Cityscape with Hit the Road design card

I have loved the Hit the Road design card ever since I got my hands on it. I particularly like the look of all the whimsical buildings with their cutout windows.

For this cityscape, I grabbed a few scraps, all with polka dots, and cut out a variety of the buildings (only one shape is repeated, using the mirror function - can you spot it?) I used 4" cuts each time.

On the lighter coloured pieces I added a little bit of brown blending chalk just to tone down the brightness and add some definition to the edges. A pale ink such as Tim Holtz's Antique Linen Distress Ink would also work well for this.

Then I used some thick pop dots to adhere all the buildings to a piece of card. I may back it further or put it in a shadow box on the wall.

This would be an easy project to repeat on a smaller scale (maybe with 2" cuts) for a card to congratulate somebody on moving house, or as a change of address card.

~ Caroline ~

Saying Thank You

There's been a lot going on lately which has meant my poor blog has been neglected. Several hospital stays for the hubby, and lots of stress at work. Last week my coworkers were especially wonderful in the midst of it all and we pulled together in some amazing displays of teamwork. I made some banana bread as a thank-you to them:

I've also become a Silhouette Cameo owner, so my Slice has become the jealous party in my scrap room! However, it's definitely not been forgotten, so expect some more Slice-related posts soon.

~ Caroline ~

Graduation cards with the Slice

I meant to post this before, but better late than never! :) Here are a couple of graduation cards I made recently. I wanted a very simple design and the Slice made it easy! I used the Greetings design card to cut out the black cap.

Here's the one for a guy:

And here's the one for a girl, with pink and bling. :)

~ Caroline ~

75th birthday card

My Dad turned 75 this week and I made him this card.

The background paper is from an old  DCWV paper stack. I cut the 75 from kraft cardstock using my Slice and the Basics 3 design card, then sprayed them with Perfect Pearls mists.

I had a lot of fun designing the inside. I'd seen a similar idea for the inside on Pinterest and thought I'd give it a try!

I cut the banners from the Dilly Dally design card. The "happy" and "birthday" both came from the Words and Expressions card. I just cut up the "happy" and adhered the letters to the banner. I attached the hemp cord with polka dot washi tape. I know cards for guys typically don't need bling, but I did add just a tiny dot of bling for the "i" of birthday.

I heard that the card safely made it to England intact, and in time for the special day! :)

~ Caroline ~

Craft room wall of pretties

In our new house I am delighted to have a craft room which combines with our home office! It's wonderful to have desk space for projects that are in progress, and not to have to put everything away each time I want to scrap. This fits much better with my working full time, as I can walk by and pick just a small thing to do, and "drip feed" scrap which is sometimes all I have time for.

I was initially thinking of painting this wall, but then I had this quicker, easier idea which I can change if I want. This is my solution for using pretty papers (an absolute weakness of mine) which I might not want to cut up, but which nonetheless I want to have on display! Like the wall art in my last post, I can change the papers to something else whenever I want. I used mini wooden pegs to clip them to the baker's twine which I hung up there. I might also use this to display projects, although I'm making less 12x12 layouts these days, except for Project Life, and preferring smaller projects and mini books. Plenty of options for my wall of pretties. :)

~ Caroline ~

Using repetition with the Slice to make art

I've had this framed corkboard for a while but haven't ever put it to good use. My husband recently hung it on the wall of the kitchen in our new house, and I was inspired to make the most of its new location. The shaped pins came with the corkboard.

I cut 11 jugs from the Faith design card at 2.5" using a variety of patterned papers. It was a lot of fun meandering through my stash and finding papers that worked together! Then I hung the handle of each one on a small pin, with the larger pins mixed in with them. It'll be easy to change out the design when I want something different up there - I'm planning on changing this with the seasons, using it for birthdays etc.

~ Caroline ~

Week in the Life 2012

For the first time ever, I decided to embark on Ali Edwards' Week in the Life project. It coincided with a 2-day conference for work and a bunch of other busyness that I initially justified as ruling me out of WitL. But after telling a friend about the project and seeing her excitement, I decided to go for it anyway!

I knew I'd need to keep it simple if I was going to succeed. I printed out the daily sheets from Ali's website and kept them with me throughout each day. I took ALL the photos with my phone (Droid X - love it!) then at the end of the week made a 2-page montage in Photoshop Elements for each day. I took about 150 photos during the course of the week.

When I put it all together, I repurposed an 8.5x11" spiral-bound folder that was lying around, tore out a few excess pages, then stuck the daily sheets right on top of the original content. Then I used Smash tape to add the photos as an addition on the side for each day. Really simple meant that I actually accomplished this project, and I am so pleased I did!

Here's the front cover:

The "day by day" cardstock punch-out was from a 12x12 punch-out pad from Colorbok that I won at a crop. The rest of the lettering, ribbon and metal flower are from Making Memories (mostly Paperie collection).

Here are a couple of examples of what each day looks like (they're all quite similar):

Even though technically you could do this project anytime, it felt good to go through the week knowing there were other WitL-ers out there all doing the same thing! I think I already take quite a lot of everyday-type photos, but being more intentional about it made me even more aware of my surroundings and gave me a fresh look at things I don't always notice.

I'll definitely try and do this again next time around - I think Ali is planning for that towards the end of 2013 which seems like a long way off right now but will likely be upon us soon. :)

~ Caroline ~