Cruise Pictures - Celebrity Century

In this 2-page shipboard layout, I used some of the Graphic 45 paper I mentioned in my last post.  It's absolutely gorgeous and works really well with these pictures.  (Not sure if you can see the metallic copper stripe in the paper, but it is SO pretty!)I accented the second page with a ship's wheel I cut using the Silhouette. I stamped over the die cut with a Stampin' Up! background stamp (Can't remember the name of it - but it's the scratchy looking one) and inked the edges to give it a little more depth and interest. I added a ribbon flag (inspired by Nichol Magourik) and a sticker under my journaling. On the first page, my embellishments include our actual Sea Pass cards, a postcard I got while on board the ship and some October Afternoon (and other) stickers. I love using postcards in my layouts, especially when it's difficult to get a really good picture due to weather or other conditions.  The postcard photographer has already done the hard work for me.

I apologize for the glare on these pages - I didn't realize my desk lamp was on while I was taking photos.

Cruising Along

I've finally started scrapping photos from our cruise last year.  Sometimes the motivation comes right after the event, and sometimes it doesn't.  I chose some papers from Graphic 45 for my cruise layouts and ended up hardly using any of them.  They were nice with the pictures of the interior of the ship, but a bit too dark and formal for our shore excursions.  

On this page, I scrapped pictures from our day in Roatan. I pulled my colors from the clothing of the dancers, and the green of the trees all over Roatan.  I cut a giant tropical flower and some leaves with my Silhouette and accented them with Stickles.  I did a little stamping and embellished with some rub-ons, a journaling tag, a punched tab for the date (Stampin' Up!) and a sentiment strip.  I love the mix of tropical colors, patterns and sparkle.  

Happy Birthday, Courtney!

This is another card for a friend of Katherine's.  My instructions for this card were:  No pink.  She's not into girly stuff.  She likes blue and green.  I went to my Silhouette library and pulled out a birthday lace file.  It had the year '10 in it, but that was easy enough to edit.  I used the offset feature of my Silhouette to make a mat from navy blue cardstock.  Unfortunately, I simplified it a bit too much and it's a little off in a couple of spots.  I don't think anyone will see them unless that's specifically what they're looking for.  The piece is layered on some Basic Grey paper from the Motifica collection (I have had it for ages) and then again onto navy cardstock. I used a QuicKutz die and some white CS to provide some writing room on the back, since the card doesn't open.  I added a border strip from KI Memories Over the Rainbow at the top and some ribbon (Michael's). I finished with some light blue rhinestones to add sparkle.

Last post for today - Happy Birthday Brittany!

I think I am safe giving you all an advance peek at this card - Brittany is a friend of my daughter's who I am pretty confident does not read my blog.  Brittany - if you ARE reading this - LOOK AWAY!

Katherine loves for me to make birthday cards for her friends, because she can tell me what colors she wants, or what theme and I just go to town.  The specifications for this card were:  hot pink and black.  I know that Brittany is a really "girly" girl, and that I could go to town with her card.

I started with a file from the Silhouette store and added a border to it so that it could act as a frame for my card front.  I cut that in black and layered it over a hot pink card base.  Then I cut the shoe (also from the Silhouette store) and backed it with some silver holographic paper.  I shadowed it in pink to make it stand out from the rest of the card a little more, and popped it up with some foam tape.  I added some rhinestone accents and the card was done.

I lined the envelope with some deep pink paper, and cut Brittany's name from black cardstock.  I had originally intended to use the black as a shadow and cut the name from the same silver paper I backed the shoe with, but the font (Curlz MT) was just too ornate to cut well at that small a size.  I ended up using a metallic silver pen instead.  I think it looks great.  I added some hot pink accents with a Sharpie marker.

Making your own Print and Cut Designs

By now, I am getting more and more adventurous with my Silhouette machine.  I love to experiment and see what I can do with it.  The possibilities seem endless.  For this layout, I took a regular Cut Only design from the Silhouette store and turned it into a colorful Print and Cut design.

See the ticket border at the bottom of the layout?  That's an Echo Park design from the Silhouette store.  It's not a print and cut.  I loved the look of it, but I did NOT want to cut all of those tiny pieces separately and glue them together, so I decided to play around a bit with the file and see if I could color it myself.  As you can see - it worked!  I did the same thing with the two tabs on the pictures.  I won't go into detail here explaining how I did it - if you want more information, let me know and I'll be happy to share with you.  This is one of the reasons I love my Silhouette though - I would not be able to do this on my Cricut.  

Silhouette Print and Cut Feature

Once I had completed my first Silhouette-designed page, I was ready to try something a little more challenging - using the Silhouette Print and Cut feature.  I'm so happy with the way this page turned out!  My style is definitely being influenced by one of my favorite Garden Girls at Two Peas in a Bucket - Nichol Magouirk.  I watch her "From Start to Finish" videos on You Tube, and love, love, LOVE the way she manages to use so many different papers and embellishments on her layouts while still keeping them from looking chaotic or cluttered.  (It doesn't hurt that she's a Silhouette fan too!)

I'm not happy with these photos - they were really dark, and I was only able to lighten them so much.  Unfortunately, they were the only ones taken on my birthday, so I just went with what I had.  The balloon and tickets, as well as the PARTY bingo card (you can only see part of it) were all print and cut Silhouette designs.  The page title was inspired by the saying on one of the balloons Katherine bought me - you may be able to see it in the picture.  I cut the title and shadowing from one of my TTF files.

The balloons also inspired me to use the hot air balloon as a fun accent.  I love vintage design, and since I am getting to be somewhat vintage myself, I thought it was appropriate.   Hope you like it!

Scrap Happy - again!

As a paper crafter who enjoys all kinds of paper crafts, I tend to go back and forth with stamping and scrapping.  Either I am stamping a lot and hardly scrapping at all, or vice versa.  Lately, I seem to find myself in a scrapping mode.  I've probably told you that I am loving my Silhouette - it seems to have sparked a whole new interest in scrapping for me.  I saw a tip from a member of one of my groups about planning your page out right on your Silhouette screen.  You can import your pictures and size them, and add your die cut embellishments so that they are perfectly sized for your layout.  This method works really well for me, since it lets me play with the arrangement of my page elements and re-size things as many times as I want to before I actually print or cut anything.

This was the first layout I planned using the Silhouette software.  It's pretty basic - I used a title and some page accents from the Silhouette store.  Not too shabby for a first effort.