Lift the Flap Valentines

How would you like to add a special touch to your Valentines this year?  I used the new Sweet Things Collection from Doodlebug to make some "lift the flap" style cards that will be perfect for loved ones of all ages!  

For this first card I used my craft knife to cut up a part of some of the scallops on the paper.  I then tucked a small foam adhesive piece underneath to make them stand up better.  I inked the curves on them lightly with some white ink to soften the edges a bit.  I also added Lily White Glitter Sprinkles to those scallops. For the flap I cut all but the top curves of the heart.

I added the two little love bug stickers inside my flap along with a heart sticker.

So happy together was very cute on it's own but I wanted to personalize it a little more.  I decided to stick with the gray and red color scheme because I liked that it made it a little more masculine. I used the Sweet Things Fancy Frills to add a gray border as well as some Lily White Sprinkles for dimension.  I added xoxo stickers from the Ladybug Red Teensy Type Alphabet Stickers.

The flap was created once again with my craft knife and as you can see I cut nearly all of the oval open.  How sweet are these little elephants!?! And of course I had to hook their trunks together with a heart!

My last card today didn't have a sentiment on the front but instead has some cute Doodlebug flowers!  I added some dimension to those flowers by using the Sweet Things Matte Sprinkles layered on top of each other for the center of each flower.  I also outlined the oval on this one with Gray Doodle Twine and added some coordinating heart stickers.

Since there was no sentiment on the front it had to go inside the flap where I used some of the  cardstock stickers to create it.

Hope I have inspired you to think outside of the box a little bit with your Valentines this year!

Scrapping our Stash Blog Hop - Giveaway Alert!!!

It's time for another Stash Busting Blog Hop with some of my talented friends!  We haven't done one in awhile and it was time to get back into the swing of things!  There are some awesome projects to check out and some fun giveaways too - so make sure to check in with the different blogs!  I have a giveaway to share at the end of the post!

Here's the lineup for this month!

Lee-Anne  http://lee-annelovethejourney.blogspot.com

Alison  http://alisondaydesigns.com/

Juliana http://www.17turtles.com/

Majken http://chocoscrapaholic.blogspot.com/

Suzanna http://lifestrivialities.typepad.com

Becki http://beckiadams.blogspot.com/

Christine http://scrappingwithchristine.blogspot.com ***You Are Here***

Susie http://mytime2play.blogspot.com/ ***Head Here Next***

Sandy http://itsafamilyaffairwithscrappynana.blogspot.ca/

Wendi http://scrappydayinparadise.blogspot.com/

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Today I am going to show you one of my favorite ways to use stash and that is in my planner.  If I don't have a specific design team assignment involving it, I will get out my stash and pick a color scheme and run with it.  I knew for the next two weeks I had a lot of Doodlebug stash from past Winter and Valentine collections so I decided to pull out that drawer and work with it!

 I had so much stash from this winter collection that came out last year.  I absolutely had to dig into it and get to use some of those cute stickers!  

'

Anytime I have a morning/afternoon/evening that is open I fill that in with patterned paper.  I love the visual break that gives from all the white blocks!

Doodlebug makes rainbow washi tape that is just perfect for using in your planner - I used that to break up my rows.

 My next week I went with a Valentine theme because, well, Valentine's Day :)

This one I did not have as good of stash on - I had lots of paper from a collection that came out a couple years ago but not stickers.  So I used some new stickers that came out this year.  I already used them for 6 projects so I figure they are technically stash now right? Just not old stash ;)

I again used some of their rainbow washi tape rolls to break up my rows.  I have a feeling those packages are going to be getting a workout!

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As I mentioned earlier, I am doing a giveaway!  SRM Stickers has recently released some new stamps and stickers just for planners and I am so excited about them!  I am going to send one lucky winner the new Planner Banner Stamp Set that can be seen here.

You can get up to two entries for the stamp:

1) Follow me on Instagram @cameyer71

and/or

2) Follow me on Facebook

and then

3) Leave me a comment here telling me what you did!

The giveaway will be open thru February 6, 2016 at 11:59 PM CST.

Thanks for visiting today - make sure to check out Susie's post up next!  

Bible Journaling - the Beattitudes

Have you tried out Bible Journaling yet?  Today I have a new Bible Journaling piece using the newest stamps from SRM! At the end of a long, challenging week - sitting down with some watercolor paints, my Bible, and beautiful stamps was just what my heart needed.  Here's what I created to share with you:

I used the new Big Faith Stamps to create my row of "Blessed" words.  I used nine as a base to journal in the part of scripture called the Beattitudes from Matthew 5.  Each phrase begins with "Blessed" in the verses and I thought it would be neat to do those.

I created my background using watercolors.  That was a first for me!  I got some watercolor paper and then just started painting circles and overlapping them.  

After I added in all the writing/word stamping that I wanted on it I used the cross stamp from Words of Faith stamp set and added some of those.  I then doodled some circles and actually decided to fill in the crosses to give it a bold punch! I love that the cross is open so you have the option to add designs or doodles to it!  

I ended up leaving this in my Bible and it makes a great bookmark!  

My Creative Sketches - January Sketch

It's time for the new sketch contest at My Creative Sketches and I squeezed in some time to play along this month!  Here's what the sketch looks like this month:

And here's what I created based on the sketch!

I used up the remains of my January Creative Kit and added some Doodlebug supplies to it! I decided to scrap one of my daughters pictures in her Christmas dress from this year. I am perpetually behind on Christmas pictures so I thought since it looked so nice with these papers why not go for it!  I also added in some JustNick cut files!  I'm kind of missing that team already!  Both the "cherish" title and the frame on the picture come from there.  I fussy cut that row of flowers/circles at the bottom of the layout.  That was a task!  I also used more of that washi tape from the kit as my top and bottom borders!  Love that stuff, I hope Pebbles makes more!!! We hope you'll play along this month and link up your sketch interpretation too!

Supplies Used: 

Patterned Paper: My Creative Scrapbook January Creative Kit

Stickers: My Creative Scrapbook January Creative Kit & Doodlebug

Wood: Jillibean Soup

Ephemera: My Creative Scrapbook January Creative Kit

Washi Tape: My Creative Scrapbook January Creative Kit

Pearls: Darice

Cut Files: JustNick

Week 1 & 2 January Planner Spreads

I am up today at SRM Stickers with a couple weeks from my planner.  There are lots of details to planner pages so if you want to check them out even closer just click on the picture and it will get much bigger for you! I also incorporate a lot of the Polar Pals Collection from Doodlebug Design into these spreads! Told ya you'd be seeing a lot of Polar Pals this week :).

I have settled into a style and set up for my planner pages and that makes creating them easier and quicker.  For open spots on my days I always add in some patterned paper. I like the way this adds in some color and a visual break.  I always stamp a heart on those to remind myself that it's a break time to spend taking care of myself and my family.  This week I used a solid heart from the Life is Good stamp set.  That stamp set just stays with my planner supplies - it's got a lot of cute options for planners!

I was so excited to play with the Free Style Winter stickers!  Love thsoe whimsical letters and what they add to the spread!

The Little Borders in Silver & White were perfect for breaking up my rows this week.

Calendar Companion is a must have in my book and is so perfect for adding little notes like a Birthday flag.

My second week incorporates the Freestyle Winter and Life is Good Stamp Set again.

I added in some Black Sticker Stitches where I needed a little something extra. I really like how that blanket stitch looks!

This page also includes the Live Life/Calendar sticker sheet.  It's January and it's Illinois so "brrrr....it's cold" is only appropriate! 

To play off the heart stamp and sticker stitches I added in some doodling around my circle stickers from the Freestyle Winter set.  

Supplies Used:

Stickers: SRM Stickers & Doodlebug Design

Patterned Paper: Doodlebug Design

Stamps: SRM Stickers

My First Post for Doodlebug Design!

Today is my very first post for Doodlebug!  You will be seeing a lot of the Polar Pals line this week here on the blog!   Polar Pals is such a fun line to play with and I had the perfect winter pictures from last year to use!  Winter is my absolute favorite season - I love the snow and I love the cold!  Now the funny thing is today it's arctic cold - like -15 with the windchill.  So probably anyone in my area who is seeing this is scowling at me :).

Knowing that it's my favorite season helps you understand why I had to use the "It's the most Wonderful time of the year" paper!  Underneath my daughter is a really cute Doodlebug Snowman. The paper on it's own makes for a perfect piece in our shadowboxes or on our clipboards.  But I just happened to accidentally set a picture down on it and voila, the idea was born to use it as part of my layout!  I love how it worked out to be a great title and I am definitely going to be trying this out with other collections!

I added some stickers and snowflake sprinkles to personalize it a little bit more.

The purple heart here is also part of the original paper - I added the rest to create my own happy little penguin line.  How fun are those little guys!?!

I never thought I'd run into a collection that would match my daughters random outfit here - how excited was I when it worked so well with Polar Pals!?!  The Doodle Pop Snowflakes and Mini Paperclips help to add a little extra dimension that the layout needed.  I like how they also help bring the focus in to the pictures.  

Hope you are staying warm where ever you are at!

Ten Steps to a Great Layout Picture

I have worked hard on figuring out how to take a good picture of my layouts and also edit those pictures accordingly. It's a process I am always fine tuning and researching but lately I have settled into this routine and it's worked very well for me! Today I am going to share with you how I do mine and you don't need any fancy equipment or software to do it!

My goal is to always have the layout look how it does in person - I want it to have

no shadows

true colors

good exposure

& sharp quality  

Here's the 10 things I do when I take pictures:

1) I try to take my pictures around 10-11 am or 2-3 pm.  The main reason for that is the sun is not directly overhead.  The main times I try to avoid are close to sunrise and sunset.  For me that always produces the best results.  

2) I also take them outside whenever possible.  I do it on my front porch where I have indirect light and not shade. Here's a picture looking at where I shoot my picture at - right there on that little area by the glass door and front mat.  

3) Don't let the weather keep you from taking a picture. If it happens to be too windy or rainy then I take it right inside that glass door.  I don't worry about the amount of sunlight - a sunny day makes it so I have to edit less but I can still get just as good of a picture on a cloudy day (you will learn how to do that in a few steps :)).  I live in Northern Illinois so my weather more often than not is bad for pictures.  But the deadlines march on - so I learned how to work with it. 

4) I set my layout on the ground and stand above it and shoot straight down.  I usually shoot 5-10 pictures to ensure I get a straight one that crops down just right. I also try to shift my body, move the camera slightly, zoom in differently, etc so each picture is a little different.  I don't stand there and hit the shutter button 10 times, that could give me 10 slightly crooked pics!  Here's an example of 2 shots of the picture I am going to be sharing today - you can see where the slight shift produced a much straighter one.

5) After I have shot the picture I go to www.picmonkey.com to begin editing! Picmonkey has all the tools you need to quickly and effectively edit a picture! And it's free and web-based so there's nothing to download until you are ready to save your picture!

Now let's get to the editing!  Here's what we are starting with:

6) I start off by cropping the photo 

I then resize it 600 X 600ish.  I always make the width 600 (the width is the first number) and let the height go with whatever it adjusts to proportionally.  

7) Then it's time to make adjustments to color.  I always adjust the white first!  Click on Colors and then Click on Neutral Picker - that will allow you to remove color cast and get your white whiter!  

After you have clicked on neutral picker you will want to click on a white part of your layout. It will automatically adjust the whole layout! You may want to also adjust your saturation to calm down bright colors or amp up dull ones. I don't have to mess with that too often.

8) Adjusting the Exposure is a really important step to making your layout look true to life!  Click on Exposure and I usually start with Auto Adjust. Nine times out of ten that is sufficient!  Sometimes I will mess around with Brightness, Highlights, and Contrast to get my white more vibrant. In this case I just stuck with Auto Adjust.  You can see there is a huge difference in if I stopped at the above layout or kept going to the one below.  Exposure makes a huge difference in improving the quality of your picture!

9) Adjust your Sharpness.  This is the last step for me in editing and also makes a huge difference.  The Sharpen menu offers two options - sharpen and clarity.  I almost always adjust both but am cautious not to do too much.  I never sharpen more than 3 and clarity never goes above 10 - things can get grainy and pixelated looking real fast if you do.  For this one you can see I did sharpness to 3 (it needed a lot of help) and clarity only to 2. 

10) Now you are ready to save it and share it!  Click on Save and make sure to save it on the "Sean" choice so you get the highest quality save.

How about a look at what that editing did?  

This is when it had just been cropped.

And this is the finished product!  It took me about 10 minutes on a free program to do all the editing - not bad!

Winter Wonderland Layout

Every once in awhile I manage to squeeze in some time to just play.  And let me be honest here I really struggle when I have no parameters.  The beauty of design teams for me is it provides structure - use this, this, and this.  I do really well with structure.  So yesterday when I had time to just do my own thing, I sat and stared for awhile.  Finally I settled on a winter layout as I have a backlog of old winter pictures.  And I knew I wanted to play with the Doodlebug Polar Pals Collection!

The collection is comprised of blues, purples, and grays in varying shades.  I wanted to focus on the blues and grays for this layout.  I actually set out to make it about my boys but...Lucy found her way in too!  These pictures are from 2010 when Cooper (kiddo number 3) was just a baby!

The layout combines a lot of goodies from the Polar Pals Collection!  Stickers, Snowflake Sprinkles, and that seriously cute Doodle Pop Snowman!  I hadn't had a chance to dive into my Doodlebug supplies too much yet.  The boxes arrived shortly before Christmas and I was knee deep in CHA projects and responsbilities for church.  I have since worked on a couple of design team projects for them (stay tuned :))) but this was my first one just for the fun of it! They were more than generous with their boxes so you will be seeing as much Doodlebug as I can squeeze in to my life.  PS I am smiling as I type this :)! 

Faith Based Journaling

 I was so excited when I heard SRM was coming out with some stamps that are for Bible Journaling.   I haven't gotten into the journaling directly into the Bible - but I do love to sketch out verses that are meaningful to me and get artistic with those.  Today I have a few to share with you that highlight SRM stamps!  I used gelatos to make all my backgrounds and didn't involve water at all.  

First up I did a page with 1 Corinthians 13:13 and focused especially on the "faith, hope, and love" part using the Words of Faith and Big Faith Stamps.  I also used a bunch of stamps from the Doodle Flower stamp set - this was a really nice addition to the words!  To create my background I simply did a quick blot from the gelato and then used a sponge to spread it out.

This second one I went a lot bolder with the gelatos and really made the color richer.  The verse came from Psalm 115:18.  I experimented with using extra layers of paper on this one to see how that changed up the coloring and effect (see "Praise the Lord"). I love that about journaling - it allows you to experiment! I used all the same stamp sets but this time created a scene of flowers and really played up the border stamp from the Doodle Flower Stamp Set!

My last page comes from Philippians 4:4 and really focuses on the Big Faith stamp and the heart is from the Life is Good stamp set.   

I know you are going to love these stamps - not only for Bible Journaling but also cards and planners too!  We can't wait to see what you create!

Main Kit Layouts from My Creative Scrapbook

I have a few more layouts to share with you from the Main Kit from My Creative Scrapbook.  These feature tons of fun products from Fancy Pants! What I think is really notable about these layouts is that they came together in record time.  I don't know that I have ever completed three layouts as quickly as these three.  All the while not neglecting my style of adding details to things!  Check it out!

This one features a base paper that already had the writing and swirls on it.  I loved that paper and just simply wanted to highlight it!  So I added a couple of fun sibling pictures and some ephemera and called it good!  Clean, simple, and fast!

On this one I layered some of the "brag cards" underneath my center picture.  Other than that I just added buttons and various ephemera and once again called it good.  With busy background papers it didn't need a lot or it would get to be too much!

On this last one I used the brag cards again but did so in a grid style.  To add to the brag cards I layered some ephemera and prima flowers.  Other than taking some time to pick out the right cards and colors this one also didn't take long.

So there you have it - I've now shared all my layouts from this month for My Creative Scrapbook.  Snag a Main Kit or Creative Kit (or both ;)) before they sell out!