Summer Sandals Inspiration

I have been enjoying some golden summer days this week-- my son's baseball games are finally over, the weather here is beautiful (high 80s, no wind-- that no wind part is amazing for Idaho!) and we finally have a little time to relax and enjoy some gorgeous summer nights outside. This mood has definitely carried over into my project for The Beary Scrap DT this week as here is a picture of something from my closet that inspired my card today:



My current favorite pair of sandals! I love sandals, I would wear them all year if I could. Unfortunately, the snow here kind of limits that but I do basically wear them April through October anyway! I love the big flowers on these sandals and so I borrowed this element and translated it into a summer card.



I made my flowers from sheets of artist canvas-- the ones that are ready to be put through a computer printer. I found a chipboard flower I liked and traced it three times. The first flower I cut right on my tracing lines, the second slightly smaller and the third slightly bigger. Then I stitched down the middle of each petal to copy the stitching on my sandals and put them together with a brad. I love the result!





I hope you are enjoying a little summer (or winter) sunshine this week, depending on where you live and you have time to fit a little paper crafting into those relaxation hours! You still have a few more days to enter our Inspiration from Your Closet Challenge so make sure to get your project posted for a chance to win!

Beary Scrap Closet Inspiration

Just not my closet! It is our second week of "Find Inspiration in Your Closet" over at The Beary Scrap Challenge Blog. 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.



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!

Challenge= Baseball + Denim

We have a brand new challenge over at The Beary Scrap Design Team and Challenge blog --it 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.


I sewed an old piece of lightweight denim right on top of my cardstock and patterned paper. 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.

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.



To make this layout I used the August Guest Designer Sketch from Sketchy Thursdays-- I LOVE their sketches! The challenge was to use the sketch, incorporate a summer theme (baseball), use red, orange and /or yellow (I used red and yellow) and have a journaling spot (my baseball)-- wish me luck! :):)



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!

Christmas in July at The Beary Scrap

Merry Christmas everyone! At least I hope you have enjoyed our Christmas in July projects this week and definitely hope you have entered your own project in our current challenge for your chance to win that great Christmas Magnolia stamp and some other goodies.

Here is my second go at the current sketch, this time a 5 x 7 Christmas card:

The base of my card is Bo Bunny Double Dot in a dark green and then I used the My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Union Square papers for the center. I trimmed the die cut edges from one of the papers and used those for my edges instead of punching my own fancy edge-- this worked perfect!

For my image I downloaded a FREE vintage Christmas graphic from this site: Vintage Christmas Images-- check it out for Christmas and lots of other vintage images. I added a bit of lace, pearls and a tiny bit of red Stickles (to match the glittered designer paper) to my Santa to dress him up before applying him to my card.

I used white seam binding spritzed with Brick Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist to go behind the Santa image and then tie the bow at the top and accented with some holly leaves and pearls. I absolutely love how easy it is to spray that seam binding to match any project! I am now totally out of white I have used it so much- time to restock!

Supplies Used:

Bo Bunny Double Dot Cardstock-- Olive
My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Union Square Designer papers
Seam Binding-- White
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (currently 30% off!!)
Stickles- Christmas Red
Kaiser Craft Pearls-- Latte
Holly leaf brads from my Christmas stash
Glue Dots

You have one more week to enter your projects based on our sketch so time to get craftin' and good luck!

A Brand New Sketch at The Beary Scrap

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!