Author: Jean Manis

Neat & Tangled Release: Sketchy Cupcakes

Welcome back for the final day of the March Neat & Tangled release! I’m sharing two cards made with the “Sketchy Cupcakes” set, one of three sets releasing this week.

I did a bit of paper piecing for my first card, featuring the cupcake, flag and sentiment from the set. (I know I’d love to have some pink-frosted cupcakes for my birthday!)

Supplies: Scotty Girl Design papers

The “Sketchy Cupcakes” set also includes stamps for non-birthday cards. In this second card, I used the “Hey Sweets” sentiment along with a fork and cherry included in the set. I just love Danielle’s handwritten sentiments!

Head on over to the Neat & Tangled Blog to see the rest of the Design Team projects! The March release goes on sale today, Thursday, March 7.

Neat & Tangled Release: Just Thinking of You

It’s time for the March Neat & Tangled release! I’m sharing two cards made with the “Just Thinking of You” set, one of three sets releasing this week.

For my first card, I paired the cloud (or optionally thought bubble) and sentiment from the set with the bird in Swirly Twirly Tags.

Neat & Tangled Release: Just Thinking of You

I used the same design for a second card in which I stamped the bear and mushrooms from Little Bear (admittedly a set that I reach for time and time again).

Neat & Tangled Release: Just Thinking of You

Head on over to the Neat & Tangled Blog to see the rest of the Design Team projects and to enter the giveaway for this set! The March release goes on sale tomorrow, Thursday, March 7.

March Simple Scrapper Blog Hop + Giveaway

Welcome! Today I’m sharing layouts I created with this month’s Simple Scrapper Premium Membership templates, as well as this month’s Story Starters.

This month I was drawn towards memories from sunny vacations! (In other words, I was not scrapping “with” the seasons as I usually do!)

I scrapped a Disney World trip from summer 2004. I have really been enjoying the combination of orange and blue of late.

Manis-Disney

I scrapped a day at the beach here in the Pacific Northwest from a few years ago. And again, used some blue and orange!

manis-mar13-single1

Finally, for this month’s Story Starters, I created a layout about a boat trip we made during a vacation to Guatemala a few years ago. It was quite the adventure getting into a small boat to head out across Lake Peten Itza for Flores, a city on an island.

manis-march13-ss-dec12-single1-2

Check out the fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Simple Scrapper Design Team:
Simple Scrapper (Jennifer Wilson)
Jeryn Carlisi
Lisa Corbin-Polak
Ronnie Crowley
Kim Gehring
Michele Holcomb
Margrethe Aas Johnsen
Amy Kingsford
Samantha Landay
Pam Lozano
Aimee Maddern
Jean Manis
Van Nguyen
Melissa Priest
Celeste Smith
Sara Case Strickland

Use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter a giveaway for a one-month trial membership at Simple Scrapper. There are three ways to enter and three winners will be selected. To be eligible, you must enter by 11:59pm CST on Wednesday, March 6. a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping. Each month members receive a new collection of sketch templates and Story Starters, story-focused prompts for pages and projects.

Revisiting an Old Friend

One of my goals this year is to try to not make everything complicated. I have a tendency to overthink/overanalyze. To that end, I have been making more cards with the same mindset one would apply to practicing the piano. In other words, every card I make doesn’t have to be the next best thing. Sometimes you just need to practice a piece of music over and over. 🙂

So today, I’m revisiting a card I made in July during the “Stretch Your Stamps” Online Card class. (A fabulous class by the way!)

Here’s the original card.

Stretch Your Stamps

And here’s my remake, inspired by the fact that it’s a sunny day in the PNW and spring is around the corner!

Bird and Hexagon

The Die-Namics die has two sizes of hexagons. I used the larger one as a mat for the patterned paper as I thought that helped add some definition to the paper against the kraft background.

Supplies: Echo Park “Everyday Eclectic” paper; other “Echo Park” collection paper; Twinery twine; Copics: Y21, BG11, BG53 RV25, RV29, YG13

Stamping with Paint

I’m continuing to work my way back through cards shown in the Online Card Classes courses. Today, I’m sharing a card I created based on one of Jennifer McGuire’s cards from the Online Card Classes Inspiration Showcase course in which the large background stamp is “inked” with paint.

ButterflyGrasses

 

The card background is the same “Silhouette Grasses” stamp stamped with Versamark and clear embossed. Stamping with paint is easy, and I really enjoy the results! The butterflies were die cut from white cardstock inked with soft stone shadow ink.