Giveaway!

Всем привет! Прошу прощение за длительное отсутствие (об этом подробнее попозже), но я решила что давно пора сделать небольшой подарочек! Давно хотела поделиться чем то настоящим с дорогими посетителями. Правда, со всеми поделиться не получится, но одному из вас с радостью вышлю этот небольшой подарочек!

В этом наборе немного приобладает розовый цвет. Так получилось нечаянно. Может потому я и не стала фотографировать заново подарочек, когда заметила что не всю бумагу положила:) Так что страничек будет больше чем на фото в два раза как минимум!

Я думаю подробно описывать содержимое не стоит...  Я для этого сделала ещё пару кадров поближе. Большинство из содержимого вам наверное уже знакомо - My Mind's Eye, Basic Grey, Echo Park, Martha Steward и другие.

Так что правила игры очень простые: Подарочек (или как вы называете его "конфеткой") будет разыгрываться между теми кто оставит здесь комментарий. Вы можете ответить на любой из следующих вопросов, чтобы мне поближе с вами познакомиться:

1. Как давно увлекаетесь хобби и что вам в нем больше всего нравится?
2. Что больше всего интересует на блогах которые вы посещаете?
3. Чего вам недостает чтобы больше отдавать скрапбукинку?

Оставляейте ваши комментарии до 26 Мая, и пусть вас не смущает далёкое место жительства! Я зараннее проверила примерную цену пересылки чтобы могла поделиться с любым, даже с тем кто живёт на другом концу земли :) Удачи всем! Результат сообщу в понедельник, 27 Мая. 

Скоро вернусь а пока всем спокойной ночи!

So exciting!!!

Hello friends! My long awaited magazine is finally here!

I had a privilege being published in French Esprit Scrapbooking magazine this month! I was speechless when I received first email from them and I'm speechless now... And very excited too!

They did a whole article with interview and some of my creations in Clean&Simple section of the magazine. I don't know what to say... Thank you Esprit Scrapbooking! This magazine is filled with fun ideas! I have some translation to do now since it's written in French :)

There was another sketch challenge on Les papiers de Pandore blog. Here is the sketch Julie provided:

I love layered looks on pages! It was easy to translate the sketch from 12x12 to 8.5x11. I replaced splatters of paint with cut out roses to support the theme of the page.

Yes, I do have a lot of journaling here surprisingly! Actually, I often have trouble fitting everything I wrote, the hardest part is actually starting to write it...

Arrows is my latest love. I wasn't that much into banners when they were so very popular, even though I used them a few times too, but there's something about arrows that I love so much.

Lots of stitching here as usual. It's still one of my favorite techniques. When I'm creating, I just wait for that moment when I can finally stitch something. Seems like I had a lot of those moments here.

I did three more cards yesterday.  Had to take a picture of this one really quick because it went from the table right into the mail box. Hopefully all of the ribbons and pop dot's will do fine in the mail...

I added a pocket inside for a gift card we got her:

I'll share the rest of the cards next time since I didn't take pictures of them yet and the battery in the camera died, so I have to wait. But before I go there was one more thing I wanted to share today. My two older girls and their cousins have been on "No Sugar" diet lately. Each time I buy something sweet they hide it... But as soon as Katya began her diet, she started baking something every day. Go figure... Well the problem is that she can't taste it, right? That's where I feel like that I'm, not on the diet!

This was one of her latest creations and let me tell you - It.Was.So.Good! It seems simple but totally delicious. The cake with fruit was very sweet and chewy and non-sweet whipped heavy cream on top... Yum! Wouldn't mind having some with my coffee right now.

Well, I got to go now. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Lilac and lilac on a page...

Доброе утро всем друзьям! 

Я поняла почему весну так сильно люблю. Потому что весной цветут мои самые любимые цветы по запаху - сирень, ландыши и пионы. У меня стоит букет в кухне из сирени с ландышами и я не могу надышаться ими! Если бы только на фото можно было запечатлеть их запах! Я поставила букет поближе к окошку, чтобы посуду мыть хотелось...

Наверное этот нежный цвет сирени и был моим вдохновением использовать сиреневый цвет на страничке которую я наконец вчера закончила и спешу поделиться.

У меня  почему то на каждую страницу в последнее время, жёлтый цвет старается залесть. Мне кажется что в серо-жёлто-голубой комбинации я могла бы целый альбом страничек сделать.

После прослушивания одной из передач PRT решила чаще использовать этот формат для страничек. Это не значит что я не поменяю своего мнения позже, и не значит что я вообще форматом 12х12 делать не буду. Но нравится что эти легче смотреть в альбоме, особенно деткам.

Получила сегдня задание - сделать открытку на Мамин День, который празднуется у нас в Америке 12 Мая в этом году. Постараюсь сделать парочку если успею. Люблю давать людям выбор. Так что я очень скоро вернусь с открыткой и может быть мимоходом закончу следующюю страничку.

Спасибо что заглянули! Увидимся завтра!

A perfect afternoon gift...

A gift of free time - it's always wanted, needed and greatly appreciated! My two oldest ones grabbed two younger ones and went for a walk, letting me have some free time to enjoy. I could find some house work, but it was specifically mentioned to have time for scrapbooking. Is there a better gift for a Monday afternoon?

Spring is the beginning of a wedding season, that's why I wanted to make a few wedding cards. I know I will need at least one pretty soon, but I'll probably do a couple more.

There was a great sale at the Silhouette store last week - all of the shapes were 50% off. I bought a few shapes and this card features two of them.

I made a spot on the veil accidentally, but was too lazy to cut a new shape, so I decided to cover it with some sparkles, which turned out to be a happy accident :)

Another card was made for a bridal shower that I attended yesterday. 

I added a touch of pink for this one to soften the black/white color combination.

This one turned out super fast. I just used all the pre-cut and pre-made elements I had on hand.

Coffee is gone and time is running out... still wanted to finish at least one of four pages that I've collected on my table. They have two things in common: all are made in 8.5x11 format and all are missing journaling... No matter how hard I try, it still seems to be my most challenging part of the layout making.

 

Hopefully I can finish a couple of them tonight to share with you tomorrow.

Thank you for visiting!

NSD 2013...

Happy National Scrapbooking Day! I love this holiday! I wish it was illegal to anything else on this day besides scrapbooking... I told this idea to my husband and he rolled his eyes. Well, I need an excuse to stay in my room and not feel guilty for spending time creating instead of cooking and cleaning. I didn't get much of that creating time today, but a few stops at the table (most of the time I didn't even sit down) resulted in an almost finished page.

I guess there wasn't a point of writing this if I don't have that page done to share with you, but I felt like I needed to post something on NSD. Feels better already. Now I need to figure out how to make this post worthy checking out... There's a wedding card I made, but I didn't photograph it yet. I guess that's no help... I made another page on Friday, but didn't type my journaling yet...

Oh, I have an ugly picture of a crooked cake with paper flowers that were cut with my Silhouette. Does that count? I wasn't planning on sharing this photo here, but I need a picture of something now. It's one of my blogging rules - no post without a picture.

It's not getting any better, so I better go now, but I promise to be back with something more scrapbooking related on Monday!

See you soon!

Scrapbooking on a Budget - "secrets" 4 & 5

Good morning! Can't believe today is May 1st already! But May is my favorite month of the year! Before going outside and doing some yard work, I wanted to stop by to post my second post in the series of

I wanted to show you two new cards I made. One was made last week and the other one I just did this morning. They both have something in common - printables. Which brings us right into our next "secret".

Secret #4: Find printables and use them.

We've all seen them. They are everywhere. If you have a Pinterest, I'm sure you've pinned them, but the idea is to actually use them. Last week I printed a few pages with printables and decided to put them to use.

Both, the tag and butterflies on this card, were printed at home on white cardstock. You can't even tell it's not the real deal, unless you sprinkle water on it. But you don't want to give anyone a wet card, so we keep these things from water anyway.

For my second card I used a printable card, a calendar and blue butterflies. For both of these cards, printables were the starting points of my projects. But I've also cut out a few other items and added them to my regular embellishments so that they would be there for me when I need them. I extended my embellishment choice by adding some free stuff - printed, cut out and ready to use.

For this card I have used only one pattern paper (yellow). The rest of the items were - cardstock (one plain and one textured) and printables. Oops, that tiny piece of blue polka dot banner was also a scrap from pattern paper.

 

If you've been scrapbooking or cardmaking for a while, you probably know what things you are constantly looking for. I'm always drawn to journaling cards, tags, calendars, labels, flowers and butterflies. These are the things I know I will use. 

Secret #5: Don't print everything you find. 

Remember we are talking budget here. You don't want to waste white cardstock and printer ink for things you are not going to use. Look for things that make you happy and things that you can't wait to use on your next project - those are the ones you want to print :)

Among the things I found, were these cute images. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I'm sure they won't be sitting on the table collecting dust, because I like them! I turned them to black and white, so that I didn't have to match my products to them. 

Cards are not the only things I use printables on. I like to use them on my pages and other items too. Here are just a few examples:

Before I go, I guess I'll share a printable I used on my first card, if you are interested (very sorry, can't find the source at the moment. I will adjust it when I do).

and a sheet of printable embellishments from Les papiers de Pandore, which I used both on my pages and cards:

 On that note, I will have to end the post for today. Have a wonderful day! Enjoy the weather and find some time to do something creative everyday!

Thanks for visiting and I'll see you soon!

Explosion box #3...

Happy beautiful rainy Monday! I'm here to share another explosion box I made for my little sister, who turned _ _ yesterday! She just decorated her office in black/white/grey, so I decided to decorate the outside of the box in those colors too, adding some pink inside:

 

 

Yes, we decided to double the explosion fun to make it a little more special :)

 

Or even triple it! Why not!

 

Well, that didn't leave a whole lot of room for chocolate covered raisins, but we just liked to keep opening them:

I think I'm addited to making these! Just a few more close ups:

I absolutely love this silver stamping ink! Works so well with the black/white color combo. It still looks elegant but a lot softer then black ink!  

Oh, let me say one more time: Happy Birthday dear sister! We LOVE you! May all your wishes come true! (Shh, she has checked the blog already, so I think I can add her photo now) :))

Thanks for stopping by everyone and I'll see you very soon! :)

"Scrapbooking on a Budget"

Добрый день! Сегодня вернулась с новой идеей. Хотя идея в общем не новая. Давно собиралась сделать серию каких то отдельный постов посвященных определённой части нашего любимого хобби. И чем делиться как не тем что меня более всего интнресует?

Как всем известно, скрапбукинг относится к ряду не самых дешевых увлечений и далеко не каждый может позволить себе роскошь в приобретении желаемых товаров. Особенно самых последних и популярных. Я тоже относилась к этой категории людей. Но интерес к этому хобби был сильнее скромного бюджета который могла выделить на развлечение такого рода. Поэтому меня всегда интересовали различные способы как можно было съэкономить, перехитрить, импровизировать...

Грустнее всего что многие именно по финансовой причине и боятся окунуться в этот сказочный мир искуства. Так вот и родилась эта идея делиться своими маленькими "секретами" под названием "Scrapbooking on a Budget".

Sharing little secrets, I discovered along the way and wish I knew when I first started scrapbooking.

Здесь буду делиться маленькими "секретиками" которые нашла на пути изучения скрапбукинга, и которые сама хотела бы знать когда только начинала. Может быть вы для себя сможете найти здесь что то новое, полезное, а если нет, то пусть они послужат вам просто напоминанием.

Вот только не могу ещё решить на каком языке писать... Русский звучит роднее, но по английски проще с той стороны, что я обнаружила это хобби на английском и многие слова просто не переводятся...

Secret #1: Don't use a whole piece for the first layer of paper. 

Especially if you know you'll be layering things on top. We all have our favorite supplies. Pattern paper has been my favorite from the very beginning and it hasn't changed. The type of papers I like changes all the time, and right now diagonal stripe is my favorite pattern of all!

When I started making a card, instead of gluing that pretty stripe paper in one piece, I cut two strips from it and added one on each side.

By the time my card was done, no one can tell what's underneath, but I was able to save that paper and make three more cards with it! 

Secret #2: Always stitch with white thread. 

I never ever change the thread color. White goes with everything. It is visible on bright and dark colors, and it adds texture to white. What I love about it is that I never have to worry about my thread matching papers and it saves so much time!

Secret #3: Make a few cards of the same style at once. Budget your time.

Chances are, they will all go to different people. By repeating the design, you save a lot of time! It's always faster to make something second time around. You can change the color while still using similar supplies - die cuts, punches, design.

A few weeks ago, I needed to write a note to my friend. Using a scrap piece of paper looked very cheep. I checked my box with cards - Birthday, Thank you, Congratulations - nothing seemed to fit. That's when I knew I needed to make a few very simple designs.

That's how these four were born. They all share same design with a slight difference in colors or sentiment. The idea of placement of the butterflies was seen on Pinterest.

And that completes my post for today, but I'll be back with more things to show and more "secrets" to share :) Thanks for stopping by!

Have a wonderful day and I'll see you next time!

"Pause Cafe"

Hi! It is such a gorgeous day outside today, so I'll be very quick today.

I just made a page last night and quickly wanted to share it with you. I used Pause Cafe paper collection from Les Papiers de Pandore. This time around page totally started with their cute journaling cards I was craving to use...

and then came everything else - design, photos, story...

 

 

Pictures were printed at home. It is so much easier to make a collage on your computer first and then adding them all at once as one big piece. That's in case you have a lot of photos for one page.

A little closer look of cluster of embellishments:

I must admit, I missed making layouts. I love making cards, but it felt good to finally make a page! There's another one I almost finished earlier, but I was having a trouble figuring out how to add journaling to it.

Got to go enjoy this perfect weather today!

Hope you have a great day and I'll see you soon!