Sketch-y Friday

Hello blog friends and happy Friday!

As always, I have a new sketch to share with you.  But first, I want to remind you (or let you know in case you missed it last week) about our HUGE First Birthday Sale-ebration!  It is being held on Friday, August 5th and Saturday, August 6th, you can find all of the information including times and special events here.

Lot's of ScrapMuch? purple in the sketch today, love it!  But you know you can interpret it any way that suits you and your photos.

Have fun with it, and remember .....

I'd love to see your take on this sketch.  So,if you create a layout based on this sketch, you can have it published here on this blog by emailing me a picture of your creation by Thursday August 4th at 6pm here.

Thank you for popping by for your weekly sketch!

Laura
xoxo

Tip and Technique Wednesday

Hello Blog Friends!

It's Wednesday and I'd say we are half way through the work week, or something to that effect, but I am on vacation so I hope the week is long and peaceful!  However, I do have a tutorial for you.  This one is all for me, though I do hope to inspire a few of you at least.

I really wanted to create a silhouette of my little guy to hang in my scrap room, why I wanted to do it right now is beyond explanation as my room is a mess and not looking to be organized any time soon!  All I can say is, I'm sure you, my fellow addicted will understand!

Anyway, I set about creating this silhouette and thought I should document it to share with you.  Bear in mind, this is what I came up with, of course you can do what ever you think will work for  you.

 First, I took a picture of my son against the window, to have a better contrast of the outline.  (Look the one time it doesn't matter if your child's hair is messy!)

 Then using the photo editing software that came with my computer, I converted it to black and white and played with the brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights of the photo a bit to make the photo more dramatic.  This just makes for easier cutting.

 I decided to print my photo as a 5 x 7, you can do what suits you.

 Next, start trimming out the outline of your image (this is when you can trim off any messy or wild hair if you choose).

 This is what you end up with, I kind of like this image, I may need to do something with it for a future project.  But for now it will serve as a tracer.

 Depending on which way you want your silhouette to face, you can lay it right side up or upside down onto a sheet of black cardstock (I say black as silhouettes are typically black, but you could have some fun with different colours too.

 This is the traced outline.

 Next trim out that outline.

 Since I was using white core cardstock, I decided to further enhance that by sanding the edges of my silhouette.

 Next I added a subtle pattern paper to a dollar store 8 x 10 canvas, and inked the edges.  I knew I wanted my finished project to be black and white, so I embellished it accordingly.

 Here it is hanging on the wall.

Here is a close up of the fairly simple embellishment cluster.  I made the flower using a technique in a tutorial I demonstrated on my own blog over a year ago, you can see how to here.

Now i just have to finish unpacking my scrap room and start hanging things on the wall so I can hang this too!

Thanks for coming by the blog to see what I have been up to!

Laura
xoxo

CHA Sneak Peak

Hello all!

I have a ton of stuff to share with you from CHA and I will, I promise.  But I will do it a bit at a time so as not to overwhelm you or take up too much of your time all at once.

Today I wanted to share with you a brand new label from American Crafts, called Amy Tangerine.  A sweet girl named Amy Tan is the designer of this line and we had the good fortune to meet her and pose for a picture.

Her line includes patterned papers, machine stitched papers, fabrics and a plethora of embellishments, you know all of the usual suspects. It is a fun and quirky line and at first glance it looks a little random.  But I think that is the beauty and intention of this line.  It is travel influenced, but suitable for so much more.  I think all 4 of us that headed down to CHA are looking forward to the arrival of this product so that we can play with it.

One of my favourite parts of the collection is this little journal.  It comes loaded with pages but you could always add more if you need to.  And while it coordinates with her line of papers and embellies, you could do almost anything with it.

Here is a video that will tell you a little more about Amy Tan and this little journal.



And finally, I will share a few of her layouts, these are different to the ones you would have seen if you followed the links above.

We hope you will love this collection as  much as we do, it should be arriving in our store mid to late August.  If you are interested in pre-ordering this sweet journal feel free to email us here, and we will confirm all of the details with you.

Either way, leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Thanks for popping by today, keeping checking in with us for more CHA fun and more fun blog stuff!

Laura
xoxo

A HUGE Announcement!

Hello friends!


We have a super fun and exciting announcement!

   We are celebrating our FIRST Birthday! 

And of course, we decided that we should celebrate with you, our loyal and fabulous customers.  So we are hosting an event just for you!

Here are all of the details:

We will be offering this free children's make and take on Friday. August 5th  between 5pm and 8pm.  Limit 1 per child, to the first 50 children.

AND, if that is not enough we will be offering a FREE CROP on Saturday, August 6th, from 9am - 6pm!  Come and spend the day cropping with us and take advantage of our great sale!  Bring your own lunch, drinks, snacks etc..  Crop spaces are limited and will be on a first come first served basis.

Thank you for popping by today, we hope you will join us for our big "Sale-ebration"!

Anita, Elaine, Eileen and Laura

xoxo

Sketch-y Friday

Another Friday, already!

Wow this week has flown by with so much fun and excitement!  It seems like only yesterday I was sharing a sketch with you and here I am back again.

I thought I'd do something a little fun and different with the photo portion of the sketch this week.  But remember it`s your layout, do what suits you the best!

Also, I'd love to see your take on this sketch.  So,if you create a layout based on this sketch, you can have it published here on this blog by emailing me a picture of your creation by Thursday July 28th at 6pm here.

Here is a layout that was shared with us, based on the sketch from two weeks ago.....

I love that this layout by Christa Uttley has great balance, white space, oh and let's not forget the use of a paint chip!  Love that!  Thanks for sharing Christa!

Thanks for stopping by today! Happy scrapping.
Laura
xoxo

Tip and Technique Wednesday

It's Wednesday! Yeah! 

That means I am back with another tip for you.  As promised last week, I am going to show you how to use a layout sketch to create a card.  It's a great way to use up your scraps before tidying up at the end of a scrap session.  You can skip adding a sentiment and leave the card blank, if you are adding it to your stash of cards.  Sentiments can be added later when you decide who the card recipient will be. 

I used the same sketch as last week, from July 1st......

 This card was created at the same time as the layout I featured last week.  Using up some of my scraps is something I have been doing recently, it means I have to store less and I have a few cards in my stash for emergencies ;)
 

The layout is basically the same, but I chose to do less layers for my card as well as  fewer embellishments due to the smaller space.

 You'll notice that I changed the scalloped strip to sit on top of what would have been the photo mat.  I am using the photo mat area as a place to hold my sentiment instead of placing it where the title was.  If you wanted to use a stamped image on your card you could place it where the photo was and add your sentiment where the title was.  Again, the possibilities are endless.

Embellishments can be related to your card's theme or a basic flower.

Thank you for stopping by this week to see what I have been up to!

Laura
xoxo