Week 4 - Tuesday: Recipe Challenge #4

Sometimes, the best way to come up with a good challenge for yourself is to just name 3 or 4 page elements off the top of your head and go from there. That's how I (Emily) came up with this month's recipe challenge - I wasn't even in my room with my supplies, so I had no visual cues.

The recipe: 3 patterned papers, background stamping, a punched shape, and your handwriting.

Emily's pages: For this challenge, I want to share a spread from the mini-album I made for last March's edition of 30 Days of Lists (which is an amazing creative challenge that is running again next month!) that I recently completed. Both pages showcase my handwriting, which I love including on projects. The page on the left features a background I created using two individual arrow stamps in a repeating pattern, and the circle holding the number was created with my trusty 1 inch circle punch. The page on the right is one of my favorite uses of multiple patterned papers on one page, and I did the stamping at the top and bottom by using just the edge of a larger background stamp.



Katie's card: I thought today's recipe would work perfectly for a card. I used my chevron background stamp on the base of the card, layered a few patterned papers, added my punch out on top and then use my handwriting for the sentiment. Perfect! I also added a few gems for some bling. :)

Week 3 - Freebie Friday #9

For this week's freebie, I (Emily) went with something pretty relevant to my own life at the moment - "back to school" themed filler cards for Project Life! I designed them with a variety of phrases so that they'll be useful whether you're a parent sending a kid back to school or off to college, or a student yourself.



Click here to download this week's freebie - 3x4 filler cards

I'd love to see if you use these! They're pretty simple, so there's a lot of room for customization. (Oh, and if you're wondering, the font used in these is called Type Me Two and can be downloaded here on DaFont.com.)

Week 3- Thursday: Scraplift Challenge #5

I (Katie) loved the way JenKinkade cut up an 8x8" photo into 4 squares on her layout, so I chose it for today's scraplift challenge. You could keep it fairly simple like her layout, or add a bit more embellishing. Either way, we'd love to see how you scraplift this as well.

Katie's Layout: While I really love the one large photo cut up, The photo I wanted to scrapbook wouldn't work for that. So I just created 4 grids of paper and embellishments, with one of them being the photo.
I added a bit of gesso and doodling around my grids to make them stand out a bit.

Week 3- Tuesday: Technique Challenge #4

Today, we have a couple of hand-lettering techniques to share with you! Hand-lettering a title, a phrase or a sentiment is a great way to add custom, unique flair to your projects.

Katie's Card: This isn't really a brand new technique, I saw it in a magazine years ago but I love using it. I created a DIY for you guys. After I had written out my sentiment, I colored in between the waves with watercolor pencils, and I think the overall effect is cute and whimsical. :)

 Step 1. Draw wavy lines of your paper.

 2. Write your sentiment or journaling in between the wavy lines, extending and shrinking the size of your letters as you go.

Emily's Project Life cards: I love Katie's DIY, but I wanted to share an example of my own style of hand-lettering for some additional inspiration. I recently started Project Life and I knew from the get-go that I wanted to make sure I used a lot of my own handwriting and hand-lettering in my spreads. This challenge came at the perfect time - I whipped up a couple of cards for the spread I'm working on right now. This style of hand-lettering is based on my regular handwriting with a bit of extra flair. Once I have photos printed for this spread, I'm going to add coordinating color to these cards with watercolors.



Today's challenge is to add hand-lettering to a project of yours. You can use one of the styles we've shared or come up with your own! For additional inspiration, please check out some of our favorite hand-letter-ers: Molly Frances Porter, Kal Barteski, Suzy Plantamura.

Featured Projects!

TGIF! Every Friday we feature projects linked up to our challenges that we think are amazing.

Featured layout from the Recipe Challenge:

by Julie

Featured Layout from the Bonus Challenge:

By Laura

Featured Layout from the Layout Sketch Challenge:

by Vernon

Week 2- Thursday: Card Sketch Challenge #5

There are a lot of different ways you could alter today's card sketch. I was originally thinking patterned paper for the rectangles and a heart stickers,with bling or sequins. You could change the heart to and shape, or embellishment, change the circles to buttons, etc! You could even turn it vertical.

Katie's Card: I followed the sketch pretty close, I used a block of patterned paper and strip of washi for my background and cut out a heart from paper. I used bling, stamped on my sentiment and then also added a little puppy diecut.

Emily's Card: I also followed the sketch pretty closely! I used another strip of paper for the bottom instead of washi and I substituted some little heart stamps for the bling, though. All this paper came from one of those giant stacks of thin papers (from My Mind's Eye). I know people tend to avoid those, but let me tell you, they're great for cards because there are so many coordinating combinations, the papers are easy to layer without much bulk, and there's enough of each pattern that you could easily mass produce a certain card if you wanted.

Week 2 - Tuesday: Inspired By... Challenge #5

I (Emily) chose the image for this week's Inspired By... Challenge from my Words Pinterest Board:


image by Beverly Ealdama

Emily's Art Journal Page: I loved the watercolor background in the inspiration image, and I love working with watercolors in my journal, so I started by putting down a layer of blues and greens. Then I did some hand-lettering and added a doodled border with a white gel pen.



Katie's Art Journal Page: I had every intention of doing a scrapbook layout for this challenge, but my computer was having issues so I couldn't print out any photos. I went for an art journal page instead.
I layered washi tape with watercolor pencils, then doodled with a white marker.

Week 1- Freebie Friday #8

We offer free downloads every other Friday, which you can find here. 

Today's freebie is by Katie. I had the idea to design digital "flair" the other day. I'd never done it, but after a bit of researching and experimenting I created some! You could use these digitally or print them and cut them out.

Also, if you use these or any of our other freebies on a project, we would l-o-v-e to see it. 

Click here to download today's freebie- Digital Camera Flair.

Week 1- Thursday: Color Challenge #5

Even though I (Emily) haven't been able to do any crafting this week, due to my job and moving, I did take a bit out of my schedule yesterday to choose a fun color scheme for today's challenge.

Color Scheme by Melissa Stinson

Katie's Project: I made an art journal page instead of a layout for today's challenge. I wanted a fun and easy project and I already had these gelli prints laying around. So I cut them up and collaged them down, did a bit of stamping and writing and I was pretty much done. :)

Week 1- Tuesday: Layout Sketch #5

When I (Katie) designed this weeks sketch I was picturing washi tape, but you could just as easily use patterned paper, ribbon, etc for the strips. Here is today's layout sketch:

Katie's Layout: I got some neon green washi tape from Downtown Tape (which if you need to stock up on washi, Downtown tape sells washi for less than $2.00 a roll!) and layered it in strips above and below my photo. I felt like the left side of my layout was a bit empty, so I added a patterned paper banner along the side.

A note from Emily: I'm finishing my summer job and moving into my home for the school year this week, so I won't have any projects to share today or Thursday. But I'll be back next week for sure!

Featured Projects!

It's Friday!! Here are a few projects entered in our challenges that we think are awesome.

Featured project from the Card Challenge:

by Laura

Featured Project from the Inspired By Challenge:

by Vernon

Featured Project from the Technique Challenge:

By Julie

We hope you have an awesome weekend!

Week 4- Thursday: Bonus Challenge

The bonus challenge today: Use song lyrics on a page. It can be any song you like, just whatever speaks to you, or goes perfectly with your photo!

Katie's Layout: I used lyrics from the song "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al. I'm super white and super nerdy, so this layout came together pretty easy. I used a photo of the stack of books I have to read, they're pretty much all Star Trek. Going with that theme, I used nerd papers from DCWV Generation Tech stack, and a piece of paper I had with rocket ships on it.