Anniversary Card - Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection

This weekend I made an Anniversary Card for 2 special friends, and what better paper to use than some of the beautiful romantic paper from Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection.  I thought the Valentine stamps from the Spring has Sprung page would be perfect for the card and matched it up with the paper from All my Love page.  I fussy cut some of the beautiful violet flowers to add some extra detail to the ribbon and flower detail.

So here is my card all done up and ready to go:

And a close up of the flower and vintage lace bow detail:

and here is the paper that I used from the Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection:

I just love this collection and will definitely be making more cards from it.

Thanks for looking.

Getting Quirky with Graphic 45 Papers

Just had to get back to playing with Graphic 45 papers!!   Oh woweee!!  Do I love this range of papers - my craze, my obsession, my scrappy addiction!!  Just need to have every single collection of this range in my scrap room!

Well I had such a lovely time playing with the Typograghy collection and made up an Inspiration Board which I called Quirky.  Actually I made this project to be the front of a box where I keep my stencils and templates.  The box can stand up on it's side so that the inspiration board can be displayed.  What a fun project this was!  I love the busy, eclectic look and all the layers!  I'll probably keep adding a few bits and bobs to it.

If you want to have some fun, I would suggest you get this G45 range - it is amazing!

WhooHooo!!!! I made the Summer Design Team of Black with 2!!!

Oh yes, I am doing the HAPPY HAPPY DANCE!!  I am on the new Design Team for summer for one of my favourite scrapbooking groups, Black with 2.  I love the challenge of working with black and especially using black cardstock as the base background for the layout.  You often have to think a little out of the box and often need to be a little creative to get the perfect look.

I am especially thrilled to be part of this talented group of scrappers and cannot wait to have some fun with the upcoming challenges.  So now onto this month's challenge:

October's challenge is Pink & Mulberry with predominant black card stock and just a touch of white (5% only allowed).  So here is the mood board and sketch to be used:

And seeing that pink is significant with breast cancer awareness, I did another layout of our bike ride we did in May in aid of the Breast Cancer Brunch held in Auckland.  I put together the pink and yellow layout for the September Bw2 challenge of myself dressed up for the occasion, and thought it would be great to do the other layout of hubby and his "big toy" all pinked out for the ride.

The mulberry colour is a lovely rich colour and perfect for a "big boy's" page.  So I used mostly this colour on my page and made the elements of the page masculine to suit the theme.  So no pretty cute flowers except for the flower doodles on the black card stock, but I just couldn't resist a teeny weeny little touch on pink bling here and there.

So do have some fun with this challenge!

Glamming up my Silhouette Cameo machine

I recently saw on a Facebook group how the owners of Silhouette and Cricut machines glam them up with vinyl.  So playing with vinyl is a whole new ball game for me and one I am so keen to try out.  I recently scored some offcuts of vinyl from a sign writer, so thought that some experimenting with vinyl would be a perfect project for personalising my Cameo machine.  I call my Cameo my magic machine, so here is what I have done so far .....

Still wanting to put a little more on my machine but haven't found what I am looking for.... so watch this space.

All Pinked Out - Black with 2 Sep 14 Challenge

Just the perfect combination of colours and inspiration I needed to get this layout done - thanks to Black with 2!!

I have had some photos from a Cancer Bike Run we did in May this year sitting on my scrap table for months now.  I have fiddled around with them trying all sorts of coloured papers and nothing looked right.  I really struggle when there is so much pink in photos.  I really do like pink, but not in photos!  Too pink photos really challenge me!!

But when I saw the mood board come out for the September Challenge with the hot pink and yellow combination - I went straight back to these photos, pulled out out the black card stock and pink and yellow papers and oh gee oh gee, that is exactly what I needed to get the page done!!  I must have spent hours trying all sorts of the colour combinations, but never put the yellow and pink combo together.  And what an amazing colour palette they make!!  And I really think the perfect colours for my photos.

And I really love playing with black layouts - they count as one of my favourite mediums to work with.  There is so much one can do with them, play with Gesso as I did here and the colours and patterns are so vibrant against the black background.

For the embellishments, I added a vibrant pink stencil cut with my Silhouette Cameo and yellow stained paper doily, Prima flowers and could not resist added some pink feathers (from the very same pink boa used int he photos) in the flower cluster for effect.

I'm in love!! With Graphic 45!!

I have an obsession - since I first saw Graphic 45 papers - I am absolutely totally in love with them!!  These beautifully designed speciality papers are just awesome!  I just love the imaginative design and vintage appeal - every single collection just blows me away.  I guess it because I am a lover of heritage and olde world sentiments.  So after much thinking and pondering, I have just brought in my first lot of Graphic 45 paper pads.  (More are on their way to me right now!)  With these beautiful papers, I had all the inspiration I needed to scrap these 2 gorgeous photos!!

This page consists completely of the papers from the Sweet Sentiments range and I teamed it up with sketch 33.2 from Page Drafts.  Just loved the idea of the ribbon banners and thought it perfectly suited the theme I wanted to create here which is soft and dreamy.  The sketch also gave me an opportunity of exploring a different approach of 2 separate groupings on the page.  I usually group my photos together, so to do something like this has been a wonderful learning experience for me.  And I just love how beautiful the layout looks!!  I also teamed up the project with an opportunity of learning more about my Silhouette Cameo - aah so much to learn with this amazing machine!!

Just a close up of more of the detail:

I distressed the banners with Antique Linen distress and fussy cut some of the Graphic floral design to lay under the banners.  I also used little Prima flowers tied with some lace for detail.  Underneath the photos I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut out 2 doilies for layering.

And my totally awesome Cameo was used to do my title.  And I finished it off with a few wooden butterflies and flower embellies.

Back playing with Heritage Layouts

It's been a while since I have really scrapped anything.  My mojo was still very much missing in action, so I have really been playing with different ideas, styles and techniques and just having a little time-out fun.  So none of the playing really materialised into any finished layouts but it has given me the opportunity to explore new things.

Along my time-out journey, I did find some interesting new scrapbooking groups and forums.  And 2 of these groups kickstarted my mojo again which is wonderful!! I simply love the sketches that Page Drafts put out and I could not wait to try one out.  One of the sketches was perfect to complete a challenge for a new group I found on Facebook, Scrap It With Attitude.

So here is my entry into the July Heritage Challenge for Scrap It With Attitude:

I did a retro style heritage page of 3 really super cute photos of my youngest brother when he was a baby.  And found that sketch # 33.2 of Page Drafts was perfect for this page.

And just some close up of the details:

I used my Silhouette Cameo to print out the words which I aged using coffee staining and a handy little air blower gizmo from Tim Holtz to create the brown smudges on the word tiles.

The flower detail is part handmade outer flower petals with smaller Prima flower inner petals with some really old vintage metal buttons for centres.