(Inter)National Scrapbook Day 2020

Happy (inter)national scrapbook day everyone! :)

I'm starting the festivities early and joining in with the celebrations by having a storewide sale at In a Creative Bubble. Use the code NSD2020 for 10% off your order, from now until Monday night (May 4th at 11:59pm PDT). Be sure to check the Last Chance category of the shop as well for items that will be retired at the end of May.
Please make sure that the code is entered during checkout.

As a thank you for your support (seriously, your continued support is what keeps me going and designing every month!) and in celebration of our special holiday, I've also designed a free set of cards for you! You can download the ready-to-print PDF and/or the individual PNGs of these cards here.

I hope you have a fun weekend crafting (or perhaps you're making memories to document later!) :) Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for May's shop update! Happy weekend xo.

(Inter)National Scrapbook Day 2019

Happy (inter)national scrapbook day everyone! Hope you've got some plans to get crafty this weekend. I'm going to try and do some catching up in my Project Life album.

I'm joining in with the celebrations this weekend by having a storewide sale at In a Creative Bubble. Use the code NSD2019 for 10% off your order, from now until Sunday night (11:59pm PDT). Be sure to check the Last Chance category of the shop as well for items that will be retired at the end of the month.

Please make sure to enter the code during checkout.

I've also got a freebie set of cards for you! :) You can download the PDF here.


Thanks for stopping by and Happy NSD! xo.

National Scrapbook Day 2018

Happy (Inter)national Scrapbook Day, everyone :) I've got some fun stuff for you this weekend, and it starts today! First up is a storewide sale at In a Creative Bubble. Use the code NSD2018 for 10% off your order, from now until Sunday night (11:59pm PST). It's the perfect time to pick up some printables and digitals for some weekend scrapping :)

Please be sure to enter the code at checkout.

I also designed some free cards for you to use! You can download the PDF over here.


I hope you like them and have an enjoyable weekend full of crafting! I'll be back on Wednesday, May 9th, for May's In a Creative Bubble shop release ;) I've been having fun designing a new travel collection and I'm so excited to share it with you all. I'll try and have some peeks over on IG before then too. As always, thank you so much for your continued support and happy weekend! xo.

National Scrapbook Day 2017

Happy National Scrapbook day everyone! I'm starting the festivities off early with a weekend sale at In a Creative Bubble: use the code NSD2017 for 10% off your entire order, from now until Sunday evening (11:59pm PST). It's a good time to stock up on cards, especially if your weekend is full of crafting plans (is anyone else super behind on Project Life like me? D:)

Make sure to enter the code at checkout for the discount!

I also designed a freebie set of printable cards for you :) You can download the PDF for these here.


Finally, here's a little peek at the new travel themed collection that's coming to In a Creative Bubble this Tuesday, May 9th. It's called Explorer and there will be new journaling cards, prompt cards, digital stamps and cut-out elements! I can't wait to share the whole collection!


If you do use the freebie cards (or any In a Creative Bubble product), I'd love for you to tag me @inacreativebubble and use the hashtag #inacreativebubble on Instagram - I really enjoy seeing how things I design get used on your own projects! Anyway, I hope you all get to enjoy some scrapbooking this weekend. Happy NSD! xo.

Tutorial Round-up!

I've had a couple of tutorials go up around the web that I never posted about here, so I thought it would be a good idea to consolidate all that info with a random little entry.

First up, I have some Mama Elephant cards. I really love their creative stamps and dies, so it was a lot of fun to put these together and step out of my CAS comfort zone by creating more detailed cards. You can find my how-to post for the left card over here, and my how-to post for the right card over here.

I also made another layout with Studio Calico's Penny Arcade scrapbook kit. That handlettered cities paper in this kit is definitely one of my all-time favorite patterned papers! I highlighted the cities I've visited with some watercolors and I kept it simple so that the paper would stand out. You can download the start-to-finish PDF tutorial on this layout over here.

Happy Thursday!

Tutorial // Tone-on-tone Skyscrapers

When Kelly Purkey announced her upcoming Sketchbook class + the release of coordinating class supplies over at Studio Calico, I immediately knew the skyscraper metal die was a must-have for me. I'm a city girl at heart, and I fell in love with the clean, graphic design of the skyscraper. I've had this die for a few weeks now, but I finally had the time to play with it over the weekend. I thought I'd share with you today how I put it to use and how I made tone-on-tone skyscrapers for a layout :)

I started out with some patterned paper scraps from Studio Calico's Lemonlush collection + my die.

I ran my die + patterned paper through my manual die-cut machine, which in this case, is my Big Shot. Love how sturdy this thing is! (I made sure to sandwich my paper + metal die in between the cutting pads; I just took one off to photograph here).

I ran my die through my Bigshot four times for four different patterned paper skyscrapers :)

I looked through my cardstock stash for colors that would be good matches for my skyscraper die-cuts. I wanted the cardstock colors to be similar, but not identical to my patterned papers.

Using a pencil, I traced my skyscraper die-cut on the matching cardstock, and then I cut it out. I carefully cut little strips of foam adhesive to adhere the die-cut to the cardstock.

I did the above steps with each of my skyscraper die-cuts. I love that the foam adhesive adds a bit of dimension and depth to my skyscrapers :)

Time to put together my layout! I chose a 6x8 layout base so that my page will fit in my Studio Calico handbook, which is the mini album I'm using for my California travel mini. I pulled out some SC acetate sheets (LOVE these!) and washi tape from my stash for this page. I wanted to sort of create a cityscape, so I placed my skyscrapers at the bottom and used some blue + sky washi tape at the top of the page.

I added my instax photo + some simple embellishing with navy blue alphas (from the Guinevere add-on kit) + a SC heart chipboard sticker, and I'm done!

Here's my completed layout. Not sure if you can see the acetate sheet clearly here, but it adds a subtle and pretty white-on-white effect for the background. Of course, the color skyscrapers are the highlight of the page - they are bright and make me so happy :)

A close-up, just for fun!

I haven't decided yet if I'll use this layout as my mini-book's title page or if I'll add some journaling and make this one of the inner pages, but I'll figure that out later. I'm just happy to have another page done in my travel mini...slowly making my way through my book! Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Have a great Monday!

Tutorial // A Colorful Border

It's rare for me to fall in love with an entire collection of patterned papers, but I did with the papers in Studio Calico's Lemonlush. I had lots of paper scraps left and instead of throwing them away, I decided to turn them into a bold and colorful border for a layout.

I thought it would be fun to combine the Lemonlush papers with washi tape from my stash. I started with my patterned papers. I cut my scraps into 1x3" strips, since I knew I wanted my border to be 3" tall.

I glued all the strips of patterned paper on a piece of 3x8.5" white cardstock, since I'll be making a 8.5x11" layout and I wanted the border to stretch across the entire bottom section. The last strip is only 0.5", but that's okay.

Then I went through my washi tape collection and picked some washi tapes that would match well with my patterned papers. I started layering the tapes on top of my patterned papers so it would create varying widths and a more unique design.

It's easy to simply fold the washi tape over the edge, or trim off the excess.

I glued this 3x8.5" strip down on my layout, then decided I wanted to add one more thing to finish off my border. I used my little arrow punch from Studio Calico's Wanderlust to punch out some arrows from white cardstock, and I stuck them randomly along my strips. They're pretty small, so I found that it was easiest to glue them with my Martha Stewart glue pen.

Here's my completed layout again! With plenty of white space left on my layout, the colorful border isn't overwhelming at all. I also added a few more diecuts, alphas, and stamping to finish the layout.

Here's a close-up of the border.

I stamped some older Studio Calico stamps with a few of my favorite new Color Theory inks - Something Blue and Deja Blue!

Have a great weekend!

Tutorial // Heat Embossing + Resist Technique

 I've gotten a few questions about my Lovely layout I posted a few weeks ago, so I thought it would be easiest to share here how I did the heat embossing and resist technique for the flowers.

First off, here are the supplies you need:

• a stamp (I used the flower stamp from the Studio Calico Office Hours Scrapbook kit)
• Versamark watermark ink pad
• white embossing powder
• heat gun
• waterbrush
• watercolors (my favorites are this watercolor set & the new Mister Hueys watercolor palette)

Start by inking your stamp using watermark ink and stamping on white cardstock. Then pour white embossing powder on top of the stamped image and shake off the excess. 

Use your heat gun to emboss the image. It may be difficult to see, but what results is a white-on-white impression. You can see that the embossed image is a bit glossy in the second photo. I stamped and heat embossed the flower stamp three times.

After heat embossing, you can now paint on and around your image using watercolors! I used the Mister Hueys watercolor palette because it has beautiful, vivid hues. The embossed image will resist the watercolors, and your stamped image will show through.

This is what my layout looked like when I added my photostrip on top of the floral images.

I decided I wanted to add more layers and pops of color so I stamped the same floral stamp on white cardstock using some beautiful dye inks - Color Theory Blush Crush, Coral Bay, and Sunny Day (my ink pads were prototypes, so the cases look different for the actual products- they are a great, stackable design).

I cut out the stamped flowers and layered them on top of my heat-embossed + resist flowers. I used some foam adhesive so that it would add dimension as well.

Here is my completed layout once again! All the embellishments and papers I used here are from the Office Hours scrapbook kit :) Love how everything in the kit isn't too matchy-matchy but coordinates well enough to easily finish this layout.

Pretty simple right? I love using this technique on my layouts and projects :) Hope you give it a try too!

Tutorial // Layering Colored Vellum

One thing that is relatively new to my stash of scrapbook supplies (in the last six months) is colored vellum. I love that the semi-transparency of the material allows for layering and creating different hues. You can layer complementary colors for an unexpected effect, or similar colors for different tones.

For my layout today, I wanted to focus on blue-green colors, so I chose cool colors - vellum chambray, vellum poolside, and regular vellum to soften the colors.

I started out by using my Silhouette Cameo to cut two circles from each sheet of vellum - one 4" circle and one 3.5" circle. I used to have a manual circle cutter but it was pretty iffy at doing its job, so I love using my Cameo for precise shapes. To cut the vellum circles, my Silhouette settings were: blade 3, thickness 30, and speed 5. If I'm cutting more intricate shapes, I'd slow down the speed of the blade.

Here are my six vellum circles. (Not pictured: I also used my Cameo to cut two slightly smaller circles out of scrap paper - 3.75" and 3.25". I'll talk about them later).

Once my circles were cut out, I began arranging them on my layout until I was satisfied with how they look. This is roughly what I decided on.

Adhering vellum can be a problem because of its semi-transparent quality. Some options would be to strategically hide the adhesive under embellishments layered on top, used vellum adhesive, or stitching. I decided to go for the stitching route since I thought white stitching would provide a nice contrast.

I used the slightly smaller 3.75" circle I cut out of scrap paper as my guideline for where to pierce the holes around the 4" circle. Since I don't own a sewing machine, all the sewing I do is by hand. Piercing the holes before stitching helps a lot and makes the stitching look nice and neat. I hand sewed all the circles while I watched some TV :)

Here's what the layered vellum circles look like after I finished all the stitching!

After completing that, it was time to add my photo and embellishments. I used lots of goodies from Studio Calico's Wanderlust and Essentials collections. There are lots of great embellishments that worked perfectly for my layout, like the scrap pads, vellum alpha stickers, enamel dots, and wooden buttons.

I decided to finish my layout off with a strip of my favorite patterned paper from Studio Calico's LemonLush collection and some washi tape. I think it really brings the layout together by mimicking the orange hues in my photograph. Here's my layout!

Supplies: vellum - white, chambray, poolside; buttons- Wanderlust wooden buttons; sticky note - Wanderlust scrap pad; alphas - Wanderlust lowercase alpha stickers; paper clip - Essentials flag clips;  enamel dots - Essentials blue enamel dots, gold enamel dots; roller stamp - Wanderlust phrases stamp; star sequins - sequins; patterned paper - LemonLush Impulsive;  cardstock - American Crafts cardstock; die-cut machine - Silhouette Cameo; washi tape - MT tape; thread - DMC; pens - Uniball Signo white pen, Micron pen 

Hope you enjoyed a peek into my layout process and give colored vellum a try :)