challenge : be inspired by a children's book

Hi all! Kelly and I are hosting the blog this week, and I'm here to give you this week's challenge. =)

As a mama of three, I spend a fair amount of time reading children's books. Board books, chapter books, picture books, easy readers - we have an extensive library. And more than once, I've turned to these books for a bit of inspiration when making scrapbook pages.



This book is a classic, and was given to us shortly after our first child (Alexander!) was born. I imagine most of you have read this tale of a little boy whose day has gone terribly wrong.

When I set out to record the story of Sam's first Christmas, which started with a fever and ended in the ER with a double ear infection, I couldn't help but pull inspiration from the way the title uses a string of adjectives to describe just how bad Alexander's day was, and ended up with this page :



Sammy and the sniffly, coughy, achey ears first Christmas. Since that's a bit unwieldy as titles go, I opted to break it up, spelling his name in letter stickers, and stamping the rest as a subtitle.




Moo Baa La La La! is a looooooooooong time favorite in our house. I've had it memorized for years, and I remember reciting it in the car to Alex when he was tiny and fussy. When Ben came along, he loved it just as much, and the two of them have read this book over and over to Sam.



When I saw these chipboard pigs from American Crafts, I knew it was time to get this book onto a page. I spelled out the opening lines of the book using rubons and chipboard letters, and added a bit of journaling on a label sticker.

These are just two examples of how you can be inspired by a children's book - Kelly will be back tomorrow with some of our favorite kid's book inspiration for you. And we would love to see how YOU are inspired by children's literature - you can use any of our examples, or one of your own (and we'd love if you share it if you do!). Link your new project to this post by 7pm EST Saturday night, and we'll draw a winner at random from those entries - the prize is a $5 gift certificate to everyone's favorite shop. =) I'm hoping to play along with this challenge, so I'll post mine later this week.

Weekly Challenge Winner!

This week's winner is Shelly J with this incredible layout:

how much does this layout ROCK?? i adore it.
shelly, email me at stephaniehowell8(at)gmail(dot)com
and i'll send your info on to april. you won a 5$ SC gift certificate!
thanks for playing along everyone, happy Sunday!

a simple holiday how to

simple is nice this time of year so I've decided to keep my tutorial short and sweet.
this is an uncomplicated project that can be used in ways other than what I've shown here.
I used a few punches, some card stock and glitter to create a festive garland and ornaments for my miniature trees.

Here's what you'll need:
Punches. I've used Martha Stewart's butterfly punch and a small circle punch.
Glitter. I like Martha Stewart's line of glitter that comes in a wide variety of colors.
Red Baker's Twine,
Glue. I ran out of my favorite which is linked so I ended up using the white glue that came with my set of glitter.
Double sided tape. The ultra sticky kind that comes in sheets. I prefer the red lined.
Sliver head pins, available at any fabric shop.
Trees. I purchased the white one at Target and the silver from a local gift shop.
I started with the silver butterflies to stick to the white tree.
Start with white card stock. *note. this is a great way to use those strips of card stock cut from a 12x12 down to an 8 1/2 x 11 layout.
Stick down one side of the sticky paper onto the card stock.
Punch out your shapes. *note. the more detailed your punch, the harder it's going to be to punch out. That's why I chose to do the butterfly and circle. You can also sharpen your punches by folding a piece of foil and punching through it several times.
Peel back the tape from your punched shape and push down into glitter. You can also sprinkle glitter on top. I'm just use to dunking things into glitter. Do whatever suits you.
Brush off excess glitter with your finger and set aside.
After glittering all your shapes, you're ready to thread a pin through them.

Now you're ready to decorate your tree. The pins stick well to the bottle brush tree. Make as little or as much as you'd like. super easy. now for the polka dot garland for the sliver tree.Same thing we did for the butterflies, except use a small circle punch.
After glittering, we're ready to glue them to the festive red and white bakers twine. love this stuff.
Set one dot, glitter side down, add a spot of glue and place the string over that spot.
Add some more glue and stick another dot over it, glitter side up.
let it dry a little bit before placing it on your tree.
voila! a festive handmade garland. :)
I also added some left over butterflies that set nicely on the branches.
I mentioned that this idea can be used for other projects.
Holiday cards will shine with a few sparkly butterflies as well as your special December layouts.
How about adding some of these to your December Dailies?
Make a few little tags to place on gifts.
I'd love to see what you decided to do with your sparkly punched out shapes.
Be sure to post to the SC gallery for all to enjoy and inspire!

Thanks for hanging out with me!
Happy Sunday,
Tina

Layout of the Week

The layout of the week is brought to you by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer(milkcan).
Each week, the layout in the gallery is linked, so you can add it to your favorites easily.



This layout has been added to your favorites more than any other layout in the SC community gallery for the week of 11/28-12/5.

Congratulations Julie! Because of this you have won a $10 gift card to be used on any new purchase at Studio Calico.

Want a chance to win next week? Be sure to upload your projects to the SC gallery, and support your community by adding special projects that catch your eye into your favorites! It could be YOU next week!

Please note, winners are not allowed to win more than once in a four-week period.
Winners are not limited to those using Studio Calico kits.

member inspiration- chelseavn

Happy Friday, everyone!
Hope you have had a creative, lovely week.
I just wanted to pop in quickly and share my member inspiration choice for this week-
chelseavn (click on her name to see her entire gallery)

Chelsea is from Japan and she makes beautiful, beautiful things.
visit her blog HERE.

I've admired her layouts since I saw this one last may:

I adore the way she uses bits, pieces, slivers of paper, scatterings of embellishments, and splotches of paint.

and this one? i'm kind of obsessed with it. it's marvelous.
the kind of page i wish i could scrap.
but i'm not nearly cool enough to make a page like this.
i mean...seriously, how great is this?

sigh. okay. i'd better stop the lovefest, or chelsea might never come back to SC.
;)
happy friday, sweet friends!


P.S. don't forget about this week's studio challenge!! xoxo

a random post on this very fine thursday.

Today is suppose to be "insider tip" day here on the SC blog but I lack any sort of creative energy. Days like this is usually when I catch up on inspirational blogs and browse through some amazing photography via Flickr.
We've all been there, right? I hear it many times.
So today my insider tip is basically what I do when I'm at this low point or the time where I'm anxiously waiting for my next kit to arrive.
I like to compile some ideas and start pulling photographs I want to use. This is also a good time to edit photos as well. The photos I do scrapbook, I don't like to over edit or use extreme PS actions. I leave those for my blog or Flickr. I do brighten up my images or transform them to b&w. I'll go ahead and print them at this time too. The smaller, the better for me.
Next is cleaning my scrap space. I've got to have a clean slate when my kit arrives.
I make sure I've got plenty of tape and staples on hand as well. There's nothing more frustrating than running out of tape mid scrappage.
Now I wait patiently for that beautiful kraft colored box to arrive at my doorstep.
In the mean time, let's do some blog reading.

My first blog has nothing to do with scrapping or decorating but it's inspiring to me none the less.
Garance Dore
why a fashion blog? It's the photographs of complete strangers dressed in such beautiful, sometimes odd clothes. Fashion has always been an inspiration in my scrapbooking .
Pretty Good
the simplicity of this blog is what grabs my attention. One beautiful photo and a few words in a pretty font. That's it.
Ink On My Fingers
a fellow polaroid lover. her words are amazing. I get a lot of journaling inspiration here.
Ritzy Bee Blog and Kiss The Groom
Wedding blogs are awesome for color combinations.

Those are just a select few that I go to often during this down time.
How about you? Any suggestions?

ooops...

when remixing the g's picks before upload, somehow Dav, Nic, and Celine were left out of the mix. Sorry ladies... hope you like this new one.

a little holiday cheer

in the form of a flickr mosaic.

1.morning light 2.lost deer 3.to all ya'll 4.peace
5.snowflake curtain 6.the real beauty of the candy cane 7.snowflake 8.the prickly side of christmas
9.christmas holly 10.baubles 11.glittery sparkly silvery 12.little boxes
13.tinker shelf 14.christmas project #3 15.vintage stamps + brown paper16.christmas bokeh
17.image0826 18.snow globe christmas cookies 19.star qualities 20."i am the ghost of christmas past.."

November g's picks

we're on a classic "standards" kick at SC central. So here's g's picks to Michael Buble's rendition of a Nat King Cole favorite... L-O-V-E

Inspiration Tuesday- Book Covers

Happy Tuesday everyone!
I'm an avid reader. I have been ever since I was little.
I read so much and so quickly...I have stopped buying books for the most part.
I go to the local library weekly to check out the latest hardbacks.

A while back I read this book:
it's a wonderful little gem of a book, in case you were wondering. one that sticks with you long after you read it.

but the plot isn't the only thing that stuck with me. i actually picked up this novel because of the cover art work. i LOVED it. that's what drew me in. and it made me want to use this shade of orange on a layout. the font also made me want to use some AC thickers i had in my stash. ;)

this book made me want to look at more book covers for inspiration. so i headed over to amazon.
in a wonderful coincidence, they are running their "Best Book Covers of 2009" contest.
you can win some wonderful prizes for voting.

so i took a stroll through each gallery, and thought i'd share some of my favorites.
hope you enjoy...and next time use what you are reading as inspiration for your layouts!!