Truely Hybrid

Hey everyone! There's really not much I love to do in my spare time more than stamp and scrap on my projects, but I also love to add digital elements as well. We all know that the term "hybrid" means mixing paper scrapbooking with digital scrapping. Well today I created this layout where I used paper, stamps, and digital elements together.

The base of my layout is all paper with a transparency over the photo with flowers and buttons in the corners. I used stamps to stamp the mushrooms and owls onto paper, color with markers and cut them out by hand. The digital part of this layout is in the journaling. I decided I didn't want to use my own handwriting on this layout so I decided to use my computer. The only thing was I wanted to use a color as my background and have the journaling in white. The best way for me to do this was to use my Photoshop Elements to create my white journaling with a brown background. It took me all of 6 minutes to create and print out of my printer.

The fact that I mixed paper scrapping, stamping, and digital journaling together makes this a truely hybrid layout. Try it for yourself! I bet you'll get hooked! Love and blessings to you all!

Robyn

Designer Challenge #1- "Saturated Shine!"

Hi, Natalie here.
I was given the honor of coming up with the first assignment for the Outta This Funk guest designers. I’m excited about this because I’ve recently been inspired by someone and want to share it.

My inspiration will translate into a scrapbook page. One that requires you to ‘think simple’. I’ve called it “Saturated Shine”

“Shine” is the name of Karen Jensen’s photography business. She has a website that beautifully shows-off her great talent as a photographer in a simple and colorful way!

Go to www.shinephotographybykaren.com
When you arrive click on enter site. (Go to the blog later, since that’s not part of the project.)
Before navigating the website watch the photos change and notice how she uses large blocks of vivid colors to compliment each photo. The colors she chooses enhance the beauty of the photo, not detract from it. Go ahead and click on galleries when you’ve seen all the intro photos. In there you will see 5 more galleries to be inspired by. (Cleverly named I might add!)

This was the project:
Use Karen’s wonderful photography skills to inspire you to use a new angle, how to pose your subject, or the location you choose. If you like, play with the colors of your photo in photoshop to increase the saturation before printing it. Then create a simple layout where the paper color(s) you choose enhances the photo. Avoid patterned paper where possible. It’s a distraction in this case. Title and journal as you wish keeping in mind the simple aspect.

Here are the Guest Designers takes on this project. We hope you like them and feel inspired by us and Karen both!! Have Fun!

Megan Peacock

Kristy Cox

Danni Reid

Sara Repinski

Suzanne Austin

Toni Boucha

Natalie Goward

Guest Designers

Outta This Funk is proud to introduce you to six incredibly talented designers! These ladies are full of enough passion for paper-crafting and inspiration to pull you out of any funk you might find yourself in! Check them out for yourself!

Toni Boucha

Hi everyone, I am Toni Boucha (aka Toni-SBDreaming) and I am so excited to have been selected. So you all want to know what gets me out of my funk. Well if we are talking about scrapbooking then it is one of two things………going to my room and just letting myself find inspiration either from photos that touch my heart, yummy products that just scream create with me or some kind of random combination of photos and papers/embellishments that get my imagination flowing. I have been known to just throw some of my new/old favorite papers and products on the floor and let my eye run wild with the colors and combinations. Then of course if this should fail me, there is shopping. I am an old-fashion kind of girl who loves to drive to my local scrapbook stores and immerse myself in the atmosphere. I love to admire other people’s creations and see what they have done with new products.
As for myself, I have been scrapbooking for 10 years and have seen it change in so many ways. Like many others, I started with a home party and quickly discovered that I wanted more. And that feeling of more has never left me. Over the years, I have taught classes, designed for different local scrapbook stores and manufacturers; and lastly, lucky enough to have been published in several different magazines. Right now, I am just doing my own thing for my family.
I am looking forward to meeting,learning and creating with others that share the same passion.

Suzanne Austin

Hi! My name is Suzanne Austin. I’m a SAHM living on the Gulf Coast in Mobile, AL. I’ve been married to my wonderful, but sometimes “joyfully unstable” husband for 12 years. We have a soon to be 2yr old son named Kennedy (KJ) and expecting a baby girl due in February of 2009. I started scrapbooking 5 years ago when my husband and I built our home here in Mobile; I wanted to document the process and thought that a scrapbook would be the perfect way to do so. Little did I know it would quickly become an addiction. I stopped for a couple of years, but quickly picked up interest again when I found out I was pregnant with our first kiddo. I’ve been a lost cause ever since! I’m thrilled that OOTF has given me this fun opportunity!
What gets me out of my scrapping funk:
I am so not the planned scrapper, therefore, it’s almost imperative that some form of inspiration is present in order to scrap a page I deem decent. There’s nothing better than a great picture to jump start the scrapping mojo within. Candid photos of my son and family are by far my favorites. Other things that motivate me out of my funk would include using color combinations in everyday life and challenging myself to implement them on a page, lyrics to a favorite song, board crops and challenges.

Sara Repinski

Hi my name is Sara Repinski, but my scrappy friends call me Bunny. I am an Acquisitions Librarian at the University of South Carolina School of Law as well as a scrapbooking and card making addict. I am married to my wonderful husband, going on ten years now, no children other then the furry kind so they are the main subjects of my scrapping. Some other things about me, I love football, all sorts of music and watching forensic type shows.What gets me out of my funk? Challenges!!! I love how they make me step out of my box and try new things.

Danni Reid

I am a sahm to 4 incredible babes, whom I absolutely adore. My children range in age from 14 to 4, so it's never dull :)

While I love ALL aspects of scrapbooking, cards are my passion, and I feel so blessed to share the reason behind that passion with you. I began creating cards 15 years ago, after receiving a gift from my grandmother. A gift for Christmas. A gift from her. It was a set of stamps, markers and embossing items (it's all they had back then), so that I could create the cards to send to her instead of having to buy them. My grandmother. A woman, who lived 2 states away from me and whom, if I was lucky, I was able to see once a year. BUT, she was my soul. I KNEW her, I LOVED her and I MISS her more than I can begin to tell you. I wrote to her, religiously, 2-3 times a week, sharing every big and little thing and she KNEW me. She would write back and I'd feel like a kid on Christmas, I could hardly wait to open the letter, and while turning it over and over in my hands, would finally do so. I would read those letters and "feel" her, "feel" my heritage, "feel" my soul. She's my grandmother and I miss her so much it hurts. I always create my cards with her in-mind, as if when I am finished creating the card, I can seal it and send it back to that place in time, a place of love, laughter and so many happy memories.

I generally find that a day spent looking through magazine ads takes care of any/all "funks", so inspiring.

Kristy Cox

I am currently a SAHM (former Army nurse). I started scrapbooking 4 years ago. I would call my style "real" and still evolving. my true passion has always been photography, so that is a main focus with my layouts. I love making homemade gifts for people and am always up for a good trial of altering something. I live in upstate NY (snow country). I have 2 little girls (abby-6, ella-3) and they are my everything. I married a soldier boy who is currently deployed for the next year. What gets me out of my scrapbooking funk: usually I need time to veg first. A good movie, a good book. Something to step away from the layouts and pictures. Then I look thru my paper. All my paper. Every. Sheet. And that starts the juices flowing. Then I start looking at pictures. I usually start looking at ones that are 6 months or older (because I tend to forget about those unscrapped ones)...and I usually come across many that are calling out to me to tell their story. So, that's how it starts for me. (new pretty stuff can make this process happen quicker many times:)

Megan Peacock

I've been stamping and scrapping for about 10 years now. My main love is stamping. I've been a demo for a couple different stamp company which has been a great learning experience in building up my stamping skills set. I love trying new techniques- bringing fine art supplies into crafty endeavors. I am currently a SAHM to my 17 year old son. My husband travels on business a lot which gives me a lot of time in my stamp cave.

Question- I find the best funk blaster for me is to start blog surfing ("blurffing").
I'll see a cute card or SB LO and think OK- I am just going to try to lift this.
I'll sketch it out, take it into my scrap room/stamp cave and start pulling out supplies. Usually by the time I am done ,it doesn't look much like the original but it gave my that nudge to get me going!

Look for inspiration from these designers in the upcoming month!

Rub it on!

Hey everyone! Kristy here...

So I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm perhaps the SLOWEST scrapper in the entire universe. In fact...this simple page here took me upwards of 3.5 hours to make. Why do you ask? Because I was utterly stumped.

This layout is about my oldest boy and the fact that he grew so much last year that when we had our first snow storm last week, that he had no boy gloves to wear. He was dying to play in the snow so we opted to go with sisters gloves.

I really wanted to focus on the fact that he was wearing flowery gloves. I kept trying all sorts of aarows and what not to point to the main focal photo, but it just wasn't working for me.

Then I remembered my rubons. I thought this round, white polka dot rubon was the perfect answer to bring out the fact that he had on girly gloves. It added the emphasis that I wanted without too much distraction.

My sister in law turned to me and said "ohhhh...that scares me too much to do anything like that with my photos".

Don't be scared! Remember, if you do something you like to a photo that you don't love, you can always print it again!

Inspiration: An Old Scrapbook

Hi y'all!
Teri here.
I was roaming around an antique festival a few weeks back and spied some really cool, old scrapbook pages.
Here's what they looked like:

They made my heart go pitter patter. The base is old ledgers from the early 1900s. The cutouts of the women also from that era.

Anyway, the layered ledger was so inspiring to me that I made this card:

Instead of old paper, I used ledger paper from good old Making Memories as the stamping base. Then, I stamped the poppies (from Technique Tuesday's My Little Poppy Shoppe set) right over the paper's words. The "warm wishes" is from another Technique Tuesday stamp set.

I just love the look!

A last minute Witches Hat!

Natalie here ;)
Since it's the the night before Halloween, maybe just a few people will be able to use this idea, sorry I'm so last minute. I decided to follow a TV thing I saw and make myself a witches hat to answer the door with.

I have sitting here in this photo, a plant pot, fabric stiffener, a pack of black cheese-cloth, a skein of fuzzy black yarn, funny shaped wood beads, and a black tinsel thing I found in the christmas section of the craft store.
Since the plant pot isn't tapered, and I coulnd't find a styro cone big enough to fit it, I used this floral foam to create a point for my hat.

I cut it into slices to best fit the diameter of the bottom of the pot, and glued the slices together before I used a bread knife to slice it into a kind of a cone shape.

Then the fabric stiffener says to cover your mold with plastic wrap. I did, and it din't want to stick so well, so I used masking tape too.

I placed my cheese-cloth in a bowl, and this is a close up of the fabric stiffener.

Then I got the cheese cloth wet in just enough water to saturate it.

Then I decided I would do as the directions on the fabric stiffener suggested and add some paint.I wondered if I mixed gold in it, if I would have an irredecent black? It didn't really make a difference, but I used it, so I'm including photos.

I also added black paint. And here is the two colors of DD "sugar coating" glitter that I will use at the end.

Onto my wet fabric I poured the fabric stiffener, gold & black paint.

Then with rubber gloves, I mixed it all up and sloshed it around. Being wet from water made this easy.

Then I took the cloth, got it out of the bowl, squeezed the excess out, and found the center of the cloth.

I placed the center of the cloth over the top of the cone and then draped it over my mold. I let the base edges of the cloth ripple around the base.I pinned around the top of the had so that I could keep my point in the fabric.

With the hat in it's shape, I sprinkled glitter over it. This mess takes almost 8 hours to dry.

Within the first 3 hours, remove the hat from the form and give it a slight pinch on two sides so it's not round but oval like a head. Letting it dry on the form will make removing it later very difficult. Also set it on a surface it will not stick to and one that will clean up easily if you added paint to the mix.

I made this yesterday, it's dry and stiff, but I still need to decorate it for tomorrow. Here's what I've done and will do...

If it's too big, I plan on sinching it up by stitching embroidery floss around the base a couple times and tying the ends to the required circumfrence.

I've spray painted some of those funny shaped wooden beads black. I am going to use the skein of fuzzy thread to stitch them to the hat in a type of band around the base. It looks fluffy, but it's actually very thin. I will stitch through the hat to the outside, string a funny shaped black bead, a small black seed bead, and then go back through the funny shaped bead to the inside of the hat. I'll exit again and repeat for another bead.

Then I have that tinsel thingie. It's on wire, so I am going to decide if I want to keep it on the wire and connect it to the hat so that it's a bit of a bobble exiting the point. I haven't yet played with it, so I don't know how I'll make that work. Maybe it should be more of a focal at the front of the hat near the band.

Then to finish it off, I need to trim the base of the hat so it's not square. I figure I will try to keep it rough, and not circular, but definately not square.

I'm also going to give it a coating of hairspray to try and keep the glitter from getting itself all over the house as I walk around :)

TFL!

SNEAK PEEK - PaperCrafts Gourmet

Hi!
It's Dee!
With a sneak peek at PaperCrafts newest delicious publication, PC Gourmet!
Here is an exclusive PC Gourmet project (complete with recipe, supply list and instructions) perfect for this week (Halloween is coming!!) Enjoy! and Happy Halloween!!!

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of PC Gourmet, you can buy it here at PC's online store! http://mailings.ckmedia.com/em/?s=3&a=3C9CACFB8D2945D1BF01EB2F4F2151D8&b=985C24



Enjoy Halloween Tag
Designer: Alisa Bangerter
SUPPLIES: Cardstock: (ivory) Dye ink: (Black) Stewart Superior Corp.; (Summer Sun) Stampin’ Up! Specialty ink: (Mango Lemonade color wash) Stewart Superior Corp. Color medium: (black chalk) Craf-T Products Accents: (black brads) Making Memories; (chipboard bat, moon) Melissa Frances Fibers: (black striped ribbon) Pebbles Inc. Font: (Black Family) www.dafont.com Adhesive: (foam tape) Finished size: 3" x 4 1/2"
1 Make tag from cardstock. 2 Crumple tag and smooth out. Spray edges with color wash; let dry. Apply chalk. 3 Ink chipboard moon; let dry. Chalk edges and adhere. 4 Ink chipboard bat; let dry. Adhere with foam tape. 5 Print sentiment on cardstock; trim and tear edges. Chalk edges and adhere with foam tape. Attach brads. Attach ribbon with brad.


Cheesy Garlic Drop Biscuits
Alisa Bangerter
This is a perfect recipe to pull out if you are short on time because there is no rolling or cutting. The cheese and garlic add extra kick to a plain biscuit, and kids love them. They are the perfect accompaniment to serve with soups or stews, and are great served with a salad.
INGREDIENTS
2 c. flour
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. butter or margarine
1 1/2 c. grated cheddar cheese
1 1/4 c. milk
Chives (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Mix together dry ingredients. Cut in butter with pastry cutter until mixture is fine. Add cheese and mix well. Add milk and stir until just moistened. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Sprinkle top with chopped dried or fresh chives if desired. Bake at 400 degrees for approx. 15 minutes.

ATTENTION!!

ATTENTION! Outta This Funk now has its' own online community! Go HERE and sign up to become a member, and you could become one of 5 guest designers to have your work featured here on this blog! The guest designers will be notified by November 20th, so go join the fun now!

Gift Bag Mania

Jen here. I am addicted to making these gift bags right now. The big Cricut E helps makes these a fast and easy project. This little bag is one I made for a bridal shower. It's the perfect size to stick a gift card inside.

It's almost Halloween! Time for a funky Halloween project!

Hi all!

Dee here!

I wanted to share a fun Halloween project I created recently for the BoBunny DT!

Here's a fun (albeit funky) wallhanging that I created on a whim, after playing around with some chipboard shapes. (The face is all chipboard shapes, except for the cardstock lips I cut out)...

I laid out the chipboard circles, and thought they looked like creepy, yet googly fun, skeleton eyes...so...played with a few more chipboard shapes to create the nose and mouth (and the cute little eyelashes)...pulled out my black paint...and created this fun wallhanging.

Check out more Halloween projects and cards on the BoBunny Blog...

http://bobunny.blogspot.com/

Wanna win a set of BoBunny Halloween Rub-Ons??? I would love to see YOUR Halloween projects! Post a comment (right here for this post) including a link to YOUR Halloween project...then check back here after Halloween to see if your name was randomly chosen to win the package of Rub-Ons!

Just a little fast fun

Hey, I did this layout in about 30 minutes. I like the way it turned out, but hate the pictures-- I was HUGE! lol, oh well, I still like the layout, I am not used to using these colors. That brings me to this post. Lets see what you can scrap using colors you NEVER use! Challenge yourself! Pick out some pp that you may not like, and pair it up with a color you THINK wouldn't go- and give it a try. :D

Hey! Remember me?!

Hey it's me...Wendy, lol!! Wow, I've been mia for way too long...but I know the other ladies took great care of everyone, just look at all these new postings with beautiful, inspirational projects!! Love it!

I have a little project to share today...I did this a little while back for my aunt who has helped in out a lot lately. I was checking out all the new stuff online and saw a few projects that had some hand stitching on them...one tiny detail that inspired me! Don't feel overwhelmed when you are looking at projects that are just incredibly detailed, take one thing you love and use that to get started. I used to do this a lot when I first started scrapbooking. I remember seeing a Becky Higgins layout and she made these cute little corners on her layout, again one small detail but I used that on my own layout and it really made it shine. So next time you see something you just adore, focus on one detail and go with it! Have fun!
xxoo
Wendy

one more!

OK, got this cute little frog stamp-I was a little disapointed because if you go to my blog, my header has this same frog set-- only all the frogs don't come in the set, only these 2 did. Then my black ink pad wouldn't ink very well, so I had to go over it-- then I couldn't chalk very well- I think I need pratice, lol. I Didn't want to start over, so oh well, here it is. I get in a hurry and just want to get done. I already scrapped a page too, but havent journaled on it yet-- but it came out awesome! Have a wonderful evening! I think I am going to send my cards to a place that sends them to our boys overseas. :D

Another Card for Today...

Hi, Natalie here. Some of you may really be enjoying this day and taking advantage of it. I will shortly be headed to a freinds house to make some cards this evening.
(4 I think.)
5 cards in one day may be some kind of record for me :D I consider myself a little card challenged.

Here's my card for the day...

Here's another card!

This card was made using the cricut for the tree, I stamped the bird on felt, and cut it out. then I used flowers, epoxy embellies, and some rubons to finish it off. TFL!

Happy WCMD!

Hi y'all!
Teri here, wishing you all many happy hours of making cards today.
Here's a little card I made in celebration of today.



All papers are from My Mind's Eye. The chipboard letters are from American Crafts.

Hope you all are having a wonderful day.

More Cards for WCMD!

What a wonderful day! As I've said before, this day should be a national holiday! I just love all of the fabulous cards and challenges being posted all over the net today! Here are two more cards done in celebration of this day!

BonVoyage Card-by Jen Nichols

May All Your Dreams Card- by Robyn Weatherspoon

Have a wonderful day!
Robyn

Happy World Cardmaking Day :)

Hi!!! It's Dee here...wishing you all a Happy World Cardmaking Day! Here are a couple Halloween Cards to get you in a 'spookable' mood for World Cardmaking Day!! Have a fun day and a spooky Halloween! Dee

AND the winner is........................

SUE!!
Thanks for playing sue, email me your addy, and I will get this out to you, congrats girlfriend!!

Here are some entries we had.


Here is Sue's submission with this lovely birthday card.



This was submitted by Kristin Swain, I just love this! Beautiful work Kristin!


This was submitted by Jan. lovely 2 page layout, those butterflies were/are my favorites. :D