Fusion: Bunches of Blooms

Welcome to another fun Fusion Challenge! Still working on the recipe scrapbook, I used the photo as inspiration for the main design element on this page. I am madly in love with these flower stamps and cutaways (Winnie & Walter: The Big, the Bold and Extras) and knew they would be perfect to go along with the photo design. I smooshed some distress ink on some cardstock, embossed the white flower outlines, and then die cut them all.

   

Even the blue butterfly makes an appearance.

The rectangular space is overlapped with the flowers for a full, lush feeling.

It's with mixed feelings that I announce this is my last post as a Fusion Design Team member. I've been with the challenge since the very beginning, and truly love the concept of using the photo, the sketch or both for inspiration. Lesley Croghan is a wonderful challenge coordinator, and I will miss working with her very much. Of course, the design team is talented in so many different ways, and it's always a joy to see what they come up with each time. Best of luck to all the ladies!

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Amy Tsuruta

 Betty J.

Jeanne Jachna

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates, each choosing one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Wedding Shower Scrapbook with CASual Fridays

Hi Folks! Ready or not, our cousin Abby's wedding shower was this Sunday. I'm not gonna lie ... it was a little crazy, including pulling an all-nighter Saturday to get the recipe scrapbook finished. But she loved it, and that made it all worthwhile. 



Isn't she adorable?!

I've got two pages to share from the book that are featured on the CAS-ual Fridays Stamps blog today.

This one uses a lot of the love-themed musical stamps and dies, including Love Notes, Double Note Fri-Dies, Heart Note Fri-Dies, and Treble Clef Fri-Dies. At first I had the notes all up and down the right margin, but that looked a little overwhelming. So I just put the treble clef on the bottom left, and the notes across the middle angling up, so there's a diagonal line across the page. 


    
   
 
I like having the large, die-cut notes on top of the small, stamped notes. The stamped notes also make a great border, since they're a line after all.
 

 

The floral decoration on the middle of this page uses the Linked Fri-Dies for the leaves. This serves to extend the element across the length of the photo. The layers of the flower are made up of random silk and paper flowers I had laying around, plus the fuchsia die cut from Funky Round Tag Fri-Dies. Again, no time for journaling, so I fussy cut an embossed Mwah and layered it on the photo.

Vintage seam binding tape is run through the links in the Stalk Up Fri-Die. It's left loose for a more playful feel.

I'll have some more recipe scrapbook pages appearing on the blog shortly, along with an eventual wrap-up showing the whole project. Hey, I warned you earlier! Thanks for looking : )

-Kelly

Wedding Day Card

Finally, a card! Here's one that will be going to the cousin with the Recipe Scrapbook at her wedding. The heart is Top Dog Dies Doily Heart Die, and it is amazing how all the tiny pieces come out when you use the metal adapter plate. I would be lost without it! It pays for itself after the first use if you've ever been frustrated picking pieces out of a large shape like this.

The bride and groom are from the Wedding Die Set. Love the tiny bowtie on the groom. I dressed the bride up a little with some flowers on her dress, and a silver bow. Again, we have the new Pennant Banner Die that I seem to be using on everything lately!

Thanks so much for looking!

-Kelly

Fusion: What I Love About Challenges!

Welcome to another fun Fusion Challenge! I've got another Recipe Scrapbook page for my cousin's bridal shower to share. I actually had finished the page, saw the Fusion Challenge photo, and knew what I needed to change on the page. Originally the blue wedding subway art had nothing on it, and it did bother me because it looked kinda plain.

Seeing the shape in the middle of the blue shutter gave me the idea to put a shape on top of the subway art. I like how it breaks up all the words. The tiny bit of gold under the heart, and the gold fabric banner is taken from the gold on the bottom of the photo. This is what I absolutely love about challenges ... they push you to come up with things you really wouldn't have on your own!

To repeat the white from the heart shape, I outlined the subway art shapes with a white gel pen. Small detail, but it adds a little more interest.

Banner die is Top Dog Dies Banner Pennant Die, heart die is Top Dog Dies Diaper Card Finishers Set, kisses sentiment is Winnie & Walter You've Got Love Mail, and subway art is Fresh Squeezed Stamps Subway Series: Occasions.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Amy Tsuruta

 Betty J.

Jeanne Jachna

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates, each choosing one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Love the Banner Dies!

Plugging away with more scrapbook pages for the Family Recipe Scrapbook for my cousin's bridal shower, here's one that uses the new Pennant Banner Die from Top Dog Dies. Again, with my lack of time to put this all together, having a die that you can run through your machine a couple times and call a page halfway done is pretty darn useful.

The title of the page is stamped on the Gift Tag Die Set, with flowers from Winnie & Walter Big Bold and Extras.

For the banners, I did a layer in white, and then a layer in pink colored in with my Copics. It would also look great with a few differently colored pink papers but in all honesty, my speed scrapbooking mode prevented me from finding and cutting the different papers. So much easier just to color them in : ) I threw in a blue fiber for some texture. The sequins are Pretty Pink Posh Winnie & Walter Birthday Mix (limited edition, no longer available).

Thanks for looking!
-Kelly

Wedding Recipe Scrapbook Courtesy of Winnie & Walter and Pinkfresh Studio

A true match made in heaven, Winnie & Walter is teaming up with Pinkfresh Studio to bring you an Embellishment Kit filled with goodies for your card-making or scrapbooking delight!

 The kit comes in an adorable pouch, and includes stamps, a die, adorable heart confetti with the middles removed, tags, copper letter stickers, wood veneer, copper buttons, epoxy stickers, you name it!

It was the perfect set of products to get started on the Family Recipe Scrapbook that I make for each of my husband's cousins for their wedding shower. Here's a photo of the last scrapbook I made. The whole family sends in their go-to recipe and some photos of themselves, and then I put them all in pages. The one I'm working on now is scrapbook #6 out of 7. Cousin #7 is in medical school so I'm thinking I have a few years before that one is due : )

The bride-to-be is Abby ... the one fanning her dress above. It was SO HOT when her sister had her wedding pictures done. I love this shot, and I love that it fits PERFECTLY with the sentiment that Julie designed from Winnie & Walter. The frame around the sentiment is a stamp and die cut. I also stamped the single, lined diamond shape repeatedly to make my own background. The wood veneer girl was colored in slightly to give it two tones. Love the shinny copper alpha stickers ... they're great to put right on a photo.

  

The kit also comes with two cute tags enveloped with stiff mesh. Here's one of the tags. I took advantage of the mesh and loosely stitched gold thread through the holes. It's supposed to give the impression of a butterfly's path. The butterflies are from the Essentials: Audrey Cutaways. I wrapped the extra gold thread around the butterfly to make a shiny body.

  

Here's the scrapbook page. Aunt Jerry is not longer with us, but I love that she's still a part of the family recipe book. The word cutaways from Winnie & Walter are absolutely perfect for scrapbooking. With so many pages to do, I don't have a lot of time to spend on each one. These large format cutaways fill the space nicely in no time. In a Word: Love and The Big, the Bold and Blessings are used here.

 

Here's the other tag. This one I embellished with cut out leaves from In Bloom: Addie's Garden, some twine and gold thread, and a sequin. Done!

This is my family's page (recognize me?!) If you haven't tried this grape salad yet, you are MISSING SOMETHING AMAZING. Seriously. Every single event I take this to people are mobbing me for the recipe. The grapes make you think it's not bad for you, but once you taste it you realize that there's all sorts of sweet things going on. It's even good 3-4 days afterwards. I highly recommend trying this for your next summer get-together. Make sure you take copies of the recipe though!

   

Here's a bonus page. It doesn't use products from the kit, but there are several Winnie & Walter products on it so I thought I'd share. The Big, the Bold and Extras and The Party are represented here.

There's a big give-away on the Winnie & Walter blog; be sure to check it out! Thanks so much for looking. I'm just going to warn you, I'm in slight panic mode to get this scrapbook done before the wedding shower next Sunday. Pretty much anything posted on my blog until then is going to be a scrapbook page! OK, you've been officially warned : )

-Kelly

Memorial Day Chalkboard Art

I am so grateful for the sacrifices made by service men and women throughout history. This year I decorated my chalkboard for Memorial Day with a good quote, "Home of the free, because of the brave." Thank you, thank you to all who have served!!

For those in the United States, I hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend with your family. We're still in the process of moving, but I hope to buy a grill this weekend and get our summer started off right!