London Calling Blog Hop

Welcome, Hoppers! I am super excited to participate in my very first Club Scrap Blog Hop!

February's monthly kit, London Calling isn't just about London.  It's actually pretty versatile.  I wanted to show how the Greetings to Go can be combined with many other stamps. I like to get the most value for my buck and combining kits and stamps can do that.  Every Greetings to Go pack comes with 15 cards bases, background panels, ribbons, tags, embellishments, directions and envelopes. This makes it very easy to create some master pieces of your own or follow the directions if you've lost your crafting mojo. 

This first card is a tri-fold allowing you many different angels to embellish and display. I chose to have the sentiment on the bottom fold.  I stamped the background with the London background and London postage stamps. I stamped the derby and wellies and then cut them out.  I added Sepia Accents to the "rubber" portion of the boots and added foam adhesive squares to the back of the Derby for dimension. I just adore these eyeglass charms from Nice to See You. The "truly fashionable" quote is from Vogue.

While working on these cards I happened to spot the stack of unmounted "seconds" rubber stamps I purchased at October Retreat.  Right on top was Orient Express, with a suitcase staring right at me! The quote was perfect for the next tri-fold card.

The second card is the same base and folds but with the inside fold facing out.  Now it's an easel. I like to use this style when I have stamps that have an outside and inside matching quote.  I used PanPastels to color in the background map stamp. PanPastels are my new favorite coloring medium to add variety and color to the same stamp. The sentiment is from Orient Express.

I stamped the background panel with the map quote stamp from London Calling.  I stamped the first stamp on scratch paper then the second stamp (without re-inking) on the panel. This gives a very nice light effect. I then stamped the suitcases on top.  The little tags on the suitcases were calling me.  I just had to add some dimension.  The London Calling sentiment was crumpled to look "traveled".

 The wellies were just screaming "spring" to me.  Living in California that's the only time we see rain, and not much at that lately.  I embossed the back panel with a Cuddlebug embossing folder to look like water drops. Stamped the wellies, colored in with Copic markers and found the perfect spring sentiment from Spring Chorus. More mounting squares to add dimension on top of the umbrella. The Sparklets from Lakes went well the ribbon provided in this kit.

The last card I want to share is the large 5x7 card.  I used paper from the London Calling Deluxe Kit to make a panel and inked the edges. Minimal effort on my part. Once again I got to play with my PanPastels and the London collage stamp. The quote is from Castaway.  It's amazing to see how many quotes and images actually combine together nicely. All the charms and metals are from the London kits.

Now I want to share a double page layout I did using this same kit.  I normally receive the Club Scrap Deluxe and Digital kits monthly. I haven't been to London and didn't need to just to use this kit. I liked how the colors worked with my Club Scrap Retreat photos. I actually used the ALSB Layout 1 & 2 from the Club Scrap Lite Kit even though I don't have the paper or embellishments from that kit. I made my own border strips from the Deluxe kit papers and added ribbon.



I created the CS RETREAT title using the London Calling Digital Kit, printed the title out and trimmed. See, digital kits aren't just for digital creations! I love dimension, so I added squares behind the "CS" and the "Crop or not to crop" quote from Lock and Key. London Calling quote on the right hand side truly fits this layout!

Thank you for hopping by today and letting me share some creativity with you. You've reached the end of the creative train.. If you've hopped here without seeing the other amazing bloggers and creations, you can return to the beginning of the Blog Hop.



Daddy's Girl

I just couldn't resist using this photo of my beloved niece who just smiles anytime her daddy would touch her.  Just the sweetest thing to watch! This digital layout was created for a Sketch Challenge at Pixels & Co. Sometimes I just don't have the brain power to create from scratch.  That's why I am so thankful that the monthly Club Scrap Digital Kit has 6 in every kit!

 

 

Products: Club Scrap papers, overlay and flower cluster, Celeste Knight frame, Gennifer Bursett title, Biograffiti stitching.

PSL Color Challenge

Week 2 of Club Scrap's PSL involved coloring.  I didn't realized how much I was going to have to rely on my reading glasses for this one!  Trying to stay within the lines...I ended up having to cut out many of my "colorings" so you couldn't tell I can't color. Wasn't really a strong point of mine in school either. I have my pack of London Calling Greetings to Go sitting out on my desk and my rubber stamps all cut and mounted.

I have tons of different mediums to color with: PanPastels, Gelatos, Copics and Watercolor pencils.  Decisions, decisions.  I just stuck with my Copic markers.  I really haven't used those much in awhile. As it turned out, I only used one marker.  You have to have a red phone booth and red double decker bus...nothing else would do. The first card was actually inspired by my recent trip to Asia where we relied on subway systems to get around.  When you arrived at a station the light on the subway map would turn red. 

I absolutely LOVED this phone booth stamp and can't wait for my stencil to arrive.  I haven't been to London, but when a group of us traveled to Australia and New Zealand, red phone booths were everywhere.  Of course every time we saw one we had to see how many of us could fit in one.  Silly Americans!

I used the background stamp from Destinations, sentiment stamp from Fire and Ice and my Panpastels for this one.  I like to see what other stamps I have that go with the current kit.  It's like getting more bang for your buck. Well, that's what I tell myself when I start looking at my rubber stamp stash.

This Cheerio card was probably my favorite.  I loved how the London collage stamp turned out with the Panpastels. I needed to color something in for the challenge so I opted for Sepia Accents by Ranger. The mustaches really cracked me up.  A little bit more difficult to cut out as you can see, the curl has been cut off trimmed. The background embossing folder is from Tin Tiles Anniversary kit.

February Card Sketch Challenge

I was inspired by February's Card Sketch Challenge over at the Club Scrap Forum.  Before Christmas I got down and dirty with my Gelli plates, paints and stencils. Now there is a story here...when Gelli plates came out...I said "No way am I going to buy that too.  I don't need another craft medium."  I held out for awhile.  The CS gallery was filling up with wonderful designs and creations.  I still said..."Nope. No way." Even my good friend Cathy (a craft hoarder as well) urged me to give in.  I didn't cave in. Then came the Club Scrap Retreat...I knew those girls would get me! One of the Retreat workshops was Gelli plates.  I tried not to love it...I really did.  I even bought all the paints too.  I'm such a sucker.

Anyways, I made tons of painted panels.  Had a blast and made a great mess.  I loved every minute! Becky posted a layout using panels on a layout according to the card sketch which got me thinking about these panels. Apparently I loved the green and gold with a touch of red at the time. It was Christmas.

 This month's sketch allowed me to use different varieties of embellishments that I'm stock piling. The panels are in a gloss finish which made stamping the sentiment a little difficult. The stamp kept sliding making it a tad bit blurry...that's not your eyesight.

The card bases, gear charms and stamps are from the Club Scrap London Calling kit. The stencils used were from Retreat 2014, Random Doorways and Geometrics. A few squares of bubble wrap gave some nice texture as well. 

London Calling Digital Layouts

Here's my first attempt at a blog post!  I'm so excited to share my latest digital creation with you.  I'm hoping to share more of my creations either paper or digital.  Crafting helps me unwind.

I finally got to jump in to this digital scrapbooking kit by Club Scrap.  My favorite paper and digital monthly kits.  This month's kit was London Calling but even though we were FAR AWAY from London, the quotes and many stamp images work.  We played in phone booths, saw many ferris wheels and rode double decker buses.  It is quite amazing how Club Scrap's kits just work!

Since I just returned home after 30+ days in Southeast Asia, I quickly downloaded the London Calling QDDL (Quick Drop Digital Layouts) that Club Scrap offers as part of their monthly Digital kit.

I don't really have the time today to create a page highlighting our trip, so I used one page twice.  I just rotated the layout for the second page, brushed over the quotes, added a ribbon, inked edges and stamped my own quotes provided in the kit.  Super-duper easy!

In just a few minutes I have a double page digital layout.  Unfortunately I couldn't make this layout work for PSL (Pro Scrapbooker's League) since it uses the QDDL.  Can't wait to lock myself (and my kitty) in my Scrap Studio and work on those cards tomorrow!