2 layouts, 1 month LOL!

by CraftyAmanda in About Me, Artwork, Close to My Heart, CTMH, Scrapbook, Stamping, Technique, Video | Leave a comment

I would not win any awards with the layouts that I managed to do this month, but they definitely accomplished my goal. I had not done any scrapbooking with photos for our family albums in close to 2 years. It is my goal, as we are able to unpack our stuff out of storage, to make photo organizing and scrapbooking a priority.

I came across one small packet of photos that I could scrapbook. After looking up the dates the photos were taken, I looked through the small portion of the papers I had access to, and found some that worked great!

Normally I pick my photos, chose my papers, find a layout or inspiration item to use to create the double layout, and go from there. This time it all started well, but then I went backwards. . . .

So, where may you ask did I go backward? This is a pretty straight forward, average layout in my book. Well, if you watch the Youtube video of my process of creating this, I picked my photos, chose my papers, then started to create embellishments, normally the last step. I wonder if I had done the paper cutting and put the layout together first, if I would have added more embellishments at the end. As I remember doing it, I think I was out of the embellishments I had created and was just happy to have completed some scrapbooking.

The layout is “shinier” in person as if you look closely you can see a trail of tiny stars from the upper left trailing through both pages to the lower right, and I used glitter paper as matting behind two of the photos.

Also, again, it’s hard to see in the above photos, but I did create photo hinges and anytime a page is interactive I think that’s a great thing!

If you want to learn more about creating photo hinges, check out the youtube video. The first hinge explanation happens around the 9-minute mark on the video.

Happy Crafting!

Play Time Cards

by CraftyAmanda in About Me, Artwork, Cards, Close to My Heart, Cricut, CTMH, Pattern, Video | Leave a comment

With all the noise and activity in the house from the workers, I’ve been struggling to focus and be creative. I’ve dabbled with this and forced myself to glue flowers to the front of cards, but wasn’t feeling it until yesterday.

Distress Oxides, Stencil & A Million Little Things (D1925)

I had tried learning more about the distress oxides ink and made some little samples on different papers with different products. Today when sleep eluded me, I decided I was going to do SOMETHING with them. a quick glance on pinterest and I had some inspiration.

My craft desk has been strewn with pieces parts of of various projects, current and from years ago. I had decided I wanted to use some things up in the employ of cards for happy mail.

At first I was distracted by interruptions, the thoughts in my head and the colors of the flowers on my desk. I gave myself permission to discard any piece that was blocking me from creating. It’s funny. I removed dark flowers and leaves that had been punched from orange cardstock. Once those were no longer in my way, I was able to create. . . .

Most of these pieces were leftovers from our August Club Night cards. I added some silver and white pieces and the blockade gave way and I was able to create!

If you have the Art Philosophy Image Set, you should be able to cut out your own card pieces. Here is the link.

Also there is a video for some of the techniques used in creating it here.

There are still more pieces on my craft table. I’m going to see what I can do with them! Happy Crafting!

Day at the Beach Scrapbook layout

by CraftyAmanda in About Me, Artwork, Close to My Heart, CTMH, Pattern, Scrapbook, Stamping, Technique, Video | Leave a comment

After a year and a half of not scrapbooking any of our photos, I finally finished 4 pages in one day! I felt like I was a novice at first and it took me a long time to get back into the swing of it, but I’m happy with the results.

Not having access to all my supplies and tools has made me dig a little deeper into my bag of techniques. On this layout, I started with one of our how to pattern books a group of photos, and a pack of paper that worked with the colors in the photos. From there I added some homemade stencils, used some flip flaps, and just had some fun.

There is a video of me walking through the creation of these pages if you want to see more of what I did.

Happy Crafting!

Quick Card for Club Project

by CraftyAmanda in Artwork, Cards, Close to My Heart, Cricut, CTMH, Pattern, Stamping, Video | Leave a comment

Back before our family moved to California, and then before the Coronavirus was an everyday concern, I hosted a free monthly crop. Ladies would come and work on their own projects during the day and in the evenings everyone would be given the materials for a project. Often the project was a card workshop, but sometimes we did home decor items or learned new techniques. We have all missed this, and I have started hosting zoom chat & crafts for everyone in my VIP group. (Got to Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/CraftingwithAmanda and request to join)

This month I decided we needed to try and do more together and I designed this card for our third Thursday chat & craft.

I originally designed this card for a color challenge and a scraplift challenge.

I used the August 2020 Stamp of the Month for all the background stamping. It was fun doing some random stamping again!

I did a video of how this card came together and you can check it out on my youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEkXBGuVJcxeCQTBaP6FGkQ?view_as=subscriber

Do you recognized any of the shapes? They all came from the first Close to My Heart Cricut Cartridge, Art Philosophy. I think this card would be great for any occasion. What would you use it for?

Happy Crafting!