Rusty Apple Truck card

I've not played along with any challenges for months

since my craft rooms became catchalls for items

to be stored during the flood.

Now that things are nearly back to normal, 

I decided to start following some of my 

favorite challenge sites again.

When I saw the color challenge at Retro Rubber today,

I just knew I had to make a card!

It is very hot and humid outside today,

so I was dreaming of cooler fall weather as I worked on it.

I know I really should have been trying to finish up

some decluttering and cleaning instead knowing that 

people are coming over on Thursday,

but I have tomorrow to work on that ;)

Long neglected craft supplies were calling!

Here is the inspiration photo for RRCB119

Obviously fall leaves, mums and pumpkins come to mind

as soon as you see the inspiration photo.

I knew right away I was going to do something

slightly different and what it would be. 
I have another card in mind, too,
with a different theme and perfect for these colors.

The image is from Stampin' Up!, Countryside (2013).

I water colored it with ink from my 

classic SU! ink pads and an aqua painter.
Tangerine Tango, Dusty Durango, Real Red, Smoky Slate,
Basic Gray, Creamy Caramel, Always Artichoke, Bliss Blue

It is mounted onto Chocolate Chip textured card stock

then Real Red card stock that I distressed the edges on. 

A few dimensionals are underneath the image panel

to adhere it over the Pumpkin Pie striped grosgrain ribbon

that is on top of Crumb Cake card stock for the base.

I sponged Crumb Cake ink along the edges of the card front, too.

Pretty simple card, really ! 

Thanks for looking, have a great day =) 

EDITED TO ADD 9/23/2019
Honored to have my card chosen as a Top Pick!

I never did get that second card made as I had hoped.
It would have been images of wild horses running out West. 

Pick Up Bits N Pieces Birthday Card

Ahhhh, sunshine (for a minute) today ! 

It's been too cloudy, too long here. 

It may have been a bit too bright to photograph my latest

card though, the bright yellow truck (and blue sky) are washed out.....

This card was made with a few leftover bits

and a couple of new pieces ;)

The truck image is a digital stamp image I bought

many years ago from Stampin' Up! when they offered the

My Digital Studio program for digital crafting on computers.

I was quite disappointed when they discontinued that program :(

I altered the image with Photoshop Elements to remove the 

"apples for sale" sign on the tail gate

and the bushels of apples in the bed of the original image. 

It made the image more versatile for me.

I've had this particular image printed for quite a while. 

I printed off several sizes and variations when I altered the digital image years ago

and have kept them on hand for use some day.
I really liked being able to resize, flip, alter digital stamps.

I colored this image with colored pencils. 

If you look closely at the hood,

you can see some tiny orange flames!

I colored it this way to somewhat resemble

an old truck the recipient of the card once had.

There is a small strip of diamond plate folder embossed

 silver metallic card stock layered behind the truck piece.

I made two faux screw heads with the middle of a tiny

die cut circle (from the Nailed It die set) and three layers of embossing powder.

I have a how to make faux screw heads tutorial posted here. 

I added corner photo mounts (made from a paper punch)

to the corners of the truck image panel

which was then attached with dimensionals. 

The background piece is a really old scrap 

(index card actually) that was from a small

photo album I made for my classic Mustang car years ago.

It didn't stamp well, but I saved it to reuse one day.

Today was the day, the stamped truck image covered

the poorly stamped background image well !

Speaking of photo albums, 

the black "card stock" layers are actually

inserts from the photo albums I've been working on.

They were in the front photo pocket of the albums I was filling.

I thought they might come in handy for use on a craft project

some day so I shouldn't through them away. 

It's been a while since I've participated in any challenges.

Since this card met the current tic tac toe challenge at Retro Rubber (#82),

I'd like to enter it - in the knick of time! 

Retro Rubber was one of my favorite challenge sites since

all of my stamps are quite old, decades old in many cases.

Stamp images are oldies from Stampin' Up!

Truck image, Countryside digital image - I'll guess at least 6 years old

Highways and Byways background - 2003

Happy Birthday from It's Your Birthday -  2005

Tic tac toe, diagonal:

Darice Diamond plate embossing folder (dry embossing)

silver embossing powder (heat embossing)
tiny circle from die cut for screw head (die cut)

technically not a die cut, but paper punch photo mount corners

Birthday

I'm also entering it in Through The Craft Room Door Anything Goes March 20th challenge.
I've not played along here for a while, either.

Thanks for looking =)


EDITED TO ADD:
My card was chosen as a Top Pick at Retro Rubber -
how exciting ! 

Digital Scrapbook Day Projects

This past weekend , there were numerous Digital Scrapbook Day events all across the internet. I participated in several challenges at Scraps-N-Pieces.com since that is the site the designer I create layouts for sells on. 

There were too many fun challenges, with freebies to be earned along the way as they were completed, and not enough time. I was not able to collect all the free pieces of the HUGE Capture My World collaboration kit the SNP designers put together, but can now buy those that I missed. Yaay! 

Here are some of the layouts  I created. I will share a couple more in a few days when the kit I worked with goes live in the SNP store. 

This was for the "selfie" challenge.

The papers were included in the My Digital Studio

program. This is actually a page I already designed 

for a calendar front, but changed it up for the challenge.

This page was created with mini kits and a template

that I collected from the designers blog hop.

I used the template in Photoshop Elements.

They offered goodies on their blogs and 

facebook pages, for free, that you could collect.

I was able to collect most of them.

I created this page, featuring a black and white photo,

for the ad inspiration challenge.

I used the Laura Leigh kit by JMC Designs. 

This page was created with My Memories Suite V6,

the program I use most often for my digital scrapping.

This fun page was created using a template supplied

for the Instagram (square) photo template challenge.

The kit I used is one I bought several years ago

from another site (I think it was at MyMemories.com?).

It is called Rescue Me. 

This page was created for the recipe challenge:

interpret the steps the designer gives you to create a page.

I used the bits n' pieces kits Snap, Snap, Snap by

JMC Designs and My Memories Suite software.

This final page was for the photography challenge,

use an old photo.

The template was the August template challenge

by Sus Designs. 

The kit is End Of Summer by JMC Designs. 

THANKS FOR LOOKING =) 

Play The Music - digi kit

What a lovely new kit by Jodi at

JMC Designs.

So many great digital / hybrid projects could be make with it!

A printable card front

Scrapbook page-

I have some old photos of my children in a band concert

many years ago that need to be found, scanned and inserted ;) 

The "vellum" fancy shape under the photo blocks

is not included; it is a shape in the program I used to design the page. 

Play The Music  Bits N Pieces kits at Scraps-N-Pieces.com

Fives Challenge

There is a mini challenge this week at Anything But A Card - USE FIVE !
The Fifth Sunday Challenge... "USE FIVE"!! Use the number 5 or five items, five colors, five words... what ever FIVE represents to you. 



I decided to whip up a digital scrapbook page to submit.

5 "layers" - 4 papers plus the layer of photos and alphabet punches/text
5 colors - black, two grays, yellow and white
5 photos and 5 punches to make the paw print photo collage
5 letters in the name
Lastly, Kitty turned 15 this year, a multiple of the number 5!


I used the original version of My Digital Studio to create the page.

TIP#1: flip the photo you wish to use in the upside down heart punch portion of the paw to be upright on your page. If you don't flip the photo upside down before inserting into the heart that is upside down, the photo will be upside down on your page since the program "clips" the photo to the shape as if it were right side up. I'm not sure if I made that very clear ? 

TIP#2: make one circle punch then copy and paste it three more times so they are all the same size. You can group them together then enlarge or reduce in size as needed to look proportionate to the size of the heart punch. Once you are happy with the size and placement of the punches in relation to each other to make the paw print, you may want to group all of them together to move the around on the page as one until you get it where you like. Ungroup to insert each photo individually into each punch portion of the paw print. 

TIP#3: use stamps to create your own decorative background papers. I used overlays on two of them to give them texture then a cat stamp image on the third (though it is mostly covered up). All stamps were color coordinated to the paper layers.

Thanks for looking ! 

Bigfoot Monster Truck Scrapbook Page & Tutorial

Another page for my Photo Of The Week entries scrapbook. Loosely based on a sketch for an 8 1/2 x 11 page found at pagemaps.com .

I had fun making the wheel and tire ! I've done this technique before, see another sample here.

Here are the steps to making a paper tire card or scrapbook page embellishment:

Decide how big you would like your tire and wheel to be (paper punches and dies work great for small sizes). Larger tires are easy enough to make even if you do not have a large circle cutter or scallop circle die and there are a couple of ways to do it.

The easiest is to trace a circle the size you want for your project. For the tire and wheel combo on this page, I traced the plastic lid to a container of powdered laundry additive. Dinner plates work great for really large circles !

After tracing the circle, carefully cut along the line (inside or outside will work, just be sure to follow the circular line) with a pair of large scallop scissors. You will then trim off the scallops with a pair of regular straight edge scissors, taking care to cut each evenly. You could trace another circle over the scallops if you have one the correct size, then cut along that line as a guide.

If you do not have a pair of large scallop edge scissors, you can still make a tire. Draw a circle to the size your project requires. Once the circle is cut out, carefully make notches with a pair of small scissors or use the corner of a small square paper punch. If you do this and are particular about spacing the notches evenly, you will want to mark along the edge of the circle where you want the notches to be before you start cutting/punching. This technique does not require the trimming off of scallops as you are notching the already "flat" outer edge of the circle/tire.

Now that the tire is cut and notched, cut out a piece of silver for the wheel in the center of the tire and embellish as desired. Get creative and cut the center portion into five spoke rims or of different color card stock, etc !

For finishing touches, use a white gel pen or paint to write on the tire. You could even brush on brown paint to make it look muddy if you want a tire for someone that likes to go four wheeling, play in the mud !

I used a white gel pen (Signo brand) to journal on my tire. At first I was only going to note the date on the tire, to resemble tire sizes, but realized I hadn't left much room to journal so I decided the tire would work well. I'm not too happy with the tag I made for the date though.

The wheel was made with circle Nestabilities dies, a screw image rubber stamp (I know, it isn't the correct item to hold on wheels, but with only a quick glance at the page, I was hoping it would look like lug nuts!!!) from an old stamp set by Stampin' Up! and circle paper punches.

The tire track paper is made by rolling the Tire Track Stampin' Around wheel from Stampin" Up! in Basic Black ink on Basic Gray card stock.

The FORD decorative paper was made by me in My Digital Studio.

The tan paper came from a Die Cuts With A View stack; I lightly rubbed dark gray ink over it.

I should have layered the photos on solid color card stock before adhering them to the page.......

Thanks for looking =)

Wax On, Wax Off Scrapbook Page

Pretty simple page to share the original photo I submitted and the printed in the newspaper
version of my "Honorable Mention" Photo Of The Week. Another one of my favorite photos from years ago.

I should have gotten brave enough to heat emboss the letters silver rather than just stamp them with silver Encore ink. I was afraid of getting stray bits of embossing powder everywhere on the Navy card stock base and making a huge mess.

I created the Ford oval paper in My Digital Studio then printed it out at home.

The long diamond plate silver card stock piece was created by running a piece of silver metallic card stock through the Darice embossing folder twice. I wish it was 12" long..............

The black and white checkered ribbon was the exact length, whew ! I believe it came on a gift set of some sort for one of the guys one Christmas and I have been saving it for the perfect project.   I need to straighten it out a bit , it is crooked in the photo.


Thanks for looking =)

Printed Digital Scrapbook Pages

Just in time for {Inter}National Scrapbook Day 2014 !

I finally did it, I had a few (40 to be exact!) 12x12 digital scrapbook pages printed. I had several more I could have done, but some I decided not to print out at all while others were created with a different digital scrapbook program and could not be submitted for printing through MDS/SU!.

Stampin' Up! had a free shipping offer this past week, so I took advantage. I've never had pages printed through their My Digital Studio print services, or any other for that matter. The box just arrived via UPS this afternoon; I placed my order one week ago.

Here are my impressions of the print quality. In no way is this supposed to be bashing the print service or company. These are merely my observations on my print order, the one and only I have ever had done through them. I have never seen printed products or read any reviews about the print services offered through the My Digital Studio software and print services. I will be calling customer service on Monday to see if the issues I noticed are common place.



First things first: placing your order. I found this to be totally exasperating at first as many of my pages could not be submitted for printing due to errors. If the errors were not resolved, the pages / order could not be submitted. The errors consisted of fonts not found on the newer laptop computer I was using to submit the order (the pages were created on the older desktop computer with the original version of MDS). I even changed the fonts in the text boxes in the projects on the newer computer and still continued to receive the same error messages.  I called the service line at Stampin' Up! about this and it was confirmed, the order will not be accepted with errors on it and there is no way to submit older projects through the newer software (some sort of coding or whatever makes them incompatible). Well that just stinks!  After running back and forth between two computers (the pages there were issues with were created on my older desktop computer and using the first version of MDS), installing the original MDS on the desktop and adding the extras needed, etc and so on........... it was a VERY time consuming , headache causing process believe me. In hindsight I probably should have just saved the files as a large jpeg image and looked elsewhere online for a print service that could do 12 x 12  prints (there are none locally). I didn't mention the reason for the juggling of computers: I have to use wifi internet somewhere else since we live in a rural "hole" that does not have it, so I had to be able to use my laptop to upload.

I would like to note that I tried what I thought might be a work around. I tried saving the completed pages as jpgs (export and save to jpg feature on the software) then try to insert those saved jpgs as a single large photo on a blank 12x12 page................ it would not work either because of the errors, the page could not be saved/exported. Argh ! Sure sounded like it would work, but those dratted font/text box errors!

After many hours spent off and on all week long , I was finally successful in submitting the order just in time to take advantage of the free shipping offer that expired that night ! Whew !

One week later, UPS dropped off this box.

I will say that I was impressed with the packaging. Sure, from an environmental impact point of view it was overkill, but it did protect the 40 pages perfectly. I will save the bubble wrap for future use (NOTE: if you receive lots of packing materials that are not recyclable, check with local shipping stores as they may take it).
The heavyweight chipboard backing piece will be reused for some crafty project in the future I'm sure and the box itself is worth keeping since it can hold 12x12 projects - as if I do a lot of scrapbooking and need it ! It could also be used to package a framed piece or scrapbook in to give as a gift one day, so I'll stick it in the attic and hope I remember I have it should the need for it arise ;)






I chose the standard paper weight, NOT the thicker more expensive weight paper, when I placed my order. I figured they would be back to back in protective sleeves and if needed, an extra piece of card stock could be stuck between the two (yes, I will be doing this for sure!). The paper really is lightweight and will wrinkle easily, so handle with care especially when inserting into page protectors. Here are a couple of photos with the printed pages compared to Whisper White card stock:

This is meant to show how flexible the page is 

due to it being the standard weight printed page option.

Whisper White and the printed digital page are 

hung over the edge of a box at the same length.

The printed page bends easily.

I couldn't get a really good photo to show the difference

in the thickness of the papers. 

There is a statement on the web site, I recall seeing it somewhere,

that the standard printed scrapbook pages are thinner than

Whisper White card stock so I knew to expect that. 

The logo is printed on the back of every page.

 You CAN use other digital scrapbook supplies

in the My Digital Studio software and it will print !!!!

A couple of my projects used kits that I created projects with

as part of my creative team commitments for digital design artists.

Those that I created with MDS I was able to have printed,

just like the Stampin' Up! only pages. There was no difference in

submitting the projects or anything and they printed just fine !

BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR PROJECT THOROUGHLY

BEFORE SUBMITTING !

I did not see this stray piece of stitching on this page....oops!

Now here are the issues with the printed digital pages I received.

All of my printed pages have these noticeable lighter

areas, sort of smeared looking. 

Some pages they are not as noticeable on since the

backgrounds were white or the crazy jumbled up

mess of embellishments camouflaged the marks a bit.

However most of them look like the image above,

very noticeable marks across the entire length of the page.

They are all in the same area of the printed pages, too. 

Some sort of malfunction with the machinery ?

I'm confident a call to the customer service line

will help in some way. 

Then there is this discolored spot on the corner of

 one of the pages. The page packaged just above it

has a corresponding blue mark on the back of it. 

Other than those issues, 

they look great . The "depth" of the digital embellishments 

 and textured paper detail is wonderful on most !

I really need to create more digital scrapbook pages

and play around with the programs more.

I love the ability to change things easily (for the most part)

without wasting real supplies and not taking up so much space

when working on them compared to traditional supplies.

They will also take up less space when printed

(and not cause damage to photos from dimensional embellishments

butting up next to each other as in traditional scrapbook pages).

Then again, I love the real textures and dimension

on traditional paper scrapbook pages....... 

Either way, I really should make more time to create more pages.  

Thanks for looking =) 

MAY 5th, 2014 EDITED TO ADD :
THANK YOU STAMPIN' UP! PRINT SERVICES !!! After verifying there was not a problem with the files I submitted , they are going to reprint and send the pages that did not print properly !

MAY 14th EDITED TO ADD:
I received the reprints today and there are no issues with the print quality, wahoo! The packaging was slightly different though and this did cause a little problem, but nothing to be terribly upset about.

Digi Scrapping CT Projects- Birthday

Here is the newest kit from Loni at Grace Blossoms 4 U - Birthday Happiness !
Find it in her store at Scraps - N - Pieces.com



Here are a few projects I made with this kit as part of her creative team:

scrapbook page

greeting card

printable banner to cut out

party invitation

DigiScrap Page - Silver and Gold

March 1st, ALREADY !???!!!!?

Gosh, mom and dad were right:

the older you get,

the faster time flies.

I'm trying to think of what I've accomplished

so far this year......... it doesn't seem like much of anything!

I hope you've made progress on your to do lists

or are doing a good job of sticking to your New Year's Resolutions.

For the first two months of 2014, I've managed to:

- Make several cards for Operation Write Home

and participate in some of the challenges at their blog.

- Made several bowl cozies

and although I was inspired to start

more sewing projects, I have not yet.

- Created digital projects for Creative Team commitments.

- Spent hours and hours (and hours!) on digital photos,

trying to get years worth gone through to choose

what to print so I can get them into photo albums.

 I've only made a small dent in that daunting project.

-Took some photos that of course will need to be 

edited, organized and some printed.... eventually.

- Reorganized crafty things in the "dungeon".

- Normal day to day life.

Enough of my rambling

(I took a cue from the challenge below to tell a story!). 

I made this digital scrapbook page

for a challenge submission at

Anything But A Card:

"Sharing a Story Through Scrapbooking"

A blog buddy is the featured artist this week,

congratulations Margaret !

Take a moment to read through her insightful blog posts

and be inspired by her projects.

Yeah, it's silly using lyrics from an old Girl Scout song

to relate to my vehicles, but I thought it worked well!

After all, my old car has gold, the "new" one has silver

and I am keeping my old car, "my friend".

We've been through a lot together  :)

I used My Digital Studio to create this page.

Very Vanilla textured card stock background paper.

Alphabet punch paper filled (custom) with my own

glittery, shimmery papers I made.

Sara's Sequins, resized.

Banner and arrow punches, paper filled.

Several text boxes.

Closeup to show the detail at normal resolution.

The textured paper doesn't show up on computer 

screens unless you increase the image view size.

The largest sequin is normal size;

I copied, pasted, rotated then resized to make 

the smaller ones.

Yet another huge storm is on its way this weekend.

The predictions seem to change every few hours,

but we do know that we will see freezing precipitation here.

The latest : we could see up to 10" of snow and sleet ! 

I have my supplies ready and have done some cooking today

as well as caught up on laundry, etc in case we lose power. 

Be safe out there all of you that will be affected by

this massive storm system ! 

Stay indoors and spend some time with your loved ones,

catch up on reading, crafting, etc . 

Thanks for looking =)

Digi Kit - Alive With Love

Finally getting back to taking the time to share

some of my creations. I still have oh so many cards

to post that I made last fall and donated to 

Operation Write Home...........

and I plan on starting on another box full !

I have been busy making a few more bowl cozies,

greeting card set, reorganizing the craft dungeon (again),

backing up hundreds of digital photos.

AND working with this newest digi kit

as a member of the Creative Team

for GraceBlossoms4U :

Three projects I made with the 

colorful, springy, lovely new kit called

Alive With Love

by

Loni at GraceBlossoms4U.

It will be for sale at 

Scraps-N-Pieces.com this weekend.

This was designed quickly using one of the premade cluster packs

and a few layers of paper. 

I inserted a text box into the frame and typed in the quote.

My "furry" Valentines

was designed to be used as a timeline cover

for facebook.

I found a SVG fry box pattern,

inserted into the digital design software I was using,

paper filled, added the very colorful letter "b" 

from the alphabet included in the kit

then typed "mine" into a text box.

This was designed to be printed out

then cut out with scissors, glue the sides

to create a cute fry box treat holder. 

Thanks for looking =)