I am a Carta Bella Paper Designer!

I am so excited to be able to share this news!!! It's going to be alot of fun working with the talented team at Carta Bella Paper and playing with the awesome products!

So lets just jump right in and talk about this awesome "It's a Celebration" Collection. When was the last time you got excited about a Birthday themed collection? Seriously CLICK HERE and look at this great collection. I can tell I am going to be using it for alot more than just birthday pages, but I love it because it worked great for my adult birthday page and I could totally use if for a kid too. And I know I have mentioned this before, but Carta Bella papers have them most gorgeous texture and weight. Hopefully you can see it in some of my close up photos.

 

Check out the birthday music paper with the little confetti here and there. I just drew a random looking scalloped border and cut it out. I used to do that alot and had kind of forgotten how fun it is on a layout. 

 

And I have to add that when I was looking for stuff to add to Alex's Birthday cake, I found these packs of individually colored Sixlets pearl coated chocolates and they were not only fun and cute, but they were not trying to break our teeth like the little pearls. We will be doing this again for certain. 

February Sketchy Thursday at Scraptastic

It's time for another Sketchy Thursday at Scraptastic's Blog.  Check it out and play along for a chance at a gift certificate. CLICK HERE for all the details and to see the awesome projects from our Design Team.

Before I share my sketch, I have to share a peek at the Scraptastic kit I got for March. CLICK HERE for a peek at all three kits for March. I just got mine and its AWESOME!!! I got the "It's my Life" kit and Add on Kit and it looks like sooo much fun. And wait til you see the stamp sets for March :) Full reveal will be on the Scraptastic Blog on the 1st. 



Ok, here is the sketch and my layout example.

I used the Mr Big Stuff kit and add on kit and I only used one photo and used a bunch of the cute goodies from the kit rather than the hearts. I used the Feel Again Stamp set to heat emboss on vellum for the little label shapes.

 

The Mickey is a punch, but the dinos are my own design and I used my cricut and SCAL2 software to cut it out. 

Carta Bella Homemade with Love collection

Yesterday I posted a layout made with Carta Bella's Homemade with Love Collection and it was a page with two photos of my boys with Goofy. Today I have a layout using the same collection for a very different look. My neighbor has a Fig tree and he brings us a big bag of figs every summer. I decided to try to make Fig Jam.....ok Jam is not really the word, preserves would probably be closer but honestly it's more of Fig Spread - that is not a pretty word when cut out and it didn't fit properly, so I went with Jam on my layout. LOL!

This collection has the best details. The drawing of the woman on the left is cut from one of the patterned papers. I used some tiny EK punches to do the little stitched banner and added a couple of Echo Park brads.

Goofy Guys *Carta Bella Homemade with Love Collection

Definitely Goofy, no doubt. We loved breakfastasaurus at Animal Kingdom. There are definitely some difficult colors in the photos - mostly because of Goofy! LOL

I found the perfect papers finally! The "Homemade with Love" collection by Carta Bella not only has awesome colors and papers for my bright Disney photos, but the kitchy kitchen elements worked perfectly for our Breakfastasaurus in the Dino Camp atmosphere. I just had to use the woodgrain sticker  knife, fork, and spoon!

 And of course there needed to be a little Dinoland here so I die cut this cute dino and gave him the traditional hat.

Carta Bella Sew Lovely Collection

Today I wanted to share a card and layout that I created for the Carta Bella Paper booth at CHA using the New "Sew Lovely" collection. The weight and texture of the cardstock makes for a great folded pleat. 

 

And then for my layout I scrapped a page using a photo of some of my recent vintage textile finds. I love searching for goodies like this when I go antiquing. I decided that it would be fun to include a couple of pins, vintage buttons, and some hand stitching on the layout to tie in with the theme and the gorgeous Sew Lovely Collection.

Dock Side *New DCWV Gilded paper

Are you ready for more New DCWV? The Gilded Paper Stack and the patterned Cork Stack are new, but the Linen Closet stack is from a year ago. You guys will love these.

I used the wood background from the Gilded Paper Stack and then layered several of the papers with that awesome gold foil. It's got these cool anchors on one of the papers and in a couple of tags, but its not a nautical stack, so I pulled 2 blue papers from the Linen Closet Stack. Then I just couldn't resist the super cool New patterned Cork Stack with the white damask pattern. This stack is adhesive backed! How cool is that?! It punches great too and I punched a few stars but just couldn't find a spot for them on my page.

 

These tags are actually cut from the patterned paper in the Gilded Paper stack. I think I may need another stack of this collection because I am totally loving these gold foiled accents. It's definitely a new fave for me. 

SWAK *New DCWV Goodies!

 Check out these new goodies from DCWV! Starting with the new Honey Chic stack with all the fantastic prints and colors. It's got a bit of the sparkly glossy accents that we all love too. Then I pulled out the 6x6" Corrugate Naturals Stack because its got a couple of greys that would work well with these papers. Next I knew I had to use the super cool NEW DCWV Templates (stencils), specifically the one with doilies on it. And then lastly, some pearl Gem Stickers. 

My photo is too funny. My sister asked me to take a photo of her kissing this little monkey topiary at the flower market, so I knew it would be a layout when I was taking the photo. I decided to pull out another stack when I started my page - I used the DCWV Woven paper stack for the white background because I love the texture.

The little labels are cut from one of the papers in the Honey Chic Stack, and so are the flowers.

I placed the stencil on the background, then applied a thick coating of gesso over the stencil and scraped it off flat with a putty knife before carefully removing the stencil and allowing it to dry. Since I was not patient enough to let it dry outside, I used a heat tool and slightly warped the page, but stitching it to the patterned paper helped.  Plan ahead and allow for drying time and you will have a flatter layout.

The tag is just a piece of the corrugated cardboard paper that I used a corner rounder punch on and then sanded a bit to make it look less smooth.

Not just for Valentines

I wanted to share this layout that I created using the Echo Park Love Story Collection pack, chipboard, and brads. Yes, its a very Valentiney collection but it was exactly what I needed for this photo of my sister and Piglet at breakfast at Crystal Palace. LOVE the little button card and the chipboard lollypop. This is one of my fave pages and I did it like a year ago and never posted it. Should have thought of it yesterday, huh?

Move Along!

...said in my best storm trooper voice :)

These are a couple of photos from Star Wars Weekends at MGM/Disney Hollywood Studios. When we went thru the main gate in the morning there were several storm troopers patroling above us. This is my example for sketch #115 at SketchSavvy Here. I used various Crate Paper papers and added an extra photo to the design. I don't always like my sketches but this one was fun. I will probably do it again.

Spring Break *Feb Scraptastic Club kit

For this page I used the February "Mr Big Stuff kit, Add on kit, and stamp set. It's such a guy kit and I wanted to try to use some real photos of my guys. I tried to get some good photos of them this year when Christopher was here over break, but this is more the kind of thing I ended up with.

I decided to cut this awesome huge wood veneer in half so I could use it on two layouts and I really like the way it looks.

I stamped along the top and lower background edge  and then used that same star stamp to stamp on vellum and heat emboss with white embossing powder. I really am hooked on embossing on vellum so you will be seeing more of that. LOL!

 

Seriously this is what my "real" photos look like. 

a couple of Disney pages

This past weekend I decided to dig deep into my stash and participate in some challenges to get old Disney photos scrapped. It really is fun to actually use those old papers and products. These two layouts are for color challenges.

I went a bit lighter with my colors because there were white flowering trees and plants all over Disneyland in February when we went. Love those bronze characters around the partners statue. I used My Mind's Eye and BasicGrey papers, BasicGrey brads, and sequins.

 

This next page has photos that I was avoiding because of the colors of the guitar and the colors of my family's shirts. I used papers from Crate paper, DCWV, and My Mind's Eye. For the black elements, I used a black sparkly embossing powder on wood veneers and heat embossed.  The thin black stripes are washi tape. My favorite part is the red stars - you can probably tell in the close up that they are cork. I used the DCWV colored Cork Stack and punched the stars. Super fun stack.