Grab A Coffee with Pebbles' Warm & Cozy!

Good morning everyone! My latest project with the Warm & Cozy collection is on the Pebbles Inc. blog and I thought I'd share it here as well.

I adore this Fall collection and just can’t get enough of it! Fall is actually my favorite season of the year. When I think of Fall I think not only of “warm” and “cozy” but also of coffee! Lots of coffee! The corner in my kitchen where you can find my coffee machine, is one of the places where you’ll find me most! So, when I saw that “journaling” was going to be the main feature this week, I knew straight away what I was going to create: framed (wall) art for my coffee corner with lots of “text” in it! So here’s what I did:

And a bit closer:

And because maybe your kitchen or coffee corner could use some home decor as well, I’ll quickly explain what I did. I got an inexpensive photo frame from a local store (Xenos, for the Dutch readers of my blog) and chose a couple of sheets of patterned paper, two of which held “text” (I just love papers with text!).

I cut the papers in the right size so they would fit in the photo frame and layered them on top of each other. The last sheet I wanted in a different shape than the others and hand cut it in the shape of a heart:

I added a bit of machine stitching. Not too much, along the outer edges of two of the papers and the heart is enough:

Next I added some embellishments at the top of my project and in the bottom left corner. Isn’t that red coffee mug awesome?! Before I added the text I first adhered a vellum heart on top of the other heart to make it “pop” a bit more. I forgot to take a pic of this, but you get my drift:

For the text I used a mix of letter stickers, letters cut with the Silhouette and letters punched with my (old fashioned) QuicKutz Squeeze. I’m glad I kept the Squeeze even though I’ve got several more modern die-cutting machines by now! The QuicKutz alphabet I used is called “Stiletto”, the ampersand and the word “coffee” were cut with the Silhouette and the “A” is from the Warm & Cozy Rose Gold Foil Alpha Stickers set.

And here’s how my project looks in my coffee corner. My hubby promised he would hang it up on the wall, but for now it looks great here as well I think.

Supplies:

• Warm & Cozy Leaf Toss Patterned Paper
• Warm & Cozy Logs Patterned Paper
• Warm & Cozy Daisy Patterned Paper
• Warm & Cozy Tweed Patterned Paper
• Warm & Cozy Cozy Sprigs Patterned Paper
• Warm & Cozy Ephemera Die Cuts
• Warm & Cozy Rose Gold Foil Alpha Stickers

Thank you so much for stopping by again today!
Wishing you a happy Friday!
xxx
Monique

Falling Back Into School - Pretty Little Studio

Hey everyone! I thought I'd share yet another “back to school” layout, this time created with the awesome “Woodland” collection from Pretty Little Studio. Last year two of my kids had their last year of High School and this being their most important year in school I took lots of photos! In this photo my son is showing me how heavy his backpack with books is … and it was! I had trouble lifting it!

I found a fun digital cut file in the Silhouette store by Lori Whitlock, which I thought was just perfect for both “back to school” photos and for the “Woodland” collection. I backed the words and the tree trunk with pieces of patterned paper and I cut leaves from 4 different patterned papers which I adhered on top of the cardstock.

Next I matted the photo with the paper with the little gold hearts and added it to my page. The die-cuts, sticker and flair button came next and the journaling and the paint drops came last.
How adorable is this little red squirrel?!! I LOVE squirrels!

I really love the colors and designs of the Woodland collection! Just perfect for any Fall project!

Pretty Little Studio products used:

• Woodland collection: Patterned Paper: Woodland 8×8 paper pack, Clover Gold Metallic 8×8, Clover Coral 8×8, Limb 8×8, Tree Bark 8×8, Sticks 8×8, Leaves 8×8, Dandelion Blue 8×8, Clover 8×8; Die-Cuts: Bloom; Flair: Chipmunk; Stickers: Bloom.

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today!

Monique

Two "Here Comes The Sun" Cards - Pretty Little Studio

For Sunday’s blog post on Pretty Little Studio's blog I decided to create two cards instead of my usual layout. I’m really a layout girl and creating a card takes me almost as long as creating a layout, but I was in a card-making mood and decided to use the wonderful “Here Comes The Sun” collection to create these two cards:

The cards measure 4″x 5″ and have a white cardstock base with a thin black line along the outer edge. I kept the design for both cards more or less the same: heart die-cuts layered on a flower and then on a label. (The flower is a cut file from The Cut Shoppe and was cut with my Silhouette Cameo.) For the background I chose a 3×4 journaling card with gold elements and a piece of patterned paper. The little sentiment sticker in the bottom right corner was the perfect finishing touch!

Here are a few close-ups:

PLS product used:

• Pretty Please: Here Comes The Sun: Patterned Paper: Summer Party 8×8, Miss You Much, Sunrise; Die-Cuts: Label Medley, Here Comes The Sun, Higher; Journaling Cards: Everything OK; Stickers: Think Positive, Coffee Time.

Thank you so much for stopping by! Wishing you all a wonderful day!
xxx
Monique

Back 2 School - Pebbles

Hi everyone! I'm back with a “Back 2 School” layout using the wonderful “DIY Home” collection from Pebbles Inc.. The photo I used is of my daughter on the first day of her last year of secondary school. This was a bit of a special year for her as she had been away for a year. She had done five of the six years of secondary school when she decided she wanted to go to the USA to attend one year of High School, which she did. When she came back though, she still had to finish her school here in The Netherlands. I’m happy to say that last May she graduated and this month she will be going to university!

When I looked at the colors of my photo I knew straight away that I wanted to use the DIY Home collection as the colors are such a perfect match. I had lots of left-overs which I could use to create the mat under my photo and I loved the quote so I wanted to use that as well:

Next I wanted to include some “String Art” in my layout as I really love the extra dimension this gives. I decided I would do part of my title in a string art-way. Here’re a few photos how I achieved this:

I printed the word “school” on a regular piece of paper, using the “Cocogoose” font, size 120 and placed the print on a sheet of white cardstock (Cocogoose is a free font and can be found HERE):

Using my paper piercer I punched little holes through the printed sheet in my cardstock beneath:

Once I was done I removed the print and with some embroidery thread I hand stitched each letter on the white cardstock, starting with the outline before filling in the rest of the letter:

Here’s the end result. Doesn’t it look great?

Here are a few close-ups of the rest of my layout. The feather, the “xoxo” and the polaroid frame were all created using some of my dies and a die-cutting machine. The feather and the polaroid frame were cut from the DIY Home “Pink Ombre” sheet and the “xoxo” was cut from the “gold dot” sheet.

The flower die-cut comes from the “Warm & Cozy” collection and the word “smile” is a phrase tag from the “Home + Made” collection.

The rest of the title was created with some “gilded” Thickers and next to it I added a few lines of hand written journaling. Last but not least I added some machine stitching and a few paint drops and I was done!

Hope you like and that I've been able to inspire you a little! 

Supplies:

• DIY Home Brush Strokes (732914)
• DIY Home Buffalo Check (732917)
• DIY Home Sunset (732919)
• DIY Home Wood Floors (732920)
• DIY Home Quotables (732929)
• DIY Home Gold Foil With Embossed Dots (732927)
• DIY Home Pink/Gold Ombre Foil Woodgrain (732933)
• DIY Home Decorative Tape: Gold Glittered Scallop (732953)
• Home + Made: Warm & Cozy Ephemera (733389)
• Home + Made Phrase Tags (732639)
• American Crafts Gilded Thickers (732613)
• American Crafts Precision Pen 03 Black (PP03-62311)
• American Crafts White Cardstock (SKU: AM710-81)
• American Crafts Baker’s Twine Ribbon Spools (89423)

Thank you so much for stopping by and taking a peek at my project!
Have a fab day!
xx
Monique

Stuck?! Sketches September 1st Reveal

Hello friends! For the month of September Stuck?! Sketches has so a birthday celebration going on, with a fab blog hop on the 11th of September and lots of sponsors & prizes!!

Clique Kits is providing the blog hop prize and kindly offered some of the DT members a kit to play with as well! My layout, created with this kit will be up on the 11th.

For now I'll show you the September 1st sketch! On the Stuck?! Sketches blog you can find layouts some of the other DT members created.

Thank you so much for stopping by and hope to see you back on the 11th to see my take on the sketch! 

xx 

Monique

Dream - The Cut Shoppe

Yesterday, my summer layout featuring the "Rosey Posey" cut file was up on The Cut Shoppe's blog. In case you missed it, I'm sharing it here too. I adore the warm summer days we're having right now. Not because I love the high temperatures (not at all!), but because of the fun summer photos I can finally take! The Netherlands are famous for their grey skies and that doesn't make for great photos. Having said that, I have to admit that this photo was taken in Greece, lol.

I adore the Rosey Posey cut file I used for this page! I cut it from a sheet of white cardstock and added a bit of light pink Gelatos mixed with water. 

For my layout I used the "Shine" collection from Maggie Holmes. I love the colors and all the embellishments in this collection. The "open" flower, leaves & heart die-cuts match this cut file to a tee! 

With some machine stitching and a few color shine drops my page was done!

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope I gave you a bit of inspiration to scrap those summer photos! For more awesome cut files, please hop over to The Cut Shoppe Etsy Store! 

Wishing you a fab week! 

xxx

Monique