Wild Whisper - Hockey Love

Hi everyone!

On the More Than Words Challenge Blog, this months challenge asks you to be inspired by the word "Origins" and to use your country's colours on the layout.  Canada's colours are red and white and you find a lot of that on my layout!

Wild Whisper's new collection "Canadian Winter" was just begging to be used for this challenge! This paper is all about our Canadian winters and Heather and Suzy have captured them perfectly!  Who, living here in Canada, doesn't have happy memories of hockey, skiing, frosty mornings and hot chocolate?  There's all that and more in the  Canadian Winter collection!

Let's talk about the origins of hockey...  the first game of organized ice hockey was played in Montreal in 1875.... thus Canadians lay claim to the game!  There are many who feel it's in our DNA.  During the long, cold Canadian winters it's not very hard to find a frozen pond, a stick, and a puck... many happy hours are enjoyed outside.

At 3 years old, my grandson couldn't wait to get playing.  He'd been dragging around a plastic stick from the time he could walk so he was more than ready!  He's following in the footsteps of his Great-Grandfather, his Grandpa, and his dad.  They all played and loved the game.  

The recipe for this layout is pretty simple:

1 Canadian Winter paper collection                                                                                              1 Canadian Winter pkg of ephemera                                                                                        1 Canadian Winter card pack                                                                                                  1 Canadian Winter pkg of Flair buttons                                                                                        Barn Door Distress Ink for inking edges                                                                                        Glue and a journalling pen

I like to use the card pack as mats for behind my photo and as a background on my layout.

This is the mat I used behind the photo.

Add a little Barn Door ink around the edges and the photo's good to go.

The next thing I do is layout the rest of the background mats and then glue them down.

I always take a photo of how I want to lay out the embellishments... because I find I forget once I start moving things around to glue them down! 

I used this month's sketch at Creative Scrapbooker Magazine to arrange the embellishments.

Here's a close up of some of the wonderful ephemera the Wild Whisper team creates.  Heather and Suzy nailed it with the quote "We have fire in our hearts and ice in our veins."  So fun!

Another happy memory is ready to go into the photo album.

Check out More Than Word's Challenges.  I am enjoying visiting everyone's blogs and learning about all the different countries.  

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wild Whisper Watercolor Pocket Album

Hi everyone!

Today I am showing you a project that is very dear to my heart.

I love houseplants... and I have a LOT of them.  For a long time now, I have wanted to create a photo album where I can document my favorite plants, and most importantly, create sections with information about their care.  Some of them are "prima donnas" and have very specific watering and humidity requirements and now I will have somewhere to check who likes what!  (Cause I might be a little bit forgetful!)

For this album, Pam Bray's Watercolor collection was the one I chose to go with.  I made a diecut for the front of the album, using my Cricut Maker and the Floral cut file available on Whild Whisper's online store.  I have mentioned before how I love Wild Whisper's paper to create mixed media on... well I love using it in the Cricut as well... it cuts like butter and releases easily.

When you first get your file, the images are all grouped together like above.  I use the Microsoft snipping tool to separate them, save them as individual JPEG photo files, and then upload them all to my Cricut Design Space account.

The picture above is what they look like in Design Space.  I can now resize each image as I choose, duplicate them and group them... the possiblities are endless.

There are a lot of intricate cuts in the original Wild Whisper file, and I wanted a few solid leaves, so I used the contour tool to block the cuts that I didn't want made.  It's as simple as placing your mouse on the spot you don't want and "clicking".

As you're working with the contour tool, you can watch the changes that your making on the image in the bottom right of the photo above.  You can see that the lower leaf image is now a solid image.  This is very helpful because if you don't like how it looks, you can change it back.

Here you can see the original image on the bottom, and the changes I made on the top.  They are subtle, but I was really happy with the results.

I knew that the piece of patterned paper that the die cut would be sitting on was 6.5"x8.75", so I created a blue rectangle that size in Design Space and then I was able to resize my image to fit it.

Fresh off the Cricut!

Don't be intimidated by the thought of gluing down that delicate die cut.  I find PPA Matte adhesive works wonderfully.  You brush it on the back, smooth down the die cut and then give it another coat all over.  The PPA gives a nice smooth finish and you hardly know it is on the paper.  I also used this glue to glue all the Watercolor pages to the binder.

What a difference pretty paper makes!  

The album that I'm using is a Snap Binder by Simple Stories.  I really like them.  They are very sturdy.  You can get them in different colours and they include 8 coordinating pages such as the polka dot one below, 3 chipboard dividers, and 10 pocket pages.  The size of the sheets are 6"x8".  

For the first page of my album, I used two different Wild Whisper stamp sets... Floral and Lake Life.

One category of plants that I have a lot of is Succulents, so I used some of the beautiful succulent die cuts from the Floral Ephemera pack to decorate this page.  For the Succulents title, I used the Road Trip License Plate stamp set.  

Finally... I get to start adding photos!

I love that this album is so pretty that I can just leave it sitting out, where it's handy to grab when I have a question about my plants.

I hope I've inspired you to give the cut files a try!  

Linda

Cross Canada Blog Hop - Every Little Thing

Hi everyone!

This month I have joined some fellow CTMH consultants in a Cross Country Blog Hop featuring CTMH's beautiful new collection "Every Little Thing".

To purchase any of the items seen in our blog hop today, contact your local consultant to place an order.

We hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that has inspired you.  Comments help us know what you like to see and learn! 

If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop.  If you came from Jessica then you are in the right place! 

I'm sharing two 5x7 inch cards that I made using this collection.

To make the two cards, I used a Spellbinder's die that I had in my stash.  CTMH's colour of the year this year is Julep, and I used the Julep glitter paper to create the accents for the cards, 

as well as the Julep glimmer gems for the center of the flowers.  I think Julep looks stunning over top of the Sapphire card stock.

The white hearts are a new embellishment package called Acrylic Hearts.

For the inside of the card, the same Spellbinders die was used as well as an unknown label die to stamp the sentiment on.  The sentiment came from the June CTMH Promotional stamp set CC61916 "Share the Joy".

Thanks for hopping along with us!  I hope you are inspired by the Cross Canada Blog Hop to try out some of the designs, products and techniques you have seen! 

Watch for the Cross Canada Blog Hop again next month when the paper collection featured will be the beautiful fall paper "Hawthorn".

Mark October 10th on your calendar!

Happy creating,

Linda

Your next stop on the Cross Canada Hop is Janet

If you get lost along the way, just come back here, to see the complete list of the other consultants on the Cross Canada Blog Hop.  (Click on the names.):

Michelle

Colleen

Sheena

Brae

Brandi

Jessica

Linda YOU ARE HERE

Janet

Brenda

Kristine