Project 365/ Day 11 - Sweetness Digi Collection

You saw my sketches, my project from a couple days ago. Well, today’s challenge was to scan, perfect and put together the set to post in my shop on mygrafico.com. I hope you are ready to start creating some cute Valentines. This Sweetness Collection set has some fun images to get you started! I know they will be used in some of my upcoming Project 365 challenge projects.

Project 365/Day 10 - Snowman Container

Have you ever shopped the after Christmas or pre-Christmas sales on holiday items and purchased items with the intention of using them next year or thinking to yourself, “Wow, I can use that on a future project!”

Well, that has happened to me...yup, a lot in fact. But I have to say, that I do really do use my bargain finds.

This time, I got to use one of my purchases right away. From the first moment that I looked at the Wintertime Collection by Bella Road from Echo Park Paper Co., I knew it would be absolutely perfect to pair up with my recently purchased snowman ornament. So for my first January Design Team project for Glue Arts I transformed this shaker box into a whimsical snowman container.

In light of the snowy weather blanketing the nation, I thought it was a very appropriate choice. The fringe on the base was created easily using my new fringe scissors from Martha Stewart that I snagged on sale at JoAnns. For instructions on this crafty winter project, check out Glue Arts blog for a post with a complete supply list and instructions. My challenge to you today is to transform an old or newly purchased ornament into something fun!

Project 365/Day 9 -A Photo Shoot and Gallery of Images

Sometimes you choose projects; sometimes they choose you! 

Sunday was one of those days where my daughter and her best friends gave me my assignment...

a request to take some candids of them goofing around at the beach. It was fun and creative.

We took almost 200 photos. I have them in an album on my facebook page. 

Along with some cool posed group photos, I also took some individual pictures of the girls.

Below is my favorite photo of my daughter Kai posing my the ocean.

When I shared it on my facebook page, a friend who lives in Hawaii informed 

me that my daughter’s nickname (Kai) in Hawaiian means ocean. How fitting!!! 

I will definitely be creating a scrapbook page from this one!

The start of another week of Project 365 creativity...woohoo!

Project 365/Day 8 - A Retirement Card

Day 8 was a late night project and it felt good to pull out some of my old stamps and get creating. This is a card for my uncle Stan who just recently retired. I wanted to be sure to get him in the frame of mind of retirement being relaxing. The title of this card is “Let the Relaxation Begin”.

Supplies:
Natural Hemp
Metal Circle Paper Fastener
Stamps: © Stampin’ Up!®
Cardstock: School Days Numbers
Double Sided CS (TPC Studio)
Glue Glider™ Pro with high tac adhesive
Markers, Classic Inks, Stampin’ Sponge and
Blender Pens (Stampin’ Up!)
Brown CS Scrap for mat (Bo Bunny Olivia collection)
Blue CS (The Paper Co.)
Antique Mini Brads (Recollections)

Project 365/Day 7 - Sketches for New Digital Stamps

I love how in living life creatively, my projects include all the creative things I love to do — design, illustration, photography, stamping, paper crafts, etc. Day seven’s project was working on some sketches for new digital stamps. With Valentine’s approaching, I worked on some fun new hand lettered verses and images that I hope to soon add to my shop on mygrafico.com. This is a sneak preview!

Project 365/Day 6 - the 30 second Love Note

I created this project to include in my daughter’s lunch box when she was in need of a little love and support. I had less than a minute to spare, so I snagged up some paper scraps, cut and layered them and added a 3 dimensional sticker on top...day 6’s project completed in less than 30 seconds. It uses only 4 supplies: Solid Cardstock from The Paper Co., Textured CS from Core’dinations, 3D sticker from Marcella K (Target Stores) and Glue Arts the Glue Glider Pro with high tac adhesive.

So if you don’t feel you can do a Project 365 challenge, think small 

and try creating things that only take a minute or less.

Finally the Results of Day3 Project 365 challenge!

I promised earlier in the week to share with you my winter photo gallery from last year's big winter snow storm and our trip to Philly. These images were shot hand held with my Canon XSI. Here they are for your enjoyment!

Project 365 Challenge: Day 5/Masculine Hybrid Valentine

For this masculine Valentine’s card, I used the Restorations Collection from Crate Paper along with buttons & gems from Bo Bunny, and Glue Arts’s high tac adhesive with Glue Glider Pro and extreme adhesive squares. Note: I used a fiskars scallop heart punch and some pink mulberry paper for the heart. The digital frame is from my Elegant Frames set. See what inspiration you can get from today’s creation.

Project 365 Challenge: Day 4/Digital Valentines

One thing I promised myself in doing this challenge is that I wouldn’t sweat it if I didn’t get to post daily each of my projects, so I apologize if I don’t always get to post my project the next day. Life & work sometimes gets in the way but I will post them as soon as possible. However, I am sticking to the challenge of finishing a new project each day. Sometimes photographing them might have to wait until the next day.

Yesterday was filled with work, a doctor’s appt. and my children’s request to watch My Sister’s Keepers together. And these were all priority over my challenge. So later last night I sat down to think about what I wanted to create. With Valentine’s Day in mind, I decided to work with my Fluidity Multi Color collection to create these digital card fronts in Adobe Illustrator.

In these, I used the colors in the set, however, you can edit the eps files 

in Illustrator to recolorize the art.These can be printed and mounted on cardstock 

or simply emailed to friends and family as an attachment.

Be My Valentine

Heart Flutter

Free My Heart

Project 365 Challenge: Day 3/Photography Logo & Album

If you know me you know I am one to never tread lightly into a project. I go in enthusiastically and take on big challenges. Ask my husband about the tile design in the basement of our former house...a weekend do-it-yourself project that I thought may end in divorce. It was our first experience at laying and cutting tile, the room was 14 x 20 something (not a small area) and I designed a border design with inner tile being laid as a diamond pattern. Let's just say I compromised on just having a border which to center in the room was a big enough first time challenge. The end result was gorgeous and after nursing sore backs and achey knees, we decided we would probably hire someone to do it the next time around.

For day three's challenge, I revisited photos that I had taken last year during our visit to Philly in the midst of the big snowstorm of 2009. I had the unique experience to sneak out early in the morning with my camera and photograph many cool snowy scenes. I have been wanting to share these beautiful images with everyone, but needed to do some photo editing. So that is what I did for day 3, however, it evolved into a much bigger project you see. Now I had to design a watermark logo for my photography, resize and watermark all the files! You see the snowball effect of that this gal’s ambition can have!

Unfortunately, I don’t have all the images watermarked, but I do have a logo design I can share. 

I promise to share the album as soon as I have it web-ready! 

I will give you one little sneak peak at what is in the album.

Project 365 Challenge: Day 2/A Card Made with Leftovers

Leftovers are a popular thing around the holidays and for day 2’s project, I got a head start by using some of the squares left over from yesterday’s scrapbook layout. I also used digital leftovers that I set up and printed out previously for the framed verse. The artwork is from my Elegant Color Frames and Elegant Verses 1 sets for sale at mygrafico.com.

I have found it very liberating to not worry about creating projects only with "currently available" products. The flower stamp is an old favorite retired stamp from Stampin’ Up!®, the patterned papers are from Me and My Big Ideas. The buttons are from an old assortment bag from Foof-a-la. The solid papers are from The Paper Co. and the mini adhesive pearls are from Michaels’ Recollections collection. 

For this project I used Extreme adhesive squares from Glue Arts to quickly attach the 1" squares and the mini adhesive squares to attach all the buttons. For all the other layers, I used my trusty Glue Glider™Pro with high tac adhesive. The border accent was created using Martha Stewart’s Scallop Dot border punch punched along the bottom of the ivory frame and for some texture I wrapped some light green Scrappers Floss from Karen Foster Designs into a bow with a tiny button in the center.

Today’s project (Day 3) was a doozey! A huge endeavor I have been wanting to tackle for over a year. Check out the blog tomorrow to see what I have created! Come get inspired to live your life creatively.

Project 365 Challenge: Day 1/A Scrapbook Layout

So day one didn't go exactly how I was thinking. The day sort of slipped away when I slid into my studio after watching a movie with Dan and Ashley. I threw caution to the wind, starting cutting up some leftover papers into 1 inch squares and grabbed a mini pack of tag papers I picked up in the dollar bin at Joann's and started roughing out a scrapbook layout. I flipped through some prints to match up photos to my papers and surprised myself by successfully completing my first project in under 2 hours. I really didn't keep track of time so it may have been closer to an hour and 15! I will tell you what, there is great freedom in taking a carefree, trial and error attitude. I placed the papers in a pattern, then decided I wanted to do a scribble design near the bottom which was a total FAILURE, but I was able to cover it with a photo. So, I encourage trying things and taking risks in the new year cause most of the time there is a creative fix if it doesn't turn out like you were thinking.

Here are some photos of the layout with close up images of the title and embellishments.

I also completed my day 2 project, a card made with some of the leftover squares from the layout. That is another suggestion I have for making the 365 day challenge a little easier...use leftovers from previous days' projects or if you are short on time, just create a small element that can be used on a bigger project later.

After flipping through an old scrapbook with a friend the other day, I realized how way behind I am on my scrapbooking and I will say that day 1 made me very happy giving me a big sense of accomplishment towards one day being all caught up on my scrapbook layouts. LOL, like that day will ever happen. I have creativity dyslexia so I doubt I will ever be truly caught up.