I'm being introduced on the Paper Issues blog today

Good Morning Everyone!

I'm being introduced today on the Paper Issues Blog. I share some of my deepest.darkest.secrets, intrigued yet??!?!

 Well, I'm sharing them here too. Don't laugh....just kidding, you can laugh!

• I *love* coconut! Coconut Air-fresheners, coconut cupcakes, coconut milk, coconut macaroons, Almond Joy candy bars, coconut oil, coconut milkshakes....I could keep going.
• I hate bananas. Even the smell grosses me out. Yick!
• I have 3 children but you will often hear me say that I have 6 children. My sister lives close by and works full time, so I get to take care of her kids while she works so I claim them as my own.
• Reading is one of my favorite past times. I usually have between 6 and 8 books on my nightstand at all times, although I rarely read more than one book at a time.
• My husband and I have a mutual agreement. We do not play checkers together ever. We played once and it was a disaster. (he cheats every time!)

The project I have to share with you today is a project I created to document a comment my son made when he was getting ready for school the other day. Everyday projects are my most favorite. If you came to my house you would find albums filled with memories from my family's everyday life.

And the whole project:

Thanks for visiting me today. If you have any questions or need some additional information you can click on the new contact me button on the top of the column on the right of my blog. That will send me and email. I would be thrilled to hear from you!

(Inter) National Scrapbook Day with Shimelle

Yes, you read that right...Shimelle!

Welcome and Thank You 

for taking a moment to stop by.

(Please click the blue "follow this site" button on your right so you will be the first to know when there's an update here.)

I have a great project to share with you today but first here's a sneak peek of the project that I have on Shimelle's blog. To say I was excited to be featured on Shimelle's blog would be an understatement. I am jumping up and down thrilled to have designed a project specifically for her (Inter)National Scrapbook Day Celebration. Here's a sneak peek of my project that's featured on her blog today. Hop on over there for the full layout and tons inspiration and challenges.

Now, I do have a full project to share with you today. I created this layout a bit ago and I've just been saving it for a special day....and what could be more special than National Scrapbook Day where I'm a featured designer for Shimelle. This layout features my niece. She's a little lady that I get to spend most of my days with. She's the sweetest baby filled with smiles and she has the most beautiful blue eyes you've ever seen. Every time I take a photo of her I get asked how I Photoshopped her eyes to make them so blue. The answer is, I don't Photoshop her eyes, I never have. They are just that blue!

See what I mean...bright blue eyes! She's going to break some hearts someday!

And here's the whole project...

Thanks again, for stopping by! I hope to see you again soon!

WINNER of Cassie's Birthday Giveaway Celebration

Drum roll please.....

If you remember last week was Cassie's Birthday Celebration at Paper Issues. I had a fabulous prize to giveaway. All you had to do was become a follower of my blog and leave a comment to be entered to win. I was blown away by the response. Thank you all so much for joining in the celebration and visiting my blog. I appreciate it so much! Here's another look for the prize that was up for grabs:

 5 rolls of Bella Blvd Designer Tape

 

AND a $20 Gift Certificate to the Paper Issues Store

 

AND THE WINNER IS.....Steffanie! 

 Congratulations! Please email me at jbckadams (at) gmail.com to claim your prize!

Thanks so much for playing along with me. I hope that you'll all come back soon!

Birthday Celebration at Paper Issues *GIVEAWAY*

Hey Everyone! If you haven't been to the Paper Issues Facebook page this week you need to hop over there! It's Cassie's birthday this week and we are celebrating, BIG TIME! There are TONS of giveaways!

I have a little something for one lucky reader :)

Who doesn't love tape? I know I have quite the collection of tapes myself. I want to add to someones collection AND give them the chance to choose some of their own goodies from the Paper Issues Store.
So for a chance to win 5 rolls of Bella Blvd's Designer Tape and a $20 gift Certificate to the Paper Issues Store all you have to do is become a follower of my blog and leave a comment telling me that you are a follower. If you already follow my blog just leave a comment telling me that you were already a follower. That's it! Easy Peasy!

Thanks for stopping by and good luck! I'll announce the winner on April 29th :)

Inking and Misting Tutorial

Hey Happy Wednesday!
I'm so excited to share with you a project that I've been working on. I decided to do a step by step tutorial. I used to do them all the time when I was designing for CreativeXpress. Since that's been a while I thought I'd share one today :) Pull up a chair and get comfy, I've got a ton of pictures to share!

I started this layout with a sheet of  12x12 white cardstock and inks from Clearsnap in a rainbow of colors 

Next, I pulled a chevron mask out of my stash and taped (I used a little bit of washi from my stash) it to the upper left had portion of my white cardstock.

I started with the first full section of the mask closest to the middle of the paper. I inked that section red.
I continued toward the edge of the cardstock inking each section a different color.

When I finished with the left side of the cardstock I repeated the same process on the right side of the cardstock. So when I was finished inking my cardstock looked like this:

I added some drops of ink to the upper left hand corner and the bottom right hand corner of the page.
After the ink was dry I added my photo that I matted on several pieces of coordinating  patterned papers and my title. The title was created with Bella Blvd's letter stickers and American Crafts Thickers.

To add some interest and dimension I hand stitched the "very" portion of the title. (When I hand stitch something to my layouts I always pre poke the holes with a paper piercer. It makes it so much easier when sewing on paper.)

I wanted to make my colored chevron points to stand out a little bit more so I carefully laid the mask back on the page and went along the inside of the points with a black pen.

After a little bit of stamping I was ready to add the final touches, journaling, and embellish my project

Here are some close-ups of the layout after I finished it:

And here's the finished project:

Thanks so much for stopping by. Let me know if you'd like to see more tutorials in the future (and what you'd like to learn from them).

Happy Moments

I'm so excited to share with you one of my all time favorite layouts. I've had this photo sitting in my photo basket for months now. It's one of my all time favorite photos and I wasn't sure how I was going to scrapbook it. I took this photo of my dad and two of my nieces at the hospital just a few minutes after my youngest niece was born. It was one of those moments that I never could have planned to capture, I just got lucky and it will forever be one of my favorite photos.

When I pulled this photo out the other day and decided to create with it I did decide to change it to black and white because I wanted it to be soft, sweet, and girly. The red and blue just didn't work with the feeling I wanted to convey.
I used a stamp/ink/resist technique. I stamped the doily stamps with Versamark ink. Then I embossed the images with clear embossing powder and a heat gun. After the embossing process was complete I painted over them with smooch paint and used a paper towel to rub it off the embossed portions and into the groves of the stamp.  I repeated this technique on 3 portions of the layout to create a visual triangle.

 I used lots of die cuts, wood veneer, spray ink, and stickers also.

 And here's the completed layout.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Exciting News!

Happy Monday everyone! I've been waiting for what seems like *forever* to let the cat out of the bag and tell you that I am now designing for Paper Issues! I am still in shock! Looking at the list of designers I'm in awe that my name is on the list! There will be some amazing work coming from this group of ladies! I can't wait to get started and get to know everyone on the team.

I want to share a layout with you today that I sent in as part of my application. This is one of my all time favorite projects, mostly because I love the photo so much. I took this photo of my sister-in-law and niece at my brothers wedding. I don't think it's possible to look at this photo and not smile.

 I used a lot of the 5th & Frolic line from Dear Lizzy. I love this collection (I may have bought 2 of them)

 And here's the finished layout! Thanks for stopping by! There's so much going on over at Paper Issues this week. They are having a birthday celebration with tons of giveaway's. *you may want to check back here just in case there's a giveaway here too....just sayin'

Also, if you stop by the Paper Issues store and used the code becki20 you'll get 20% off of your order.