Welcome To The TSR MOD Squad Blog Hop!

I am so excited and honored to be a part of this blog hop for the MOD Squad of The Scrap Room! I hope you are enjoying the cards and sketches so far! It is such an honor to be part of a group of ladies as creative as this one.

My name is Amy (playswithpaper on the TSR forums) and I have been a member of TSR for a little over a year now. The inspiration and  ideas I get from the ladies of TSR has been amazing and I love getting my kit every month. In fact, my husband even knows what day it will arrive usually! :) I joined TSR because most of the LSS in my area closed and I love seeing the new paper lines. That is why TSR is such a great fit for me...Tammy picks out the paper, matches it with great embellishments and I simply have to wait for my kit to come!

I have been scrapbooking for about 6 years now but I have always enjoyed many crafts, including jewelry making and quilting. Although, scrapbooking has been my main obsession for the last 6 years :). I have also recently started getting into photography more (the heart of scrapbooking really) and have started making my own sketches. I really love the entire aspect of creating something with paper and making my own sketches lets me start from the beginning.

For World Card Making Day on Saturday we thought it would be fun to share some cards we made & I hope you are inspired to create some too! Here is the card sketch I came up with for the blog hop:

 Here is the card I came up with using some of my leftover kit from TSR from September. Making cards is a great way to use up those small scraps and since the kits are always loaded with paper I always have some extras to make a couple of cards. The bright and fun colors of the Jillibean Soup Pasta Fagioli kit came to mind to create a fun birthday card.

Materials Used: Jillibean Soup Pasta Fagioli kit from September Scrap Room FOTM kit, Zig pen in 01 & 05 Black, Flower stamp from Autumn Leaves and Happy Birthday stamp from Inkadinkado, Tim Holtz Die

I love pop dots and use them a lot on cards to add interest to such a small scale project. Here is a close up of the many layers of this card. I used four different types of pop up dots on this one!

Speaking of birthdays, did you know that TSR is celebrating it's 6th birthday this year? Happy Birthday Tammy & TSR! I know there are some things planned this month to help celebrate so I hope you can join us over at TSR for some fun challenges and ideas!

Your next stop on the blog hop is Marcia and her blog The Cherokee Cropper. I can't wait to see what card she came up with! If you happened upon this post and wish to start at the beginning of the blog hop you can with Barbara and her blog Our Crazy Little World. Enjoy the hop!

Friends

Actually got a LO done this busy weekend! Friday I went to the Boston area to celebrate my brother's graduation from the Fire Academy, Saturday we went to the Big E with my in-laws and had a great time and today I went to a class at the LSS and also celebrated my anniversary two days early with my hubby (Tuesday does not seem like a good night to have fun after work!). Phew...I'm tired just thinking about it all again...but it was a fun weekend! Here is a LO that I actually got done! Armed with the fabulous Sassafrass Lass Indie Girl kit from this months Flavor's Of the Month kit from The Scrap Room and a wonderful sketch by Helen Croft from Let's Scrap I was ready! By the way...I loved the vintage feel and look of these papers!

Here is the sketch:
and here is my take on it:
Materials Used: Sassafrass Lass Indie Girl September FOTM kit from the Scrap Room and add-on embellishment kit, Thickers Alphas, Zig journaling pens in 05 & 01 Black

I just loved the little little chipboard sticker flowers that came with the kit and had a blast layering them and inking them up!
My favorite new obsession is banners....and this one from the Sassafrass Lass line did not disappoint me! The sticker sheet that came in the add-on embellishment kit had 4 different ones to choose from and I loves them all! Here is a close up of the one I chose!
I just love how this line all looked together on a LO! With the kit, the only thing I had to add was my journaling pens and alphas for the title! Combined with the sketch it was an easy LO to put together!

Getting Excited!

As a part of the MOD Squad team for the upcoming year I am getting excited about the changes and new ideas we have over at The Scrap Room! Hope to see everyone there!

Making a Recycled Album

A recent fun challenge over at The Scrap Room was to make a mini album from something in your recycling bin. A cereal box or something made of cardboard was an obvious choice for the cover material. However, I took it a step further and everything I used for my mini album, except the book rings and alphas for the front, was something I saved from the recycling!

Here is the before pic of the materials I used:
Here is the mini album I made:
Materials Used (non-recyclable): Stampendous Opaque Embossing Powder, Distress Ink in Antique Linen, Walnut Stain and Black Soot, scissors, hole punch, various Alphas (from opened packages only!), Alcohol Inks in Stream & Wild Plum, pearl beads and a Tim Holtz flower die used on my Epic Six

I used newspaper, which I doubled up, for the base of my paper on the cereal box. I inked it up with some Tim Holtz Distress Inks, embossed it with some opaque Stampendous embossing powder and then inked it some more. I then roughed up the edges a bit and inked them with a darker color.

For the plastic flowers, I had to think a little. I cut the neck and bottom off of the bottle and was left with a circle of plastic that I cut in the middle to make a sheet. My Martha Stewart punch that I wanted to use wasn't cutting all the way through the bottle, so I decided to use my Epic Six machine with some Tim Holtz dies. Have I mentioned that I love Tim Holtz's products?? The big die cut through the plastic like butter, it was so easy! I then used Adirondack alcohol inks to color the flowers and added some pearls on top of them with some glossy accents.

Here is a close up of one of the flowers:
I plan on using the album to create swatches of my ink colors and Copic marker colors. That way I can see the color on paper when I am making something but I can also toss it into my purse when I am headed out shopping for supplies. Then, I have an easy list of what I already have!

This was a great way to save some items from the trash and also showed me what I can create when I sit down and think about it. What can you come up with from your recycling bin?

Sailing

My husband and I went sailing on a vacation to Newport, RI this summer and loved it! It was the first sailboat ride for both of us and I can see us doing it again!

When I got my September kit from The Scrap Room and saw these October Afternoon papers, I knew they would be perfect for these pictures! I used a sketch Julie Bonner created for The Scrap Room for the September kit:

Here is my take on the sketch:


The picture in the top right is a group of kids learning how to sail in these little sailboats the size of a bathtub. They were so funny to watch because I've never seen anything that small sailing in the ocean before!

One of the papers from the kit is the Seaside: Seashell paper and I loved using one of the banners from the paper to cut out for the top of my page. I love the effect it has and I still have almost a whole page of them to use!


One of the stickers from the kit was the perfect place to do some quick journaling. It was a great place to add the who, when and where!



I'll be back later this week with some more scrapping!

Feral Kittens!

My husband and I recently fostered 6 feral kittens from the feral cat colony at work. They were from 2 different litters but all related, so one big happy family! They went to work with me everyday and lived in our upstairs bathroom for 3 weeks!! It was getting a little cramped :) We did keep the little tiger and I'm sure you'll be seeing more pics of him soon!

I loved this Basic Grey paper and I thought it was just wonderful for this LO. I used a sketch posted at The Scrap Room for their Got Sketches challenge. The sketch is by Pamela Young for Scrapbook Challenges.


The paw print embellishment I made all by myself! I used a stamp from Elle's Studio, stamped it on cream cardstock with Memento Ink in brown and then covered it with Ranger Glossy Accents. After it dried I cut it out and glued it onto a matching stripe paper from the BG paper. Roughed it up a bit on the edges and used my Colorbox Ink to ink the edges. Looks like I bought it from the store and I love it!

I love mixing up the alphas in my titles lately. For this title I used both BoBunny and Cosmo Cricket alpha stickers. Love the combination!



I also recently bought a white pen from Inkssentials to create the frame around the LO. I love it, it works great and it really shows up on the dark cardstock!

Materials Used: Basic Grey Max and Whiskers Paper, Making Memories and Cosmo Cricket Alpha Stickers, Inkssentials White Pen, Elles Studio stamp, Memento Ink in Brown, Cream Cardstock, Ranger Glossy Accents, Fiskars Corner Rounder

The Kits Are Coming!!

With the Scrap Room kits set to ship and arrive this week I thought I'd post the last two LOs I made with last months kits. Somehow, getting them to the blog never happened :)

This first LO is a picture of my Great Grandmother and Great Grandfather taken during the depression by my Grandmother. I never met my biological grandmother, she passed away when my mother was young. So seeing these pictures that she treasured enough to hang onto in albums, was well, a treasure to me! I loved the vintage feel of these Sassafrass Lass papers and how they looked like a quilt from the depression when I cut them out.

Materials Used: Sassafrass Lass Cherry Delicious August Kit from the Scrap Room, Dream Street Papers Alphas inked with Ranger ink in Walnut, Vintage Lace & Buttons, sewing machine and cream thread, Zig Journaling Pen in 05 Black.

This next LO I made to showcase a picture I took of a Monarch that had hatched out at work one day. Yes, I was stalking them on my lunch breaks! I used a sketch from the August Pagemaps and the KI Memories Groovy kit from the Scrap Room. I used mainly the "B" sides to showcase my picture.
Materials Used: KI Memories Groovy August kit from the Scrap Room, Thickers alphas, My Little Shoebox alpha stickers, satin ribbon in various widths, Kaisercraft rhinestones, rhinestone brads from my collection, Zig Journaling Pen in 05 Black and a Martha Stewart border punch.

Can't wait to get the September kit, I have lots of extras coming with it! :)