Stuck Sketches and Christmas: Disney Style

 The December 15th sketch at Stuck is up and I love the inspiration the designers have shared with you. The sketch is amazingly versatile:

 We were challenged to add a TREE to our design and I decided to think outside the box: I chose a favourite photo I'd been saving from my 2010 visit to Hollywood Studios at Disney World. I had not been back to Orlando during the Christmas season since I was 15 (so so long ago!) The addition of the Osbourne Family Christmas tree lights transformed an old favourite (Streets of America) to a magical wonderland. Did you know they blow "fake" snow in the air? So magical.

In addition to this fabulous sketch, I pulled out my DOODLEBUG  This & That. I am totally IN LOVE with this line. It is bright and colourful and SO versatile!

I began by painting watercolours on a large acrylic stamp and stamping along the top and in the lower left.

I also splattered paint in those matching shades. The title, cut with my Cameo, include the Aharoni and SNF Lolihop fonts.

I also layered the great stickers on the lower left with my journalling stamp. I also added some pops of washi tape.

Our wonderful sponsor for this month is:

 

 Creative Embellishments is a new family owned company that was created by Michael and Nicolle Kramer. We are a husband and wife team who design and manufacture unique, high quality chipboard and wood products. It is their mission to offer fun and inspiring products to bring out your inner creativity that you can add to any project. In the near future they will be expanding into other mediums such as rubber/acrylic stamps and acrylic embellishments. Please stop over to the Creative Embellishments store and have a look around.  

Also thanks to :

 We are grateful for their sponsorship too.

I love this sketch and I hope you will play along this month. Please link up your layouts over at the Stuck?! blog  the sidebar by December 29th, 2013 to be in the running for one of our prizes!   All prizes will be drawn randomly using Random.org to pick a number.

When linking your layouts, please make sure it is linked to the specific post your layout is in, not your blog as a whole as it can be hard later in the month to find your layout, especially if you blog often. You can also link from any gallery including Facebook and Flickr.

Feel free to combine this sketch challenge with no more than one other non-sketch challenge, such as a colour challenge.

Until next time, keep doing what you love to do!

Inspiration Elevator #19: Christmas Traditions

You may recall that the purpose of the Inspiration Elevator challenge group is to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to mature as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. You can view all of the challenges at the Inspiration Elevator Blog. 

We are thrilled to welcome guest artist Christy Riopel to Inspiration Elevator this month. You may recognize her work as she is a regular contributor/write for Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.

December's challenge for us and for you comes from the uber prolific and very talented Laurel Seabrook. Here's the challenge she posed: "My challenge for December. I love Christmas, everything about it. Decorating my house, making gifts, baking - I love it all. My challenge to you is what is Christmas to you? What is one thing that evokes special memories and truly brings out the Christmas spirit for you. It could be a decoration, photo, song, recipe. Perhaps it is a tradition that you did as a child and now your children do. Maybe it is in the 'special' dinnerware that comes out only at Christmas. Scrap it and tell us all about it. Now for those who don't celebrate Christmas, let's hear about a tradition that makes your celebration special. "

Okay here goes, for those of you who know me well, you know that Laurel's love for Christmas is not something that happens here at the Uttley house. Oh, the kids love the gifts ad my Dolly loves all the trimmings, but the rest of us are a bit..Humbug usually.  The commercialism, the excess spending, the work and all the cooking and cleaning. I admit it..I'm more about loving up on my family and friends ALL year round. But this challenge of Laurel's really got me thinking about the things we do treasure about the season. Our little bits of joy that we carry on throughout the years; my favourite ornament from the very first Christmas Rich and I had in 1994 and the day my Dolly goes to Grandma's  to decorate her tree and bake cookies.

The design I created shows another tradition that Dolly and I have each year. We get Rich to drag the tree up from the basement and we spend a whole afternoon decorating the tree, just the two of us. We watch a  Christmas movie or listen to Carols and drink hot chocolate. I love this time when she is so happy ad the magic of Christmas makes her so happy; a little of that magic, somehow, flows on to me and I am happy.

After adding some matching blue and brown splatters to my background ( I think they look a bit like snow!)I pulled from my stash and used CARTA BELLA Christmas line from last year. It's beiges and blues brought out the glitter and glimmer of our tree and Dolly's skin tone. I used my Cameo to cut a snowflake banner piece that I slid under the left side of my layered papers. I also used my Cameo to cut the fonts (Aharoni and Goudy Bold) for my title.

 I added gold RANGER stickles to the letters and as a light gloss over the STUDIO CALICO wood veneer snow flakes. The distressed edges in brown add depth and allow the papers to pop up from the background.

Once again, I was challenged beyond what techniques I am putting on my design. Inspiration Elevator made me put my heart and soul into the PROCESS and make this an amazingly enriching  growth experience. Thanks Laurel for challenging me to the next level.

I hope you will get around to see all the other designers and to see what y friends have been challenged to create.

 Laurel Seabrook 

 Jodi Wilton 

Michelle Hernandez 

 Ann Jobes

 Laura Whitaker 

Lisa Moen  

Christa Uttley (so glad you are here)

Cathy Harper  

Lisa Spiegel 

 Joanne Burton 

 Guest designer: Christy Riopel 

I hope you feel inspired to play along with our challenge this month, and when you do, please share it using the linky tool on our Inspiration Elevator blog and/or our Inspiration Elevator Facebook page. We'd LOVE to see what you made!

Until next time, keep doing what YOU love.

Songs of Christmas Blog Hop

Welcome to the Songs of Christmas Blog Hop with Two Scrapbook Friends!  You should have arrived here from Amanda's blog.

 Our Blog Hop is all about the Songs of Christmas and the inspiration for my project comes from the song All I Want For Christmas Is You. I chose this song because it really represents how my daughter and her BFF feel about each other..not just at Christmas but all year round. They live in each others' back pocket 24/7! (Please forgive the quality of the photo, I couldn't help but scrap it in spite of it's poor quality.)

Here's the final result:

I really liked this photo even though it wrecked havoc with my editing and subsequent blog posting! Something about the light balance on the blog!! But alas here we are and while the final photo isn't all that I imagined it does capture a time in my daughter's life using some techniques I adore.

I began with a plain white sheet and decided to add paint as my foundation using a sea sponge and my watercolour paints:

 

The olive green in the WE R MEMORY KEEPERS North Pole line was easy to match and added depth and texture to the base. I added some pennant shapes in differing patterns and laid my photo on top. The title (directly from my song of choice) was cut using the Cameo in differing fonts. I am fond of the SNF Lolihop (cursive) and Aharoni for the smaller print letters.

 

I created an interested effect using my sewing machine by stitching over top of the title letters to anchor them and add contrast. The letters are first adhered using my XYRON sticker maker (LOVE!!) with little or no fuss!

I also distressed some chipboard STUDIO CALICO stars with my water colour paints, TIM HOLTZ distress ink and my MAKING MEMORIES sanding block. The smallest stars are from STUDIO CALICO too.

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So remember, in order to be entered to win the special prize all you have to do is hop from Blog to Blog and leave a comment on each as you go.  Then simply check back at the Two Scrapbook Friends blog on December 10th to see if you are the lucky winner!

Here are the featured blogs in our Blog Hop:

Shelby

Joanne

Tracy

Jayne

Darcy

Jodi

Amanda

Christa

Audrey

Janice

Ann

Carolyn

Your next blog will be: Audrey's.  Have fun hopping and be inspired! 

Until next time, keep doing what you love,

December Craft Challenge

 Good morning!  I'm excited that December is here and Christmas is just around the corner. It's with that in mind that I want to challenge you to play along at TWO SCRAPBOOK FRIENDS and scrapbook a holiday tradition. At our house there are so many traditions that I want to be sure to immortalize on the page and this was just one that inspired me to create.

 I used We R Memory Keepers North Pole and layered lots of patterns, stitching and some paint. It captured perfectly Adriane and her Grandma making cookies and being together. Adriane is her only granddaughter so I think it's a special time for them both.

I also used my Cameo to create this cute gingerbread and added some odd googlie eyes for character. My hand written journalling covers the basics but I chose a chocolate brown pen for continuity of the colour scheme. Some colourful brads and a popped up snowflake from this connection finish the cluster.
 

 

Finally I added strip or two at the top,  and stitched them down after ruffling the edge. My small cluster creates flow and gave me a spot to add a little Christmas cheer stamp.

I do hope you'll get a chance to play along with this months challenge......it's always fascinating to see an array of different projects, inspired by your Christmas or Holiday traditions! You could win $25 to use at the store or online!

Just remember a couple of rules:

1. Create as many NEW projects as you like for each challenge! Each creation will gain you an entry in the draw to win. (Please enter a double page layout as only one entry.)
2. Projects can either be uploaded to the forum and gallery or linked up using the tool at TWO SCRAPBOOK FRIENDS blog, to win.
3. Projects must be entered no later than December 31st at 11:59pm.


Be sure to pop by again on Friday and heck out our Songs of Christmas Blog Hop at 11 am.

Until next time keep doing what you love.