Into the Woods

Surrey, British Columbia95mm F5.3 1/8 sec

18mm F3.5 1/1.3 sec

29mm F4.2 1/2 sec

Vancouver Harbor

60mm F5 1/250

Night Light

75mm F 5.3 1.3 Sec

Market Fresh

Just some photos from the Granville Island Market.

LETTERPRESS

I La La LOVE this Letterpress tool by LifeStyle Crafts. We have been working on it for ages and it's finally here. Seriously, I have always loved the classy, high quality, unique look of letterpressed cards, but to do it yourself costs literally thousands of dollars and it's a huge mess. I love how simple the L Letterpress is and you can buy everything you need to get started including an Epic die cutting tool for $150. Pretty amazing, huh! Here's how it works:

Step 1: Place printing plate on clear lid of L Letterpress tool. There are currently 15 printing plate sets with fantastic designs that can be mixed and matched to create an unlimited number of projects!

Step 2: Use the ink brayer to ink the printing plate. There are currently 20 ink colors available which can also be mixed to create additional custom colors!

Step 3: Place paper on the base of the tool. The L Letterpress paper is specifically designed for the L Letterpress tool to achieve that fantastic impression and soft texture.

Step 4: Close the lid of the L Letterpress tool and roll through the Epic Six tool to simultaneously print and deboss your image.

I made all these fun projects with a prototype. (Have I ever mentioned how much I love my job?) This is definitley my new favorite thing. Now all the cards I give are letterpressed. I find myself making cookies to give to people, just so I can put a cute letterpressed tag on top... you might even say, the Letterpress makes me want to be a better person. :) I can't wait to host something where I can make letterpressed invitations and place settings and thank you treats. Here are some samples. Enjoy.

The Coffee Table Book

Have I mentioned my new love for photo books? I have been avoiding digital scrapbooking because I think it looks cheesy. Ribbons and brads are meant to add texture. Using a scan of a ribbon just defeats the whole purpose. In fact, I have always been trying to make my scrapbook pages look more like magazine layouts. I finally found the solution. Photo books. I have made photo books before, but I've felt limited by the selection of pre-made templates. It recently occured to me that I could just design my pages in photoshop and save them as their own jpgs. Thus giving me complete creative control to make my albums just my style. I tested my theory by creating an 8 1/2 x 11 album of my Italy trip. It's not perfect yet, but I loved the process of designing my simple layouts on a photoshop canvas and then saving it as a jpg. Then I just used the Shutterfly program to drop the photos into the book. It's perfect. Don't worry; This isn't the end of my scrapbooking days, though. I have enough holes to fill in from previous albums to keep me busy for quite some time.

Croproom Makeover

Ok, so there's still some things I'd like to do. Hardwood floors would be nice, a real ceiling and some crown molding... maybe a mini fridge under the table... but a fresh coat of light blue paint helps a lot. I have been meaning to paint my croproom from the day we moved our offices to Lindon and I finally got it done!

Some details: These books were made a year ago to feature the new QuicKutz alphabet sets released at CHA Summer 2008 and are also featured on the cover of the QuicKutz School Idea Book. They now look perfect on the book shelf in my croproom.

I LOVE this humming bird shape. I cut it out twice and bent the wings back to give it a 3D effect, then hung them from ribbons in my bird cage. These are my kind of birds, cute, quiet, and clean.

I came across the sentiment "Be courageous and vulnerable" while purusing some of my favorite creative blogs. It was on retro printed poster. It spoke to me and I adopted it as my new mantra. I designed the whole layout on the Silhouette and cut it out in Crate Paper patterned paper. The dots pattern on the candle hurricane was etched using a stencil created with the Silhouette and vinyl and Etchall Glass Etching cream.

This is my newest addition. I LOVE that the Revolution cuts fabric! I used the nesting flower dies and cut out several fabric flowers. Using Strano Design RibbonStiff, I "sculpted" the flowers to give them a little more dimension. Then with a brad in the center of each flower, I hot glued them to my twigs and voila! a hand made flower arrangement.

Ok, so Anthropologie sells these awesome patterned light switch covers, only they are 30 bucks! Thanks to my friend, Nicki's brilliant, creative mind, some old Chatterbox paper, and a bottle of Mod Podge, we made these sweet covers for around $1. Here's to designing on a budget!

QK designer, Leisa Rice rocked this Birthday release last January. I love her bright colors and excellent composition. What a fun frame, I just had to display it.

RIBBONS!

I have been looking EVERYWHERE for a good ribbon storage solution. Come on, ribbon companies, I can't be the only one. I finally found this ribbon rack online. When it arrived, it discovered it was pretty ghetto. I could have (and should have) just made one myself. I had to repaint the wood, replace the bars and flirt with a few Home Depot men to get all the modifications I needed, but in the end, it did what I wanted it to do. So, I guess it was worth the time and money. I LOVE being able to see all my pretty ribbons (courtesy of American Crafts) when I'm making a project. It beats digging through my drawers.

Playlist

Fixed it.

You know when there's something wrong with the layout, but you just can't put your finger on it? I put my whole hand on it, tore it off and made a new one. The shape for the title just wasn't doing it for me. I'm pleased with the new results.

Panama City

Lisa and I got together for Sisters Scrapbooking Weekend 2009. We have so much fun scrapbooking together and laughing about how our styles are so distinct. So here you go. Here are a few more typical Amy pages.

Temple Square

Snow

Georgia's Little Grand Canyon