Fall is here !

I didn't see it coming, beside the cold temperatures, because the trees were still green. But suddenly, in two days, fall colors are blooming everywhere.
I didn't have papers matching these colors (still waiting for a house), but I found a U.K. magazine with a bonus inside : fall papers AND acrylic stamps ! It' simply cards & Papercraft. One of the cards in the magazine show a tree stamped directly on the card with a strip of green paper. I didn't like that much the card, but I used the sketch to create this one :

I cut the leaves from the stamped image and place them on the card to add some motion. The stamp was colored with Copic markers (E31, E37, Y11, Y17 for the tree ; E09, YR65, Y11, YG03, YG63 for the leaves). I distress the edges of the papers with brown distress ink by Tim holtz. The swirls around the leaves were created with a dark pink pencil. The title "Autumn" is cut with my Cricut Expression and the "Strech your imagination" cartridge. All the papers came from the magazine.

I hope you had a great week end. See you around...

Do you speak French ?

If you do so, I have a video for you, about how to make M&M's like embellishments for your layouts. If you don't, you still can watch me for real speaking in my native language. Anyway, it's not an advanced video for scrapbookers, I made it two years ago, and rediscover it yesterday in my IPad. As I want to make more video (but in English this time), I thought that starting my channel with few existing videos would be a good idea. Yes, there is more than one in French to come...

Have fun watching me teaching you speak French ;-)

A altered canvas memory box ?

Does that make sense for you ? Let me explain it. It's a box. OK. Eventually for keepsakes. OK. But canvas ? Yes, this box is made with 5 square canvas. Plus a thin wood panel for the bottom.

Each panel was cover with altered paper from the Bella Bella Collection by MME. I used bubble wrap to create the random dot pattern with pink acrylic paint and dark pink glitter. The flowers and butterflies of the papers are covered with crackle glossy accents by Ranger. the edge of the papers are distressed and inked with brown ink.
The canvas and the bottom wood panel are nailed together. The top is attached with small hinges :

On the top, I put a painted chipboard frame, along with  ribbons (Recollections, Hobby Lobby), a Making Memories metal frame, Recollections flowers, pearls and crystals. To speed up the operation, I used my Mini Sticker Maker to glue the dark pink ribbon.

The front centerpiece is a Sizzix die cut from black cardstock covered with black crackle paint by Tim Holtz, decorated with flowers by Prima Marketing, Recollections ; the big yellow flowers came from China, thanks to a friend of mine. Two of the flowers are distress, inked and their edge are covered with black glitter. Leaves by Prima Marketing.

 

 

I still don't know what I want to put inside, but maybe instead of keepsakes, I will keep it for my scarfs.

 

Wish you a beautiful and creative day !





Aberdeenshire under the sun

That's incredible. We had a full week end of sunshine AND warm weather !
As every times it's not raining, I did drag my children out and forced them to walk ! What a bad mother I make...
This time, we went to the East Aquhorthies Stone Cirle. Yeah ! a REAL stone circle, exactly like in Rebel movie ! well, not exactly, because, first, it's a REAL one and second, it's an really old one. But still pretty amazing !

It's probably 5000 years old, very spiritual and beautiful place to go. So, if you're in Aberdeenshire, don't miss the opportunity to take a look at it. Beside, they're an amazing view and you could have a great walk into the woods behind.

Hope you had a great week end too...

Featured in a French magazine blog

It's been a while since I've been published nor featured by anything French. For my defense, may I say I don't live in France since 2009 ? Anyway, it was a nice surprise to discover this morning I was featured in the Passion Cartes Creatives blog (means passion creative cards, see French is not difficult...) as their crush of this beginning week !

The featured card is the Halloween card I shared with you few days ago, you can found the post here.

As I'm back in Europe, maybe I should try again to submit to French magazine ? Or maybe my style has so much evolved I cannot fit the style anymore ? Any thought ?

Before leaving you, let me show you some Fall printables I found on Pinterest :



You can found it on my board Printables.

Have a great day !

A Bella Blvd layout

Do you remember I received my air shipment few days ago ? Inside was waiting for me to use it the Bella Blvd warehouse box I bought before leaving. I did share with you the content of the box in another post here.

So yesterday night I made a layout with some of the Bella goodies. Sometimes I feel like my (crafty) life start after 8PM...
I had a great picture of my daughters and their cousins during our summer vacations in the mountains, and I decided to use this one for my layout. I usually scrap girls pictures, but as the cousins are boys, I wanted to add some boyish features to my page for once. So I used the Mr. Boy collection as weel as Finally Fall, and Stephanie Hunt stickers. I add papers by Recollections and We R Memory keepers.

As you can see, I got blue AND pink, but I have made the effort to not put flowers or bling... I'm very pleased with this layout, it's very dynamic, and all the colors of the picture can be found in the papers or stickers.

For the record, I lifted a layout of Juliana Michaels (I pin it there).

I wish you an inspired day !

Halloween card

Hello readers !

I'm still writing from my temporary apartment, with no access to half of my stock of papers, flowers, big tools (except my Cricut, this one has travel faster...), all my ribbons, washi, embossing folders, and so on and so on. Oh ! I can wait to have a home here and re-install my scrapbook room ! If I can... You maybe don't know it, but UK houses a kind of smaller than US houses. I maybe find one with the right amount of rooms, but as there's no closet inside the bedroom, I will probably have to turn on of them into a gameroom (bedrooms can only hold a bed and a desk) for the girls, and the smaller one into a closet (remember, I got GIRLS !) rather than a scraproom...

Let's say I will wait until I have the room before crying over my lost scraproom...

Meanwhile, I will show you an Halloween card, made with Teresa Collins Haunted Hallows papers, a orange ribbon bought at Costco and adhere with the help of Create-a-Sticker (yes, you can find scrap supplies there : ribbons, filled scrap tote, trimmer, gel pens, scissors...), crystals found at Michaels in the dollar section, Tim Holtz distress ink and an spooky embellishment by Jolee's Boutique. The 31 was cut with my Cricut Expression and the Black letter cartridge.

Cross fingers for me for my home search, and have a lovely day !

Thanks a bunch

Hi there !

I felt so bad about sharing a less-than-perfect coloring job last time, I want to show you a more recent card I'm much more proud of :

Papers came from a Recollections Christmas pad. The sentiment is stamped with a rubber stamp I found at Walmart (really odd I found something there).
I stamped the roses bouquet (Inkadinkado, I know, again) on a heavy weight paper I found here in Aberdeen (Daler Rowney, 220g/m2, never saw it before), which is really perfect for coloring with Copic.
The blue background around the bouquet is made by distressing with a blue Timk Holtz ink. I know I can obtain the same effect with Copic, but I'm not that confident about my coloring skills...

Here are the Copic colors I used :

Flowers : R20, R29, R32
Leaves : YG63, BG75
Ribbons : B93, B97
Doily : E51, Y11
Thanks tag : E51, E33

I'm making progress, right ?

A family frame

Good morning !

Some updated of my Scottish life : I received my air shipment with part of my scrapbooking stuff, surface shipment is planned for the end of the month and I'm visiting houses since yesterday.
Difficult to find a house, they're off the market very quickly. One I have visited yesterday morning (and liked) was gone the afternoon... I hope we will have more luck today, because I have 3 more houses to visit, and that will be the 3 last accepting dogs.

But before leaving for my Aberdeen tour, I want to share with you a frame with a picture of my family and me. I decorated it with Cricut flowers and leaves (published in the Cricut Families Idea Book of August) :

I used a 10x10 frame find at Michaels for this project. The background is made with papers by MME and black cardstock, a Inkadinkado stamp ; the embellishments are a pearl ribbon, half pearl by Recollections, Making Memories brads and flowers. A EK Success border punch was also useful for the black frame around the picture. I distress the leaves and the flowers with distress ink by
Tim Holtz.
Some flowers are by Making Memories,Prima Marketing, or recollections.I made the others flowers and the leaves with my Cricut and with theFlower shoppe and the Mother's day bouquet cartridges. The title is from the Heritage cartridge.

I really love this picture. We so look like a beautiful and happy family...

Can yours be blessed. Have a good day !

Halloween card

Today I will show one of my first attempt of coloring with Copic markers. So please show mercy for this beginner's work.

Anyway, I like the design I made so I want to share it with you :

I used a Teresa Collins Halloween paper for the base, a Sizzix die cut for the black frame, Ek Success punch border for the border of the card, Sticko puffy and glossy alpha for the title. The banner is cut with a Sizzix Tim Holtz die from cream cardstock, and distress with orange Ranger distress ink.
The stamp is by Flonz, I really like these manga stamps. I bought two complete sheets of acrylic stamps, so you're gonna see more of them (when I will have my scrapbook stuff back !).

For those who are beginner like me, my mistake in this card was to use orange markers too close in tone, so when they blend, they look like one. I didn't let space for highlight. And so on...

Don't worry. I'm improving myself by practicing, and hope I can show you a better job soon.

Dunnottar Castle

The sun is back in Aberdeenshire, and yesterday was perfect to take a look at our first castle in Scotland. We choose the Dunnottar Castle, a big rock detached from the cliff, full of stories and history.

Inhabited since Pictish times, the Castle is famous for having hidden the Honors of Scotland, last of the English crown jewels, during 11 years until the king return to the throne (1661).

One of the darkest chapters of Dunnottar's history is that of the Whig's Vault. In 1685, one hundred and twenty two men and forty five women, whose crime was their refusal to acknowledge the King's supremacy in spiritual matters.  They were imprisoned with little food and no sanitation from 24 May until the end of July in the gloomy, airless cellar.

But beside history, the place is beautiful and we spent a great afternoon there.

The castle was purchased by the Cowdray family in 1925. The 1st Viscountess Cowdray embarked on a systematic programme of repair. Since then the Castle has remained in the Cowdray (Pearson) family, and has been open to visitors. One of the room have been restored with decorated wood ceiling and windows : the Drawing room.

Don't miss this place if you travel in Aberdeenshire, it worths the trip.

One last pool time

Since yesterday in Aberdeen, we had what we call winter in Houston, gray sky with 60F. No more outside pool for us until next summer in France then. Just as a remimder of what could be a day by the pool, I pop out a layout from my RV Cruise scrapbook. These pictures were taken on our way back to Vegas. We made a stop at an Hotel&Casino resort, with an RV park. Beside the casino, we had access to the sand beach (on the Colorado river ?) and the pool. As it wasn't a US holiday, the pool was alsmost empty and we had a great time there.

I used an American Crafts paper for the background, Press Petals metal letters, pink glitter alpha by Colorbok, a Christmas ribbon from Michaels, an Heidi Swapp clock chipboard with Prima Marketing crystals, silver classic borders peel off stickers by The Paper Studio and lot of crystals.

These pictures will keep me warm during winter season here, and for the water, I still can walk by the beach with my dog...

Have a good one !

Another water based layout

Hello !

I still haven't received my air shipment with essentials scrap supplies. It's in Aberdeen since few days now but stuck in the custom. Maybe I have too much scrapbooking items and they think I want to resale ?
Any way, I will share today a layout I have made before leaving Houston about a day spent in water in the Carribean. This was a quick one, no embellishment. I wasn't very inspired by the pictures, but I want to put them in the Carribean Cruise Scrapbook anyway.

I just hand cut the rounds pattern to insert the pictures under. I cannot recall the paper brand (papers are in surface shipment...), but I'm sure about the Thickers alpha.

Aren't those safety vest lovely ?

Ombre flower lantern

It's still summer, even here in Aberdeen where we have a blue sky with 80F, so I still can show you a summer project. I used a white paper lantern, two Tim Holtz distress ink pads and a LOT of daisies cut with my Cricut Expression and the Mother's day cartridge.

If you have access to the August Cricut magazine, you can sure have a better picture of it, with a nice garden background. But you can put this lantern inside as well.

Each flower is made of 4 daisies (2 sizes) in two tones of the same paper by The Paper Studio. I satured the first layer of flowers with orange distress ink, used less ink with the second but both lanes are made with orange tone paper.
The three last lanes are made with yellow tone paper. The middle one is satured with orange distress ink, the one after with yellow distress ink, and I didn't ink the last one.

Simply glue the finished flowers with Glossy Accents, starting from the top with darker flowers to the bottom with lighter flowers.

Took forever but I do like the result...