She Loves Color 2017 Recap

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

The second weekend in October was cray-cray! In the best way possible :) Earlier this year I was contacted by Bella Blvd and Crop & Create to teach - why yes of course, I would love to! Turns out I didn't check my calendar very well because the events were on the same weekend! I totally double booked myself and the announcements that I would be teaching had already been made. LUCKILY and THANKFULLY, both events arranged their calendars so I could teach all day Friday at She Loves Color and then Saturday night/Sunday morning at Crop & Create. All's well that ends well! First photo - a massive group photo of all the lovely ladies at She Loves Color!

My flight from Seattle to Chicago left at about 7 in the morning which meant I woke up at 3am. I was mentally prepared for no sleep the entire weekend so it was all good. Once in Chicago I rented a car and drove up to Milwaukee. When I crossed over into Wisconsin and my phone welcomed me to the state (such a fun feature!) I immediately wanted to watch That 70s Show :) The event was held at a beautiful hotel and convention center downtown. I only wish I had had more days to explore!

After meeting up with my roomie, the fabulous Jennifer Gallacher, we walked down to the lobby and caught up with the other instructors and organizers to go get yummy dinner at an Italian place. Much better than McDonalds which seems to be our go-to place when vacationing, but I was kidless and got to eat whatever I wanted! Funnily enough I ate things like mac'n'cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches :) :)

Megan Hoeppner's teaching table made my mouth water, for several reasons!

She showed us how she used the Studio Calico mega date stamp in her TN - LOVE!

At the event opening Megan gave the keynote speech. Megan is a true gem of a human. She had us laughing, crying, relating to her stories, and got us even more excited about this hobby we love called Scrapbooking. I will forever remember to search for "lollies". From Jen's blog: "At the opening ceremony, keynote speaker Megan Hoeppner spoke on looking for your “lollies.” She shared how much her young daughter loves receiving a simple sucker, and how she truly cherishes it and feels joy at receiving it. Megan encouraged us to look for own cherished and happy moments. She pointed out that often we use other people’s happiness (including our children’s) as a substitute for our own happiness, but that we need to find those moments and those things that personally bring us joy." Scrapbooking is my joy. My "lollie".

Guests could earn balls to put in this big rotating bin whether through spending a certain amount of money or completing a scavenger hunt, answering trivia questions, etc., and if they were lucky they'd win something awesome! And it's PINK!

Back in the hotel room, Jen graciously helped me collate and staple all my class instructions. She's an angel! The next day, Friday, I taught from sun-up to sun-down! 3 classes with about 60 wonderful women in each one and we learned how to make two layouts.

There were three big rooms just like this filled with scrappers from all over, coming together for the love of documenting memories.

Heeeey! Look who it is! It's funny that we spent the previous Saturday together at my house bookbinding and then all the way in Milwaukee the very next weekend! We're practically besties ;)

Shanna adapted my 12x12 layout concepts to fit in her Bible. So talented she is!

For dinner I got a recommendation to go to Doc's Commerce Smokehouse so Jen and Celine Navarro and I headed over. It was such an awesome experience with live music and yummy food. Truly a night I'll never forget!

Later that night it was make'n'take time! Megan and I shared a table and she taught how to make cute luggage tags and I did the make'n'take I was supposed to do at CHA this past January but since I didn't go it worked out to make them here - it was a mini album from a single sheet of cardstock made from a cut file by Bea Valint! And then I lost my voice, wah wah, haha. All that talkin' all day long!

The next morning I was up at 4am (which was 2am my time!) to head back to Chicago and fly to Thunder Bay for Crop & Create!

I caught a glimpse of the Sears/Willis Tower on the way out of town, it was lovely.

Neeeeext up - Crop & Create Thunder Bay recap!

Butterfly Layout by Missy Whidden

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

I love how Missy Whidden takes an idea and runs with it! This week I asked her to create a page featuring butterflies and boy did she do just that!

Hello again, friends! Missy here, and this week we are featuring butterflies on our projects. I knew right away I wanted to use one of Paige’s cut files for my layout. This one is called Butterfly and it’s beautiful. I enlarged it to fit across white cardstock and cut it on my Silhouette Cameo. I started with the Turn the Page 6x6 Paper Pad to back the open spots. This is a great way to use up those small bits of scraps you have leftover because the open spots are small. I also used some papers from the Take Me Away 6x6 Paper Pad and the Oh My Heart 6x6 Paper Pad. I used the leftover pieces from my cut file from my last layout from a paper from the Fancy Free 12x12 Paper Pad. My background paper matched the colors perfectly and it’s from the Take Me Away 12x12 Paper Pad. I traced around the butterfly and added some white gesso around the edges with my fingers to create a white haze. I used some ink sprays and watercolors to add some color to the background. Then I fussy cut a lot of butterflies from Turn the Page Paper 04 to scatter around the layout.

Mixing and matching colors is fun and easy when you back a detailed cut file like this. I love the beautiful colors and how they look together. Here you can see the watercolor peeking out from behind the big butterfly. The smaller fussy cut butterflies were the perfect size to place around the page, and I also added in lots of rose gold stickers from the Turn the Page Sticker Book. Then I tucked in some matching tangled thread in a few places.

My favorite thing about using butterflies is how easy it is to make them dimensional. Just add a dab of glue to the center and you can make the wings pop off the page for instant dimension. I created even more depth by adding some adhesive foam under the cut file. It creates a nice shadow and helps to bring the image off the page.

I tucked my photo underneath the butterfly here. There was some open unimportant space in the photo, so it worked out nicely like this. I used several more stickers from the Turn the Page Sticker Book here to emphasize how I felt about the photo. It was my daughter’s first dentist appointment, we were very proud of how she handled it. The “all grown up” piece is from one of the Turn the Page 2x2 Paper Pads. I simply trimmed it down and ran my edge distresser around the edges.

I hope this gives you some fun “butterfly” ideas to try on your next layout! The Turn the Page collection is full of them, so you likely won’t run out!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a wonderful week!

SUPPLIES: TURN THE PAGE: 6x6 Paper Pad, Paper 04, Sticker Book, 2x2 Paper Pad; OH MY HEART: 6x6 Paper Pad; TAKE ME AWAY: 6x6 Paper Pad, 12x12 Paper Pad; FANCY FREE: 12x12 Paper Pad; Cut file: Butterfly by Paige Evans

Blog: littlenuggetcreations.blogspot.com Instagram: @missywhidden Pinterest: @missywhidden

Facebook: missy.whidden YouTube: Missy Whidden

Soooooo pretty, right?!

So Totes Adorbs Layout

Monday, October 23, 2017

Here is my next layout from Paige's Pages 14 at Big Picture Classes featuring watercolor stamping!

Have you ever tried stamping with watercolors? Did you love it? If you haven’t, I suggest giving it a go! It’s such a unique look with lots of variety and you can mix any color you want! Once again I used my Turn the Page collection and when I was mixing colors of paint I used only the pastel colors and left out the rich and deeper tones.

The start-to-finish process video can be found over in the class if you're interested to see exactly how this layout came together!

Supplies: Patterned paper, die cuts, journaling spots, chipboard stickers, puffy stickers, wood veneer, stamps: Turn the Page by Paige Evans / Pink Paislee; Thickers: Take Me Away by Paige Evans / Pink Paislee; Cardstock, adhesive, pen: American Crafts; Sewing machine: Brother; Thread: Coats & Clark; Paint: FolkArt; Watercolors: Loew Cornell

Haunting Night Layout

Sunday, October 22, 2017

It's no secret that I LOOOOVE Halloween! Once October 1st rolls around, we dust off the decorations and turn our home into a haunted house! The scarier the better :) So when Pink Paislee released their Spellcast collection, I was giddy with delight! Yay for Halloween lines!

I started by die cutting my Haunting Night cut file from black cardstock and then die cut all the inner pieces from papers in the 6x6 Paper Pad - I love the gold foil details that shimmer and shine in the light! Next I adhered the entire phrase onto one of the Spellcast patterned papers using foam adhesive so it pops up a bit. I trimmed four 2.5" square photos of Fox & Jane from Halloween last year and tucked them under and around the layout.

To embellish I placed a tiny sticker, or piece of chipboard, or a little washi tape on the center of all the "O"s and some of the other open letters like "D" and "A" and topped most of the "I"s. I especially love the tiny moths, butterflies, and spider stickers!

I wrote my journaling below the title and finished with a flower and "Halloween" die cut from the ephemera pack. I hope you are as excited about Halloween as I am and get some new ideas for your next layout from this page!

9 days until Halloween!!

Halloween Mini Album by Zsoka Marko

Saturday, October 21, 2017

I love Halloween. So so so so much! When I first laid eyes on this project by Paige Evans + Silhouette Design Team Member Zsoka Marko, I'm pretty sure I squealed out loud with delight. It's SO.STINKIN.CUTE!!!! Is it Halloween yet?!

Hey there scrappy friends! I'm back today with a Halloween themed mini album! Since we don't do Halloween, but we do buy pumpkins to carve, I thought I could document our first pumpkin patch experience in this mini! I didn't even know there were pumpkin patches here in Germany! We just happened upon one on Facebook no less, so we thought we'd check it out. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday!

I wanted to create a pumpkin shaped mini using pumpkins in all shapes and kinds. Paige has quite a few cut files to choose from - I've picked Pumpkin, Cat O Lantern, and Pumpkin Trio for my pages.

I used the awesome new Spellbound collection from Fancy Pants Designs for the whole album. I planned out the pages in the Silhouette Studio program more or less, then cut them from various patterned papers. For my cover I used the above mentioned Pumpkin cut file and for the title I cropped the Hocus Pocus cut file. I wanted to hang that funny little corpse on the front too - this is the Skeleton cut file.

I created a pocket on the first page where I hid the journaling and a couple of tags. For the next page I used one of the pumpkins in the Pumpkin Trio cut file for the base. I added a photo and a couple of ephemera pieces.

Here I combined the pumpkin with another cut file: the Bat Background and backed it with different patterned papers. I glued together two of the Halloween banner pieces from the Spellbound collection so I have an image on both sides, then punched a hole in it and added it as a decorative element to my mini.

The next page is using the Cat O Lantern cut file, I just used the outline of it, without the cat.

On the back however, I left the cat in there and didn't add a photo so one can see the design. I added some hand stitching to define the cat better. There is an acetate sheet with a cobweb design in the Spellbound collection - I created a shaker element from this. I filled it with a mix of sequins and patterned paper confetti.

The next one is again just a filler page without photo. I adhered the Spider Web cut file to this page plus a couple of pieces from the ephemera pack.

On the back side I added a photo and a couple of tags, labels, and die cuts. For the next page I used another pumpkin from the Pumpkin Trio cut file and I combined this with the Candy Corn Background cut file. If you don't know how to do this, I have a video on my YouTube channel (called Floral Heart) where I do the exact same technique. I backed the candy corns with different patterned papers - I did not want to add yellow to this album, so these are non traditional candy corns now hehe! The owl is from the ephemera pack.

On the back side there's another photo and all three pumpkins from the Pumpkin Trio cut file. Next up another filler page, here I cut the Trick or Treat Yoself cut file from black cardstock and backed it with patterned papers. You can't really tell in the picture but it's teeny tiny and so cute, it fits in my hand! I'm so glad my Cameo could cut it this nice even in such a small size.

There's a picture on the back together with some tags, labels, and die cuts. On my last page I used the negative pieces I had leftover from the Bat Background cut file I used on a previous page, plus a couple of die cut bats and stars from the ephemera pack.

I took apart the mini to show you all the pages so the details are easier to see:

That's it! I hope I could inspire you to create a simple mini album like this!

Love this mini album soooooo much I can't even describe! Thank you Zsoka!

And guess what friends? All Halloween cut files are 25% off in the Silhouette Design Store from now until Halloween! Just sayin' :)

Fall-Themed Mini Album by Stefanie Ried

Friday, October 20, 2017

Stefanie Ried blows me away with her talent every.single.time!! How does she do it?! I kind of just want to crawl inside her brain and live there for a few days, in a non-creepy, non-invasive way of course! But seriously, check out this fall-themed mini album she created for her blog post this week and you'll see what I mean!

Hello and welcome to a new mini book! Seasons are a nice theme for a mini and Paige's collections fit perfectly for that. My daughter loves autumn! Finally it's the time of year to pick pumpkins and paint them, celebrate Halloween, and collect colorful leaves. She is very happy and is totally excited every day which is nice to see. I chose the most beautiful photos from the last few weeks to create a mini.

The colors from the collection Turn the Page I find very suitable for autumn, so it is easy to put together a nice color combination.

After selecting the papers, I looked at Paige's cut files in the Silhouette Store. There is a large selection of beautiful cut files with a fall theme!

I cut the Leaves Background for the cover from Paper 23. Then I die cut the same Leaves Background as well as Feathers, Pumpkin Trio, Pumpkin, and Haunted Houses from white cardstock. Then I cut a page of the Bat Background from an older Fancy Free paper.

I cut the papers for the pages to 7x7", folded them in half, then sewed down the middle. I quickly got a mini album base! I like it when the bindings are simple. I prefer to focus on the individual pages.

You saw the cover consists of the cut out with leaves. Behind it is a beautiful background in the colors red, gold, and peach shimmer. I used watercolors for this. The title is made with Turn the Page Thickers.