Friday, March 1, 2024

Scrap-Along-with-Me March 2nd

 


It's time for the next Scrap-Along-with-Me, March 2nd, 2024! Join us at 10 am. eastern on my Facebook page Five Pines Designs for a live session (also available on replay).

This month the challenge is to incorporate some of the long-neglected and often-forgotten scrapbooking supplies that we have. When you are working in mosaic style the positive perk is getting many photos one a single layout, the downside is that we forget about adding in all the extra embellishments we may have. 

Here are a few of my storage drawers with the supplies that I'll be picking from to create my page.


and, here are the things I've chosen. Come and see how it all comes together.




see it at Five Pines Designs on Facebook!

Thanks for stopping by,


Andrea


Saturday, February 3, 2024

 February Scrap-Along-with-Me

Today on my Facebook page we tackled designing with an oldie but goodie die, one our our first die sets, and now retired, The Diamond Mines Dies. 

You can watch the video that we walked through the steps that I'm highlighting here. 




I began with a Cocoa Grid Paper and patterned papers from Simple Stories. 



Page one of the layout uses the 3x3 and 3x4 dies. I've cut the paper into strips to keep the pattern intact. I've also used the sections as a foundation for the delicate die-cut sections and adhered them to the patterned paper. Photos were die-cut to drop into their positions. 



I printed two copies of the landscape photo so that I could cut them to fit the center row spots. 
I have not used the patterned paper in the center 4x4 section to work into the second page, in the center.







For page two, I've incorporated the 2x2 die from the set. I began by cutting 8 - 2x2s in the dark brown that I'm using for the die-cut pieces. Tone on tone with the cardstock and grid helps to make the photos pop while the die cuts blend into the grid. 








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This time I'm looking for red, white, and blues to create with on Navy Grid Paper.

 



The third layout takes a different arrangement with the 2x2s and patterned papers. My main photos are of Mount Rushmore from four different viewpoints. The other photos were from spots from around the area and are cut into 2.125" squares. 




The 3x4, 3x3, and the 2x2 Diamond Mines Dies. 



One way to stabilize your delicate die-cuts and then pop your photos or cardstock into place. I've created templates matching the dies' color coding to make it easy to play and plan layouts by moving the various pieces around. 

Thanks for stopping by today and I invite you to join us on Five Pines Designs Facebook page where more inspiration and a video is taking you through the steps. 


Andrea 


  
 


 Welcome 2024 and the beginning, again, of posting some of the creative things I'm doing. 

On January 6th, we began our Scrap-Along-with-Me series for 2024 on my Facebook page, Five Pines Designs, with a look at Mosaic Moments Dies the Forever Stamp die and the stamp 2x2 die. I added in the LOVE Squares and layers dies. You can find the step-by-step video on the FB page.


I also played around with an idea to do a page-in-review of photos from the year with a seasonal approach. Three for each season. This is still in the works.




Each photo would represent each month and be cropped to fit our Mosaic Moments 2x2 square (measures 2.125" square or 2 1/8" square)












For my final page, I mixed things up a bit for a festive Christmas page. 





This detailed photo of the banner 1" dies shows off the way I layered and added a little bling too! 

So please come and join us each month on the first Saturday at 10am Eastern on the Five Pines Designs Facebook page for some creative ideas for scrapping the Mosaic Moments style. 


Thanks for stopping by


Andrea

Saturday, December 31, 2022

 Well, here we are on the final day of 2022. My posting attempts were only slightly better than the previous years, but I'm going to work on that in 2023. I was, however, busy this fall creating a variety of Christmas cards. Last year with a all that was going on, it kept me to a minimum of cards. I had so many ideas that never got realized. So this year I intended to start in January and do a few each month and be all set come the fall. Well, that never happened, big surprise, but, I determined to get going and get some of these ideas out of my system and just got going whether I liked it or not. Eventually, I got into a swing and things got going. 

We've had a lot of new people joining our church in the past two years and I wanted to make the newcomers feel welcome by having enough cards to get everybody. Normally, I choose one design and make multiples of that design, but this year I determined to make 10-20 of each design. That let me work in manageable batches and to get lots of different cards. Overall the theme on many is Joy. Many also included a nativity die cut. In 2023, I might try to get some done each month...but likely it will be a marathon come October!

Let's take a look at this year's cards.


 This Joy die is an older die from Papertrey Ink. The pine is from The Greetery. This was the starting card the one I had to try to get out of my system. It may not be what I intended, at times a bit painful to get through, but it got me going. I used the outtakes from the joy to create tags.


I believe the Holly die cut is from Penny Black.


This was my next card using all dies from The Greetery.


Taylored Expressions Layered Stencil Quad set is one I began last year and never finished so it gave me a huge jumpstart being able to take 10 sheets of cardstock and stenciling 4 cards at a time. Forty cards in almost no time flat!



I was determined not to spend anymore money on dies or stamps this year, but this cover plate from Taylored Expressions made me break that resolution. They had some great examples, but I tried a few of my own color blends. This is one that will be used another year in a different finish.



Continuing to break my resolve was this fancy font die from Spellbinders. This is a lot more work and if I'd stopped to think about it, I may have passed it by. I played with this for a while before I decided to add a nativity silhouette from Sugar Peas Designs. The Postal Frames die is The Greetery. 



Keeping with the postal frames die and a church die (from Simon Says Stamp) with a blended background mounted on a deep plum base.


Another card on the deep plum base, a postal stamp die cut in a pale green then a white layer with the snowflake cover plate from Lawn Fawn before I topped it with the Waffle Flower Joy die cut, and a sprinkling of tiny aqua snowflakes with a mini snowflake die from Taylored Expressions. 



Now I took a turn into a Nordic Christmas theme courtesy of Taylored Expressions stamp and The Greetery layered Nordic die.


Another version of the TE stamp and Penny Black's Inspired die.


TE's sentiment stamp pairs nicely with an older snowflake die from Simon Says Stamp.


Paper Rose Snowflake borders on navy pearlized cardstock let me decide where I was going to place the snowflake border. The stitched edge is a nice finishing touch.



This wasn't a planned card, but somehow as I was playing around blending colors I had an idea to feature this older die Bethlehem frame from Poppy Dies. It's the only top-fold card I've made in a long time, but because of the texture in the cardstock I wanted to have the lines running vertically. 


Last year I saw designer Laura Bassen make a couple of cards from this Waffle Flower Die. It wasn't exactly what I expected when it arrived, so I set it aside to play with at another time. This year I added strips of mirror cardstock in some pretty colors behind the opening. The cardstock are just layers of the new collection of greens from Michaels. I really loved the greens in this pack, a huge improvement over the other collection!



My first mini slimline Christmas card. Bethlehem Border from Taylored Expressions let me decide how much of  border I wanted. I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest and thought the Waffle Flower stamps expressed exactly what I wanted. It's hard not to break into song when I see a partial song in a greeting!



 A regular slimline card card was what was need for this Waffle Flower die. I had inspiration from another designer, but I was running out of time and needed something a little simpler and decide to try this out. As I worked with it I was struck by the focus and decided to take a little time to try one other card with this die. In this the tree shape disappears and it becomes a spotlight.


My blending faded a bit by the time I was shooting this. I tried to work lightly and in the end, probably too lightly. Again, one of the nativity dies (Sugar Peas Designs) is cut to fit the bottom half of this card. 


There was one final card I needed to make and that was for some of the winners from my 12 Days of Christmas series of tips and ideas for scrapbooking with Mosaic Moments Grid System.  This simple design fit perfectly for my Five Pines Designs brand. Taylored Expressions cover plate cut out the many trees I needed, a strip of buffalo cardstock on black  finished off the cards for 2022.


...And so this post finishes off the year, with just an hour to go. If you've stayed with me this long, I thank you, and hope perhaps there will be more scrapbooking, some card making and overall lots of creative things to share with you in 2023. Please stop in again! 



Andrea


Friday, October 21, 2022

 

October Pattern Challenge 2022

Once a month I sponsor a Mosaic Moments Challenge on my Facebook page Five Pines Designs. Each month is different, the October Challenge is a pattern Challenge. It’s #850 a Strips Pattern and fairly new to our Pattern Gallery. Plus, there are no examples as of yet. It’s wide open to interpretation by those submitting a layout. For more details on joining the group, visit my FB page Five Pines Designs.



I thought I’d give it a try myself and try a technique I’ve done to a previous post and adapt it for this pattern.

Here’s the previous post



And this is today’s “Autumn is in the Air”.




Here’s a few steps I took for this technique to achieve this staggard look.

Let me begin with the first 2x2 panoramic section I worked on. This was a photo I had printed as a panoramic and sectioned into 5 – 2.125” squares.






I used the Mosaic Moments 1” square Grid Die for 4x6 photos. This cuts out perfect squares that I will use for a portion of the pattern.






Tip: Before separating all the squares, I like to take my dot runner and apply the adhesive along the cut lines. This applies a small amount easily to each of the pieces.


Now for the main technique.

I began with editing my photo. I turned the 4x6 image into a 5”x12” image. Then I divided the image into 3 separate – 4”x5” images and printed them out.



On the Mosaic Moments Double-sided Craft Mat, I lined the photos up in a row. I have 12” of available photo to use, but only need 10”.

As I’ve printed the photos to 5” I need to do some more trimming. The space I need to cover is a 1x3 (1” x 3.25”) and because I have to allow for the ‘shift’ this technique uses, I added another 1” requirement. This leaves ¾” that needs to be trimmed away before I make the final cuts. In this case I took 3/8” off of both the top and bottom.   

Next the photos need to be cut into 1” strips and removed the two inches on the far left to give me my 10” of photo. Although I love the colors, the photo is actually a bit blurry, so the choice was easy.



Because you should always cut by drawing your X-Acto knife towards yourself, I turn my mat a quarter turn to make the next set of cuts.










Following the pattern for which piece is up or down the ruler is lined up across the whole group and cut only the ones that need to go. Then fill in the spaces on the grid paper. I chose a Black Grid because I like the way the fall colors pop when I use it.

Finally, I use the 1” squares to fill in the remaining spots on page.

I’ve used three types of photos, a distance shot for a nice series in a panoramic, a normal shot for my main photo strip and then a close up detailed shot for leaves to fill the 1” mosaic sections.

The page is finished off with two strips of patterned paper, top and bottom. I added a title with Honey Bee Stamps Autumn stamp set, “Autumn is in the Air” It is heat embossed with Rose Gold embossing powder and fussy cut and then adhered it to the top right and bottom left spaces.  




If you’d like to join the Challenge Gallery  we’d love to have you join us, especially if you’d like to try this month’s Challenge! Posting is this week and the winner will receive a $25.00 Gift Certificate to spend at Snapncrop!

Five Pines Designs on Facebook  

Thanks for stopping by...

Andrea