Using a Sketch

Wow it feels like it has been awhile...but I think it is mostly due to the busy weekend we had.  We took a little trip to the West side of Michigan and I'll tell ya...getting ready for the trip was exhausting!  I was glad my husband's parents were there with us, so that I could actually rest and relax

...cuz you know taking a family vacation is not necessarily a vacation wit

h young kids...kwim?!  Anyway, I have been working on this post for a little while because it actually has quite a bit in it...at least for me!  

Anyone that has read my blog knows that I love, LOVE sketch challenges...I actually rarely find myself creating without one to begin with anymore.  Well through a cyber-friend, Nicole of Anderson Arts, I came across a pretty cool blog and free monthly eZine called SheetLoad of Cards.  This eZine gives you a sketch layout and then shows you how to break down the design to make multiples of the card...plus a bunch of designers show you their take on the layout including something that is not a card!  Pretty cool, right?!  So I have taken the latest April 2009 issue of SheetLoad of Cards and created, count 'em, 3 cards and, hold on to your seats, 1 scapbook page.  Although I do feel a little guilty on the last one because I have never scrapped without my girlfriends before, so I felt a little like I was cheating on them!  Sorry girls! 

So my first card took the sketch completely as is, even using the dimensions that were given as well.  Thought it would be good to see what a card would look like without any creative liberties being taken.  I needed a masculine birthday card, so I pulled out an old SU! set called Sporting Goods.  Since the intended recipient was a golf lover, I went for the golf ball and tee.  A little faux stitching with a white gel pen and some embossing with my cuttlebug later, my card was complete.

The Engineering Details - Golf Wish

Stamps: Stampin' Up! (Sporting Goods, Stars and Swirls); Patterned Paper: Unknown; Cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Creamy Caramel, Basic Black, Bordering Blue, Whisper White); Ink: Stampin' Up! (Basic Black); Tools: Signo (white gel pen), Provo (Spots and Dots Cuttlebug 

embossing folder), Stampin' Up! (Eastern Elegance Rub-on); Punches - Stampin' Up! (Corner rounder)

My second card actually stuck to the sketch too...well, except for the sizes on the sketch.  The measurements aren't quite the same, but the overall layout remained intact.  For this card, I used my new Birthday Lauren stamp from Paper Makeup Stamps...love these fairies so much!  I used only pastels to color the image to attempt to give it a soft look.  So the coloring outside of the lines was on purpose...please 

don't think I am just a horrible colorer (is that a word?).  I paper-pieced the present with the same DSP that I used for the base of the card and add some silver gel pen to the bow.  Instead of stars for the embellishments, I added some little silver ribbon flags with

 rhinestone brads.  

The Engineering Details - Birthday Fairy Card

Stamps: Paper Makeup Stamps (Birthday Lauren), Stampin' Up! (Birthday Whimsy); Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up! (Bali Breeze); Cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Taken with Teal, Rose Red, Whisper White); Ink: Stampin' Up! (Basic Black); Punches - Stampin' Up! (Corner rounder and Scallop Edge); Tools: Stampin' Up! (Stampin' Pastels); Embellishments : Stampin' Up! (Ice Circle Rhinestones); Fiber: Stampin' Up! (Silver grosgrain ribbon)

I just recently got a stamp set from Papertrey Ink called Women of Life for my daughters birthday party invitations (totally need to get cracking on those...holy cow she is turnng 1 already!), so I decided to get them inky.  Remembering Mother's Day is coming up, I chose to make m third card a Mother's Day Card...although it just says Mom on the outside, so it could be for just about any occasion.   This was my first use of Papertrey Ink stamps and I really like them.  They stamp very nicely...basically I found that not all photopolymer stamps are the same!  

Anyway, I pulled Cameo Coral, Kiwi Kiss, and Apricot Appeal out and then added some Basic Black to tie it all together.  For this card I did take some creative liberties from the layout.  Instead of a separate piece of paper under the bottom of the main image, I went for just a strip and added the "grass" with the black rhinestones.  I also flipped some of the elements of the sketch...I put the embellishments near the bottom and the flag element at the top.  

The Engineering Details - Mom Flower Card

Stamps: Papertrey Ink (Women of Life); Patterned Paper: Stampin' Up! (Prints Pack - Apricot Appeal); Cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Cameo Coral, Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss); Ink: Stampin' Up! (Cameo Coral, Apricot Appeal, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black); Punches: Stampin' Up! (corner rounder); Embellishments: Darice (5 mm self-adhesive black rhinestones)

Lastly I took the sketch and created a scrapbook page.  This basically means that I took the sketch elements and applied them to a 12 x 12 layout.  I actually had some recent pictures printed (this is actually pretty big for me since I am way behind on getting pics printed...I don't have any printed of my daughter and she is turning 1 soon!).  My embellishments this time were eggs stamped in solid colors and my "flag" became my title.  I used some new Sassafras Lass alphabet stamps called Mamma Mockingbird...I got these free with a bunch of others from my Scrapbook Rewards credit card...pretty cool!   

I used the SU! Occasions Mini Catalog Egg Hunt wheel to go over the entire base of the page...but kept it monochromatic.  The same thought went for the journaling...printed it in Lovely Lilac color on vellum paper.

The Engineering Details - Egg Decorating Scrapbook Page

Stamps: Stampin' Up! (egg stamp - name on set unkown, Egg Hunt Wheel), Studio G (Series 12 - April), Sassafras Lass (Mamma Mockingbird); Cardstock: Stampin' Up! (Lovely Lilac, Yoyo Yellow, Whisper White, Vellum paper); Ink - Stampin' Up! (Lovely Lilac, Yoyo Yellow, Green Galore, Pink Passion, Only Orange; Punches: Stampin' Up! (scallop edge); Tools: Provo (Spots and Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder)

Well I am not sure if I have just totally rambled here or not...need to go to bed!  Thanks for stopping by my engineering world!

Monkey Boo Scrapbooking

I am convinced that a warm spring is actually going to come soon...after the beautiful few days we had over the weekend. I actually got a little sunburn on my arms after visiting the zoo on Friday (which was completely insane by the way...it was more packed than I have ever seen it!). Unfortunately today was a total rain-out and there is some talk of snow tomorrow night (gotta love Michigan), but there is 70 degree weather on the way...yeah!

This last weekend, my scrappin' girls finally made it to get together. We missed a month in there, so it was good to get back. In an effort to help us all out, I started sending everyone a sketch to create a page from. So I selected a sketch by Becky Fleck of PageMaps...if you ever need a scrapbooking layout, this is where you want to go! I love her layouts! Anyway, when I saw the sketch (December '08) I decided to use these pictures from Halloween 2007. Eli was dressed as one of the monkeys that fell off the bed and bumped his head. My Mom made the costume and I added the lovely bandages...too funny!

This page has a bunch of stuff on it. The monkey is a CC Designs stamp set called Monkey Love. Such a cute monkey and would you believe I got it a long time ago specifically for eventually doing this page! The spider punch is micro-punch from Creative Memories...not sure if that is a retired thing or not...I won it at a scrapbooking retreat. The monkey's little treat bags were from a retired SU! set, Bitty Boos. The self-adhesive black rhinestones are from the jewelry section at Jo-Anns and the paper with the house on it was taken from a paper from Jo-Ann's...hate to say I did not note the manufacturer though. I found some reasonable chipboard letters and shapes at Wal-Mart...Best Occasions line...that is where the letters came from. I also got some rhinestone shapes from the same line....to be used at a later date.

Well that is all for me for now. I am hoping to get some cards done tomorrow night...so you might just hear from me again this week!

Thanks for stopping by my engineering world!

Blessed Easter and a Fairy

Well I hope everyone had a better Easter than my daughter! Isn't this picture just the funniest! Is it bad that I find a picture of my daughter crying one of the cutest things around? It makes me think of "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to...you would cry too if it happened to you...". I just can't get over this pic. Really her Easter was good...she is just battling a nasty cough right now and was in a very cranky mood after her nap...and I of course was trying to get the perfect cute picture of her in her Easter dress. Needless to say I didn't get the perfect picture...or did I?! The next picture shows her in a happier mood.




Our Easter was filled with Easter Egg Hunts, Easter Basket Hunt, Church, Lunch/Dinner, Easter Egg Hunts, and more Easter Egg Hunts. My son really, REALLY likes to do the Easter Egg Hunts. We actually have been doing them around the house for like two weeks now. I am getting a little tired of Easter Egg Hunts! Hoping I will be able to convince him that now that Easter is over, we have to put the eggs away...knowing him, he will figure out something else we can "hunt"! Eli and I had a good time coloring Easter eggs yesterday and I think I got some good pics of that...a future scrapbook page! I hope all of you had a fantastic Easter as well!


O.k. so beyond all of the personal stuff...hope you don't mind me sharing stuff like that...I got some NEW stamps and I was so excited to play with them! The stamps I got are from a new company, Paper Makeup Stamps, and the owner is an online friend that donated to my Blog Candy for a Cause II. I have been eyeing these fairies, particularly this one, for awhile and finally broke down to get a couple. I love the "Penelope" fairy...just such a cool image! Anyway, I don't usually do a ton of stamping that requires me to color a lot...not that I don't like it, but it definitely is more time consuming. So since I don't do it a lot, I played around a little bit to try and figure out what coloring style I could do (and that looked good!). So these are my 3 styles: Left - Blender Pen and Ink Pads, Middle - Blender Pen and SU! Watercolor Pencils, Right - SU! Markers and Paintbrush on Watercolor Paper. Which one do you think looks best? I like the vibrant colors of the one on the right, but I think my coloring skills are best on the Left one. Obviously I do not own any Copic markers...yet...I can see why people can get into them because they probably take a lot less time that any of these options.


So I put two of my colored fairies into a couple of cards. I used some of the Patterned Paper from DCWV that I found at JoAnns...hence where the colors came from for the fairy. And hold on to your seats....I did NOT use a sketch challenge for either of these cards...I know, I was shocked myself! The first card is my favorite...so sparkly, especially the wings of "Penelope". This is using the fairy I colored with a blender pen and ink pads on regular white cardstock. The beautiful saying is also from Paper Makeup stamps and pairs with the fairy beautifully! The rhinestones are self-adhesive ones found in the jewelry section of JoAnn's for a cheaper price (and more qty) than the ones from the scrapbooking area.

My second card uses the fairy that was colored with SU! markers and a paintbrush on watercolor paper. I think I need some more practice on this coloring method...parts I like and parts I don't. You really need to wait until each section is dry before starting a new section...otherwise you get some bleeding of colors. I really am not patient enough for that! But I do love how vibrant the colors turn out! I used the same patterned paper again and included a sentiment from the Verve Stamps Beautiful You stamp set...a great set with really cool quotes and sayings. Now that I look at this one again...I feel like it is missing another layer of color or something...oh well!

That is all for me...thanks for stopping by my engineering world!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Penelope and Friends Sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps), Beautiful You (Verve Stamps); Paper - DP (DCVW Provo), Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Apricot Appeal, Regal Rose, Whisper White / watercolor paper, Creamy Caramel; Ink - Black Stazon, Basic Black, Rose Red, Chocolate Chip, Apricot Appeal, Regal Rose, Creamy Caramel; Accessories - Scallop Edge Punch, Pink Rhinestones, Apricot Appeal grosgrain ribbon, Crystal Stickles, White taffeta ribbon, Paper Piercer, Mat pack, dimensionals

Soft Mojo

Thankfully everyone in my house is feeling better...well it appears that Adi may have caught a cold, but other than that we seem to be somewhat healthy! After the nastiness that was in our house, a cold is nothing! Actually, she is cutting her upper molars, so it could always be due to that...poor little thing!


With Elijah visiting Oma & Opa for a couple of days this week (he is on Spring Break), I was able to get a chance to play with a new stamp set and some new product! Yeah me!! As usual I got my Mojo on by starting with the Mojo Madness Monday Sketch Challenge #81. I just got the Branch Out stamp set from Stampin' Up!...I love the tree! I also got some Flower Soft the other week, so I have been dying to play with it. So with all of that this card was born! The colors were based on the Flower Soft - Sweet pea colors (or at least my best guess as to what they are): Handsome Hunter, Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Pink Pirouette. Such a pretty color combo!


The Flower Soft adds such a beautiful texture to the tree...love it! I am seriously lacking on patterned paper, so I rely on making my own a lot! I hate buying patterned paper without having a plan for it (gasp! - I know), but then I am always wishing I had more patterned paper...a horrible cycle! Anyway, I used the branches portion of the tree to create the Certainly Celery patterned paper (turned out pretty cool if I do say so myself) and I used the butterflies on the Rose Red cardstock. The butterflies circle element was cut with Nestabilities and I used the die to mask it so I could sponge the Certainly Celery color and draw the line in Handsome Hunter and still keep a white edge around it. The only thing I felt it was missing was a little sparkle on the butterflies, but alas I didn't have the right color of sparkle pen...something to add to my wishlist! The last thing was I didn't have any Rose Red ribbon, so I created my own by dying some White Taffeta ribbon...tada perfectly matches!


I thought I would take a moment to share with you our completed bathroom! This project got started 4 years ago when my husband starting taking out the counters in a bathroom in our finished basement....that is when I count this project started from...he likes to count just from when the bathroom was no longer usable, which has been like 2 years or so! Anyway, either way, the bathroom was completely gutted and now it is finally finished! We are pretty pleased with how it turned out. When I saw the Tree Decor Element from Stampin' Up!, I knew I wanted it in my bathroom. It turned out great...well it would be better if there wasn't some light switches there, but I have to work with what I got!


Thanks for stopping by my engineering world!
















The Engineering Details
Stamps - Branch Out, Beautiful You (Verve Stamps); Paper - Handsome Hunter, Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White; Ink - Handsome Hunter, Certainly Celery, Rose Red; Accessories - white taffeta ribbon, Circle and Scallop Circle Nestabilities, Ice Circle Rhinestone Brads, Flower Soft - Sweet pea, Mat Pack, Paper Piercer, dimensionals