My Buddy (scrapbooking)

Hello!  I have a new scrapbook page to share with you today! 

 

This page came together for a challenge from 2 peas.  Dear Lizzy challenged us to use a painted ombre technique.  If ombre is new to you, it means "dark to light" and is very popular right now in the scrapbooking world.  I love it! 

 

For my ombre, I pulled out my twinkling H2Os.  Love them.  I used watercolour paper and cut it into 4 strips.  Painted the colours being sure to make them dark at one end and light at the other.  This became the bottom portion of my layout.

 

 

Then I added my 3 black and white photos (isn't he the cutest!) and a whole bunch of black and white embellishments!  I really like that swirly flourish at the bottome - it is from the For the Record sticker sheet (Lilly Bee). 

 

 Why don't you give ombre a try?!  Either use one of the many products already out there with this effect (papers, stickers, tags, brads, etc.)... or create your own like I did!  If you do, I'd love to see it!  Leave me a link.

 

Thanks for dropping by,

Donelda

 

Chocolate Chips & Bacon (Scrapbooking)

Hello.  Using another one of Shimelle's sketches (sketch 5) as a starting poing in my scrapping.  This one was quite difficult for me and has taken me a while to finish.

 

As you can see, I stayed very true to the sketch.  I used this Basic Grey paper and because it is so busy (the browns) I decided to keep the rest fairly clean and simple.

 

 

The layout started with me making this ampersand. I love it! 

 

 

I also have another layout ready to post and will do that next.

Have a great sunday fully of scrappy goodness!!

Donelda

Christmas cards - Post 7

Today is finally Christmas Eve!  This is actually my favourite day of the year!  I love this day even more than Christmas.... because it's the anticipation that I love so much!! I love to watch my wonderful son getting excited, delivering gifts to his friends, having trouble falling asleep ... all of it is so special!  Tomorrow all the gifts get opened and then, all of a sudden, it's a whole year until we get to experience the anticipation of this day again. 

This card was made almost entirely from items sent to me from my most recent Secret Sister, Imke.  She was so sweet and die cut some of these wonderful PTI trees for me from felt.  She also sent me this increadible Martha Stewart punch!  And the paper was in a package from her as well!  It all came together to create such a lovely card.  Thanks again Imke!!

Here is a close up of the cardinal.  I sponged around the edges with some Fired Brick distress ink to give it added definition and allow the wing to stand out.

I hope you all have a very peaceful Christmas Eve spent with friends and family.  Thank you to everyone who has visited me here on my blog over this last year.  I appreciate your kind words about my work and your inspiration!  I will be taking a bit of a break over the next few days but will be back to share new creations soon!

Merry Christmas,

Donelda

CAS-ual Fridays #28 & Barb's Challenge - Damask Tag

This week's CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #28 is to create a tag or a card with a tag on it.  I combined it with a challenge set by a blogging buddy Barb who posted this beautiful table setting as inspiration.

Together I arrived at this tag.  From the inspiration picture I focused on the black demask table runner, and the color combo of black, white, and apple green.

I really love that burst punch (Martha Stewart).  And see that yummy ruffly ribbon ... it is from a past Secret Sister (thanks Linda!) and I've been trying to find a good use for it for a while now.  This elegant birthday tag was the perfect home for a bit of it!

Off to see what others created....

Donelda

Crafty Creations Challenges - Color Challenge

Over on Crafty Creations Challenges the latest color combo challenge were definately my colours so I decided to play along.  The colors were Kraft/Brown, White/Cream, and one other colour.  I chose to use Brown and Cream with Orange thrown in for the other colour.

The leaves and tag are Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink) cardstock that was spritzed with water, crumpled, and then ironed.  I punched the little maple leaves out with a small punch I picked up from Michael's $1.50 bin - what a bargin!  Before punching the leaves, I sponged on a bit of Spiced Marmalade distress ink (Ranger).  The effect is awesome in real life.  The tag was hand drawn and cut from the same cardstock, just no sponging on it.

Supplies: Stamps-Take a Bough, Round &Round, Fancy Flourishes (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!), Spiced Marmalade (Ranger); Paper - Summer Sunshine (Papertrey Ink), Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!), Au Chocolate patterned paper (Stampin' Up!),Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon (Stampin' Up!), Dark Chocolate twill (Papertrey Ink); oval die (Spellbinders)

Since the CCC are looking for a Design Team and I did the challenge I figured I'd throw my name in to be considered.  Not holding my breath but it would be fun. 

Thanks for dropping by.

Donelda

Tone on Tone

I saw THIS card on Kim Hughs' blog.  Her card was inspired by Regina's card as you will see on Kim's post.                                                              I loved the tone on tone and it happens to be one of my favorite layouts so I had to create my own version.  But I couldn't stop at one ... and ended up with 3 quite different versions.

I decided to make my squares smaller and use butterflies (Martha Stewart) and leaves (Punch a Bunch).  The buttons on the butterfly card are from BasicGrey.  The yellow was a bit too bright but a bit of Copic marker colored on it made it the perfect match.  The sentiment comes from Around & About Sentiments (Papertrey Ink) which I can't seem to stop using!!  I even inked up just bits of it to add on this first card.  I've also used the stripes from the Background Basics :Retro (Papertrey Ink) and some text for the leaves (Background Basics: Text Style - Papertrey Ink) on this first card.

Thanks for dropping by my little blogging corner of the world.  Enjoy your day!

Donelda

Hand-made Flower

You have probably all seen the lovely hand made flower

 tutorials that are all over the blogging world.  I had wanted

 to try my hand at it but kept putting it off.  In the end I tried one like Maille Belles makes (see her tutorial at the end of THIS post). 

Mine doesn't look nearly as beautiful as those created by Maille, but it will do and it is a start.  I kept the rest of the card clean and simple to really show off the flower.  The leaves are from a punch by Martha Stewart.  The senitment is from the 2010 free anniversary gift from Papertrey Ink (Round and Round) which is bent on the block to follow the circle edge. 

 

Have you tried making these flowers yet??  If so, I'd love to see your creation.  Leave me a link!!

Donelda

Clean and Simple (CAS) Challenge # 60 - Sketch

I really liked the most recent Clean and Simple challenge - it was a layout! Everything here is created with scraps!!!! and I enjoyed making my first card so much I went ahead and create 2!!!

Butterfly Trio

Supplies: Stamps - Background Basics: Text, Around and About (Papertrey Ink); Paper - White, Kraft (Stampin' Up!) other colors (scraps); Ink - Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!); Other - crimper (Fiskers), border punch (Fiskers), butterfly punch (Martha Stewart), sponge.

Best Wishes

Supplies: Stamps - Turning a New Leaf, Rustic Branch (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Versamark, black; Paper - White (SU!), kraft file folder, all other paper are scraps from my bin; Other - 1" square punch, dimensionals.

Thanks for dropping in! Keep scrolling up and down, I've got a bunch of challenge cards created and posted!!

Donelda

March 11 - Design Basics Lesson #10

Hello and welcome to another one of my lessons on design basics. I have been using a book called Design Basics Index by Jim Krause to teach myself about this topic. If you are interested in seeing the previous lessons, feel free to check out the list on the right column of my blog!

Lesson #10 - Visual Heirarchy - Color

Today we are continuing the lesson on visual heirarchy. On the last lesson, we considered how size makes one element become the "top" item in the design with all the other elements having a supporting role. Today, we are looking at how COLOR can make one element be the initial item our eye is drawn to ... or the top element in the visual heirarchy. Here, this lovely pink butterfly stands out upon the mainly black card. This card was extremely difficulty to photograph so in real life, the butterfly is so much "pinker" (it is actaully Pixie Pink from Stampin' Up! so if you know that color you can see how it is washed out in the photo). So, this whole lesson may not work / make sense if you are just looking at the picture here. I wish I could bring the real card into each of your homes so you can see how the pink automatically draws your eye to it!! Perhaps instead, you should make a similar card....just so you can see :-).

Thanks for visiting.

Donelda