Last Day of Free For Fall!!

Happy Friday to all you fabulous paper crafters out there! Thank you so much for playing with us at The Beary Scrap during the last challenge-- you have outdone yourselves with all the incredible entries and I have had so much fun visiting your blogs to look at your creative ideas. You have one more day to enter to our Free for Fall challenge so link up your project by clicking here for your chance to win!

Here is a teeny peek at my second Free for Fall project:




For a long time I have been wanting to make a layout with the chorus from a Trace Adkins song that I absolutely love-- it makes me tear up every time I hear it, which is usually in my car full of 3 busy kids as I'm driving them from one activity to the next and the words really hit home for me:

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

And so I finally decided this was the week and I made my layout on this song and our crazy busy life. Here is my two page layout, with pictures of kids' various activities this week.


A closer look at page 1, this page has the song lyrics down the right hand side along with a picture I took in my car looking at my kids in the rear view mirrow-- I saw this idea somewhere in a scrapbook magazine once and thought what a cool picture, as I so often see my kids that way as I peek in the mirror to see what chaos may be happening in the back seat!


Here is the second page, down the left hand side of this page is a list of all the things our days currently include (like school, homework, swim team, football practice, piano lessons, etc) and my feelings about the craziness:

Supplies used:
Bazzill cardstock
Authentique Splendid 6 x 6 paper pad
Echo Park double sided Cardstock Victoria Gardens Wildrose/Bluebird
Bo Bunny Double Dot-- Coffee
Colorbox FluidChalk-- Chestnut Roan
Sassafras Lass papers, stickers, and layered flowers
Heart charm
Yellow bakers' twine
Misc. embellies

Thanks for letting me share this layout with you, even if it's a little bit sappy! And don't forget to show us your projects!

Brothers

Welcome to the second day of our brand new Beary Sweet Challenge with this great sketch for us all to play with! I loved seeing Lori's lovely elephant card yesterday and I am so excited to have her join our team permanently!

My project using the sketch is as 12 x 12 layout using these great Windsor papers from SEI. I thought the colors perfectly complemented the sepia pictures of my boys together.



I wanted to include many of the beautiful patterns from this paper line and so I pieced together the background of my layout instead of using just one large paper. I left off the flowers in the top left hand corner as this is a boyish layout (although I do think these papers are not what you would call traditional "boy" papers-- just goes to show you can use anything!). So instead of the flowers, I used a chipboard flourish that I first inked and then spritzed with Glimmer Mist. I really love how the whole thing came together and I will definitely be using these papers again! (I'm thinking beautiful for fall wedding cards!)

Supplies used:

SEI Windsor line Designer papers (on sale right now, check out the incredible prices!)
Bo Bunny Double Dot cardstock-- Shitake (base)
Tim Holtz Distress Ink-- Vintage Photo
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist-- Sun Sisters
Pink Paislee EXPRESSIONS Whimsies Cardstock Alphabet Stickers - Chocolate
Martha Stewart border punch
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan

I can't wait to see what you make with the sketch so get those entries coming!

Silly Ice Cream

We hope that you have had fun playing along with the Beary Scrap Gals with our Tic Tac Toe challenge. It's about to wind down (you have until the 31st to get your entry in, if you haven't yet!)

I've got a layout to share with you today, that uses one of my all time favorite papers from Echo Park - For the Record. It is just a great collection for vintage projects. And although there are plenty of sweet girly prints, this works great for boy layouts too. Just add a little distressing and you are good to go! I stamped the ice cream cone border with a design from Unity, and then added Stickles to the cones.

We will have a new challenge for you on the first, but in the mean time, get those entries in!

Are you a . . . .

BRAVE GIRL?

Well, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not, just depending on what it is. But I know one thing for sure, I was nowhere near as brave when I was a little girl as my 7 year old daughter is. She'll try anything and shows no fear (and yes, I definitely realize this may not always be a good thing!) She is up for adventure of any kind and I have spent many moments this summer cringing as she rides her bike down hills, does front flips off the high dive at the city pool, being pulled on a tube behind a boat on the lake and her new love-- waterskiing-- which is the subject of my layout this week.


I am pretty sure I was at least 12 years old before I attempted to waterski, but not my daughter-- she outshone her older brother and several cousins by learning this summer and her usual comment was "Go faster." What a girl!


I stuck to the basic sketch for this layout but wanted to mix it up just a little from last week and so I tilted the sketch a different direction and then added three smaller pictures to the side of my main image. I used the fabulous new collection from Echo Park called Splash-- you have got to check it out! Kimm just got it in the store this week and it is perfect for summer activities of many kinds. I just love the bright colors. I did add some hot pink in the mat for my main photo and the letter stickers to make it a little more "girly." I used Element Stickers from the Splash collection pack to accent my page instead of the flowers on the original sketch and added Stickles for a little shine to my wave.

Supplies Used:
Echo Park Splash Collection Designer Papers and Element Stickers
Echo Park Summer Days Collection Designer papers (hot pink)
Stickles-- Turquoise
Glue dots
Misc. letter stickers
Misc. buttons

So go on, be a brave girl and do something a little adventurous this weekend! Or just spend a little time crafting and enter your take on our sketch in our current Beary Sweet Challenge.

Happy Birthday

Happy Friday to everyone out there! I hope you have enjoyed seeing the absolutely FANTASTIC creations the Beary Sweet ladies have offered up this week in conjunction with our new sketch challenge. We can't wait to see how you interpret the sketch!

My take on the sketch is a 12 x 12 layout using My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue papers. I think these papers include some of my favorite color combinations ever and they were perfect for a picture of my 4 year old celebrating his birthday.



I loved this sketch and pretty much stuck right to it, except for substituting stars for the flowers since this is a boy-ish layout. All the accents are from the same Fine & Dandy collection-- buttons, brad, and trim-- I love it when they all come matched already!

Supplies Used:

My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue papers
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue trims
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue Buttons
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue Brads
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue alphabet stickers
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Miscellaneous brown letter stickers

Check out all the details for our current Beary Sweet Challenge featuring this sketch here-- we hope to see your entry soon!

Inspiration from The Closet. . . .

Just not my closet! For my project this week, I decided to go a little different route with the clothing inspiration and use an article of clothing in the pictures I wanted to scrap as inspiration for my page.



I wanted to scrap my son's 4 year old portraits and so I took the shirt that he was wearing and scanned it on my scanner, printing out my own designer paper to use on my layout. This saved me a ton of time searching through my stash looking for just the right colors to match the pictures-- the paper was already perfect!



For other papers I did stick to the main colors in the plaid print and also added some buttons that look just like the ones on his shirt.


Supplies used:

Bo Bunny Double Dot cardstock
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue papers (orange)
Bo Bunny Ad Lib papers (Green lined and banner circles)
Tim Holtz Distress Ink-- Faded Jeans
Miscellaneous buttons
Divine Twine Grey
Metal Charm
Glue Dots

I hope you will all take the Inspiration from Your Closet Challenge and show us what you come up with . Enter your project in our current Beary Sweet Challenge by July 31 11:59 EST for you chance to win!

Inspiration Challenge

Welcome to our brand new Beary Sweet Challenge- it was awesome to see all your lovely entries for our last sketch challenge and I can't wait to see what you do with this one! So our challenge this time is to take a piece of our favorite clothing and use it as inspiration for a project-- well, the very first thing that came to my mind was. . . . can you guess what this is?




You got it! A pair of very comfortable jeans-- I know everyone has their favorite pair that they love to pull on and they are just as comfy as a pair of sweats or pajamas. And so using that as my inspiration, I have used denim on my baseball layout this week.

For the base of my layout, I used tan cardstock and a piece of red Bo Bunny Double Dot both edged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Fired Brick. Then I sewed an old piece of lightweight denim right on top of that. I have a pile of old jeans in my basement that someday I am going to sew a quilt out of (emphasis on someday, I am sure it is going to be a long time from now!) Until that day, they are great for cutting little pieces out of for scrapbook projects. I sewed a double line with yellow thread to mimic the sewing on old a pair of jeans and then also sewed around the journaling spot circle to make it look like a baseball. The journaling circle is cut the from My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue paper line.

I also die cut some stars out of denim on my old Sizzix machine, it's not high tech but it works great for fabric! Other embellishments include a cardstock star, tickets(which are actually Valentines' themed but I covered up the love words!), baseball woven ribbon, yellow bakers' twine and some 3-D baseball stickers.



I can't wait to see what the rest of our lovely DT ladies have in store for us with this theme and to see your projects too. Make sure to enter your project in our current challenge and share some inspiration with us!

A Brand New Month and a Brand New Sketch!

Happy July everyone! I hope you all have something wonderful planned for the weekend and have a chance to do a little paper crafting too. We have a great new sketch for you to play with plus a chance to win some great Christmas in July themed candy. (Stay tuned until next Friday for my Christmas in July project using the sketch.) Click here for all the details on our current challenge and your chance to win the great Christmas candy!

My project today, though, is summer themed and looking at these pictures gets me in the mood for the holiday weekend ahead.



I used the sketch to make a double 12 x 12 layout simply by stretching it across two pages, running my scalloped border down the far side of each page and then adding 6 rectangles with bows instead of just the one shown in the sketch. Each rectangle contains one of my photos and I overlapped them a bit to get all six to fit.

I used the Summer Days collection from Echo Park for my layout-- perfect colors and accents for some fun summer pictures. Here is a littler closer look at my photos; I used seam binding for the strip behind and the bow and anchored my seam binding with staples and some decorator brads from the same Echo Park collection.

Supplies Used:

Echo Park Summer Days papers, Element Stickers and Alpha Stickers
Echo Park Summer Days brads
Seam Binding-- White and Azalea Pink
Bazzill Cardstock
Martha Steward Border Punch
Glue dots

This was a great and simple sketch to use and I can't wait to see your creations so make sure to enter them in our current challenge and have a wonderful 4th of July!

O, What a Flower!

Who knew there were so many ways to make your own flowers? I know you have seen a bunch this week and they are all fabulous! Today I have one more, very simple!, way to show you to make your own flower embellishment.

If you are like me, you have lots of letter stickers laying around that don't always get used (I know, especially those weird letters like q and x!). This is a great way to utilize some of those stickers and make a cute flower at the same time.

For this flower I used some letter "O"s for my flower petals. You will need a small piece of cardstock (circle or square) to anchor your petals to.


Snip one side of the O and then overlap the cut apart ends and stick it onto the small piece of cardstock.


Repeat with more O's until you have completed the petals all the way around.



Push firmly on the petal centers so they will stay (or anchor them with an extra glue dot). Then attach a button for the flower center and wa-lah! Super fast, cute and easy flower!



Now, you may be thinking-- okay, but "O" is not one of those weird leftover letters and I agree, I generally don't have a lot of "O"s left so here is one using a "w"--

On this one I didn't snip anything, just over lapped the ends of the "w" onto each other to form sort of a double petal and then stuck it on the cardstock.

And another one with a "Q"-- I always have those left! For this one I snipped it right where the little piece crosses the circle and then trimmed off the ends of that little piece, so basically it ends up looking like an "O."



Here's my completed layout with my letter flowers on it. I used Bo Bunny's Roughin' It papers for all of my circles and trimmed just a square off a diecut paper from that line to put my date and flowers on.

I hope you have learned a few tips and tricks from our DIY embellishements this week! Stayed tuned until the 30th for a few more ideas and make sure to enter your own DIY project in our current challenge.

Hello, Sunshine

Hello everybody! Brenda here. It is hot here. In one sense, I feel lucky because we have perfect weather from November-May, but the rest of the months are just plain too hot. My layout today is aptly titled, "Hello, Sunshine."

The day my daughter was born was an uncharacteristically gloomy. But the moment she was born, it was as if I had my own little source of sunshine. I used the Cosmo Cricket 6x6 pads Upcycle, Social Club, and Salt Air. I inked the edges of the circles with Distress Ink in Vintage Photo. On the outer edges of the kraft paper, I used Pink Paislee Artisan Tape to create a frame of sorts.

For this week's theme of a DIY embellishment, I decided to decorate a manila tag to use as part of my title. I wrote out the word "sunshine" and then used a paper piercer to poke holes for hand stitching. After I was done stitching the title, I outlined it with more stitching in a different color floss. For my last DIY embellishment, I made a twine circle by punching out a circle from cardstock and covering it in adhesive (I used my Pink ATG). Then I knotted the end of twine and placed it in the center of the circle, twisting the twine all the way around itself until I was satisfied with the size of the circle. Then I trimmed the cardstock down and adhered my twine circle to the tag.

For an extra bit of flair, I did some random stitching with my sewing machine on two of the circles. 

Thank you so much for looking! I can't wait to see all the DIY embellishments you all come up with. I'd love to learn a few new techniques. Have a wonderful weekend!

How Sweet It Is. . . .

Hi folks - please check back Saturday, June 4th for our Beary Sweet winners. Thanks!

---

We have a sweet sketch for you this week and I have absolutely loved seeing the gorgeous cards Patricia and Debbie have made with it so far. But I have to admit, it was a challenge for me! I really wanted to make this into a two page layout as I haven't posted one for awhile and it took a bit of thinking and rearranging to adapt it to my sweet layout.

Here you can see most elements of the original sketch-- I just love the triangles, big and small, across each side:


Notice how instead of centering it on one page, I stretched the sketch across my two 12 x 12 pages and then here you can see how I expanded it a little further to include more photos:




I used the Alphabet Soup Paper Girls line and the colors were perfect for my pictures! The oranges and pinks precisely matched this fun little restaurant we went to in Las Vegas where everything is bright orange and hot pink, and the ice cream sundaes cost $15 but are huge and worth every penny!

Supplies used:

Alphabet Soup Paper Girls Designer Papers
Tim Holtz Distress Ink-- Broken China and Crushed Velvet
Colorbox Fluid Chalk-- Creamy Brown
Bazzill Cardstock
Glue Dots
Foam Squares
Prima Flowers
Miscellaneous buttons

Whether your take is a card or a layout, we can't wait to see what you dream up with this sketch! Make sure to enter it in our current challenge for your chance to win a Beary Scrap store voucher.

My Sunshine

Hello again! I am so excited about this new themed challenge as it seems so open to interpretation. I went a little literal with the idea of nature and came up with this layout almost exclusively made of Echo Park Paper.

I started with the cardstock from the Playground line. Their cardstock is so delightfully colored and slightly distressed. I love them! I used my die cut machine to cut the top layer of the trees out of some EP cardstock. Then I cut the bottom layer out of patterned paper from Playground. The trunks were cut using papers from Life is Good. I used 3D dots dimensional foam adhesive to give the red tree a little emphasis.

I cut three circles in varying sizes from Playground patterned papers. My husband doodled some clouds for me since I wanted some but am not very good at doodling. I matted the photo with Pink Paislee Artisan Tape.

For the grass strip on the bottom, I cut slits about every half inch and then rolled down the strips of paper. For the top, I punched a border using a Playground paper.

For my title, I used some letters from my own stash plus some letters from For the Record.

Thanks so much for looking. I really enjoy looking at all the wonderful entries each challenge so I do hope you'll participate. Make sure to have your projects in by May 31st at 11:59 EST!

Happy Day

The weekend! Whew. What a sigh of relief. I have been sick this week and still have had to go to work on top of mommy duties. Please forgive me if this blog post is shorter than usual. Also, I should mention that I made this layout, took pictures, and wrote up the blog post before I realized that I totally forgot about the additional challenge this week of embossing. Oh my! I'm so sorry! Can I just blame it on my foggy sick-brain?

Anyhow, I used My Mind's Eye Fine and Dandy on this layout about visiting with my daughter's great grandma. This line is so so cute! I used the True Blue and Tickled Pink Chipboard for the loop de loop, the title, the stars, and the sun/flower, the Tickled Pink Banner Stickers, and True Blue Patterned Papers.

Additional Supplies Used:

Scotch Pink ATG

Glue Dots

Thanks for looking! I do hope that you will be able to join us in this sketch challenge. Just remember to have your project uploaded by tonight, May 14th, at 11:59 EST!

Makin' a Splash!

Hello all! I am back after having taken last week off to recuperate from some surgery on my Achilles tendon. I am doing great but moving very slow (on crutches/wheelchair!) and glad I have something as fun as this sketch to occupy my time while I am a bit homebound! :)

This was a really fun sketch to work with -- great for cards and simple to convert into a 12 x 12 layout. I just used the top layer of rectangles for matting my pictures and was able to fit six wallet size pictures of my daughter and nieces having a great time swimming during our Spring Break in Las Vegas.



I used the new Echo Park Playground collection-- its bright colors are perfect for fun summer pictures. Okay, it's not quite summer yet, though we are finally having spring here! But those days are coming so stock up on that fun paper now and you'll be ready to record all your summer memories. I edged the pages of all my papers with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China. I also stitched around the page and switched up my stitch occasionally to give it a different look.

I used the great letter stickers that came with the Playground collection but added different colors of Stickles to each letter for some sparkle. This was my first chance to use my brand new color-- Midnight Blue (on the dark blue S) and I love it! There are so many colors of Stickles to choose from!

I also used some of the element stickers from the same collection-- the banner across the top, words and sun and cloud stickers. Some I stitched around, some added Stickles and other popped up with foam squares for dimensions. It's awesome how many things you can do with just one paper collection!



I've enjoyed seeing all of your lovely creations based on this sketch, thanks for joining in our Beary Sweet Challenge. Good luck and hope some wonderful sunny weather is finding you!

Alphabet Soup

I don't think it's any secret; I have a thing for Alphabet Soup. No, I'm not talking about the kind of soup my mom used to give me when it was cold out (although, come to think of it, I have a thing for that as well). I'm talking about My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup. It is so darn cute! I might only have a daughter, but I had to get both the boy and the girl sets because they have such a broad appeal. I have made several cards and layouts out of these papers and love each one of them, and this layout is no exception!

For a few years now, my husband and I have gotten into the habit of blowing kisses to each other from across the room but basically just smacking our lips and not actually blowing. It was so cute when our daughter Harper picked up on it at about 7 or 8 months. Whenever she does it, it's like she has to put so much effort into making the noise. She squeezes in her cute little cheeks and opens her mouth with a loud smack. So adorable! Anyhow, I've called it her fishy face for quite a while now and when I saw this card from the Alphabet Soup Boys Playing Card pack, I knew it was meant to be!

I took two different patterned papers from the girls Alphabet Soup collection kit and cut out strips of circles. Then I weaved them somewhat to give it a more cohesive look. Then I used my sewing machine to stitch around the edges of the background paper. I used the Martha Stewart Double Arch Punch to make a little border from one of the patterned papers. I added alphas from my stash to complete the title, and then used the fish from the Boys Chipboard Elements and the journalling block from the Boys Diecut Elements to finish off the page.

Thanks so much for looking. I really enjoyed using this sketch and hope to see you all join us in this challenge. Please have your projects linked up by May 14th at 11:59 pm ET to be included in the drawing for the prize voucher!

Crazy Cousin

Hello everyone! It's Brenda again, and I am so excited to show you the layout I made for this "wings" themed challenge.

I don't think it's any secret that I love butterflies. Well, actually, let me rephrase that--- I love to look at butterflies and I love to use butterflies on my layouts, but should a butterfly land on me, I freak out. Hey, it's still a bug even if it is a pretty bug! Anyhow, I digress. These next couple of weeks of creating for me will be so much fun because I love to use birds and butterflies and all sorts of things with things on my layouts and other projects.

For this week's layout, I scrapped one of my all-time-favorite pictures of my daughter with her older cousin. I should explain that my daughter was entirely too tired to be taking these pictures, but having all the cousins together is such a rarity, I couldn't just let her go to sleep without getting some pictures.  Well Harper made sure to tell me how she felt about this forced photo shoot with all the zany expressions she was giving.

I used one of my favorite lines again, Echo Park's For the Record. I can't get enough of it! There are just too many possibilities with these papers. I distressed my papers by running them through my Distrezz-it-all  and then inking the edges with Distress Inks using the Ranger Blending Tool. 

I wanted to add a little more color and visual interest, so I rolled down the edge of the paper and fastened it with a My Mind's Eye Lost and Found brad  and a sticker from the For the Record elements sticker sheet. I wanted to put the first part of my journalling up there but thought it would be too tough to read, so I painted a little area with Distress Crackle Paint in Old Paper. I then stitched around my journalling spot and used one of the stickers from For the Record for this part of the journalling. 

For the title, I used alphas from For the Record on the words "your" and "crazy" and "cousin" is using alphas from my stash.

I placed a label sticker from For the Record and then I stitched some more. I used another of the word stickers from the Elements sheet for the continuation of the journalling.

And lastly, I used another label and word sticker to finish off the journalling. For the embellishment under the photo, I layered two die cut butterflies cut out from FTR paper and put a button from my stash in the middle. I placed the butterfly over two border stickers from the kit. 

I had so much fun playing around with the idea of this theme, and I hope you will too when you join us. Don't forget, you have until April 30th to upload your creations! Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful weekend!