Here is one inspiration that I will use for our weekend hike pictures: I love Linda Abadie’s example layout of using several pictures. I often use only one or two larger pictures, but sometimes there are many good ones that need to be combined or there are none that stand out and deserve a larger size. Linda has used 5 pictures on her layout and printed them in two different sizes.

Playful by Linda Abadie

After seeing this layout I can’t wait for the next rainy day!

Happy Stamping,

I used the “Splash Me A Lot!” for my title with kraft cardstock, outline it with light blue gel pen and glue it on the layout. I used 7gypsies paper as the base of this layout. All butterflies are from”Colorful Companion” stamp set. Throughout the layout, I stamp all little flowers from “Tree for all Seasons” using silver ink and applied multiple colors as filler. I just LOVE this particular stamp set, it is so versatile and so much fun! For the trees, again I used the “Tree for all Seasons” set. To create the 3-D effect, I only glued the main part of the tree and let the branches flow freely.

From this angle, you can see the “shadow” of the trees. For this effect, I used black ink to stamp near the main green trees for shadowing. I did a lot of distressing, hand-doodling, and used bold colors. I tried to bring a bit of “Spring” feeling to the layout. I hope you enjoy my Show and Tell. Thank you so much and excited to see all of the comments and messages from you. Takecare and have a great weekend!!!

I decided to play with the design of the patterned paper and incorporated my stamping right into the design. The single sheet of paper was trimmed just slightly, distressed and mounted to cardstock.

In two different places I stamped a selected set of words from the new Timelines stamps. It’s so easy to get the stamps to match any curve in your paper’s design!  I used a little floss to mark which month and day I wanted to remember with some simple and lightweight stitching.

The title is really old school – embossed with copper powder. I loved creating the extra shine on the Splash Me a Lot! letters while keeping things simple.

The final detail was to add some cute, yet subtle, sentiments to the trees on the patterned paper. I used a tone-on-tone effect with a similar color ink as the background and chose sentiments from the Mention It and Seal It! stamp sets. In the end, I have a layout that really lets the memories from our family farm visit take center stage but still has plenty of fun stamping.

Supplies: Mention It, Seal It!, Timelines and Splash Me a Lot! myStampBOX stamps, Karen Foster Design paper and Scrappers Spool, Tim Holtz Distress Inks, Bazzill cardstock, Heidi Swapp Distress Tool, PSX embossing powder.

For my blog post todayI wanted to show you some layouts I did with our fabulous stamps and Core’dinations cardstock.

This first layout “Cute Smile” I had fun taking advantage of the different textures of the cardstocks. They are yummy. I LOVED adding the subtle butterflies in the background. To accent them I put a little bling in the centres. So here the stamps don’t take the centre stage but they do add a nice touch.

The next layout is SOOOO simple, I LOVE it. I used 3 different colours of the same Jenni Bowlin Core’dinations line, to distress it, I sanded random areas. fun.

Now to make the Journaling pop, I stamped the words and FOUR on the cardstock. The four really pops because I put glossy accents on it. I placed the blah blah blah on the top photo of Jager because I want to remember that he said this ALL the time this year. It drove me nuts. but it was so Jager.

Thanks Core’dinations for being an awesome partner!

Here is my sample for it:

I used the Danke für Alles Stamp Set to create the background and the border for the photo matting.For the title I used the Splash Me a Lot Stamp Set and outlined the letters with a black Pen.

Happy Creating

Nat

I used the Wishing you Sunshine Stampset – and stamped the sun on my accordian style folded paper strip and heat embossed it. I used a metallic box which I had painted and then sanded again to release the embossed pattern before and then attached the folded paper strip inside.

I had used the “Splash Me a Lot” Alpha-Stampset for the Birthday wishes.

Wishing you a wonderful day with a little bit of sunlight

Nathalie

Today i want to share with you another fun tip to get the most out of your stamps. We’re going to make embossed polka dots on vellum and incoporate those pieces of vellum on a scrapbook page.

Here’s what you’ll need:

In order to help me stamp straight and regularly (the dots are evenly spaced), i took a piece of school paper and draw the lines with a black pen.

Next, ink your stamp with versamark:

Use the black lines to center you vellum and use the intersections of the lines to stamp:

Repeat that step several times (i do 2 lines of polka dots in a row), and then sprinkle some white embossing powder:

Heat emboss with a heat gun:

Repeat the stamping + embossing part until you get the surface you want:

It’s not perfect but it doesn’t matter because i’ll be covering up the messy parts with patterned paper. Then, what i did is cut circles out of my layout and replaced the empty spots with circles of vellum. The vellum is stuck to the back of the layout with liquid glue.

Here’s the final page:

I really like that you can see trough the polka dot vellum!

Here are some close-ups of the stamps i used:

- a flower for you (that’s where i got the dot from, it’s supposed to be the center of the flower)

- splash me a lot (alphabet)

- wishing you sunshine (clouds and sun)

I hope you enjoyed this little tip!

That’s where alphabet stamps come in! They’re fabulous! You can make them look so many different ways just by altering the way you stamp, the colour you use or how you display the title.

In my first example (isn’t my niece adorable?), I cut out a small rectangle of white cardstock and stamped “ATTITUDE” in pink at varying angles to represent her tendency to show her own unique personality. I then added the smaller alpha stickers for the first part of my title.

Supplies: Bazzill Cardstock, American Crafts Paper, Making Memories Letter Stickers, my Stamp BOX Wishing You Sunshine, my Stamp BOX Colorful Companions, my Stamp BOX Splash Me A Lot, my Stamp BOX Seal It!

In my next layout “Starting Over”, I created a special page about my father having a new baby later in life and starting the process of parenting all over. A very different look is created when you overlap your stamped letters and then hand cut them out.

Supplies: My Mind’s Eye Paper, Making Memories Paper, Bazzill Cardstock, Copic Markers, my Stamp BOX Seal It!, my Stamp BOX Floating Leaves, my Stamp BOX Rough Copy

Did you know that my Stamp BOX has 23 alphabet, number and punctuation sets? They are all unique in their own way. Be sure to check them out!

Thanks for popping by today!
Happy Stamping!

As you can see this layout does not include a picture- but that is the fun about it, isn’t it? I wanted to create kind of like a motivating poster, For the walking girl I cut out a silhouette from a magazine and used it twice as a mask with Glimmer Mist and watersoluble Crayons. I stamped the title by using the Splash Me a Lot Alphabet. I stamped the letters on a kraft cardstock and cut the letters out. I used the Wishing you Sunshine Stamps with those lovely clouds. As you can see on the top I cut two of the clouds and used them to the left and right of the paper so the clouds look as they would continue over the paper. For the tree I used the Tree for all Seasons Stamp Set. I stamped directly onto patterened paper and then cut the tree out.

I had a lot of fun with this layout and maybe it inspires you to use your myStampBox Stamps even for a non-photo layout!

Nat

This card has butterflies in three light colours, all three popped up with a pop dot. The ribbon is very airy and makes the butterflies float. I love this card.

The “hello” card is very simple and doesn’t need a lot of colour for maximum impact. The letters for the HELLO are cut out and popped up again.

Here you can see how Sophie did it.

Thank you so much for sharing your pop-up technique, Sohphie!  It was so much fun to have you over and show us some of your tricks and styles. I hope a lot of readers will be inspired to create light and simple cards.

This month we are thrilled to welcome Sophie Schoenhentz to our team. Sophie lives near Paris, France, with her husband and 3 kids. She’s been a passionate card maker for many years. Her style can definitely be defined as clean & simple. Sophie loves dots and stripes and papers with graphic designs. Her favorite products are stamps and brads, which you will find on most of her projects.

Here are Sophie’s answers to our nosy scrapping questions:

1. What got you hooked on scrapbooking and card making?

I’ve always loved paper crafting. I started making cards for Christmas more than 10 years ago and gradually for any other occasion. I make even more than I can send ! I like using all those scrapbooking products and many blogs are very inspiring.

2. What does your work area look like?

Unfortunately, I don’t have much space. I work on the dining room table which is continuously cluttered with papers, stamps, embellishments… Nevertheless, I have fitted a little storage room up with drawers for my stamps and little embellishments, shelves for my papers, jars for my buttons… ( you can see  it on the 2 photos below). My dream is to have a REAL scraproom !

3. Do you have a favorite colour combination for your creations?

I love kraft and white and often use them together with another colour, I think any matches. I rarely use more than 3 colours on my cards and my style is clean and simple.

4. How much time do you spend on papercrafts every week?

I’m a full-time worker and mother of 3 children so I can’t spend as much time on paper crafts as I would like but I try to plan 2-3 hours a week.

5. What is your favourite dessert?

My favourite dessert is fresh fruit salad. It’s changing according to the season and I love all these colours!

These are my cards, made with “Colourful Companions” butterflies and “Splash me a lot” alphabet stamps.

With such big letters, you can easily create short messages.

I love unity – so, in the upper red strip, I punched the same holes as on the butterfly’s wings.

There’s no need to put a lot of things, a stamped butterfly, 3 buttons, a sentiment…that’s it!

These cards are lovely, Sophie! We love your colour scheme, clean and fresh, and your sense of proportion and positioning. Very simple and beautiful. Thanks for sharing these with us.

Sophie will be back later this month with a tutorial for all of you. Stay tuned!

Now try your hands on some clean and simple cards.

Happy stamping, love, Bettina

Heat embossing brings an instant boost to almost any card or image. I used heat embossing on both of these cards. I love the added dimension that heat embossing gives the images!

Directions
step 1: Ink up stamp in Versamark (do not stamp versamark onto cardstock if you want a colored outline).
step 2: Ink up versamarked stamp in colored ink.
step 3: Stamp image onto cardstock.
step 4: Immediately sprinkle with clear embossing powder. Tab off excess powder.
step 5: Emboss with heat tool.

stamps: she says – he says, splash me a lot, card stock: white, so saffron by Stampin’ UP, ribbon: Offray, nestabilities: label 1
other: corner rounder, cuttlebug, pom-pom trim, rhinestones, twine, clear embossing powder

stamps: she says – he says, splash me a lot, card stock: my reflections, rub-ons: Basic Grey, ribbon: offray, brads: the Paper studio, other: clear embossing powder, machine stitching, corner rounder

It’s as easy as pie……heat embossing can be used so many different ways! That reminds me…I should use it more often!! Thanks for having me, Lori

Those are beautiful cards, I love the little rhinestones on the heart card and the initial that is tied to it. The ribbon and stitching on the boy card is a lot of fun! Lori, it was a pleasure to have you with us during April! Thank you for sharing your terrific style with us. You have been truly inspiring.

Of course, we want to know everything about you, but had to limit ourselves to a few questions. Here we go:

Q.Where do you get your inspiration for your creations?
Lori: My inspiration for creations come from many avenues. Often, I seem to get new ideas when I’m out shopping. A color or pattern combination may catch my eye. I also, get inspiration from fellow bloggers and magazines.

Q. Is there anything on your layouts that you can’t live without and use over and over again?
Lori: Ribbon is something I can’t seem to live without. I love the variations of a look you can achieve with ribbon! I use it on 3/4 of my projects.

Q. When is the best time for you to scrap?
Lori: The best time for me to create projects is when I’m in the mood. Sometimes it’s in the day when my children are at school. Other times it’s in the evening. If I’m not in the mood, my projects tend to flop.

Q.  What/Who is your favorite subject?
Lori: My Lord, my family and paper crafting are my favorite subjects. Picking one would be too difficult!

Q. Tell us about your dream vacation.
Lori: My dream vacation is going on an Alaskan Cruise with my husband and children. Seeing all the sights and wildlife would be thrilling!

Lori was given two stamp sets: She says – He says and Splash me a lot! and was asked to create 3 projects in her favourite colour combination. Lori made a beautiful layout and two cards in red/black/white with a hint of green – absolutely adorable. Have a look at all these cute little details:

Stay tuned, Lori will share a favourite stamping technique with us. Check out her tutorial on April 25th.