Craft with Leah

5x7 Folded Card

2011-10-11T17:07:00.001-04:00

With Love Christmas Card

Visit Shutterfly.com for Christmas cards this holiday.

View the entire collection of cards.

Oh Christmas tree...

2010-12-07T19:29:00.001-05:00

Part of the Journal Your Christmas class I'm taking includes taking holiday themed photos. I experimented with nighttime photos of our Christmas tree tonight, and got some interesting results.

These photos were all taken after dark with the same camera using different settings.

I like the glow-y look--it's called bokeh in photography speak.

Happy Christmas tree!

December 4: Perfect

2010-12-04T21:23:00.000-05:00

Today's instruction was to write about perfection...whether real or imagined. No negative thoughts allowed! That isn't always an easy assignment, but we had a good day and I'm feeling lucky.

I used a quickpage that I downloaded from Little Dreamer Designs, one of my new favorite sources for all things digital. I added the photos and the journaling to personalize it. The font is called Mad Hatter, and is from Lettering Delights.

Happy weekend!

Do you have a holiday manifesto?

2010-12-01T17:40:00.001-05:00

I wasn't sure what a holiday manifesto was before I opened up this file. Now I think it's pretty awesome. Get your own manifesto by taking Journal Your Christmas!

Holiday creativity

2010-11-30T19:25:00.000-05:00

I am taking a few online classes this month and thought I'd share them with you.

The first is Jessica Sprague's free class, Inspiration Everywhere. I've taken several of Jessica's free (and paid) classes before, and they're always great. I'm not sure I'll complete every project, but I'll surely absorb all the goodness. Today, Nov 30, is the last day to register so hop to it!

The second is a online class I stumbled upon today, called Journal Your Christmas. It's taught by a British woman, Shimelle, and it looks ah-maz-ing. In the class, we will be making a paper and pen or digital or hybrid journal to track all the goings on in our lives and family during the month of December.

I took a digital scrapbooking class last year with Tiffany Tillman, and she's offering it again. For anyone wanting to learn more about Photoshop Elements, or who just wants an easy way to document holiday photos, I'd highly recommend the class.

I'll be back once I get going!

Thanksgiving, redux

2010-11-28T17:26:00.003-05:00

Even though it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we are eating maple roast turkey, cranberry sausage dressing, mashed potatoes, carrots, homemade gravy (a first for me!), and apple berry rhubarb pie tonight. No, these aren't leftovers, they're our own little celebration.

We celebrated with family on Thursday, so today is just the three of us. I have so much to be thankful for, like having a great husband and daughter, a loving family in Tennessee, a roof over my head, and heat to keep us warm.

It's been a tough year; I lost my job and half my income, had health issues here and there, and I continue to face a three hour daily commute. But with my new work schedule, I have the pleasure of watching my daughter grow up without being so rushed. I know she can sense the change--she's become my buddy.

While I was cooking today, I put the finishing touches on a few scrapbook pages. My favorite printer, Persnickety Prints, is having a 30% off sale tomorrow only and I want to print as many 12x12 layouts as I can.

Enjoy!

Let me design your holiday cards!

2010-11-13T18:18:00.000-05:00

I find myself with a little time on my hands these days and I'd love to fill it with crafting. So let me design your holiday cards!

I love the holidays and making cards is something I do every year. Most years I make a traditional card and include a 4x6 photo. Like this...

This year I had a photography student come to my house to take some pictures of my family. I used one of the photos to create my own 4x8 card, which I'll have printed at my favorite printer, Persnickety Prints. You can also print them at my second favorite printer, Shutterfly.

Interested? Contact me for prices and more details. And don't settle for a pre-made card this year!

A digi layout challenge

2010-10-23T16:41:00.000-04:00

Hello,
Crystal Wilkerson, who is a favorite digital designer, is sponsoring a digi layout challenge. She is offering a free template here, then you can use any of her digital collections from www.jessicasprague.com to spice it up. Here's mine.

These pictures are from a few years ago--I can't believe how much my little one has changed. She's still as fresh as ever, though!

Have a good weekend!

Two more digi layouts

2010-10-01T08:08:00.000-04:00

Here are a few more digi layouts I created for my creative team application.

Supplies:Little Dreamer Designs Vintage Dreams Retro knotted ribbon green, K Pertiet graphic pop clusters 3, Queen of Quirk Songbird Avenue april 10 button, Tiffany Tillman well written word art, Shabby Princess Plentiful button 1 and 2, Shabby Princess Plentiful foliage stamps2, Shabby Princess Plentiful string bow2, J Sprague stitched tag, Crystal Wilkerson Oct 09 sweet elements doodled border 05, J Sprague Home Away from home brown solid paper, Fonts: Courier, Courier New, CK Frankfurt, Photo by Leah

Supplies: Fei stuff heaven sent 07 (cloud), Little Dreamer Design Everyday Hero 01, Crystal Wilkerson Spooky Alpha, Crystal Wilkerson Oh Boy! Labels 12, Fei Stuff heaven sent 06 (cloud outline), Lettering Delights Banner 12_c (butterfly), Lettering Delights Banner 13 (flower), Brush: Dune grass (PSE 8), Fonts: LD Red Hatter’s Hand, Photos by Leah

Creative Team news!

2010-09-28T10:56:00.000-04:00

I am applying for a creative team and I created a few new digital layouts to show off my skills. I'll be back later in the week with one more...wish me luck!

Hounds of Winter materials: Paislee adorned glitterstamp, DHD Christmas blue flake, ShabbyPrincess Plentiful patina lock, Shabby Princess Plentiful ribbon hanger, R Penner expressyourself paperclip4, Shabby Princess Plentiful notepaper, K Pertiet LaCremerieFraise creme, LivE Sketched Framers 06, K Pertiet LaCremerie Fraise 6, Fonts: Courier New, Porcelain, Photo by Leah

Sassy sweet materials: LiveE squiggle borders-cloud, Lettering Delights banner 10_c , Jessica Sprague Staple-double, Crystal Wilkerson Oh Boy! labels 20, Crystal Wilkerson spooky alpha, Crystal Wilkerson sweet paper 03, Cosmo Cricket sunday b paper, Crystal Wilkerson 2ps funky scalloped frame, Little Dreamer Designs vintage dreams retro MCO PPO11, Fonts: Century gothic, Pea Anna Banana, Brush: Jessica Sprague NWRL 4, Photos by Kimberly Kinnecom

Welcome Home

2010-09-20T19:48:00.001-04:00

My mom moved into a new house recently, and I wanted to make her a card to celebrate the fact that she moved 20+ years of stuff!

I was inspired by a card in Paper Crafts magazine. For the adorable clouds, I used My Favorite Things new die cuts. The ribbon, stamp set and sentiment label is from Stampin' Up.

Congrats, Mom, on a successful move!

September Birthday overload

2010-09-18T08:40:00.000-04:00

September is a crazy birthday month in my family--my husband, father-in-law, sister-in-law, uncle...I could go on! I made a bunch of cards, and today's is for my sister-in-law.

The stamp set is from My Favorite Things and the teeny tiny rhinestones are from Taylored Expressions.

Now I must figure out how to work off all the cake I've eaten!

Have a good weekend!

Birthday yummies

2010-09-12T11:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was hubby's birthday so I had to pull out all my creativity. He loves cheesecake and even has his own favorite recipe (in his own handwriting and everything!). But, given that it calls for 6 eggs, 1 pound of cream cheese, 2 cups sugar, 16 ounces sour cream...I wanted to try something a little lighter. And I just can't leave well enough alone...

I used a recipe from The Best of America's Test Kitchen 2007, Light New York Cheesecake with strawberry topping. It was a labor of love, requiring about 12 hours to prepare, bake, and cool. But oh my goodness was it good. It uses yogurt cheese (plain yogurt that you drain), cottage cheese, and of course cream cheese. I made raspberry topping instead of strawberry.

I also made him a manly birthday card. Another labor of love since I have exactly 3 pieces of masculine paper. The stamp set and most of the paper is from Stampin' Up. He loved it!

Have a great weekend!

More fun with digital layouts

2010-09-10T15:12:00.005-04:00

Today I had some free time (yay!) and I created a new digital layout. It showcases pictures of my daughter's first day riding the school bus. I was inspired by Jessica Sprague's challenge to create a layout from scratch describing something that makes me happy.

Charlotte has been talking about riding the school bus for years, and today was the day it happened. She was ready an hour early and asked me every 5 minutes for that hour, "Is it time yet?" So cute! She gets home in a few minutes...I can't wait to hear how it went.

I also finished up another digital layout I've been working on for class.

Have a good weekend!

A new digital class

2010-09-05T19:24:00.000-04:00

I'm taking a new class on digital scrapbooking, called Now We're Rockin'. It's taught by the amazing Jessica Sprague. I created this fun layout of a relative's cat. Not being a cat person, I must admit I don't have much in the way of feline scrapbooking paraphernalia. I added "meow" in the corner, but that just looked weird.

I decided in the end that Percy the ragdoll was beautiful enough without any embellishment.

Percy lives with Bodie, my mom's beagle. Bodie and Percy aren't quite sure about the recent marriage of their caretakers, but they're hoping for the best (that the other one will tragically escape!).

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New feature: Recipes!

2010-08-27T10:59:00.003-04:00

Blueberry Buckle

I'm so excited that I've figured out how to blog some of my favorite recipes. I use a Mac program called MacGourmet to store recipes (along with a 3-ring binder and recipe box). I just found a feature in the program that makes it really easy to push a few buttons and *poof*...blogged recipes!

I love to cook and I enjoy reading other blogger's recipes, so I hope you enjoy mine! This recipes comes from Allrecipes.com, and was the perfect way to use the super huge container of blueberries I bought last weekend at BJ's. It's not for the faint of heart...at 385 calories per piece, it's definitely a treat.

In case you haven't had buckle before (I hadn't), it's a dense cake, kind of like coffee cake. The batter is quite thick--I had to add a few splashes of milk. I might use less flour next time. And definitely use a 9x9 pan. I used a pretty piece of corning ware, but it took a good 10 minutes longer to bake.

Ingredients:

¼ cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Topping (Depending on your sweet tooth, you might want to half the amount of topping)

⅔ cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅓ cup cold butter

Directions: 1. In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in the egg. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Fold in the blueberries. Pour into greased 9-in. square baking pan.

2. For topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over blueberry mixture. Bake at 375 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

(Serves 9)

A Wedding Card

2010-08-17T19:05:00.001-04:00

A co-worker of mine is getting married soon, and I nominated myself to make the card.

I was inspired by a card published in Paper Crafts Card Creations magazine, created by Rae Barthel.

You can't tell from the photo, but the hearts are chipboard, painted with SU white craft ink, sprinkled with dazzling diamonds, then coated with crystal effects. It's sparkly and shiny and really pretty!

The paper and ribbon is also SU. I printed the sentiment with a free font, Garton, that you can download from www.fontstock.net. I didn't know about this site before--it's a great find.

Off to eat breakfast for dinner!
Leah
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how does one scrap 450 pics in a single bound?

2010-08-15T18:45:00.000-04:00

My family and I went to Washington State for a week this summer. Not surprisingly, I took a lot of pictures...like 450. Of course, not all of them were good, but I had a vision of multi-photo layouts, bright colors, and a very simple design.

I initially thought I'd do it digitally, then have it printed by Shutterfly or another similar printer. Then I realized it might be easier to use Apple's iPhoto book templates. I've made a book before with Apple and was really happy with the quality.

So I spent several nights per week over several weeks putting it all together...a total of about 250 pics made the cut. Then I got to the "Buy Now" part. My 85 page book cost $140. Yikes! So I haven't had it printed yet, but I can burn it to a DVD, which is what I plan to do until the money fairy pays me a visit.

Here's a few favorite pics from the trip.

Beautiful rocks on the shore of Lopez Island

Roche Harbor, San Juan Island

Charlotte made a new friend


Preparing to kayak

Will be back this week with some new cards.

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Cake is good.

2010-06-30T22:02:00.008-04:00

I love birthday cake; mine, yours, a perfect stranger's. I've made my own birthday cakes for most of my adult life, and that's actually just fine with me. I just went to a Pampered Chef party and bought the crazy expensive Deep Covered Baker, partially because the hostess used it to bake a cake in the microwave. It was, unfortunately, really good.

But I digress.

This weekend I made a birthday card for a relative's birthday featuring birthday cake.

I love how it turned out. I stole the inspiration from Paper Craft's Go To Sketches vol 1, which is an amazing magazine filled with card sketches.

The original card is on page 148 and was designed by Beth Opel. I'm sorry to see that Beth has stopped blogging, but I'm sure she's still busy creating. Thanks for the inspiration, Beth!

Leah

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Inspired by blue

2010-06-27T14:54:00.001-04:00

My friend and blogger Joanne is having a challenge on her blog to create a card inspired by this photo.

Definitely not hard to be inspired, eh?

I have a friend who is expecting a baby boy in a few months, so this was a great inspiration to create a card.

I used Papertrey Ink's Bitty Baby Blessings, which is one of my favorite baby sets. The twine is also by PTI; I love it because it comes wrapped around a wooden spool and it might last me forever! I'd tell you where the paper is from but I have no idea--it was mostly scraps from my collection.

Have a great day!

Leah
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Happy Father's Day

2010-06-20T11:23:00.001-04:00

It's a beautiful sunny summer day here in Massachusetts, and Charlotte and I celebrated Father's Day by waking daddy up with breakfast in bed. Ok, first she woke him up crying and wailing because it was "time for him to get up" (7:30A). But after we took a trip to Dunkin Donuts, all was right with the world again.

I saw this super cute kit at Litle Dreamer Designs and knew just the picture I wanted to use. Bill is a hero to Charlotte and me on many days, and I wanted to celebrate that.

Hope you have a great day.
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Pool Party!

2010-06-19T18:33:00.001-04:00

We went to a really fun pool party today and I couldn't wait to get home and put together a digital scrapbook page. The colors of summer, pools, and bathing suits really make the pages pop!

Creative team call!

2010-05-11T12:15:00.002-04:00

I was thrilled to see that one of my favorite digital designers, Tiffany Tillman, is having a creative team call. I took Tiffany's class in December and made a beautiful 8x8 book celebrating the holidays.

I'd LOVE to be on Tiffany's team because I love the simplicity and flexibility of her templates. It's so much easier than starting from scratch and the finished product is really stunning.

Here's a few digital pages I've worked on recently.

So Tiffany, if you're reading, pick me pick me pick me!

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Let's go fly

2010-04-07T21:43:00.001-04:00

I recently bought a digital kit from Songbird Avenue that included lots of fun papers and elements. Their kits are a great deal--only $8 for a ton of coordinating papers and embellishments. One of my favorite embellishments was a hand drawn image of a kite. I knew it would be perfect with pictures from Easter day of my daughter and husband flying her new kite.

I love the bright color combinations and whimsical look. I had to use my Photoshop skills to get rid of some of the power lines in the picture of the kite. But that's the beauty of digital layouts!

Bye!

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Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

We had an amazing, beautiful day here in Massachusetts, definitely the best Easter weather we've had in many years. 75 degrees is definitely not typical for early April here, but you won't hear me complain!

I snapped some great photos of the family and used a quick page from Jessica Sprague to create this digital layout. I just dropped the pictures into the template and added a few embellishments from Songbird Avenue's April kit (which is one of my favorite kits of theirs so far) and ta-dah!

Hope you had a wonderful day!