Happiness is right here..

Hi everyone, here to share a really new layout.. I made it last night. Been experimenting with my photography, trying to find my perfect settings, but still far from it.. So please excuse the bad quality:-)

Today's layout features a lot of embellishing and a basically playing with patterns. I used mostly American Crafts on this page, with a tinsy bit of Fancy Pants and Crate paper..

I love having a lot of white on my layouts.. They let the eyes rest on the important bits, without getting all confused. I went for a colourful embellishments to compensate for the lack of colour in my photographs.. I think it balances out the page quite well and stops it from being boring.

My focus points were the chipboard frame and the banner, I really wanted to add a banner cos the photo strip was quite wide and the banner would brake it down a bit. Everything else was pretty much spur of the moment embellishing:-)

I used some Dear Lizzy (buttery yellow) "bee" paper to add a fun whimsical touch. I have had that paper for quite some time, and it was a relief I found the perfect place to use it. The banner was made of Fabric paper, and it adds some nice texture to the layout. I also added a chipboard heart on the banner, just for a shot of cuteness!

And lastly the title was added with some Crate Paper wood grain alphas, some American Crafts Amy Tangerine Thickers and some older Pink Paislee alpha stickers.

Supplies List-

Chipboard- Maya road

Patterned paper- American Crafts Dear Lizzy

Flowers- Prima, Basic Grey

Rubons- Fancy Pants, Lilly Bee and Studio Calico

Vintage buttons- Websters Pages

Stickers- Crate Paper, Pink Paislee

Mist- Tattered Angels

Thank you for dropping by,

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Hugs!

More Christmas cards!

Yes, it's been a busy few days indeed! finishing off my cards to send to all my loved ones did take a few late nights:-) but it's done, at least what needed to be mailed;-)

Here's one of my faves! I love circle cards, and this is a really fun Christmas card, it fits in a 4x4 envelope:-) really quite small.. I used some chipboard and letter stickers as well as a snow flake die. The '&' is from a Valentines Hero Arts set.. I thought a stamped '&' would go best with this card.



I pop dotted one layer for added dimension ( the scalloped layer). all parts of the card were die cut using my Cuttlebug, so it was ready in next to no time at all... That's how cards should be, specially during these busy days:-)

Supplies list:

All paper by My Minds Eye
Sparkly Thickers by American Craft
Letter stickers by Basic Grey( these are so versatile!)
Stamps: Valentine sayings by Hero Arts
Snow fake die by Dienamics
The other dies are by Spellbinders
Pearls: Kaiser Kraft

.... the little stuff

Hello crafty friends, seems like I can squeeze in a post on a layout I did recently, it actually took two days:-) not that it was a grand masterpiece.. it's just that crafting time is limited nowadays..
It started with me finding this pic of me taken last year. And I love the view behind me. Plus I love the orange of the scarf!! Lame:-) So I thought its time for another layout..

I picked this Hambly tree rubon to match the orange in the photograph.. I applied it on Kraft paper and coloured in the wood grain in brown Copics so that it doesn't blend in with the background too much.



I added a Hero arts butterfly and stamped in the grid background for some added detail, however the grid is not too visible, if you squint hard and look under the butterfly you might just lightly see it:-) Need to get a better white ink for stamping!

The stamps I used for the title are by Hero arts and Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday.. The blue butterfly is also by Hero arts.. I placed the little fella over some cork I punched out with a Martha Stewart punch.

And the pretty little frame is by American Crafts! Dont you just love it? I cant wait to add them on more layouts..

I also pulled out my October Afternoon Fly a Kite line pattern paper and used it with some Hambly overlays.. I wanted the overlay to mimic my stamped grid background..

Lastly I added this cute button I found in Singapore and this very pretty rub on by Lily Bee and finished it off:-)

Thank you so much for dropping by,

Hugs,

Michelle.

Sketchy Project!!

Hello Hello, gosh it's been ages!!! Sorry for the random posts.. just cant find time these days :-(
Lets start this month with some happy news, I just came to know I got into the fab 5 at Hero Arts in last months challenge:-) it was for the red balloon card, I am doing one crazy happy dance right now.. ha ha
Love Hero arts stamps, they truely are the best out there...

On to some more exciting stuff..., I have something really special to share with you today!! Been so excited to get this layout photographed and ready to go.

Below is the sketch that got it started, it was a sketch for my dear friend Nancy (another great friend from the Hero Arts group). She wanted to do a layout featuring her cute little angel Bruno (bless his soul) who in Nancy's words "crossed over the rainbow bridge".

You can drop in here to see what Nancy did with this sketch, too cute!!! :

http://happyheart-nancyljk.blogspot.com

I have used only the first page of the sketch:-) ( just realised I cropped the page too close since its a white layout!! Sigh.. )

This is a page about our trip to Santorini in 2009, we did a road trip by quad bike on the last day, visited a couple of beaches and a light house... We also stopped by this very colourful little roadside store where they sell home made preserves and wine! yum!!



Close up of a few embellishments:-)

Here I used one of my favourite stamps by Hero Arts.. Love this one, I wanted to depict the 'journey' and thought this bicycle (with the happy little flower basket) would be perfect for that! I love to stamp on my pages to add interest:-)

Hope you liked today's layout, this is the first time I am using so many pics on one page.. and I liked how it turned out:-)

Thank you Nancy for making this such a fun project!! Hugs:-)

Supplies List:

Patterned paper : Basic Grey June bug collection

Chip board: Bella Blvd and Basic grey June bug( from the alphabet chip sticker set), American Crafts Thickers ( which were coloured using chalk ink)

Stamp: Hero arts, Technique Tuesday stamps for the journalling, and also a 7 gypsies stamp for the journalling in the center)

Copics for colouring the stamped image.

Brads: Basic Grey Eerie collection

Navy blue twine: May arts

Happy Monday everyone!! Hope you had a fantastic weekend:-)
This weekend I finally managed to do a lot of scrap booking, here is the first layout I did on Saturday night:-) just finished it before midnight..

The starting point for this layout was a gorgeous page done by the super talented Elizabeth Karchner.. She had done a great layout with a stitched title 'love'.. I was dying to do a stitched title so I scrapped these two photographs I had of me and my husband before we were married..
It was taken when we were on a trip to the beach down south where we spent all weekend lounging in bed:-)

So I wanted to capture this with a title that said 'Love hanging out and just chilling together'.


The main design element was the rose frame that I cut out.. It's actually a larger scaled version of a Hero arts stamp set I have of various frames, I drew it on a scratch piece of paper and used it as a stencil and then went over it with a black fine tip pen. I love the fact that it looked doodled!
So to match that, I created some doodled leaves for the flower embellishment( which is a paper from the Dear Lizzy Line) from some blue dotty paper..

(The flowers were cut out and layered to add dimension, and I also added a bit of glossy accents on their spotty centers)

The blue strip with the brown flowers is a paper strip I cut out from an American Crafts Letterbox collection paper. I used it to tuck my angled frame in so that the cut edge doesn't show and to divide the page so that I can add the rest of the title in white paper strips..

I hand stitched the word love in red thread. I also used a fabric Thicker bracket to finish off the title..

I added a clip from the Olivia collection by Basic grey and added a Heidi grace epoxy sticker that says big smiles.

I completed the layout with some punched butterflies and some Hero arts jewels as well as a couple of buttons:-)

Thanks for dropping by, and hope you have a fab week..

P.S: will share the other layout as soon as I get some time to photograph it :-)

Thank you card with another Happy tree!!

Here's the second card I made with the same stamp, I used only the bark of the tree..Then filled the top with little punched butterflies:-) doesn't it look really spring and fun!!

I love this tree stamp! I added a small sentiment from the Thank you stamp set (CL341), and a little lady bird from the Adorable baby girl stamp set (CL265).

All papers are from American Crafts (Dear Lizzy) , grass is drawn in with Copics.

Hope you had fun seeing two very different options with the same tree stamp :-)

Hugs,

Michelle.

A perfect day

I have decided to finally put all my new stamps to good use starting today, have you ever sat down and thought 'boy do I have too many unopened stamp sets'? It hit me yesterday that I have been so busy buying the latest and the greatest, I just didn't have time to make something with them!!
Completely bugged by the pile of stamps (which were mocking me in their fresh packaging), I broke open my new house cling stamp. My first card was going to be for the Hero arts June challenge:-)

I picked a few other Hero arts stamps which have been neglected and started stamping away.. First I got a heap of my Dear Lizzy paper by American crafts and stamped the house on a yellow sheet and a red sheet. I stamped it again on a white scratch cardstock piece as well (this was to cut out the roof and the windows..). I then used my Copics and coloured the window blinds in light blue, and faintly coloured the glass in grey so that it looks like the lights reflecting off the glass.
I also coloured the strip on the roof in light blue as well. Used a red Copic and coloured in the window in a red that matched the door which I cut out from the house which was stamped on red paper. ( gosh that's a long sentence:-))

I stamped the little tree on the green patterned paper and on Kraft Card stock. Cut those out too. The hearts were cut out from a pink sheet.
Finally got to the sun which had a lot of detailed cutting! I stamped it on a bright orange sheet of Dear Lizzy paper. the tiny scallop took so long to cut! I had to use an exacto knife to get as close to the image as I possibly can,and selected a yellow button to go with it..

I also cut out some flags from the Dear Lizzy paper and made my little banner thingy..

The picket fence and grass is from a Dear Lizzy fabric paper sheet, it looks so cute when paired with the house stamp!

Here's the card! As you can see I did a bit of distressing in Tumbled glass so that the top looks like the sky..




Here's a close-up of the details, I also added some hand drawn butterflies to finish up the card:-)

Supplies used:

All stamps from Hero arts- 2 houses cling stamp, Circular Designs, Adorable baby girl, Sending happy thoughts.

All patterned paper and solid papers are from the Dear Lizzy collection

Ink, Color box chestnut ink, Tumbled Glass Ranger ink.

Thanks for dropping by:-)

Hugs,

Michelle.