Guest Designing for Whimsy Stamps!

 Good morning friends!

I was so excited to be asked to Guest Design for Whimsy Stamps. 

They told me to order a couple things and that was the hardest thing evah!!!

I did choose a couple things.  One, the cutest thing, will be shared here on the 13th.  

OMG. You WILL NEED it.  But, for todays post, I chose classic, reusable items.  Items that will go far in my stash as a scrapbooker and card maker.  

I chose the Bold ABC Dies Set and the Checkerboard Die.  The alphas can be used in so many ways.  I don't see them being too far out of reach for future projects.  The Checkerboard Die is a great background for any occasion.  You will see below how easy it is to change it for your needs.  

I think the best part about the Checkerboard Dies is the automatic confetti that is produced.  I think adding them to the inside of the card so when the recipient opens them, they fall all over is a grand idea!!  An extra surprise.  They may not like the clean up, but I would love the reaction!

Here are my cards that I created for todays blog post.  I hope you are inspired to grab them for yourself.  Just click on the links and you will be directed to the proper items.  

Snow - Pretty Little Studio

Today is my final day over at Pretty Little Studio as the February guest designer.

I have had so much fun working with their product.  I love the shine that some of their papers have, the colors and the quality.  You will really love it all too.  

For my final layout, I created a frame for my photos with a forest clump off to the right.  

I used the Winter Joy collection.  

Thank you for your visits throughout the last week.  I do appreciate you all.  

Memories - Pretty Little Studio

Day 3 with Pretty Little Studio!!!

I started with another one of the amazing vintage character, Clark.  Well, how could I not use these cute photos of my little man playing for the Indians!  This was his first year playing t-ball.

Pulling the perfect colors out of the Ain't Life Grand collection makes the photos and Clark, pop.  I used the Shutterbug Stickers to carry on the round baseball theme.  

I journaled directly on the 12x12 paper.  

Thanks for stopping by again today!

Beautiful - Pretty Little Studio

Good morning!

It is so exciting to receive an unexpected remaining asking if you wanna be a guest designer!  

I received just that from Pretty Little Studio.

They have the most darling collections.  

You will see, for the next four days, I will be all over their blog/social media.  

They were extremely generous with their product.  

I thought it was going to be a challenge for me to use 8x8 papers.  

It was so very easy.  I realistically don't use the entire sheets of 12 x 12 anyway.  

Lets look at what I have done for today....

By dear chum and I meet for lunch and shopping on occasion.  Not as often as we would like.  We snapped these fun photos of us laughing at ourselves so hard!

I used the Tales and Dreams collection for this bright, cheerful project.  

Guest Designer over at Simple Stories

I can not even explain to you how excited I am to be guest designing over at Simple Stories today.  

When given the assignment of creating a Christmas Mini Album, I was pretty stoked.

Then, the box arrived.  I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the beautiful items they sent me to play with.  An over-flowing box of the Claus & Co. collection.  An amazing Christmas Sn@p album and more!  After picking through all the goodies, I decided this mini would be a plan all - December Daily book all in one.  Here is a few sneak peek photos.  I do hope you will hop over to 

Simple Stories to check out the remaining parts of my book.  It was a blast to create!

Thank you stopping in today.  Hope you have been inspired to get your December Daily planned and ready to go.  Making your holiday season that much easier.

chilling like bob dylan - Weekend Guest

I was so excited to be asked to join Els Brige on her blog with The Weekend Guest series!  She has a different designer every weekend for the entire summer.  We were all asked to create something, anything that inspired us.  I chose to create with Summer Vibes from Simple Stories.  It also happens to be a scrap lift from Tarrah McLean from over at Paper Issues Friends & Fans facebook page.  Sketches and scrap lifting can be so much fun and inspiring.  

For the entire blog post, please head over to Els blog Be Stamped.  Check out my post and many others as we join he in celebrating different scrapbooking styles throughout the summer.  

Puppet Show

In a pervious post, I sent you over to Fancy Pants to see my complete layout.  I just can't help but share it here too.  If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see my journaling which is a MUST !

Back in March by favorite boy of all times, decided to have a puppet show.  Behind the kitchen chair he drops and tells me to watch the show.  He told me to use my imagination on what it could be.  After many guesses, I was told it was a dog or a wolf.  Who knew!

Here it is.  Simple  and clean.

Here is a close up of the tucked button and some simple stitching.

Thanks for stopping by folks.  

Studio Calico

Guess who is being featured over at Studio Calico today for the Sunday Sketch Challenge?  Guess!!!

It's ME!!  I am so thrilled and have not been able to share this news until now.  I am not a secret keeper!   But I did it!  Last week I got an email to ask if I was interested....... ummmmm, let me think about that.  I held my breath and tried not to respond too quickly.  Didn't want them to think I was too eager!  Set the timer and then emailed back!  Got the details that afternoon and had to keep a secret for 6 days!  

6  DAYS!!!

This is how it works.....Studio Calico puts a sketch up on their blog Sunday with inspiration ideas (this time from me!)  They ask their followers to create and upload their interpretation of the sketch.  They will see the sketch, my designs and then make their own! Fun right?  Well, here are the sketches and what I did.  Go ahead and play along too!  You can upload your ideas to their site.

This was the scrapbooking layout sketch.

I create this 5 x 5 Live Your Life card.  It is loosely based on the layout sketch.  Instead of squares, I repeated circles and used the square grid background.  I trimmed out the circle from its original square, sewed to attach my vellum and used foam tape for dimension.  It was created using the Cuppa Kit and Chai add-on kit from Studio Calico.

Using the same sketch, I created this Smolak Farms layout, using Cuppa and Chai add on, SC Opaque Gems and Woodgrain thickers.  I turned this sketch to the side.  This card sketch is PERFECT for a layout.  It helps you cram lots of favorite pictures from an event on one page.  My small squares are 2x2's, large enough to see clearly and leaves me plenty of room for embellishments.  I had to use the apple paperclips from the Chai add-on!!  My acetate was trimmed down to the same size as my small photos and attached by sewing.

Here is the Card sketch.

I used the card sketch for a layout, My True North! It was created using Cuppa, Double Scoop and SC Opaque gems.  I chose to slice some of the existing lines of the paper with my x-acto knife and ruler, I then backed this side with the remaining gray paper, used my fingernail to lift the edges and sewed around some of the circles  within the existing paper design.  I randomly placed SC opaque gems, layered papers, tags and blocks behind the photo to highlight.  My vellum was again attached by sewing.  It is very similar to the sketch but completely different at the same time.  I let the existing paper be the star (no pun intended.) It is perfectly fitting for anything that is the center of your world!

I hope that you have been inspired by the sketches or my take on them.  I do have tons of fun playing along with the Studio Calico kit monthly!

Thanks for stopping by.

Mary-Ann