Moody Monday 2/16

I couldn't resist sharing this adorable mood board from Studio Calico.  I loved the teal blue triangles and diamonds, color palette, gold hints here and there, and the layered hearts.

And so I created this layout of my great niece from this amazing mood board and color palette.  I mean, who could resist that face??

Moody Monday 1/6/13

Who isn't moody on a Monday morning??  Well I recently fell in love with mood boards (little collections of inspiration) to spice up my layouts.  My layouts seem to be a bit blah lately and I felt that I needed to include more textures, layers, and frankly some spice.  So I decided that every other Monday - twice a month - I would share with you a special mood board and inspired layout.  This week's inspiration comes from two places.

1.  I loved the colors and textures in this mood board from Onewed.com. 

 

2.  The second piece of inspiration revolves around the CUC DT Board.  Our challenge this month is to use our stash and scraplift another.  So I chose to scraplife Annie C.'s beautiful Be Brave layout.  I rotated the design to fit my layout.

 

 



And finally, here is Queen Coco.  All hail the queen!!!  She truly is the queen of our house.  She sits on a furry pillow, gets carried everywhere she goes, rules the cat (and her food might I say), and honestly has a fluffier bed than I do!!!  :)  So again All Hail COCO!!!

 

I was inspired to use the sheer ribbon similar to the invitations, the flower inspired my fluffy flowers, of course there was color inspiration, and I loved the addition of the "book print" in the fan so I included that in the patterned paper and flower.  I couldn't resist a little bling like the earrings in the center of the flowers and gems on the crown.  Hope you enjoyed my little mood board inspiration.  Check back soon!

Happy World Card Making Day - Challenges and Prizes!

At CUC this weekend, we are celebrating WCMD with some amazing challenges and a beautiful prize!  I am so excited and can't wait to play along.  So I posted a cute little challenge in honor of Fall Harvest.

Now I don't make a lot of cards but when I saw this set of stamps from Dear Lizzy, I knew that I had to use it! So the challenge I posted is an embellishment challenge. In honor of fall harvest and all the amazing canning taking place, I challenge you to use a canning jar on your card. It can be a die cut, stamped image, printable, etc. like I did here! 

For the card on the left, I simply stamped the jar and filled with love. 

On the second card (right), I actually stamped the image, and then made a clear 2 layered pocket on the back of the jar and filled with punches to give a "shaker" effect.

Come play along with our awesome inspiration!  And now for our AMAZING PRIZE - yep I know that you have been waiting for this!

Now how can you resist that????  Come Play!!!

Another Collection of Silohuette Cameo Freebies - Nautical and Beachy

Now again, this is just a collection.  I didn't create any of these but found that putting them in one area by theme was helpful.  So here are a few.  Go to Cookin' up Creations for the full collection and download links!

Enjoy!

Show and Tell Saturday - CUC Turns Four

Hello everyone!  I wanted to share with you an AWESOME SITE!  I know that I have posted about this site before but this month is particularly special.  Cookin' Up Creations is turning FOUR!!!

All month long we are planning and sharing amazing challenges, games, inspiration, way cool prizes, and much more - friendship!  I have been a member of this site for a few years now and love the relationships formed here.  Come join us for sketch challenges, birthday celebration challenges, unique gift ideas, birthday games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and more.  We would love to have you!  Don't forget to browse the gallery!

CUC's New Theme for December

Cookin' Up Creations has a new theme for the month of December!!!  This month's Blue Plate Specials will focus on the theme of Santa's Toyland!!!  Stop by for some amazing inspiration.

DT Openings at CUC

Hello everyone!  I know that I have been gone a while - the beginning of the school year this year has been crazy - but I wanted to let you know that I am still scrapping!  I am still a member of a couple of amazing design teams and wanted to share with you a link if you would like to become a member too!

My family over at Cookin' Up Creations is amazing, supportive, inspiring, motivating, and frankly, a group of amazing ladies!  I love to go there to chat, vent (just a little), and get my mojo going.  This months Blue Plate Special Challenges are around the theme Home is Where the Heart is. 

I am not at liberty to share quite yet, but I am so looking forward to December's theme and am hoping for a little Blog Hop thrown in!!!

Anywho . . . the next round of DT entries have begun to roll in!  If you would love to be a part of this amazing team, check out this link and enter!!!

Christmas in July - Make your own bows!

I have an awesome little tutorial to share with you today that I also posted as one of the challenges on Cookin Up Creations Christmas in July Crop.  You can get a head start on your gift wrapping! This would work for any holiday and it only requires a 6 x 12 (or I also did a 6 x 8 bow with one less layer) piece of scrap paper, gift wrap, or I have even seen some people using magazines and some hot glue! I tried the tutorial with sticky dots but if you use a heavier scrap, they seem to pop apart.

Then I couldn't stop making more! I even played and made one with less layers and punched the edges of the pieces to make a lacier bow!

The first bow took me about 15 minutes to make. After that, I was whipping them out and couldn't stop! My daughter and niece were amazed. How cool to use your scraps and make something special to decorate a gift. Bows like these cost over a dollar each at the store unless you buy the bags around Christmas time. I find that they often don't match the package and smush easily. These are very strong and solid and look amazing! Your family will be totally impressed. I plan to make a lot more of these for wrapping all types of gifts for any holiday!

The tutorial from Split Coast Stampers is very thorough - http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/dsp_bow. The only tricky part that I found is that when you are cutting, you cut the 6" strips, turn the paper and cut the 4" strip, then turn the paper back to cut the 5" strip. That way you only need one 6 x 12 piece. By using hot glue, I didn't need to use brads but either way would work!  Now go and build a stash for the future!

Christmas in July Blog Hop and Crop

Tomorrow we at Cookin' Up Creations will begin a Christmas in July Blog Hop to help you get motivated and start thinking about your Christmas cards and projects this holiday season.  We will begin with the blog hop starting at CUC Blog and share some amazing projects and inspiration, and even some possible prizes (hint hint) tomorrow.  Then we will have a Christmas in July Crop this weekend where we will post some challenges, games, and again provide some projects and inspiration during this HOT, HOT, HOT, did I say HOT month.  Again there will be some prizes to win!  So stop by tomorrow in your Blog Hop journey, drop a comment or two, and get yourself ready for the crop this weekend.  Share with your friends too!  We shall have a ball!  A snowball that is!

Announcement!!!

I am thrilled to announce that I will once again be joining the Cookin' Up Creations Challenge Team for the July-December term. 

Last year, the Good Lord intervened, and made it apparent that I should take some time off from creating.  It revolved around a pay cut for teacher's at work and how that was going to cut into my hobby funds.  Little did I know that within 2 short months, my mother would be diagnosed with two inoperable brain tumors and would pass.  My world was turned upside down and every moment of spare time would be spent with her, family, and friends.  Little else mattered in my world.  It took me a while to begin to recover and with a few set backs, I am back creating and scrapbooking.

I am not one to scrapbook or even take pictures of myself but my first job for CUC was to create a layout about love.  I know that I want my children to remember some of the positive things about me when they are older and I am gone and I want to make sure that there are decent photos to remember  (My daughter is a One Direction fan and of course couldn't resist this pose) so here is a layout about things I love:

Now I am pleased to be with this amazing and inspiring group of ladies once again.  Please join us for the month of July for a Nursery Rhyme themed array of Blue Plate Specials!   August also proves to be a barrel of fun!!!

Altered Canvas + a few extra layouts!

I just wanted to share my first Altered Canvas.  It was really easy to do, I included a photo of my kids of course, and it is really shimmery thanks to Tattered Angels!

I also wanted to share a few layouts that I recently created inspired by the folks over at Cookin' Up Creations and Nuts About Sketches.

CUC's 3rd Birthday

If you haven't checked out this amazing site with tons of inspiration, now is your chance.  Starting today,  Cookin' up Creations is celebrating their third birthday with their Birthday Bash.  Join us for fun games, great challenges and inspirations, and some birthday prizes!!

Wohooo!

Toot Toot!  I made layout of the week LOTW for this week at CUC for this layout!  It is a little brighter than my layouts usually are but I love the sunburst technique that Jan shared with us!  You must check it out!

Crop Chef at CUC

Hello again everyone!  If you haven't had a chance to check out the Crop Chef Challenge at CUC, go there!  Ya that's right - go there!  Earn points for participating and maybe even earn the title Crop Chef!

Cookin' Up Creations Themed Challenge and Inspiration Kit

On CUC this Friday, they encouraged us to go through our stash and pick out elements with a theme.  Because my niece just turned 3, I really wanted to create some cute buttons to go along with this "inspiration kit" from my stash.  Here is the a photo of the kit and buttons:

And here is the layout the I created using my stash and a little creativity!  As you can see, I cut apart the journaling block to create the visual triangle and also to decorate the banner.  I covered the chipboard banner pieces with coordinating patterned paper and embellished with words from the block also. 

Join us for a Blog Hop

Glamming it Up

For this challenge I was inspired by a recent episode on Food Network that took movie snacks and Glammed them Up. They took typical movie concession snacks like popcorn and pretzels and pepped them up a bit.

So I decided to do that with my layout this week also. I "pepped it up" a bit with a bunch of blingy embellishments. I added Stickles to my background pp to some of the dots and around the edge to add some interest. Then I added some silver shimmery trim to the left of the photo. I used Art Gesso and a butterfly template to create a raised butterfly and then added Shimmerz to the butterflies. I then made a trail of bling for each. Finally, I added Shimmerz to the painted letters and completed the layout with some glittery AC Thickerz.

Mad - About Sketches that is!

This month at Cookin' up Creations, we are just plain mad - about sketches!  Each day in our Blue Plate Special Forum, each and every project will be based on a sketch.  Come visit us for some unique inspiration!