Beehicle

I love that word "Beehicle" LOL! At the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh Ride in Disneyland you board a beehive shaped ride vehicle with the most adorable heffalump looking bees... I want them to be called Heffalumble bees. At DisneyWorld the ride vehicle is a hunny pot.

I used Sketch #112 from Sketch Savvy HERE for this page and some older My Minds Eye papers. This is my 4th layout for my goal of 50 pre-2014 stash layouts. How are you guys doing on using your stash? I plan to do a few this weekend

January Sketchy Thursday at Scraptastic!

Who would like a $20 gift cert to Scraptastic!? All you have to do is hop over to the Scraptastic Blog HERE and have a go at the sketch for a chance to win. For my layout I used the wintery "Baby, it's Cold Outside" kit, Add on kit, and Stamp set and a photo from a cousin who has more than her share of snow :) I had sleet on Monday but it was hardly worthy of these papers. LOL

For my layout I flipped the sketch around a bit and used one photo rather than two. 

I love the dark woodgrain for the background and it really sets off the snowflakes and stamped words when you heat emboss in white. I chose to paint the big Maya Road snowflakes with white paint and then sand them.

 

For the title I used the snow day wood veneer and although the photo just doesn't show much, I used crackle accents first and sprinkled a bit of snow flakes onto it. It really looks a bit icy in person. 

This little deer banner is borrowed from my December kit "Home for the Holidays". That kit is sold out but the awesome add on kit with all the die cuts and goodies is still available HERE. 

Snug *Scraptastic's January "Baby, it's Cold Outside" kit

Help me out guys, I keep thinking my photos are too small on my blog but when I make them the next size up they seem too big. What do you think? Is anyone having trouble with the layout photo sizes today? are they too big to view properly?

Here's another page using the wintery  "Baby, it's Cold Outside" kit from Scraptastic Club kits. See it HERE. The uber talented Danni Reid posted a challenge in the Scraptastic forum with an inspiration photo and it was just so perfect for this kit that I had to play along.

So here is the inspiration photo

 ........and here is my take on it. I have added a woodgrain patterned paper because I already used the one in the kit. I also added white cardstock and some sequins to go with the tree in the photo of mr Savvy. I just love the custom die cuts (warm & cozy) that are in these kits.

I probably mentioned this before but the flair in our kits comes in these adorable tiny glassine envelopes that make a great little sequin shaker bag.

 

Character Challenge

So what do you guys think - Challenges - do you love a layout challenge, or would you rather just create on your own? For me, I think I like to work with at least some sort of challenge, even if its just my friend saying that she wants me to do a layout using the collection that I recently bought. I have two layouts to share today and the challenge was to scrap a page with a character photo and more specifically one that you have been avoiding for one reason or another.  This is the part of the challenge that really grabbed my attention because I have alot of photos of characters that need to be scrapped. I found that most of them were being avoided because I was in the photo and making some stupid face LOL!

This first layout is Alex with Princess Atta and I have avoided this one because it was a film photo and super dark because they are in the shade. Well I got a little Wolverine film and slide converter for Christmas so I was able to lighten this photo. Then I was avoiding it because the colors are so hard. I finally found this BasicGrey Kioshi and it was perfect! Gotta love scrapping from the stash!
Page #4 for my 2014 Stash Challenge :) I even used the EK Princess Atta and some of my large stash of wood veneers.

This next layout was also film and I avoided scrapping it because I didn't have a printed copy of the photos. So nice to be able to print film photos even if they aren't perfect scans, they are pretty good. I could have used the typical zoo/safari type papers for this page but I chose to use Fancy Pants' Collecting Moments collection and I think it worked out perfectly. The background paper is from American Crafts and I even pulled out some old Prima flowers. Now this one really doesn't count as a stash layout because I got a few of these papers at the closing sale of Archivers. 

Mary Blair Mural

How are you guys doing with trying to use up that stash? I know the new collections are showing up in stores and you are tempted. This is my 3rd Stash layout. I had an idea for a page using this old photo that I took at the Contemporary Resort. I actually took a bunch of photos of the mural when I was there last time but I lost all of those photos. When I was looking for papers to use with these colors, I was surprised at how well they go with Basic Grey's Persimmon collection.

Mary Blair's stylized art is seen in Disney Classics, and of course she is most well known for It's a Small World, but I just love this mural at the Contemporary Resort and I wish the one she had done for Tomorrowland in Disneyland was still there. I am no Mary Blair, so when I decided to do a bit of random hand cut pieces for this page, it was alot better in my head. Still I think the idea comes across. 

 

 I actually used the 6x6" paper pad for almost the whole page. Those smaller scale patterns work so well for pages where you are using lots of small pieces of papers.

All is Calm *Scraptastic December kit

Back to holiday layouts :) I mean we only just took the photos, and I think its time to scrap them.  I used Sketch #111 from Sketch Savvy HERE and the January "Baby, it's Cold Outside" kit from Scraptastic Club kits HERE. On Christmas evening when we are completely exhausted, we have some leftovers, spiced spiked cider, and then watch the Doctor Who Christmas special together. It's fast becoming one of our favorite traditions. Noel is just happy to have Alex lap.

 

I decided to leave these cool big Maya Road snowflakes naked and then cut some berries from patterned papers to pair with them. 

Love Valentines

Kids love Valentines Day at school but if you make cupcakes and other goodies, even the biggest kids love it. :) The Valentine collection by Recollections (Michael's) has lots of great stamp sets and the papers and embellishments have this perfect blue - notice I didn't say aqua or teal? real blue! I just love it and when I pulled out my photos from last year, my son had on that exact blue, which was super cool. I used the doilies and enamel dots from the collection too.

 

Have you ever stamped and heat embossed on vellum? I will say that you want to hold the heat tool higher and heat it slowly or the vellum will warp, but it really turns out nicely. And if you look at the "love" stamp, it has fine lines for the shadow and when I heat embossed it melted together, but I love the look. I also wanted a sort of watercolor-ish looking effect for some of the stamping so I used a water based ink marker and applied it to the stamp and then stamped. 

 

Stash layout #2

Here's my second layout this year using my pre-2014 stash. If you didn't see my first post, I am challenging myself, and any of you that would like to play along, to create pages using your stash. See the first challenge post HERE.

I used BasicGrey's KneeHighs and RSVP collection and with the cute transparencies, chipboard elements, stitched banners, brads, and candy buttons.

So who is playing along? Don't forget if you post on instagram use #2014StashChallenge

January Baby, it's cold outside kit from Scraptastic

I have two layouts to share using the January Baby, it's cold outside kit from Scraptastic Club. If you haven't seen the kit, add on kit, and stamp set  - -CLICK HERE. If you visit the Scraptastic Blog HERE you can read about how I have been shopping my previous kit stash to complete these pages.

Over New Years my kitty Figaro was very ill and in critical care. I took these photos when he was finally back to his healthy crazy self. We are pretty happy that he is still here with us. In addition to the kit I used a little stamp that says "its all good" from the January Tongue Tied stamp set. I stamped with white acrylic paint while I had the paint out to paint and sand the Maya Road chipboard snowflakes. I created a pocket behind the photo for the journaling on a tag.

For my second layout I wanted to give the look of the wood veneer snowflakes hanging from circle garland so I stitched some punched circles and added the snowflakes and Basic Grey Candy Buttons.

We just don't get snow in Houston so even a little flurry is enough to excite us and we have to go out and take photos.

 

 Have you ever cut words or shapes from your background paper? I just love the way it looks and its super easy if you have your page planned out. The best part about cutting a title from the background is that you don't have to worry about mounting all those letters in a nice straight line, it's done for you and you just put paper behind. Oh and the lined paper here is the packaging piece from behind the Basic Grey Candy buttons.

2014 Stash Challenge #1

Happy 2014! Are you ready for some scrapping? 

With the new year we often talk about resolutions like diets, organizing our homes / scraprooms, and of course using up some of our stash. I have seen a couple of people post about trying not to spend money on new product in 2014 and just using their stash. I think its a wonderful idea but that is NOT going to happen in my world. I am weak and wouldn't probably make it a month. LOL! For me it would be better to try to limit my spending this year and set a goal to use my stash.

After thinking about it the first few days of this year, I have decided to set a goal (number of layouts) for this year where I will use only my stash that I have acquired pre-2014. Then I will post my layouts on my blog with the number as a way to sort of be accountable. So how many? Well, I wanted it to be a real challenge and slightly more than I think I can really do, so I am going for 50. There are 52 weeks in a year and although some weeks I will do more scrapping than others, I am going for it.

Who wants to play along? I have a friend who is going for 52, another said she may have to say 1 per month was more her speed. Let me know what you guys think about this idea. If you want to share, I will be using the hashtag #2014StashChallenge on Instagram and I would love for you guys to use the same one so we can all be inspired :) If you only do one stash page now and then with no set goal - that's cool too!

For this page I used a mix of papers that you might not expect. The RSVP collection from BasicGrey is a birthday collection but the papers and embellishments were just perfect with some vintage looking DCWV papers. I used DCWV Tradewinds Stack papers and gold cardstock, BasicGrey RSVP papers, die cuts, wood die cuts, and vellum embellishments, BasicGrey Carte Postale filmstrip transparency,  some vintage buttons, gold paper flowers, and twine.

This is my husband at the Junk Gypsies Headquarters this past fall, so lots of goodies from my stash all over the page just seems to work for me.

Page Maps January with Scraptastic DT

Ok this is very cool. I got to be part of the monthly Page Maps reveal again this month and this time it was the Scraptastic Design Team that was chosen to work with Page Maps. Click HERE to see everyone's awesome layouts with Becky's Sketches.

I was lucky and got a really fun sketch that worked well for my Home for the Holidays December Scraptastic kit and all the embellishments. My grown son never really had a holiday tradition that was just for him. Since he is living with us and going to college I thought it would be fun to do the Elf on the shelf for the month just to show him how it works and then he can do it with his kids. He and my husband thought it was hilarious! He even asked me to do an album of the photos so he will remember all the ideas. I used a couple of those photos here. Perry the Platypus joined our Christmas as well. Someone had to keep an eye on that cheeky elf.

 

 

I used the gorgeous gold washi to make flags and I hope you can see my little title that I stamped in the upper left. Love that stamp from the Home for the Holidays Stamp Set. See Brett has not come up with the perfect name yet so we are calling him Nameless - hence the "?". He is leaning toward Trogdor or Alfie. Seriously if you haven't seen this kit, go look because its one of my fave kits I have every had!