Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting. Hope you find something to make your creativity bloom!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Heart Shaped Mini Album

Happy Sunday everyone-- Bringing you some more love and heart shaped ideas from The Beary Scrap. I am a big believer that Valentines' Day should celebrate more than just romantic love and I like to do lots of family things at this time of year to show my kids and others how much they are appreciated. So my project this week is a heart shaped mini album for my kids to give to their grandparents on Valentines' Day this year.




These chipboard albums were really fun to make and super quick as they are very small, only about three inches across. I used the Flirty line from Bo Bunny perfect for Valentines' projects I traced all my hearts first, making sure I got just the part of the designer paper that I wanted and then cut them out. They are adhered with plain old glue stick, but two layers-- one on the back of the DP and one on the chipboard itself.


This paper line from Bo Bunny worked so great for this type of project-- each paper is double-sided so there are twice as many choices and they all coordinate. I chose to keep the colors together and made three sections-- 1 blue, 1 pink and 1 green for each of my three children.


To embellish each page, I used some of the stickers from the same paper line and added a sepia toned picture of my kids plus a handwritten note they wrote. Plus then I added some random embellies like fiber, a ticket, a doilie, punched hearts and ribbon.


My little three year old even added his own unique version of his name-- he's just learning how to write it and I think it's super cute! (It's Jace, by the way, if you can't decipher his letters below!)

The final page has a picture of all three, and a little note for Grandma & Grandpa, placed on top of those cute Flirty birds.


That's it for my friendship/love projects and I want all of you out there to know how much I have LOVED looking through the projects you have entered in our friendship/love challenge. Thank you for sharing your talents with us! And if you still have a project to share, there's still time! Link it up before tomorrow night at 11:59 EST for your chance to win!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Friendship & Love at The Beary Scrap

It's Friendship and Love week at The Beary Scrap and so I have a card to share with you today.


My card is an accordion style card made from envelopes, it's easy to put together, fairly light and has built in pockets for any goodies you want to slip into your card. I started with 4 regular sized (4 3/8 inch x 5 3/4 inch) envelopes.

I laid out three of the envelopes, gluing each flap to the front of another envelope like below:



The fourth and final envelope I turned the opposite direction, tucked its flap into the opposite envelope so that two of the pockets were facing each other.


This makes an accordion that looks like this:


Then I just began covering and decorating the inside of my card. I used the My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy Tickled Pink line, which for me is just perfect for a Friendship/Valentine's card because it is simply cute and not too overwhelmingly "mushy" (as I am not a super big fan of Valentines' Day!)

I ended up covering up two of the envelope pockets and then using the other two to include small tags. This would be a perfect place to slip in a little bit of money for a birthday, pictures for grandparents and other relatives or a gift card to someplace fun!

For the front, I have been waiting for just the right project to use "Sidney the Skunk" and I was so excited to make this cute little guy. He was a breeze to make with Kimm's great pattern, directions and mulberry paper.


Here's a couple more views from different angles:


Thanks so much for stopping by today and please leave me a comment if you have a minute! If you have a friendship or love project you are working on, come enter it in our current Beary Sweet Challenge for a chance to win a $20 voucher to The Beary Scrap.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Sketch Round 2 at The Beary Scrap

Here is my version 2 of our current Beary Sweet Challenge Sketch, this time with something "NEW" added to keep it interesting. This was a great sketch to work with and perfect for my daughter Lindsey's 7 year old portrait (isn't she cute? I know, I am biased!)

Last week I showed you the new My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue line and this week I used the other side of the line, Tickled Pink, and I love these papers just as much as the boy ones! The colors are really bright and fun, plus they have that little bit of brown that is my go-to color. The embellishments include chipboard stickers and borders, awesome trims, brads, gems and the darling layered stickers (check out that bird in the upper left-hand corner, so cute!) This is a collection you just have to have-- girl or boy or both!




For my something "NEW," I have used some fabric on my layout. This is not something I do-- I do not like sewing very much and do not even have very much fabric so this was definitely new for me! I decided to make some "Yo-yos" to put on my layout and even though I know these have been around forever, I still want to give you a few instructions on how to do it, in case this is "NEW" for you too!



First, cut out a circle that is about double the size of what you want it to be when you are done-- you can trace a circle template onto fabric but trust me, it does not have to be a perfect circle because you are going to gather up all the edges anyway. So I just free hand cut mine and it worked great!


Next, use a needle and thread (a good strong thread that won't break when pulled) and take a running stitch all the way around the outside of the circle, working on the right edge of the fabric, with the back side facing down.



Now you pull your thread to gather in all the edges, it starts to look kind of like a tiny shower cap. Pull the thread tight until there is not a hole in the middle and then tie it off.





Finally, press the center of the "yo-yo"down flat with the now closed up hole in the center. Embellish the center with buttons, brads, jewels or whatever else you can think of!


That's it! Now you have a cute flower "yo-yo" to place on any layout or card. Adhere it with a strong adhesive such as Alene's Tacky Glue.


If you'd like to make a creation based on our sketch, you still have a little bit of time left to join our challenge, so link up your project at our Design Team Blog by 11:59 EST TONIGHT for your chance to win a voucher to The Beary Scrap!

Friday, January 7, 2011

A Great Sketch for my Baby Book

Happy New Year and welcome to 2011 at The Beary Scrap! For my first post of this new year I am excited to show you my take on our sketch for the current Beary Sweet Challenge. I am working on a baby book for a friend of mine-- I posted one of the pages on Wednesday and now I am showing off the title page for her album:


Here's a closeup of my Oliver the Dog, made with Kimm's awesome Oliver pattern, mulberry paper and Tear Bear tools.


Now it's your turn-- use this sketch to make a card or a layout and entered it at our Design Team blog by 11:59 EST on Jan. 14th for a chance to win a voucher to The Beary Scrap.


I'll have the rest of my baby book to show you next week! Have a lovely weekend!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Sketchy Thursdays

I am currently working on a baby book for a friend of mine and I have a sneak peak of one of the pages to show you-- I'll have another on Friday for my Beary Scrap post and I promise to show you the whole thing when I finally get done! This is my page for today:




This inspiration for this page was a sketch from Sketchy Thursdays-- it has been awhile since I used one of their sketches and got it done in time but I have resolved to do more scrapbooking this month!

Here is my whole two page layout that is for the book-- the pictures are left blank for her to fill in with her own pics later, I just write the dimensions for the pictures and do the layouts.



Check back on Friday for another page (it's the title one and it is cute!)