Fruity Summer Holiday Card

Aren't you excited that Summer is almost here!? Here in Eastern Canada, it's still hard to believe since we haven't seen much warm weather yet, but the lawns are green and the tulips are out, so that can only mean that hot days and bare toes are on their way!

For this project, i decide to incorporate two different challenges from two of my favorite blogs. 

First, at the Imaginisce blog, we were given some fun Cliff Richard lyrics ("...Everybody has a summer holiday, doin' things they always wanted to. So we're going on a summer holiday, to make our dreams come true for me and you...") to include somehow on a card, layout or off-the-page project, along with this delicious picture as inspiration:

And at The Paper Variety blog, this week's challenge is Tutti Fruiti Fun! 

I don't know about you, but when i think 'fruit', i think 'Summer', so these two challenges just seemed to go hand in hand!  Inspired by rainbow daydreams of sweet holidays in the sun toasted with all-you-can-drink icy lemonade, here is my card. :)

The collection used is Imaginisce Berrylicious (including the brown polka-dot paper which is not part of the card). Doesn't it make you crave Summer fruits?!  The inside of the card has more citrus fun!

The stitching was done by hand, and the big orange slice was made with paper, double-sided tape and orange glitter.

Thanks for looking! Now i'm off to make myself some  lemonade! :)

A Very Special Wedding

I made this layout quite a few weeks ago, but couldn't share it with you just then. It was done for PageMaps' 5th Anniversary Celebration Contest (which, unfortunately, i didn't win).  The layout was inspired by this PageMaps sketch:

 

This layout is very special as it's the first official layout i've done about my parents.  Their wedding pictures were small and of very bad quality, but with Picnik i was able to make them scrapbook-able :)  

My father passed away 7 years ago today (another senseless victim of cancer, at the age of 65), and my first attempt at scrapbooking was right after that, making an album of him for my Mom. I intend to redo that album someday with my current style, making it a new and improved homage to his life.

Mom and Dad's Wedding Day

Can you believe my Mom was only 19 years old? A lot of people say i look like her, but i do have my father's green eyes :)   The collection i decided to use for this very special layout is BoBunny Gabrielle. It just seemed perfect in every way.

Flowers are all from Prima and the teal-colored chipboard pieces are DA.
The glitter you see is my attempt at giving the background paper a little spark.  It doesn't necessarily show on the picture of the full layout. I stamped butterflies with glue ink and covered them with GlitterRitz.  Here are a few close-ups...

The lock and title are wooden flourishes from KaiserCraft and the key is from Magenta.

Hope you enjoyed looking at it as much as i enjoyed creating it. I can't wait to share it with my Mom.  :)

Schoolgirl (Sketchy Fun)

Once again, i had so much fun the past 2 days playing with fabulous sketches, one from Creative Scrappers and the other from PageMaps.  Since i love double-page layouts, i often like to take 2 albeit different sketches and make them fit together on a same-theme layout.

This time around, i chose the Sunday Market collection from My Little Shoebox with all its bright colors, cute flowers and cool die-cut shapes.  The pictures are from last year during Ella's first day at kindergarten. Unfortunately, I wasn't around to share in on the excitement (i so wish i lived closer!), but i heard that she was just ecstatic about finally going to school and making new friends. *sigh* They grow up sooo fast! :)

Schoolgirl

Page 1 was inspired on Sketch #157 from Creative Scrappers.

 

And Page 2 is based on the My Little Shoebox Contest's sketch @ PageMaps.

 

What a cute 2-pager this turned out to be with loads of handmade stitching, cute green twine, multi-colored brads and handcut flowers! 

I'm leaving you with a few close-up shots and wishing you a very happy week!

Life Is... (The Scrappiest Sketches)

I am in love with the new Simple Stories collections, especially Life Documented. I can't wait to use up all my scraps to make cards and perhaps a mini album, and then i'll just have to buy myself some more - hehehe  Today, i'm sharing with you a double-page layout i've made using that line, and based on two separate sketches from The Scrappiest.  My layout was also inspired by a beautiful poem by Mother Teresa entitled "Life Is". 

Life Is...

The left page is based on Sketch#119.
(Yes, i know, the photos are very blurry. I can't wait to see Mr. Sun stick around here for more than a couple hours at a time!)

 

The page on the right is based on Sketch#120.

Now for a closer look at the poem - These are truly words to live by.

 
The title was done with the Lyrical Letters Cricut cartridge.

Flowers are from Prima. The fancy chipboard leaves are from The Dusty Attic and the simpler ones have been cut by hand out of cardstock.

 

Some of my favorite elements of the Life Documented collection are the color combinations, all the different journaling tags and boxes, and of course the banners! LOVE the banners!

Now thanks for looking! Be sure to check out the Simple Stories blog for a look at their other beautiful collections AND visit The Scrappiest for lots of sketchy inspiration! :)

Farm Life (SCT April Sketch)

Psst: This is my second post today so make sure to also check out "U R Such a Q T" below!

YAY! I got to play with a double-page sketch (you all know how i feel about double-pages)! :) Look at this beautiful sketch provided to us at the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. 

At first the amount of pictures it asked for got me worried, but i went browsing through my old stock and found these pictures of a visit at the historical Acadian Village back in 2006 - it was Yves and i's second official weekend of dating!  I always knew that i would one day find the perfect way to use these... 

Farm Life

The paper used is from different collections of My Mind's Eye and all chipboard pieces (except the title) are from The Dusty Attic. I coloured them with various Colorbox chalks. 

 

I love the country look & feel that the twine gives. Along with stitching, i've been using quite a lot of it lately!

I have a huge collection of eyelets so lacing on my layouts gives me a chance to use some of them. The best tool i have found so far for affixing them on to the edge of a page is the Crop-A-Dile.  It works like a charm! :)

Now i'm already thinking up ideas to work on SCT's May Sketch!