Pinterest Inspired – Quick & Easy Birthday Card

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Kelli

I gotta say, Pinterest is pretty fun.

When I needed a quick idea for a birthday card, I went right over to my Card Ideas Board and found the perfect inspiration. I originally pinned this from a color challenge at The Memory Nest:

This card is from Bethany Leigh. You can find her blog here: May Queen Crafts

I like the simple strips of paper and those adorable flowers. I knew I could use this as the inspiration for my card. See how I took this from inspiration to finished card in this video:

I love the way the card turned out! The best part? The paper pack I used had two of each design. I made another card and it’s ready to go for the next birthday party!

Hope you enjoyed the video. If you like it, put a pin on it!

For more tips and tricks on using your papercrafting supplies, sign up for the newsletter on the right side of your screen.

Card measurements: 5 1/2″x 4 1/4″

Bottom strip: 1 1/4″x 5 1/2″

Top strip 1″x 5 1/2″

Did you make something Pinterest inspired lately? I’d love to see it. Link it up in the comments!

Happy National Scrapbook Day

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Kelli

What did you create today?

I would have loved to spend the whole day creating, but couldn’t pass up some snuggle time with my little guy today. Between snuggles, I did manage to get one layout complete:

Our Layout A Day prompt for today was Greed. That’s an unusual scrapbooking prompt, no? Well, our theme this month is Get a Clue – like the board game and today was about the motive of greed. I took it as more of an obsession or something I have A LOT of, which as you know is scrapbooking supplies!

Since I did some reorganization last weekend I had some fun photos of my stash and thought it would be a good time to tell the story. I also had fun new paper from a recent spending spree at The Memory Nest. These colors are my happy colors and using them with pictures of things I love just made sense.

I printed some of my Instagram photos – they are about 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 and placed them on a photo mat so they work as one big focal point.

The yellow background paper is from Basic Grey’s Paper Cottage line. The color was perfect but the pattern is also subtle enough to not overpower the photos. It truly is a nice foundation for the page. I rounded the corners and place it on a white piece of cardstock to mimic the Instagram photos. (For a tutorial on how I created the white frame for the page, check out this short video here.)

I have been in something of a fussy cutting mood lately, so I cut the doilies from a scrumptous piece of Echo Park’s For the Record 2 collection. I layered the pieces with different heights of foam adhesive to create my own accent piece. By having the pieces cut separately, I can decide how many to layer (usually an odd number) and the best placement on my layout. I like placing them in around my photos for a sense of movement. It’s one of my favorite go to techniques for getting the perfect accent without spending extra money on the embellishments for every line of paper I own. On this page, the Basic Grey and Echo Park lines are great compliments to each other. I love the way it turn out.

Basic Grey is one of those companies that puts a sample of the patterned paper on their title strips. This is another quick and easy way to add an accent and more patterns on your page. I trimmed up those title strips, layered them together and used 3D foam adhesive to give the title a little pop.

So what did you create today? I’d love to see it. Leave me a link so I can come give you some love!

I am a Memory Keeper

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Kelli

With my college reunion just a few weeks away, I’ve been digging through old pictures and memorabilia. It was quite a trip down Memory Lane for me this weekend.

Putting the “keep” in memory keeper!
Color Challenge from The Memory Nest

While I’ve looked at the pictures periodically and even scrapped a few, I haven’t really sorted through the box of college memorabilia in quite a long time. Now, my husband teases me about being something of a pack rat with boxes full of stuff from high school, college and old work mementos, but the feeling I got as I looked through those handwritten cards and letters this weekend was worth every bit of teasing I’ve endured over the years.

I have cards from my mom because she missed me when I left for college. I have a birthday card my grandmother created on her new word processor. (Remember those?) I have postcards from all over the world sent from friends on their college study abroad trips. I have the “Who’s New” welcome photo book from my freshman year of college with everyone’s high school senior photos. (As my friend, Sophia, said, “The original Facebook!”) I actually kept the admissions letter from the four schools I applied for in an honest-to-goodness Pee Chee folder.

But the most precious thing I found was a typed letter from Dr. Peter Madler. Dr. Madler was the most awesome administrator in charge of the study abroad program I attended in Salzburg my Junior year. Some time after I got home I received this typed-on-an-actual-typewriter letter from Dr. Madler and signed in his wonderful Austrian penmanship. A package of cookies from my Grandma Dorothy arrived a few weeks after I left. Now, while he was pretty sure I didn’t want the now months old cookies, he knew I would want the note from my grandmother. It was short and sweet, but obviously written with the sparkle in her eye she always had for me.

As I held these two aged pieces of paper I realized, I am not just a scrapbooker….I am a Memory Keeper. Holding on to these letters and bits & baubles from the past is way for me to glimpse back in to the past…my past… and remember.

Mini Scrapbook Album: Made for Mom!

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Kelli

Welcome to our MADE FOR MOM WITH LOVE Gift Ideas. Join the journey to find some great gift ideas for the Moms on your list or create your own wish list! Oh, and don’t forget, there are some freebies to pick up along the way too!

If this is your first time at Use It Scrapbooking, welcome! My name is Kelli Panique. I am a long time scrapbooker, scrapbook teacher and a regular Go-To Gal. This is a place where we don’t just buy scrapbook supplies, we use them! Here you will find scrapbook video tutorials, tips and tricks designed to get your stash. To get regular more ideas, exclusive content and specials, please sign up for our newsletter in the box to the right. It’s always nice to have more scrappy friends!

One of my favorite things to do is to create gifts for the people I love. More often than not, it’s those things I made at my little craft table that are the ones my friends and family respond to best with ooohs, aaahhhs, hugs and maybe a tear or two.

That’s why I’ve created a class just in time for Mother’s Day to help you create a gift for that special mom in your life. It’s a quick and easy project you can finish in an afternoon using supplies you already have on hand.

10 Things I Love About Mom

10 things YOU will love about this class:

1. It’s a gift idea you can use over and over again.

2. It will bring a tear to your mom’s eye.

3. You can use the supplies you already have.

4. You can buy new supplies for it if you really want to.

5. Step-by-step process walking you through creating this album from beginning to end.

6. Over 40 minutes of instructional time in three videos, so you can watch your favorite parts over and over.

7. Written directions complete with cutting guide and two sample projects.

8. Easy enough for beginning scrapbookers. Inspiring enough for seasoned scrappers.

9. Your mom still likes getting handmade gifts from you on Mother’s Day.

10. There is a special discount just for Made for Mom with Love readers! Use code MOM at checkout and get this fun class for $8.99. But hurry that code is only good through 5/13/13.

As a special treat for you blog hoppers today, I am giving you the journaling cards to this class for FREE for a limited time. Add your email to my newsletter list and your journaling cards will be on their way:

To get the journaling cards plus 3 videos and a detailed handout to create a special gift for your loved ones, click “Add to Cart” and enter code MOM to save 30% on 10 Things I Love About You Mini Chipboard Album Class. Available for $8.99 until 5/13/13.

Thank you for visiting Use It Scrapbooking today!

For more fun ideas, video tutorials and future discounts just add your email in the box above. Everyone who signs up for our newsletter today will receive entry in to a drawing for a free month of membership at the upcycling website Messtaken Identity. Thank you, Gee Zee! We’d love to have you join us!

Please visit each site listed below to see their Made for Mom special. There is a diversity of creative things any mother would love to receive in honor of Mother’s Day. Note: If you joined us somewhere along the way, please start at Lain Ehmann so you don’t miss a thing !

Next up is Jen Wright Designs where you will find another creative gift idea for the Moms in your life. Happy Mother’s Day to all Moms everywhere !

Just so you don’t miss any a single thing, here are all the other amazing ladies included in Made for Mom with Love Blog Hop:

Lain Ehmann – Layout A Day: http://www.layoutaday.com/made-for-mom-mothers-day-blog-hop/

Debbie O’Neal – Crafty Cut-Ups: http://wp.me/p2OEqp-dq

Monica Bradford – Scrap Inspired: http://scrapinspired.com/?p=5918

Melissa Shanhun – Digital Scrapbooking HQ: http://www.digitalscrapbookinghq.com/made-for-mom

Pam Odd – Keeping Life Creative: http://keepinglifecreative.com/?p=10050

Diane Campbell Payne – Capadia Design: http://www.capadiadesign.com/2013/04/made-for-mom-with-love.html

Beth Soler – Scrapping Wonders: http://wp.me/p2E66M-TD

Kelli Panique – Use It Scrapbooking ————-> YOU ARE HERE!

Jen Wright – JenWrightDesigns: http://www.jenwright.net/mothersdaybloghop ———–> GO HERE NEXT!

Suzi Iverson – SuzyQ Scraps http://suzyqscraps.com/2013/04/24/free-mothers-day-journal-cards/

Alice Boll – Scrapbook Wonderland: http://scrapbookwonderland.com/2013/04/24/mothers-day-blog-hop-made-for-moms/

GeeZee – Messtaken Identity: http://messtakenidentity.com/mothers-day-blog-hop/

Cara Miller - http://caramiller.com/?p=1455

Rebecca Kettner – Pictures to Scrapbook: http://www.picturestoscrapbook.com/mothers-day-blog-hop/

Heather Dubarry – No Excuses Scrapbooking: http://wp.me/p35Z1m-9z

Dawn Stegall – Faithfully Yours: http://faithfullyyours.net/Blog/made-for-mom-blog-hop

Kristie Sloan – Artful Adventures: http://kristiesloan.com/made-for-mom-with-love/

Vi Fierer – Creative Threadz: http://wp.me/p2S2Tl-ko

Enjoy your trip around the hop and have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Use It Scrapbooking: Tips to Complete a Layout A Day

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Kelli

So, here it is again! The Layout a Day (LOAD) challenge is back! (My husband can not be more thrilled!) This will be my 9th LOAD. Wow. That’s a lot of layouts. Over 240 to be exact. Before the May 2011 LOAD I came up with this list of tips and they all still apply. I love it when that happens. So, here are my top ten ideas for creating a Layout a Day:

1. Pre-plan some layouts!

We all have those layouts that are swimming around in our head. That layout you knew you wanted to make as soon as you took the picture. The cute page you saw in a magazine that you knew you were going to scraplift the minute you saw it. That funny thing one of your kids said you’ve been meaning to get down on paper but haven’t yet. Pull out the things you need to complete those layouts and create your own little page kits. Put them together now and on a day that you only have 15 minutes to work on your page, the majority of the work will already be done. You just have to put it together!
2. Use up your page kits!

Speaking of page kits, admit it. You have at least one page kit lying around that you swore would make your scrapbooking life easier because everything was all coordinated. How about the half-finished pages from that last class you took? Some of us subscribe to kit clubs and those kits come faster than we can scrap. Now’s the time to make those kits work for you. Pull them out and make sure they are ready to go. Resolve to use it for at least one inspirational prompt from Lain.

3. Work on a theme album you are trying to finish.

Is your son’s school album stuck in 1st grade and he just started middle school? Did you start a heritage album for your mom that you haven’t gotten around to finishing? Are all your daughter’s sports pictures piling up? Maybe you took an online class and never finished the assignments. LOAD is a great time to become the Queen of Finished Projects! Finish those half done albums and you will feel like a million bucks!

4. Write down some stories you’ve been meaning to tell.

There is nothing that says you can’t write your journaling before you sit down to create the layout. Write down that funny thing your kids said yesterday. Tell the story of how you met your spouse. Write down a favorite memory about your grandmother. Gather some of your favorite quotes. Write it in a journal. Open a word document. Whatever story is burning in your head: WRITE IT DOWN! When you’re ready to use it, you’ll just need to find a photo and paper and you’ll be done!

5. Pull out your favorite pics!

You know the ones. The ones that make you smile every time you see them. The ones that melt your heart. The favorites. Go through your albums, piles and boxes now and pull them out. If you’re a digi scrapper, tag them with a special tag or copy them to a favorites folder. You don’t have to have a story to go with them. I guarantee at least one of the daily prompts will take you straight to your favorites and inspire you to use them in a new way.

6. Make a list of pages or albums you want to complete.

Start a list and carry it with you during LOAD. It could just be a cute title you’ve wanted to use. It could be all the albums you’ve wanted to make since you started scrapbooking. Make a list and as you start mulling over ideas and you will come up with more. Having a goal to complete a layout a day can really motivate you to finish a good chunk of your wish list by the end of LOAD. The layout below is from my son’s sports album. I used this same template for each sport and changed the colors to match his team’s colors. Easy peasy! This album came together lickety split!!

Digital Template by Cathy Zielske

7. Pick some favorite digital templates or flag some favorite sketches.

If you are a digital scrapper, save copies of your favorite templates (or look for fun new ones to use) in a separate LOAD folder on your desktop. When you have your daily scrapbooking time, they will be there and ready to go. If you’re a paper scrapper, go through your favorite sketch book, magazine or websites to find sketches. Make copies of ones you’d like to use and store them in an easily accessible notebook or on a clipboard within arm’s reach of your scrap area. Then when you have the idea and photos, a sketch will only be an arm’s length away.

8. Make a go-to basket.

This is an idea I got from May Flaum during her Use Your Stash class. Take some time and go through your stash of product. Pull out some of those things you want to use, but just haven’t found the right project for. Take all your re-found treasures and put them in a basket or box and put it on your scrap table. You don’t have to know what you want to do with it, but when you are creating your layouts and you just need one last little thing, take a look in your go-to basket and pick something out.

9. Participate on the message board and in the Flickr gallery.

There are so many talented scrapbookers that take this challenge on! When you see all the different ways they each interpret the daily prompt, you will be inspired and excited to try a new thing! On the layout above, I saw someone’s layout with “naked” chipboard and I knew I could do that! There’s nothing like the positive feeling you get when someone leaves a positive comment on your page! Wanting to get more of those great comments can be the very motivation you need to finish that day’s page!

10. Keep it simple, scrapper!!

I can’t take credit for this one either but it’s the best advice I can give you heading in to this challenge. Many, many scrapbooking celebrities, including Stacy Julian, Lain Ehmann and Cathy Zielske have espoused this idea in one way or another. There will be days that you have hours to create and others where you will only have a few minutes. Not every page needs to be a show piece with all the latest and greatest techniques. Some just need to tell your story in a simple way. The important part is to get the story down and after 31 days you will have 31 more pages of your story done!

Layout a Day 513 is going to be a challenge, but with these tips I hope it will make the journey a little easier. No matter how you get to Day 31, it will be a rewarding and joyful experience! I hope you’ll join me.

It’s not too last to join! To hear more about LOAD just click here to hear from the LOAD master herself, Lain Ehmann.

LOAD 513: Get a Clue

I invite you to join me on the scrapping adventure like no other!

Use It Scrapbooking – Frame It Up!

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Kelli

Today I’m participating in a Sketch Challenge at The Memory Nest. Leslie offered up a sketch from Page Maps and challenged us to go for it. Here’s what I came up with:

Frame up your page to give it a firm foundation

I created the layout around a trip to Walt Disney World a few years ago. Since we stayed at the All Star Movies Resort, I picked a couple of star patterned papers to support the theme of the page. The patterns are pretty busy, so I used one of my favorite paper saving techniques to create a frame for it. You can see my fun tip for getting the most out your cardstock in this short little video:

Here are the before and after shots:

Before the frame

After the frame

The Sketch Challenges are open to everyone. I encourage you to find out more here:

Look!

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Kelli

I am packing up to go to a crop today.

I like to take themed albums to work on at crops because it narrows down what I need to take and it’s easy to find a groove to play in and still chat with everyone who’s there. (Let’s face it that’s a huge portion of any crop!)

I was looking through some of my albums trying to make sure I’m not creating duplicate pages for the school album I’m working on. As I was looking through my scrapbooks, I realized something.

I love these pages.

I love these stories.

I love these memories.

And I am so glad I’ve taken the time to create these albums.

Sometimes, I get caught up in just trying to get a page done and working away on this page and then the next, but looking at my pages today gave me a new sense of inspiration I won’t find on any blog, website or magazine.

I am inspired to tell my stories because it makes me happy.

What inspires you to tell your stories? Take a few minutes today to just look at your albums and enjoy them. It will do your heart good.

Use It Scrapbooking – Recolor Your Letter Stickers

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Kelli

Hello, my name is Kelli and I’m addicted to letter stickers.

It’s true. I admit it. I’ve been collecting letter stickers from Day One of my scrapbooking journey. Outside of cardstock and patterned paper, it’s probably what I have the most of in my stash. And even though, I have a die cut machine, letter stickers are my go-to item for creating titles.

The only problem with my love of letter stickers? There are only so many of them on any given sheet. Only so many E’s, T’s or S’s.

So, a girl’s gotta get a little creative.

One of my favorite tricks is to recolor the letters I have. Here’s how:

Take your wayward letter and lightly place it on a scrap piece of paper or a craft mat. Grab your favorite ink pad (I used a Color Box Cat’s Eye Ink Pad in Dark Brown.) and dab away until it is the same shade as the color of your other letters.

Dab away!

If you are recoloring a glossy letters, try using a solvent ink such as Staz-on.

Add the sticker back on to the title of your page. It may be a little less sticky than when you started so add a little extra stickiness with a glue pen to be sure it stays in place.

http:useitscrapbooking.com – Letter Sticker Recolored – Everything matches now

Here’s the finished layout:

Beach Boys with recolored letter stickers

These letter stickers were the perfect font for this page which makes me happy I was able to save them!

What titles will you be able to save with this trick?

If you use this tip, link it up in the comments! I would love to see it!

Kelli

Use It Scrapbooking! – Map Flower Tutorial

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Kelli

Punches are one of my favorite ways to get the most out of my paper and personalize my layouts. Today I used a leftover map to create a flower for a travel page. It was easy peasy. Here’s how to make your own map flower!

Punching a flower out of a map

Step 1 – Pull out your favorite flower punch. (I used this flower punch from EK Success.) Punch three flowers from your map. If you want certain locations on your map to be visible when the flower is done, be sure those names are in the petal section of the flower, so they can be seen when the flower is layered together.

Trick: The easiest way to line up a pattern in a punch is to flip the punch upside down!

This side up!

Step 2 - For this flower we want the petals to curl in toward the center of the flower. So, place your flower on a piercing mat (the backside of a mouse pad should work) with the design you want to be visible facing up.

Petal roller - www.useitscrapbooking.com

Use just enough pressure to get the paper to curl.

Step 3 - Use an Imaginesce Petal Roller and trace along the edges of the flower with the ball end of the petal roller. As the edges start to curl, use tiny circles toward the center of each petal to curl your petal in even more. Do this for all three flowers.

Something to know: The roller will break down the fiber of the paper allowing it to curl up and give flat paper more dimension and flexibility.

Ink it up, Baby!

Step 4 - Ink the edges of all three flowers. Here is where you can really personalize your flower. I chose blue and yellow to ink up my flower to complement the colors of my map, but I encourage you to use whatever ink, spray or stain will match your layout best! Have fun with this step and get creative!

Step 5 - With a paper piercer or needle, pierce a hole in the center of all three flowers.

Map Flower

Step 6 - Layer your flowers on top of each other so the petals from each layer can be seen. If there are certain cities or roads you want visible, now is the time to line them up.

Step 7 - Add a cute brad travel brad to complete the journey!

(Don’t have a “travel” brad? Use whatever fun brad or button will complement your page!)

It’s a simple and inexpensive way to add a personalized embellishment to your next page!

If you found this helpful, please pin it and share it with others!

* Affiliate links used where available.

Time to Get a Clue – LOAD 513 is coming!

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Kelli

I am all about using your stash and getting all those pretty papers and embellishments on the page. When it comes down to it, using up that stash means creating pages. Yes, we have to actually scrapbook to use up those piles of paper, bevies of buttons and flocks of flowers!

In the past few years, I’ve never made as many scrapbook pages as I have during a Layout A Day Challenge. Making at least one layout every day during a month is a great way to use my stash and use it quick!

LOAD has, hands down, made me a better, faster scrapbooker. Period.

I use up my papers, my scraps and my photos. I have stacks of pages with stories I would never have thought to tell without Lain’s daily prompts. I have tried techniques I wouldn’t have tried without seeing what other scrapbookers were doing in the gallery. LOAD is a kind of stream-of-consciousness scrapbooking. My ideas carry from one day to another and the ideas flow together. This daily practice in the art of scrapbooking has made it easier for me to look at my layouts and figure out what’s missing when it’s just not right. It’s also made me less stressed about the pages I’m creating because let’s face it, done is better than perfect!

So, for all these reasons and many more (let’s face it, I could go on and on…) I will be partaking in my 8th LOAD and I invite you to join me. I promise you will have fun. I promise you will achieve more than you thought possible and I promise you WILL use up that stash!

The next Layout a Day Challenge starts May 1st! To join me and my best scrappy buddies, click here: LOAD 513: Get a Clue!

Use code FNF to get $10 off. Offer expires 4/10/13.

Take chance and try something new! You won’t regret it.

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