cute - while eating he points at his cheek and says "side."  Oh, the joys of motherhood.  Here's hoping for a calm, uneventful day :).  Thanks for stopping by! Tessa