Please welcome Marcie Morgan

Marcie Morgan

is out 2nd guest designer for this month. You might recognize her because some of her work was in our news letter for Aug. I just love how she layers her projects and a clean style and you can tell she think about every placement of paper.

Here she used our Kit of the month. I love how the black makes the pink pop off the screen.

And look how pretty this photo is and the story behind them. Sometimes I think we forget to scrapbook the little moments like this.

I hope you love her as much as I do. She is such a fun and talented designer.

Marcie's Bio:

My name is Marcie Morgan and I am a SAHM to three great kids ranging in ages from eleven to seventeen. I have been married to my dh for twelve years and we live in an older historical home that we also share with six cats and two dogs! There is never a dull moment at our house, but hey I always have subjects to scrap! I've been scrapbooking for about eleven years and started out with the idea to make a simple baby book for my daughter and have been addicted ever since. I love to try new things and think outside of the box, so I am always up for a new challenge and for trying new techniques.When I'm not scrapbooking you can find me checking out garage sales, flea markets, and auctions. You never know what you might find! I am really excited to be the guest designer for GCD Studios this month!

Seeing Stars

Today's post is about a child's birthday. I was trying to think of the things that my children love and that is 3D. They love 3D movies. Hey, so do I. Anywho, these cards are very dimensional. I popped them out with 3D Squares and I just love the way they turned out. LOVE THEM!!

The stars were a perfect choice! I used the Fun House collection along with the fabulous chipboard stars. Love it!

This one was with balloons and it just makes the carriage look like it's floating. So whimsical and fun! My daughter's are fighting over who gets this one for their birthday. Should be interesting to see who wins out. Have a wonderful day!

Thank to Jenn B

Okay, talk about adorable... I just love these new projects from our guest designer Jenn Biederman

AREN'T THEY SO CUTE?

Look how cute this pocket it???!!! what a great idea!

And look how she stitched the zig zag! so cute!

I just wanted to thanks Jenn for such beautiful projects this month. So, thank Jenn!

Tomorrow, I'll be posting about our 2nd Guest designer of the month. Make sure to stop by

Thanks everyone :)

~H

Stash

Ah yes. Summer is slowly drawing to an end. The temperatures are finally cooling off and school is just around the corner for my oldest. She will be in first grade this year. My how the time flies! She is also my goofy child. Always making faces and being silly. One day I caught her playing around with a mustache and was lucky to have my camera handy to capture the moment.

To create my layout, I used several different papers from the Fun House collection. I free handed a mustache on a piece of cardstock, cut it out, and hand stitched a few lines for texture.

The white cardstock was looking kind of bland so I added a little bit of mist. There you have it. The completed layout!

Supplies:
Fun House Coney Island
Fun House The World's Greatest
Fun House Come One, Come All
Fun House Trick Pony

What are you doing to capture the last few summer days? I'd love to hear about it!

Happy creating!

Happy Color Palate

This picture & the happy color palate that goes along with it just sang to me. It really makes me even consider changing my craft room colors to this scheme. I just feel good looking at it.

The card I made following the photo inspiration was super fun to put together. I used tons of scraps too. It'd be something that would be so easy to replicate for any scheme or scrap clean up of your stash. All the patterned paper pieces are 1" strips just pieced together like a quilt. I even used four different stitch designs from my machine on this one. Each time I went down a row to sew I clicked the button over to the next design. I love using new stitches. I bought the machine with all the fancy designs like I'm sure many of you have too, but I'm too often using the zigzag and straight stitch over and over. This was much more fun.

I'd love to see what cards you make using up your scraps. Do share a link in the comment section so we can all see what you've created.

Supplies:

Born to Shop

Hugs & Kisses

Fauna Stripe, Aqua

Lovely Green

Petunia Card Stock

Caterpillar Ink

Licorice Ink

Brads

Cute Shadow Box with Christy

My daughter's almost 6 years old and now in this stage where she has begun to care what her hair looks like and is constantly looking in the mirror. I decided to make her a cute little mirror knickknack for her bedroom so she wouldn't have to drag her brush all over the house and end up losing it any more! :)
The Rob & Bob Animal Crackers for Girls collection is so fun and full of energy, just like my girl! I've had this little box saved from a Gymboree laundry detergent sample for quite awhile and thought it would be perfect for this project.



First, I covered all sides in various patterned papers. I used paint to distress the borders, then used some of the lace cuts to create a mask sponge painted on the little mirror to decorate it.

I cut out some pieces of this Butterfly Border paper to decorate the rest of the left side of the box around the mirror.

For the right side, I painted the monkey as well, and cut out the "h" with my Cricut. I then pieced everything together inside and adhered it down, adding pop dots to give some dimension and make it look kind of like a diorama from elementary school days. :)



Lastly, I added a few things to the front. I love how it closes to keep the mirror protected when not being used, and I think she's going to love it too.





Supplies:
patterned paper, lace cuts rub-ons: GCD Studios
alphabet letter: American Crafts
ribbon, googly eyes: Michaels
pen: Zig
other: Cricut

Take Three

Like many papercrafters, I have two passions with regard to this hobby, making projects with paper and collecting supplies to make those projects. Most papercrafters will tell you that part of the hobby is buying the supplies and as much as we may enjoy spending all that time and money making our selections and purchases, I've gotten to a point where I have so many supplies to choose from when I sit down to craft that it's often more time consuming to choose the supplies for any one project than it is to actually make the project itself!

If you've been in that same situation before, then I've got an idea that I hope may inspire you in a way that will allow you to save both time and money on your next papercraft projects. For me, the warm summer months find me spending a lot more time outside enjoying my family and engaging in summer activities, so when I do find time to craft I don't want to spend a lot of precious minutes sorting through my supplies, I just want to craft and staying focused is key!

I maintain that focus by first choosing a theme, like the End of Summer one I used for these projects, an inspiration photograph like the one above, and most importantly, select a limited set of supplies (that's what saves both time and money!).

The ONLY supplies I used to create my projects included: Patterned paper from GCD Studio's http://gcdstudios.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=150">The Great Outdoors Collection by Heather Tozzi, specifically http://gcdstudios.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1613&category_id=28&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=150">Picnic Table (that matches the red in the inspiration photo) and S'mores (that loosely matches the brown in the photograph), as well as cardstock in two shades of blue and the lighter brown from the color combination and white. Other supplies included the Vintage Picnic stamp set by Papertrey Ink, Vintage Picnic Basket die, one border punch, inks in coffee and black, watercolor pencils to color the images, one rectangle and one scalloped rectangle dies by Spellbinders, as well as red ribbon and red and white Baker's Twine. That was all the supplies I used to create all three of the cards I'm showing you today.

Once you've selected your supplies vow to yourself that you will not go back to your stash to choose anything new for your projects (that's the time saving part!). Believe it or not, it is still possible to create a variety of projects that can be both fun and fabulous, using only the supplies you have chosen and a bit of imagination too!

The next time you are in your craft room, try challenging yourself to use a set number of supplies along with your favorite selection of http://gcdstudios.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=150">GCD Studios patterned papers to save time and money when creating your next papercraft projects... it's also a great way to use up your stash!

Finger puppets :)

Hi there!

I have a fun tutorial to share today, that I think you might enjoy...or at least your kids/nieces, nephews will :)

Paper crafted finger puppets!

Aren't they cute? I gotta tell you I had to take pictures of these in a big old hurry because my boys could not wait to get their hands (or fingers) on them!

This tutorial is specifically for the lion, but you can easily convert it to make both the tiger and zebra.

1. Start out with a Chip Art chipboard button, you could probably use a small chipboard circle as well.

2. Decorate what will become the face with Chip Art tools, I used the diamond and heart from the mini shapes set.

3 Paint the face as desired.


4. Add a 50/50 brown paint and Modge Podge mix and wipe off the excess.


5. Adhere the face to a piece of patterned paper, sketch some ears and cut out.


6. You could use any number of things for the eyes, I chose to use glass seed beads, sinking them into the button holes and adhering with glue.


7. For the mane you need to start by cutting small strips of paper, approximately 1/4" by 1 1/2".


8. Fold the strip of paper in half loosely and adhere the ends together. (Please ignore my chipped nail polish grubby garden fingers, lol!)


9. Adhere around the lion's head.


10. Punch a circle shape from patterned paper and adhere to the back of the lion's head.



11. Using the template I've provided at the bottom of this post, cut a piece of patterned paper.


12. Roll into a cone and adhere the ends together.


13. Glue your cone, with the seam to the back to the back of the lion's head.


All done!

Stick with just the lion or make him a couple of friends like I did!

My 7 year old was more than willing to model these for me, they fit on his little fingers perfectly!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial, I had so much fun making it!

GCD Studios Supplies:
Chip Art Mini Shapes set
Chip Art chipboard Shapes: Buttons & Buckles
Chip Art chipboard Shapes: Basic Shapes-Small
Patterned Paper:
She Seeks from the Soul Food Collection
Soul Petit-Orange from the Soul Food Collection
Soulfield from the Soul Food Collection
Soul Vine from the Soul Food Collection
Other Supplies:
Paints: Plaid
Beads: Westrim Crafts

Pattern