Category Archives: inspiration

A Month of Cards!

A Month of Cards!

Today is National Cardmaking Day, in case you didn’t know.

It’s a totally made up holiday (created by Paper Crafts magazine if I remember correctly) but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it!

The original plan was to host a card making party today, and make cards to donate to Operation Write Home. However, with a whole bunch of family obligations this week, I wasn’t able to do that. (If you’re local, I’m looking at weekends in November, if you would like to join me!)

Speaking of November…

Instead of spending all day today making cards, for the month of November we will be making cards EVERY DAY. If you have techniques you want demonstrated, or design questions you want answered, make sure to add a request in the comments below.

I am so excited to be doing this with you. So excited that I want to mail you the results! I’ll be sending an email out to my subscribers on November first, letting them opt into a snail mail list, so I can send each of them one of the cards I make. If you want to get something pretty in your mailbox, make sure you sign up for my list before the first of November!

You can sign up here, or use the sign up form on the top right of the page.

I can’t wait to start making cards with you! This is going to be fun!

Some card ideas to inspire you!

Some card ideas to inspire you!

For the Color Challenged

For the Color Challenged

Do you have trouble choosing colors for your scrapbook pages? It doesn’t have to be hard. There are some tried and true methods for picking colors for your layouts.

You can start by choosing your colors based on the colors in your photos. Another option is to choose your colors based on a theme (ie. orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas.) You could use a monochromatic theme, with different shades and tones of a single color. You can even dig out a color wheel, and use a color scheme based on the relationships diagrammed on it. (Just follow the arrows. They won’t steer you wrong!)

Another fun way to choose colors for a page? Visit a site like Design Seeds, where they create color palettes based on gorgeous photos.

In fact, you know what would be fun? How about a little challenge? Can you make a page based on the colors from a Design Seeds color palette? I think I’ll use this one:

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That’s a bit outside of my usual comfort zone, so should be a challenge. This is going to be fun! Why don’t you pick a color palette from Design Seeds, and make a page, and share it either with a link here in the comments, or in my Flickr group. I’ll share what I make a bit later this week. Any suggestions on topic?

If you are wanting more direction and instruction in color, check out this FREE (yes I said free!) class on color hosted by Lain Ehmann, and taught by color expert Lori Sawaya.

Color Aug free Sawaya

 

I’ll be there, chatting away, and expanding my scrappy knowledge base. Check it out with me! Lain’s classes are usually lots of fun and very useful.

Don’t forget to check back to see what I make with the Design Seeds color palette, and to share what you make!

Fishing for Inspiration

Fishing for Inspiration

One of the coolest things about Pinterest is that it is so very, very random. If you wander through the main pin board, that shows you what everyone else is pinning, you’ll find so much variety.

There are gorgeous photos of beautiful places and faces. There are close ups of crafts and art and architecture. Clothing and makeup and the latest meme making the internet rounds. It’s all there.

And you can use Pinterest in so many different ways. An easy way to re-find projects you want to attempt. A mood board to base a room remodel or an outfit around. A source for amazing and funny words to remember and share. Its uses are practically endless.

Can you tell I really, truly love Pinterest?

Anyhoo…

How about a couple more pin-spired pieces for you?

quilt from we shall sew\

Love this quilt from We Shall Sew. The colors. The structure. And hexagons! Hello you gorgeous thing!

With such a lovely and graphic piece, it was easy to see how to turn it into a page. And then, a friend of mine brought her Creative Memories hexagon punch to a crop and let me play with it. And another friend dared me to use all the washi tape I had brought with me to the crop on one page. Challenge accepted! My favorite part? How easily the patterns on the washi tape lined up! The seams were almost invisible!

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This week the challenge was to turn this mosaic by Natalie Warne into something scrappy.

mosaic by Natalie Warne

Don’t you just love the colors, and all those little pieces? Looks like a stash busting piece to me. The thing is, I’m not good at using lots of little bits and bobs on a page. I don’t think that way regularly, so using something like this to kickstart the creative process is so helpful.

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Is it sad that I used up a lot of little bits and pieces, and didn’t make a dent in my stash? Sigh. Must use more — so I can make room for new stuff! 😉

Have you made anything inspired by what you’ve found on PInterest? Share it! I’d love to see it!

Pin-spired!

Pin-spired!

Pinterest is a great source for inspiration. If you’ve already discovered it, you know what I mean.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pinterest, it’s an online, visual pinboard that you can sort into categories, and use to catalog and curate online images and their sources. You can find me there as Heather Dubarry on Pinterest.

One of the things I love to gather on Pinterest are non-scrapbook related images that could possibly be used as starting points for scrapbook pages. I find a lot of the images to be scraptastic: fantastic scrapbooking inspiration sources.

Let me show you what I mean:

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This is a gorgeous print of an oil painting done by Siiso that I found on Pinterest ages and ages ago. I loved the textures and the colors and the huge amounts of white space, so I pinned it. A few months later I made this page based on it.

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As you can see, I tried to mimic the structure and color and textures. I love how this turned out because, while it is clearly inspired by Siiso’s painting, it’s still very clearly my own creation.

Another photo I found in my early days of wandering the wilds of Pinterest was this gorgeous wedding dress photographed by Gia Canali. The color combination and texture was simply gorgeous, and it immediately made me think of some diecut lace paper I had sitting in my stash.

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Some green cardstock to back the lace paper, a few pieces of shimmery pink cardstock to mimic the shoes, and voila!, a page clearly inspired by the clothes, but entirely my own.

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Think you can manage some out of the box inspiration to creation? I’ve got lots of ideas on my scraptastic Pinterest board. Browse through it. Find something that makes you smile, and then make something based on it. I’ll do the same, and show you what I came up with later this week. Can’t wait to see what you create!

 

Can YOU Use Up an Entire Sheet of Letter Stickers?

Can YOU Use Up an Entire Sheet of Letter Stickers?

Figuring out how to use up an entire sheet of letter stickers was a fun challenge. Since I usually begin creating a page based on a story idea or theme, starting with a title was an interesting variation in my approach.

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It felt like there were a lot of letters and numbers to work with when I started off, and by the time I was done I felt like I was grasping at straws.

Want to see what words/titles I came up with?IMG_5654

  • Wash Me
  • Cook & Clean
  • Mr. Fix It
  • Silly Boys
  • Jump 4 Joy
  • 24-7
  • 8 (for a quick one photo per age photo album scrapbook)
  • 12 (ditto)
  • Pizza Night
  • Queen (I’ll probably add “Bee” or “of the Crop” in smaller letters once I decide where to take the page.)
  • Go For Broke (Zeroes=o)
  • Walk
  • Quips
  • Wolverine (using lots of repurposed numbers as letters)
  • Wave
  • Doubt
  • Daddy
  • Thump
  • Bug
  • JV & V Jock (something re: my husband’s sports team history)
  • 55 (As in I can’t drive…)
  • FF (Fantastic Four!)
  • Chex (using an 8 as an E)
  • ’99
  • ’69

That’s a lot of useful titles. 25 to be exact. However, the colors and patterns of the alphas are challenging for me right now. They don’t really mesh with my current style. So, to make creating pages with these alphas easier, and make sure I have enough paper for all those pages, I put together a paper kit with 15 sheets of patterned paper and 15 solids/cardstock.

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Most of these papers are older. They’re from Studio Calico, American Crafts, Around the Block, Basic Grey, Little Yellow Bicycle, DCWV, CK, Paper Pizazz, and KI Memories.

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Various shades of blues and purples should work well with the alpha set, and you can never go wrong with kraft. Orange will also make an interesting contrast. (It’s my new favorite color. I love adding a bit of orange everywhere!)

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How did you do with your set of alpha stickers? Don’t give up! It can be done!

Later this week I’ll show you some of the pages I’ve made, and announce the winner. Don’t forget to drop by!