Big Thunder Fun

Hello again!

Very rarely do I get a chance to scrapbook photos of my most recent vacation so soon after I get back but this great line by Studio Calico called HERE and THERE,  really inspired me to get cracking! Adriane and I had managed to carve out a bit of mother/daughter time. at Walt Disney World. It was such an amazing trip with Adriane. I hope its something we can do every year. I did however mangae to forget my camera but the trusty iPhone did double duty and some of these pictures turned out so well.

One such photo is this great photo of Adriane on Big Thunder Mountain. Bar none, this is our favourite ride at Magic Kingdom. The weather was a bit cool and the crowds were low, so we got to ride it three times in a row. I remember Adriane (and maybe ME) being giddy.

We were getting ready for a big drop and this was the first bright afternoon of sunshine in an otherwise freezing cold week of Florida winter.

I added some wood veneer speech bubbles and stamped some words on them.The dots, and grid patterns coupled with the arrows and hardware, really gave this layout a vacation feel.
 I even added the Here and There tab right from the barcode strip! (Don't you love the bright blue sky?) The denim paper from Echo Park really makes that sky Pop!

I used my Silhouette to cut the titles. The green paper is from a Stampin Up! paper pack several years old.

I hope you loved this new line. You can find it online at Two Scrapbook Friends here.

Until next time, keep doing what you love.

Happy 1st Anniversary Inspiration Elevator!

Welcome to another Inspiration Elevator reveal! We are thrilled to celebrate the end of our first year of Inspiration Elevator challenges and are anticipating that the second year will see that creative growth continue to go UP! To celebrate our first anniversary and our fabulous designers, Christa and Ann decided to challenge our designers to take an in-depth look at a fellow designer's artistic portfolio via her blog, choose elements from that designers creations,and incorporate them into her own work. In other words, we are encouraging a scrapLIFT! Rather than a mere copy of someone else’s work, this is a stylistic scraplift that should inspire each designer to grow creatively as she is inspired, yet remain true to her own style.
As the second year of this creative journey begins, and as the popularity of Inspiration Elevator increases, we have created a new blog for our Inspiration Elevator Challenges. So, if you want to play along you can find the challenges and links to the inspiration all in one place! To celebrate our first year, our hopping will incorporate RAKs along the way – how exciting! Now, before you go hopping along, we want to let you know of a few personnel changes.

While, we are so excited to welcome back most of our original design team members for year two, we are saddened to be saying goodbye to Audrey Yeager. Audrey has creatively embraced every challenge over the past year, and has been a super part of our design team over the past 12 months. We hope your will continue to stop by her blog and see her gorgeous creations. Thank you Audrey for sharing our journey – we are grateful for you!

We are very pleased to announce a new member to our design team. Join us as we welcome Jodi Wilton. Jodi's design style is happy and whimsical and we are looking forward to sharing this new year of growth with her and seeing how her creative muse is tickled by our challenges.

We mentioned RAKs or giveaways at each designer’s blog this month,since we’re celebrating our first year. Please read each designer’s instructions regarding the giveaway as they will vary. We will post a final list of winners on April 24^th on the Inspiration Elevator blog, so be sure to pop back, and if you create something based on this month’s challenge, please link it up on the blog!

My "scraplift" partner for this challenge is the very talented Lisa Moen. I spent many hours (days) getting happily lost in Lisa's blog and I discovered a few things:
1. Lisa and I have a similar style (whoda thunk?)
2. She does so many things well (if I do say so!)
3. She likes layers, bright colours, clusters, as well as all photo types and sizes.

All things I like too!

I decided to use several of her designs as inspiration for my challenge. I have always been inspired by Lisa's use of mists and her real affinity for flowers, and clusters of embellishments. I was also inspired  when I noticed she often uses a patterned paper background. I almost NEVER use a patterned paper background and when I do it's so very subtle it's almost like its not there.

So, I had my challenge:

1. Use a stronger background.
2. Use a liquid (mist/paint) colour to alter some aspect of my design (other than background splatters).
3. Attempt a cluster.
4. Use more flowers.

I was inspired to alter three doilies with a water colour wash in lieu of the beautiful mists Lisa used.

I was challenged to create some custom colours with my paint and I think it turned out really well!

Here's my take on Lisa's design.

Notice the powerful background and use of flowers:

Notice my cluster work:

 I also added handwritten journalling like Lisa does on almost all her designs.

Here's Lisa's design that inspired me!

 I really loved this challenge. It helped me to really look in-depth at a fellow artists work and to see how I can be inspired everyday. I loved the opportunity to add the handwriiten journalling, the altered doilies and the flowers. Thanks Lisa Moen for being so AWESOME!

If you leave me here I will be awarding one lucky commenter an awesome prize: an Echo Park HELLO SUMMER paper pack! (be sure to leave me your email address or have an up to date email address on your own blog so I can contact you!)

Stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Jodi Wilton

Inspiration Elevator

Power of Three Challenge

Today at Two Scrapbook Friends we are having a Power of Three Challenge issued by yours truly!
I was inspired by yet another great design of my daughter and her BFF's Jordyn and Lauren.

Margaret Everton an architectural designer says that the Rule of Three is a powerful one:

 "The basic idea of the rule: information and objects that appear in threes are more appealing, memorable, and effective than other numbers of objects. Think three-act plays. Religious triptychs. The three kittens who lost their mittens. Beginning, middle, end. Liberte, egalite, fraternite. Go, fight, win. You get the picture."

Here's my design to inspire you to use the POWER OF THREE on your art work.

I used three different washi tapes and there are three clouds!

I used three journalling strips too.

I also used three little wooden hearts!

But if you look closely you'll also see:

-3 BFF's
-3 different threads
- 3 different pen colours.

So, I challenge you to use the power of three and head over to the Two Scrapbook Friends forum and be challenged by this challenge and many other great ideas to get your creativity jump-started.

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

Inspiration Elevator Challenge #11: Photo Effects

You may recall that the purpose of this challenge group is to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. You can view all of the challenges on my blog by clicking here.
This month, our challenge comes from the very sweet and very talented Joanne Burton. Joanne resides in Waterloo and co-owns a scrapbook store there with her BFF. Her scrapbooking style is classically elegant and always showcases wonderful photos. It's no wonder that her challenge to is centered around the photo - here is the challenge, in Joanne's own words:
Inspiration Elevator has been such a tremendous experience for me! We have explored our style, stretched our single pages into two, documented our fears and regrets, scrapbooked our beliefs, worked with less than perfect photos and have even gone vintage! Hopefully we have each grown as a result of being a part of this group – I know I have! 

One of the fun things about scrapbooking is working with our photos. We get to pick and choose our favorite photos and have fun recording the memories behind them. So this month, I thought we could stretch our creativity by having some fun with our photos!

I assume we all work with digital photos, so this month’s challenge will work for each of you. I want you to pick a photo and then alter it in some way using your favorite photo editing program. I would like to see something more than just making your photo black & white. Maybe use a special effect, add a frame, play with text, etc. There is so much you can do!

Play with your photo until it conveys a particular look or feel that will help you to express your memories associated with that picture. Then add it to your page! When you post your finished project, please share how you altered your photo, and why you chose the effects you did. (Maybe you could even post a before and after of your photo!)

I was so excited to see Joanne's challenge. There are so many (FREE!) digital photo editing software programs that do really great things to a photo. In fact, I use Picasa to edit ALL my photos. Some others are Instagram and Pocketbooth and PicMonkey..you get the idea...so so many to choose from. For this challenge, aside from Picasa, I chose to use Instagram to edit the photo in this design.


The story begins with the day Dolly had a friend over in July 2011 and they were busy creating and being artsy. I wanted to create a design that reflected what she was doing that day. Most importantly it brought to mind that I really try keep my children's life enriching the best I can. I suffer from "Busy-Mom Syndrome" like most 21st century Moms. But having kids really makes you focus on the being better; being an example; being the BEST you can be so your kids look up to you and grow to be wonderful adults.   So there's my title motivation.
 Here's the layout....I tried something new (keeping with IE's purpose to make us stretch).

Do you like it?

I doodled all the flowers but the medium one in the upper most right hand corner which provided not only the inspiration for the design, but a handy concealer for a massive boo-boo. Don't look too closely...

I then hand painted all the coloured doodle parts and the title chipboard too.

So on to the final part of dear Joanne's challenge. Like most of you who photograph in the digi world, I love the quick edits you can do to a regular photo right there on the iPhone; so quick and easy. The regular photo (which should be inserted here) was a washed out/over exposed photo of Adriane  taken in the dinette section of my kitchen, where the light can be a blessing or a curse. Sadly, I cannot locate the original file as it has gone to the HARD DRIVE heaven for broken computers. I used the edited photo I had printed months ago (because I knew I couldn't NOT scrap it) and only realized I didn't have the original on my back up hard drive.

So, having said that here's the Instagram edit:

I chose the "Earlybird" edit and love it's warming tones and slightly dreamy blurring effect.

I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

I know this challenge has produced some sensational designs and some excellent tips on using some of those great photo editing software. Watch for next month and our FIRST ANNIVERSARY here at Inspiration Elevator.  We are excited to be reaching our one year mark of growth and artistic challenge.

Until next time, keep doing what you love.

Sweet Treats

Howdy Bloggy-friends! I'm home from my travels to sunny (but cold) Florida and my visit with G-ma and Mickey Mouse. Adriane and I had the greatest time and I will treasure those memories FOREVER.

I wanted to share with you a few photos from my trip that I love:

 Loving the retiree lifestyle! My Dolly loved that scooter to pieces and I am sure she broke a few land speed records too.

Dolly and Lauren acting out American Idol rock star faces.

 This is a favorite ride/show at Hollywood Studios. This photo is an annual (bi-annual!?) tradition. (Jazz hands!!!)

A snuggle in the 'throne' of the infamous Gaston! The new Fantasy;and additions show that DIsney has taken it all to a brand new level of amazing.

Speaking of amazing; I also wanted to share another layout featuring the Fancy Pants Blissful Blizzard line. Fancy Pants has always had a way with their papers but this line is..well...AMAZING! :o)

I love these closeup square photos and the doilie bits on and off the layers.

I also cut the half circle banner bits and popped them up with foam squares. Buttons and twine finish it off. (if I do say so myself!)

I also loved the wooden hearts and words. I used watercolours to give them a washed out look and even left some of them 'naked'.

I hope you are thinking warm thoughts about Spring today, until next time: keep doing what you love.

Snowmen!

I have had these photos for ages..and I mean eons. (They are not even digital but real actual 35mm photos taken when Max was 4 years old.) Gosh, time flies but this title has always been in my mind...for almost 9 years and I have been waiting for the right Collection to create this treasured design. Two Scrapbook Friends gifted me with the opportunity to word with the Fancy Pants Blissful Blizzard collection I was thrilled. I'd found the perfect medium for my pictures!

 I loved the gentle greys and blues here and the diecut sheet had some pennant shapes. More misted Studio Calico wood veneer and a large wooden snow flake add dimension and texture.

I added some texture medium and placed glitter over top. I then pressed my template into the paste. The end result was very cool...like a mount of snow with a boot print almost!
My final little bit of spare was in my chipboard title which I covered in glitter. (Can you tell the 'o' is actually the letter 'c'?)

I hope you are inspired to scrapbook some of your winter treasured photos with Fancy Pants Blissful Blizzard!
Until next time, keep doing what you love.

Embracing Change and Leaving My Legacy

Very recently, I was honoured to be featured in the Canadian Scrapbooker article by the very talented Sue Sykes. (You may recognize her a contributing writer for the wonderful publication but also as a member of our Inspiration Elevator Challenge every month.)

In this edition of Canadian Scrapbooker, Sue wrote about how we embrace change in our lives. My design talks about how I look forward to the changes in my life as they mean growth and that it is really about the journey we make rather than the destination we seek. It's important that as part of creative journey, that I take time to document these thoughts I have about life..just in case anyone cares to know in the future!

I used Basic Grey papers from their Soliel Collection with all their gorgeous patterns to design this layout.

I cute the title using my Silohuette and some sticker letters (also from the Soliel Collection).

What I love most about this layout (besides the great photo from Angela Smith Photography of Waterloo) is my journalling. Those of your who know me well, know I find it hard to write on my designs and in fact, often find it hard to integrate it into my layout.. but not in this case!

 I hope you will check out this great magazine and especially the wonderful feature by Sue. It gives you wonderful ideas and inspires you to document YOUR life for your family. Until next time, keep doing what you love.