Life's Trivialities

Best Day Ever / Craftwell

Over Spring Break this year, Mia and I were privy to giraffe feeding opportunities on two separate occasions; once at Busch Garden's while with the boys and the other at Lowry Park Zoo. This layout is all about her experience at Lowry Park Zoo.

I used a rather eclectic mix of patterned papers ranging from Simple Stories to My Mind's Eye to Pink Paislee and Chic Tags. I really just riffled around in my scraps looking for things that coordinated with the Chic Tags background piece, that was my starting point.

My original thought for that embossed tag had been to add color with Gelatos. But I kind of like the subtle embossed look, so I went with it! Less work for me!

I used a number of my Craftwell/Teresa Collins dies with my CutN Boss for this layout. You really need to use the Craftwell/Teresa Collins dies in the Cut N Boss I have decided. While you can use them with your Big Shot, it warps the cutting plates. Being as Type A, highlighted, bolded and underlined as I am, warped plates are not desirable! LOL!

Thanks for stopping in today, I hope you are doing well!

The Twiney & Chic Tags Blog Hop, Day 2

AND

Welcome to Day 2 of The Twinery and Chic Tags blog hop! What an incredible pairing! Designers from both teams shared projects with us yesterday and there are more great projects today too demonstrating how wonderfully Twinery's bakers twine compliments Chic Tags products!

You should have arrived here from Jennie's blog. If not, start at the Chic Tags blog and work your way back here!

This layout was created using the Cloud 9 collection by Chic Tags and some of The Twinery's stunning solid baker's twine (Marigold, Pink Sorbet and Caribbean) which are the perfect complimentary colors!

Chic Tags was so generous with the product they sent us from the Cloud 9 collection! I used bits and pieces of the fabulous tags, wood veneers, gold tags, clips, flair and rub ons every where! Combine that with The Twinery's twine and it's heaven on a layout! Thread the twine through the wood veneers for some dangly fun or stitch a title, it's all good!

There are prizes from both companies so make sure you have left comments on all the blogs you visited today!!

The Twinery will be giving away a Solid Sampler Pack (a $45 value!) to one lucky winner. Full details for prize eligibilitly can be found on The Twinery blog!  The deadline for commenting is Friday, July 11th and the winner will be announced on The Twinery/Chic Tags blogs on Sunday, July 13th.

In case you get lost along the way, here's the full hop order for today. I'm the caboose, closing things up for the day and the hop!

Chic Tags - http://blog.chictags.com/

The Twinery - http://thetwinery.com/blog

Amy Coose - http://www.amycoose.blogspot.com

Tifany DeGough - http://www.inkblotsbytrd.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Haggerty - http://livethemoment-jen.blogspot.com

Christine Meyer - http://scrappingwithchristine.blogspot.com/

Mandy Kay Starner - http://www.heyheymandykay.com

Jennifer Cuthbertson - http://www.jencuthbertson.blogspot.com/

Jennie McGarvey - http://jenniemcgarvey.typepad.com

Suzanna Lee - http://www.lifestrivialities.typepad.com/

Thanks so much for joining us today and I hop you were inspired by all the wonderful projects! Don't forget to check back at the Chic Tags and The Twinery blogs to see if you were a lucky winner!!

Underwhelmed / Chic Tags

ANOTHER sketch challenge! I'm really on a roll this month as there have been a lot of incredibly inspirational sketches and product to play with. Today's layout is based upon the latest Chic Tags sketch challenge and very fitting for the latest issue of Paper Issues: The World is a Circle.

The sketch was my initial inspiration with the picture then dictating what color papers and support I needed. I felt that triangle were a more viable option than hexagons for the look I was going for. Fortunately, Chic Tags creates some triangle tags.

I used the two original tag triangles to hand cut some more out of patterned paper or tags that were in complimentary colors to the background paper I used. And, staples in my stash, Studio Calico chipboard in GOLD. Gold's everywhere now.

Some oldies but goodies! Love those wood backed camera circles form Chic Tags and the month calendar tags!

I love the understated title, playing on the title itself, Underwhelmed. Have you ever been to the Louvre and seen the Mona Lisa? I was more impressed with the number of cameras and cell phones in the air taking pictures of the famous lady than I was of Mona, herself. The number of people that moved in and out of that one room was phenomenal. Incredible people watching! I'm not sure how many of the people actually saw the Mona Lisa with their own eye versus on the lens of their camera. Very few actually stopped for more than the picture. It was interesting from a sociological stand point.

I hope you are having a great weekend! Mia is swimming in her last swim meet as a 7 year old today. She will be 8 tomorrow! My baby is turning 8... No doubt, there will be a Pebbles layout of the celebrations in the near future!

 

Happy Fall Layout / Creative Scrappers & Imaginisce

Popping in today to share with you a layout that came together lick-edy split thanks to a great sketch and some tried but true Imaginsce product! I have been trying to get myself out there a bit more and participate in the scrappy world more than just fulfil my obligations. Though I love those obligations, it's nice to create without a purpose too. I did just that with Creative Scrappers sketch 268 and a little mixing and matching of Imaginisce lines.

I know it's not fall... But I have a million pictures from fall and Christmas that really need scrapping and I don't want to wait anymore! So I mixed some Imaginisce Bushel of Fall with Outdoor Adventure and supplemented with a little Core'dinations Shattered cardstock, Lawn Fawn sequins and die and Chic Tags wood veneer.

With regards to the sketch, I stuck to the overall content, the 6 circles, the title in the center, bottom circle and one picture but that was about it. I wanted support embellishments that were in my collections and that supported my theme.

Do you feel that Autumn breeze blowing the leaves around?! That Twinery twine breeze? Shattered Core'dinations and those Lawn Fawn dies are something you will see again at a future date. They are the perfect compliments of one another!

The Bushel of Fall collection by Imaginisce is the first collection were Imaginsice included journal die cuts and phrase die cuts perfect for titling! It was such a great addition! I used a number of the die cuts here.

You can submit your Creative Scrappers layouts based on the recent sketches until the end of the month! This sketch is fanastic, you can't go wrong with it! My layout took a whole of 30 minutes! Why not play along?!

Elf on the Shelf Mini Album / Chic Tags

While I'm not really one to make mini albums, I have really enjoyed both the process and the finished results of this mini. To that end, I just might *maybe* convinced that mini's really aren't that bad and are worth creating more of. If somebody else comes and dusts them!

Henry is the elf who has been visiting us at the Lee-Bishop household for the past 3 years. This mini documents his adventures and antics for the year 2013. I created it using primarily Chic Tags papers, stamps, tags and the Decemeber exclusive kit and Core'dinations cardstock. The base of the album is a Lori Whitlock cut file.

The cover is fairly simple. The original tag would have over powered the cover of the album so I trimmed it down and printed the original "The adventures of" further down the tag so that it would work to the size I wanted. Having removed the aqua trim to make it fit, I created by own with Core'dinations and a die. Henry didn't just have adventures, he had EPIC adventures!

I removed the ribbon and expanded the book to take pictures so that you could get a better view without my fingers holding the pages open and better see the detail without shadows. As you can see, Henry was quite the trouble maker and had a lot of fun visiting Nikolas and Mia! From sack races to being the "Prince and the Pea", a game of giant pick up sticks with the wrapping paper rolls... Mum wasn't overly keen on cleaning that one up...

Each page is a pocket and I will put the full detail story on tags. I really would like the kids to journal on the pages with the pictures hence the lack of writing there. We just haven't had a spare moment with swimming and basketball.

Love my Chic Tags!! Amazing! The December exclusive kit was just the thing for this mini album! It coordinated remarkably with the Good Tidings collection and various other older pieces I have in my stash.