What is Your Scrapbook Style?

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

If you are a scrapbooker, do you have a certain “style” that anybody could easily recognize? Even if you don’t have a recognizable “style” there are probably items that are your go-to things that you enjoy using over and over on pages you create. That is your style! Maybe you have certain color combinations that have become your style. In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter if you know what “style” is yours, the fact that you get a page done is the reward! The memories and stories are captured. The photos and the stories are what matter!

If you’ve been around me, you know that Layout a Day is something I enjoy participating in. It is an online group where we have a theme and daily prompts to get one page a day completed for a certain month. I have done several of of these now, and I can honestly say that when I look at my own work, I am all over the place as far as a “style” goes. That’s because part of what I enjoy is trying different things. Even though most of the pages I create during these events are digital, I still try all kinds of things; techniques, templates, I even use two different software programs when I create digitally!

Here are the first two pages for this month. Neither one is very colorful, which personally bothers me! Yet they seem to work just fine. The page about the karate tournament was basically started from a template with a pocket page style, and used a kraft colored background. I tried to swap in some color, and it ended up distracting from the pictures. Enough time had been spent on it, so it was done. However, I really want to go back in and add something that gives a little dimension. That may be after I print it out and it will end up becoming a hybrid page.

You may notice that one is done with sort of a nod to the pocket page look. That is the first one I’ve tried like that. I recently bought some pocket pages and I think it will be fun to use them. Think about making some art journal type backgrounds to cut and use in some of the pockets! Or use your die cut machine to add goodies to the pockets.

Do you feel like you have found your own personal favorite items and methods in your scrapbooking? Or do you just like to try anything and everything?

May Scrapbook Style Art Journal Calendar

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

May Art Journal Calendar

An art journal calendar is a fun way to just make a few note about your daily life, and this style is great if you are just dipping your toes into the world of daily journaling. A great feature of creating your own pages is the fact that you can start anytime. If you didn’t start in January, no problem! You don’t have a pre-made book with dates that are just empty. (If you did use a pre-dated item, you could always just fill in the previous pages with other stuff — notes, ideas, sketches — it’s all good!)

It’s been kind of hard to get into a spring mindset, with all the snow that kept showing up in April. I felt like where I went, there it snowed! This page kind of represents a spring morning, the dawn of a new season! Even with the threat of snow as I was making this page, and my daughter coming in to tell me that she was standing outside and watched a light rain turn into snowflakes, I was still determined to make a spring page for May.

Here’s the way the page came together:

Large letters were used to create a mask for the word May.
I used pastels to create the background.
Then I blended and played with the color to make my version of early morning.
I decided I didn’t want to cover the background I had so much fun creating, so I used a piece of lightweight cardboard from the back of a tablet of paper and made a flower template with my Big Shot and a flower die.
Tracing around the flower die, I left a few running off the edge of the paper, and made some close enough together to make them look like there are some behind others.
Day numbers were added at the edges of the flower shapes.
Some doodles were added here and there.
A border was doodled around the entire border.

That was it! I think as the month goes on, I will be able to add more doodling and other embellishments as it becomes clear which days have more written in them. We’ll see how that goes.

I hope you will make a page and come over and share a picture of it over on our Facebook Artful Adventures Group page!

Here are some of my other examples of art journal calendars.

Have you made any art journal calendars, either in more of an art journal style or this scrapbook style? Please share your ideas with us!

Made for Mom with Love

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Made for Mom with Love, Gift Ideas Hop. Join the journey to find some great ideas for gifts to give the moms on your list or create a list to give your loved ones of the things you would enjoy for yourself! Welcome to the Don’t forget, there are some freebies to pick up along the way, too!

In this post:

I’ll tell you about easy little mini albums you can create from one sheet of paper (or even a digital version)
Show you a video on how to create one (even though it is for a different season, it still goes together the same way!)
Offer you printed directions and/or a digital layered PSD file
Link you to the next site in our special hop
Provide you with a list of all the hop participants

Let’s get started!

Here at Artful Adventures, I like to offer you ideas to kick it up a notch – without a lot of hassle! Here is a special do-it-yourself kind of gift that lends itself well to any number of occasions. By taking just one 12×12 inch sheet of double-sided paper, or card stock, you can easily create a special little mini-album. Just a few basic touches will make it special, but you can add whatever you’d like. In other words, how simple or fancy you make it is all up to you! You can add pictures, quotes, stickers, fibers, beads, buttons….. there are endless possibilites.

Here is a look at a little mini album made from one sheet of paper.

Here is the video to show you how to do it.

Just enter your info below to receive your copy of the written directions for the 12×12″ sheet, or for a digital layered PSD file.

Please visit each site on the hop to see the special deal they are offering. There is such a diversity of creative things any mother would love to receive in honor of Mother’s Day. Note: If you joined us somewhere along the way, please start HERE so you don’t miss a thing!

Now Hop on over to visit Vi at Creative Threadz and see what she has for you!

All Participants:

Lain at Layout a Day

Debbie at Scrap Me Quick Designs

Monica at Scrap Inspired

Melissa at Digital Scrapbooking HQ

Pam at Keeping Life Creative

Diane at Capadia Designs

Beth at Scrapping Wonders

Kelli at Use It Scrapbooking!

Jen at Jen Wright Designs

Alice at Scrapbook Wonderland

Gee Zee at Messtaken Identity

Cara at Let’s Learn with Cara Miller

Rebecca at Pictures to Scrapbook

Heather at NoExcuseScrapbooking

Kristie at Artful Adventures <— You are here now!

Creating Hybrid Cards

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

For those of us who love to create and enjoy making cards, sometimes we may not have as much time as we would like to get them done! This past weekend, I was going to swap cards with my Stampin’Up! friends, and knew time was going to be tight to get my 17 matching cards completed. You may not need 17 matching cards to swap with friends, but what about a holiday card, party invitation, birth announcement, or some occasion or event you want people to know about!

Making a hybrid card can be the best of both worlds, paper and digital. One idea is to just print out your digital image as a regular 4×6 picture which you have the option to print at many locations. You can print them out at the drug store or wherever your favorite place is to make prints. If you plan ahead, you may be able to order them or use an online coupon and save even more. Of course, it will depend on how many you need as to how economical it will be to order and pay shipping, you’ll have to be the judge of that.

My Digital Studio (MDS) is a great digital software program which is easy to use and extremely economical. It even comes with a Free Trial. MDS has been recently updated and the price lowered to where I think it is such a value, especially for beginners! MDS is what was used for this card, and it only took two digital “stamps” to create this card.

If you plan to print on 4×6 photo paper, make sure to plan your design around combining that photo with your card size. Since we often create a card that is a half sheet of an 8.5×11″ paper, your finished card front is 4.25×5.5, so you’ll need to plan your photo accordingly. I find it easiest to make the size of what I’m working on a 4×6 and just watch my rulers for the sizing I will use for the finished card. After printing, they only need to have a little bit trimmed off, usually about

The digital images on this cards are:

Vintage Overlay – Texture 8
“Ex Libris” digital download (main image over the card)
“Happy Mother’s Day” from All Holidays set

Also, during the digital design process, you can play around with adding embellishments and get an idea of what you want to do as you assemble the card.

The card base is a half sheet of an 8.5×11 piece of cardstock, folded for a final card size of 5.5 x 4.25 inches. After the “photo” portion of this card was printed, I trimmed the 4×6 because photo so that it would fit my card front, and adhered it. Now the embellishments of a rhinestone in the center of the “o” in the word “mother,” and bit of ribbon simply knotted in the center and adhered with a glue dot! That’s it.

Artful Adventures Awarded a Liebster Award for Blogs

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Kristie Sloan

Joanna Grant from Joanna Banana Original Designs who has a blog about Mixed Media with Recycled Materials kindly gave me a Liebster Award. It is an award awarded by bloggers to other bloggers. It’s really about discovering new blogs which don’t have a huge following yet.

Thank you, Joanna for thinking of my blog and giving me this award. I feel so honored to accept this and pass it on to five other very deserving bloggers!

ABOUT THE AWARD

This award was designed to be a blog award in the pay it forward fashion. Once you’ve been nominated, you award it to five blogs that you like that have fewer than 200 followers, to encourage new visitors to visit these blogs.

RULES FOR ACCEPTANCE

Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog. Post the award onto your blog. Give the award to five bloggers who you appreciate that have fewer than 200 followers. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know that you have given them this awesome award!

PAY IT FORWARD

It’s hard to choose only five bloggers who I find inspiring but here are my choices of art blogs that have less than 200 followers and that I know you will enjoy:

Beth Solar – ScrappingWonders.com

Danielle Taylor – ScrapperOnTheStreet.com

Alice Boll – ScrapbookWonderland.com

Gina Z – MesstakenIdentity.com

Heather Dubarry – NoExcusesScrapbooking.com

(I may have included a blog with over 200 followers as the number of followers was not always listed but I still felt that these individuals were very deserving as some of these are newer blogs!)

Recipients, you may copy and paste to your blog and change the introduction and the list of blog awards. I hope that you decide to participate and award some other very deserving artists. Make their day!!!

Cheers to YOUR Creativity!

Kristie

NOTE:

There really doesn’t seem to be an official Liebster Award site, and if you do the techno-research, you can actually find several versions. I think it is a great idea, and even in it’s chain letter style, I still appreciate the thought and the idea of supporting other bloggers who are working to offer great content to others!