Welcome Monique - June Guest Designer

Screenname:  MD_Scrap_Divas

Name:  Monique Nicole Fox

Q&A Section:

Favorite Colors: Red, green and orange (happy colors)


I mostly create: 12x12 scrapbook layouts / traditional


Guilty pleasures: photography, blogger, shopping, facebook, anything curry, free shipping and enjoying my MD Scrapbooking Divas Group

I also love photography.  I want to capture moments and occasions for me to be able to look back on one day.  Plus as I get older, it helps to remember what happened way back when. 

'Birthday Boy' featuring Birthday Boy Mini Theme Collection by Echo Park:

  Products Used:

To learn more about Monique and to view more project ideas, click HERE.

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Birthday Celebration Ideas Featuring Crate Paper's Random Collection

Posted by SarahA (Sarah):


Around this time of year, there are several birthdays in my family and I wanted to come up with some fun, personalized ideas.  Keep reading to see some fun, easy  projects that come together quickly. There's even a layout idea for easy event scrapping!




Happy Birthday Card

I made this fun card using the Random line from Crate Paper. Lots of layering was the key to this card. I used several of the papers and a lot of the die cuts from the sheet included in the collection pack. These die cuts are the same as the chipboard pieces, so you could use either to make the card. 


I outlined the letters with my black Zig pen for a little more dimension, used foam adhesive under some pieces, then sewed on some buttons. It's fun to take all of those little pieces and layer them up until you like what you see.  Lots of detail make for a fun card! When you have a card with a lot of dimension, they don't always fit in envelopes well. 


To remedy this, I put it in a glassine bag. I used a border punched strip, a few more pieces from the die cut sheet and then folded the top down and sewed it shut with my sewing machine. 

 

 
Birthday Pin

Five years old is an important birthday, so I wanted to be able to show it off! I started by cutting a 2.5" scalloped circle with my Slice. I then cut ribbons to my desired length and then hot glued the ends to the middle of that scalloped circle. I really loved these bright new ribbons from Martha Stewart for this project- so many colors in one package! 


Different widths of ribbon add a fun factor, so I added some wider ribbon from Fancy Pants. Next I cut a 2" circle and a 2" scalloped circle and adhered them together. I then added foam adhesive to that and layered it on top of the ribbon. Next I adhered a 1.5" circle to the center of that and added my number. 


I added Diamond Stickles around the edge of the smaller scalloped circle for a little bling. My last step was to hot-glue a pin back on the back. If you don't have a new pin back handy, just go looking around in your junk jewelry to pull one off something you don't wear anymore!

Birthday Crown

Who doesn't want to be a prince or princess on their birthday?! I downloaded a crown template here, then printed it out on the backside of my paper from the Pink Paislee Vintage Vogue line. I used my Slice and the Applique Basics design card to cut varying sizes of butterflies, then adhered them with foam adhesive. 


I also cut the shadow piece for the large butterfly and adhered that laying flat to the crown. A small circle with the age in the center was added to the middle of the main butterfly. I added some KaiserCraft pearls to the tips of the crown, then sprayed the whole crown with Silver Plated Maya Mist for some sparkle. Pearl Glimmer Mist is another one for lots of sparkle and shine!

Five Years Old

I struggle with "event scrapping" (birthdays, holidays, etc) sometimes because it always seems there are so many photos and so much you want to include to really capture the day. To remedy this, I printed one large photo that I felt represented the day. Then, I chose several smaller photos that helped tell my story and included those, too.


I think four photos can pretty much sum up most events and that way I still had plenty of room left for journaling and a few embellishments. I really liked the little bit of grey on the paper at the bottom where I used the Jillibean date sticker, so I misted some of the Fancy Pants filter paper embellishments with Charcoal Maya Mist for another pop of that color.

 
Some products used:




Birthday Pin:

Meet Our September 2011 Guest Paper Creative Team Member!

Posted by 4peasinourpod (Pam):

We at A Cherry on Top want to extend a warm welcome to writerlady, our lovely Guest Designer for the month of September.  She used the incredible Christmas line from Karen Foster Designs.  WOW!!!  So fabulous!  Please pull up a chair and learn a little more about her:

Name: Sandy Lewis  (aka writerlady)


Name 3 musical artists you enjoy. Bare Naked Ladies, John Mellancamp, Lady Gaga

Name 2 of your favorite colors. blue and pink

Favorite thing to do with your family? Movie night - for sure!


What would you like the ACOT members to know about you? Hi - I am thrilled to be the guest CT this month! I joined ACOT during a Scrapbooking Day crop - and I was totally overwhelmed, but kept coming back. I am married, with 2 grown sons and 2 grown stepsons. I have 2 dogs and 3 cats. 


I am disabled and I no longer work. I have loved paper scrapping since I saw my first Sandi Genovese show on TV when I was out on Disability, about 7 years ago now. Then I went to Michael's and I was totally hooked. I made my mom a scrapbook for her 50th birthday and tried to scrap a few pages, and then I had to have surgery. I was limited in what I could do for a while, and I somehow stumbled on digital scrapping. 


It was fun and I got lots of pages done, so I have stayed with it. Still, paper scrapping was tugging at me. I finally convinced dh that I was not "collecting" all of the scrapbook supplies just to clutter up the house. He bought me the Workbox earlier this year and I finally have a space to scrap. And I do... I love it! 

My first layout (above) is about all of the family birthdays we have in December. I had these photos of my birthday and my son's birthday. I wasn't crazy about the background of my son's photos, so I did an extraction and then printed it out. The white background is a little much, but honestly it's better than it was before. The bottom photo is from 2 years ago on my birthday. My mom baked me a carrot cake, and it was very heavy. These 2 nuts pretended it weighed about 5,000 pounds, and I laughed so hard that I was crying when I blew out the candles. Don't tell my mom, ok?

I still had paper and stickers and brads, oh my! So - I made a mini book (above) with a Santa's Hat chipboard book I picked up in a dollar bin. I covered it in 2 of the papers and Bazzill cardstock. I used Mod Podge to glue the paper on, and then I sanded the edges and used my craft knife to clean it up. I inked all of the edges. I wanted to record the changes in my family over the years. I got 5 years in this minibook. I will be buying a new Christmas minibook for this Christmas that I can do the next 5 years or more in. This will be out of my table during the holidays, so everyone can look through it.


View Sandy's complete article/reveal by visiting our Resources Page!

Paper Crafting Simple Stories ' Happy Day Collection

Posted by carrie123

Birthdays...we all have them, we all celebrate them...but I very rarely do layouts of them. I usually don't like many of the birthday lines. They are either too theme orientated or they are too busy or most importantly in my case...to age restricting. My whole outlook on birthday pages changed when I was at CHA and I saw the Simple Stories "Happy Day" line. 


I don't have many birthday pictures but I did know that I HAD to have this line. This line was AMAZING! They were perfect in every way.  Perfect colors, perfect designs and the perfect amount of "birthday" without going overboard. Everything in this line just flowed together so effortlessly making them ideal for any of those birthday photos...even those hard to use and not so great shots.


My first layout I had a couple of photos that were kinda dark and not that great. I cropped out all of the unwanted space on them and used several patterned papers from the Happy Day 6x6 pad. I inked the edges to help make them pop off the Celebrate background paper, matted a few things and added a few extra touches from the Happy Day Fundamental Cardstock Stickers and I had the perfect page!

For my second layout I didn't really do much different. The Happy Day line has so many fun elements that can be fussy cut or just used as is. I myself like to give my scissors a work out and do the fussy cutting!

My last layout I wanted to show versatile this line was. Not only can it be used for birthday layouts, it can also be used for those everyday photos. I use the back side of the Make a Wish paper, some more matting and fussy cutting using the Fundamental Cardstock Stickers and a 4x6 Jouranling Card Element. 


I stepped outside my comfort zone with this layout a little bit. I embellished the rest of this layout with some canvas, pleated ribbon and some wire mesh.

So for those of you who have those "hard" to scrap birthday photos or just those everyday ones...head on over to the shoppe and pick up some Happy Day by Simple Stories.

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