A Homespun Affair June E Magazine Premier

Today is a big day!  I'm so proud to be a part of A Homespun Affair Design Team and our first e magazine release is today!  It is filled with projects from amazing designers and some wonderful sponsor products and giveaways, so be sure to check it out here!:

A Homespun Affair

Let us know what you think!  Looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Here is my project for the magazine:

I am doing a color choice feature every month and this month's colors are yellow, salmon, and pink.  Head on over to the magazine page and make sure to submit your own project using the colors for a chance to be featured!

On this layout, I used Paisley for the dragonfly, Fancy Frames for the frame, Nifty Fifties for the cherry and chillin and other fun embellishments for the flowers and tags.  You can read all about it and some tips and tricks I have in the magazine!  Enjoy!

Monkey Vine Banner

I've been working on making a banner for my daughter's 3rd birthday party and at first she wanted a Curious George party, so I started this.  Now she wants a Dora party, so I'm going to work on that banner next, but I still love this one and will hang it! I created and drew my own coconuts and drew my own face on the monkey from Create A Critter to try and make him look more like George.  The leaves are from CAC also, I believe and the letters are from Carousel.

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week my project was two-fold!  It's teacher appreciation week and I love my sons' teachers.  I am so grateful for them.  I decided to try my hand at making one of the goody cakes and put some candies, notes, etc in each piece.  I had a lot of fun doing it and it was pretty easy, though it did take a while!  I also used my something old and something new cartridge by using Tags, Bags, Boxes, and more, one of the first carts, PC released, and Letter Envy, the last one I got!  I used Paper Trimmings for the center of the cake and my stickles to glitter it up!  Enjoy!

2 Hour Timed Sketch Challenge

This challenge was to create a project using the sketch provided:

Here's what I came up with.  It's another part of the PTA book I'm doing for my son's school.  I'll be honest, I will probably add a couple things to it, but it's not too shabby for just over an hours worth of work.  This got me moving again!  Of course, my craft area is a disaster now!

NSD Crop: Recipe Challenge

In honor of National Scrapbooking Day, there are lots of fun projects going on.  One of them is the recipe challenge.  In this one, we need to:

Use at least three Cricut Image Cuts

Three patterned papers

A butterfly, Bird, or Bug

Machine, Pen, or Hand-Stitching

The color yellow

I had fun making a card in honor of teacher appreciation week for my daughter's music teacher that we love so much.  I used 3 Birds and was able to use some new cute from my Imagine carts!

Fun With New Carts!

So excited I finally get to post some of the projects I made during the Shawnee Crop. We had the privilege of playing with the new carts and I really enjoyed doing that!  I am going to have to buy these now!

For this first one, I used the Cricut inks for the first time and loved them!  I used the new banner cartridge to cut the banner.  For my stamps, I used Pink By Design.  Another wonderful woman I had the privilege of meeting there!  Thanks Sarah!

These were made out of Wild Card 2.  A SUPER cute cart that is simple with detailed and fun designs.  I love the cards that it can make!

Make and Take

This weekend we had a fun make and take using the butterfly from the one of the new cartridge releases for today, Tablescapes, Spring and Summer.  I added to it some ink, glimmer mist, ribbon, brads, and flower to jazz it up a bit!  

Shawnee Kansas Crop - I'm back!

Back from the crop in Shawnee and I had a great time getting to know the wonderful ladies that were there AND I was able to get a lot done.  I can't post all my projects here - not yet anyway, but will post a couple of the layouts I finished!

Here we are at The Scrapbook Page and it was an amazing store!  I would love to go back there sometime!  

I finally finished one of my winter 2011 layouts.  I had a lot of fun combining 2 sheets of paper to make this one geometric sheet.   I used Winter Frolic for the snow angel, Carousel for the banner and I can't recall the font I used at this point.

Finished up the Play-Doh layout.  These were all during the 2011 blizzard.  We were stuck in the house being creative so we made our own purple glitter playdoh with a flour recipe.  I used Hoot N Holler, Zoo Day, Cupcake, and my new Cuttlebug emboss/cut in one letter folder for the HOMEMADE part of it.  

Homemade Glitter Play-Dough

1 cup salt
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons cream of tartar (I bought mine from a bulk bin at the organic store, but you can buy it at most grocery stores)
2 cups water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
food coloring
glitter

In a medium saucepan, off the heat, combine the salt, flour, and cream of tartar.  Stir in water and vegetable oil.

Heat and stir over low heat until the mixture becomes a cohesive mass, like gluey mashed potatoes.  Let cool for a few minutes, then turn out onto a counter and knead until smooth.

Knead in food coloring and glitter as desired.  Store in an airtight container or plastic bag.

Crop next weekend

One thing I'm excited about is the crop in Shawnee, KS next weekend. It's been so long since I've had my crafting mojo. Disappointment in my Gypsy being out of service for a month (again) a busy school year, and lack of friends to craft with has really got me down. I am really looking forward to a weekend to scrap, chat, relax, and find my drive that has carried me these years. I need something really good to perk me up and get me going again! Here's hoping for the best! Working on my calling cards now, so I will post those when I get them done!

Gotcha!

My projects for this summer include working on my son's 2nd year album and my 2011 family album, so you might be seeing a lot of layouts relating to that! This is one of my favorite photo days that is not only going in my son's 2nd year book, but also is my submission for Jinger's Design Team, so here's crossing fingers!

I hope that if Jinger or someone else from her blog comes over this way that they will stick around and check out some of my others projects, because I have quite a few I am very pleased with!

If you will recall my HSN Banner entry:

http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/search/label/Carousel

My favorite Halloween layout:

http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/2011/08/august-monthly-challenge-create-scene.html

And, I don't just do layouts of my kids - this one is of me!:

http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/2011/01/weekly-challenge-17-baby-challenge.html

I do cards too:

http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/2010/10/cricut-weekly-challenge-4-boo.html

And artwork:

http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/2010/09/french-manor-contest.html

Thanks for the consideration!

Letter Envy card

Working on a card this morning I decided to totally use Letter Envy! I was amazed at how well the small details of the letters came out - and this was cut at 2"! Also, in trying to figure out how to glue down a translucent piece of ribbon, I used spray adhesive and it worked flawlessly - I was able to lie the ribbon flat and there are no glue or tape spots. Just wanted to share that little tip!

Hope you enjoy!

Magazine Challenge - Feb Mag

Ok, so I really want to get back into doing my scrapping and am doing whatever I can to motivate myself. I had a hard time with this one since I haven't had my Gypsy and have a limited number of carts at the moment. The first image I loved was from the magazine, page 9:

This is what I came up with, but it was just not coming together like I wanted to and I didn't like the finished product:

So...I scrapped it and started a new one yesterday. =) This was a love of labor for me - literally - since it was from Valentine's Day last year and I pretty much didn't have any of the carts I wanted to use or any embossing folders since they are at my scrapfriend's house and she's OOT. SO....I made do with what I did have! I based if off the sketch from page 34 in the magazine. I did turn the sketch to fit my photos, so hopefully it's not too loosely basing it. I did take some artistic license!

The sketch I based it off of:

And here it is!

I was excited to get out and use Letter Envy for both projects and I used Jubilee for the first time on the heart banners! I like how it turned out! Thanks for looking!

Use a Cart Challenge - Week 2

This week's use a cartridge challenge asked us to use Create a Critter. Well, I just LOVE Create a Critter and I really didn't do it justice with my layout, but I needed to do this layout for my book I plan on finishing this year, so I went with it! The fish is the only cut from CAC - the pole is from Boys Will Be Boys, "Fishing" from Hannah Montana and the other letters are rub ons!

Just Some Cards!

Got some cards to show today. I wanted to play around with some stamps and with inspiration from a card out of the January Cricut Magazine, I came up with this. LOVE Art Nouveau (think I've mentioned that once or twice) and love playing with ribbons, and I'm really happy with how this turned out!

Recently got Tinkerbell and Friends (though I've stalked it for a LONG time!) and it is fabulous! It's been a while since I've played with my glimmer mist, so I got it out and used it to create my background! I made this for a little girl's 5 year birthday.

And just for fun, I found a tutorial on making fabric flowers out of jersey and with my scissors and glue gun, came up with this hair clip in minutes!

Dec/Jan Craftroom Contest

Here is my submission for the magazine contest. I did enjoy the size and ease of craftroom, but it is very inconvenient for me to shuffle my E to the other room and try and set up tables to print, so I most likely will not be using it. It also was a bummer that I needed carts to print (I store them at my friend's house where we do most of our crafting) so I was unable to print the first time I had everything set up. It looks like there might be some place to link carts, so that could solve that issue, but since I have my Gypsy and can move that anywhere to design and print instead of moving my E, I will most likely just stick to that. That being said, here is my design with Craftroom. Of course a layout of my kiddos and very different from my usual LOs. I used Paper Trimmings and Nursery Rhymes and fancied it up with some ribbon, a sticker for the center, and some sanding on my paper. I have another side to this, so I will try and post that tomorrow!

Some cards and my Journal Box

Since I recently FINALLY got Art Nouveau, I can't put it down! I've not been so excited about a cartridge in a long time! Here's one card I made using the Scarab:

Another I made using the Lilies:

A cute TY card using Winter Frolic and a card cut from Paper Trimmings:

And then there's my journal box - an idea I saw on Pinterest. I just took a clearanced out Christmas box and covered it with paper, made myself a tab template for the months and stamped them and the dates for the year. The goal is to write a sentence about something you did that day like a mini journal and there are enough lines on the cards to keep it up for 10 years. It's fun to see what you were doing the same day the year before or 5 years before! So far I am keeping up with it! I know, it seems like a small feat but that's about 10 days longer than I've ever kept up with a journal before!

Happy Anniversary (to me!)

Today's post is a celebration for me! It is my anniversary today! 14 years ago today I met my husband and 10 years ago we were married! I created this card for him using my new and very loved Art Nouveau and did one of the 52 Things I Love About You projects with a pack of cards, wrapped up in a (very poorly) covered 48 ct. crayon box. It fit perfectly, though!