Project Life: September ’15

October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 Diana Sanchez2 Comments

Hello everybody! I finally got to work and finished my Project Life layout for September. It was a fun month, the highlight was definitely our trip to Austin!

For my “cover” picture, I snapped a quick pic of what I found inside the duck’s cage once we got home from Austin. As you can see below, I printed a 8×6 picture of AJ at Top Golf and cut it down in three pieces.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Studio Calico’s Laina Alpha stamp set. I always use my MISTI whenever I stamp my monthly “cover” picture. I also used stamp sets from Mama Elephant and Kelly Purkey.

I recently signed up for A Beautiful Mess’ Messy Box kit and I used some paper, washi tape, and the speech bubbles from it.

So, this month’s faves were:

Ancestry.com (so awesome, I actually met a cousin I didn’t know I had and we sent each other pics of our parents from back in the day)
The Weeknd (I have “The Hills” on repeat)
Tumblr (Who doesn’t want to see unlimited GIFs of Friends and Harry Potter?!)
Margaritas (enough said)
Crossword Puzzles (I downloaded an app called DCC and I have to play the daily puzzle before I go to bed)
Tortoise Hair Clip (Damn the day I walked into Old Navy and found that clip near the register, I never want to do my hair ever again! I can just put it in the clip!)

I wanted to show you guys the before and after of the picture I took of AJ and the picture of the duck eggs. I use Adobe Lightroom to edit all my pictures. I took both pictures with my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and then edited them on my computer.

The software was a little tough to figure out at first but after playing with it, watching a couple of YouTube videos, and buying presets, I can’t imagine not using it, ever! And it’s also because of this, I enjoy taking more photos. Every picture I’ve used for any layout has been edited with Lightroom.

That’s it for now, thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you guys next time!

Card Making

Joyeux Anniversaire!

October 14, 2015October 13, 2015 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Bonjour everyone! Today I am sharing a new card I made for a friend. She wanted to give this card to her grandmother for her 96th birthday. I decided to do some watercoloring for this card because I had so much fun with my Halloween cards, but I wanted to try a difference technique.

My friend wanted the card to say “Happy Birthday” in french along with her name. I thought this might be a little hard since I don’t own any stamp sets that have french sentiments but I was able to download a pretty font and I just printed it out instead.

I used Mama Elephant’s Freestyle Florals stamp set and made a pattern on Canson watercolor paper. I stamped the flowers and leaves with my Versamark Emboss Ink Pad and used clear embossing powder from Simon Says Stamp.

For the colors, I used my Peerless “Complete Edition” and “Pretty in Pink” watercolor sets.

I was very happy with how the flowers popped once I colored in the background in blue. I also love the way the watercoloring looked once it was completely dry. I highly recommend getting Peerless watercolors if watercoloring is something you’re interested in but don’t want to spend too much money on because you are a beginner.

I hope my friend’s grandmother had a great birthday and enjoyed the card and I hope you guys enjoyed it as well! Au revoir!

Items used:
Stamps: Mama Elephant Freestyle Florals
Ink: Tsukineko Versamark Emboss Ink Pad
Paper: Canson Watercolor Paper, Papertrey Ink White Card Set, Papertrey Ink Summer Sunrise Cardstock
Other: Simon Says Stamp Clear Embossing Powder, Peerless Watercolors, Peerless Watercolors Pretty in Pink, Ranger Water Brush

Card Making

You’re My Boo

October 6, 2015October 4, 2015 Diana Sanchez1 Comment

Hello again, I’m back with some Halloween cards! I know it’s been awhile but with the holidays coming up, I was ready to get back into making cards. This is actually the first time I made Halloween cards. I ordered the You’re My Boo stamp and die set from Hero Arts because I fell in love with the ghost and the sentiment.

I knew I wanted to do a watercolor background for my card, so I looked on YouTube for a good tutorial because I still need help on using my watercolors. I found this technique from Maureen Wong, which you can watch here. It was so easy to do and I love how it came out. I used my Peerless watercolors and Ranger Water Brush.

After the background dried, I went over little random patches with my clear Wink of Stella marker. I also used the marker to go over the ghost after I die-cut it.

To finish it off, I tied some Tim Holtz Paper String around the card. Very fast and very simple to do!

I love how the cards came out and I’m ready to start working on my Christmas cards! See you guys next time!

Items used:
Stamps: Hero Arts You’re My Boo
Ink: Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink
Die: Hero Arts You’re My Boo
Paper: Papertrey Ink Cardstock in Royal Velvet and Orange Zest
Other: Canson Watercolor Paper, Peerless Watercolors, Ranger Water Brush, Clear Wink of Stella, Tim Holtz Paper String

My Favorites

September ’15 Top 5

October 1, 2015October 31, 2015 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Hi guys! It’s October and Summer is over! I’m so ready for cooler weather, boots, and Halloween, not really looking forward to putting away the flip flops, everybody talking about pumpkin-spice flavoring, and daylight savings time ending. Oh well… Once fall starts I feel like it just goes downhill from there, first Halloween, then Thanksgiving right after, and before you know it, it’s Christmas! So with that being said, this month’s Top 5 has a couple of holiday items!

1. Hero Arts You’re My Boo Stamp & Die

I really wanted to make Halloween cards this year and I wanted to find a stamp with a cute/funny pun, and I found this. I didn’t own anything from Hero Arts aside from the ombre inks, so I checked out their site and fell in love with this stamp. It was exactly what I was looking for plus it’s wood mounted and you can also purchase the matching die set!

2. Plain Angela Planner Stickers

Planner stickers are a must have for anybody who is addicted to their planner like I am. I’m always looking for different ways to decorate my monthly calendar or just a plain spread. My friend, Angela, just opened up an Etsy shop and you can find different types of stickers and she regularly adds new ones. Go check it out!

3. Papertrey Ink Wet Paint Holiday Stamp Set

I have already started my shopping for my Christmas cards this year. Once I startd planning my cards I knew for sure I wanted to use this stamp set from Papertrey Ink. I love the fonts and the different combinations you can use for your sentiment. I’m getting into the Christmas spirit already and I can’t wait to start working on my cards!

4. Mommy Lhey My Doodled Day Planner Stamp Set

Another great accessory for your planner are planner stamps. Momma Lhey has a variety of planner stamp sets to choose from but I really loved this one. Each stamp is small and perfect for your monthly calendar. I especially love the “chinese”, “pizza”, and “tacos” because that’s literally all I know how to cook (or order).

5. Ali Edwards Just Thankful Stamp Set

I went onto the Ali Edward’s website to look for some Project Life stamps and I came across this set and thought it was perfect for my gratitude journal. Not only can I use it for that, but it could also be used for Project Life and even a Thanksgiving card. I love stamp sets that have many uses!

I’ve already started working on a couple of different projects that I’m excited to share. September ended up being a slow month for me creatively, I’m hoping to pick up the slack in October though. I’m also ready to start on my September Project Life layout! I took a lot of pictures during the month so hopefully I’ll be able to get my layout done quickly like last month, fingers crossed!

Thanks for stopping by and I will be back soon!

Items mentioned:

InLinkz.com

http://static.inlinkz.com/ppr.js

Link to Plain Angela Etsy store:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/PlainAngela

Link to Ali Edwards Just Thankful Stamp Set:
http://aliedwards.com/shop/stamp-sets/stamp-set-just-thankful-by-ali-edwards

Project Life

Summer Manifesto 2015 – Part 1

September 16, 2015September 16, 2015 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Hey guys! Summer is ALMOST OVER!!! I can’t believe it! It’s going to be Fall! This year is just going by way too fast for me and because of that, I’m glad I joined in on the #LittleSummerJoy class. This summer I’ve been working on my Summer Manifesto, pretty much setting (small) goals for the season and documenting it. I decided to do a small Project Life album for my manifesto, which I’m still working on. So today I’m sharing the first half of my album (hey, summer’s not over yet!)

I decided to use an 8×6 album and keep it real simple. I wanted to focus on taking better pictures and do better editing.

I love my cover page, it pretty much sums up what an ideal summer is for me, wine, a book, and my O Magazine. I made the “Summer Manifesto 2015” card on Adobe Photoshop, which I used A LOT for this album compared to my monthly PL layouts.

It was a little hard to come up with my summer goals because I never set goals for myself other than my daily goal: “be energized today and do something awesome!” which I fail to do everyday… I set very small and simple goals, but if you’re like me, you hear the word “goal” and go into panic. So just doing this was a big goal in itself.

I typed out my 12 goals on vellum paper and made the whole layout with a picture I took with my phone of a funnel cake. Layouts like this are my favorite and I would’ve done every page like this but, come on, I had to change it up!

Goal #1 was to try different snow cone flavors… SO HARD!!!! I know I’m not the only person who gets cherry all the time and when she’s feeling crazy might get the margarita flavored one, right?

I took a picture of the menu and stamped next to the different flavors I tried (I should’ve written them down because I forgot all the flavors, oops!)

Goal #2 was to take more instax pictures. My Fujifilm Instax Mini 8 had been sitting pretty on a shelf and it was about time I put it to use. I used Photoshop to make the “Pictures of You” card, you know I love to throw in a Cure lyric wherever I can.

Goal #3 was to finish “A House in the Sky” and goal #4 was to start a new book. I did great on these two goals because I was really hoping to finish “A House in the Sky”, because seriously, it should not take a year to read one whole book (another goal I failed). Well I finally finished it this summer and read not one, but two Harry Potter books and now I’m on year 3! 300 points for Gryffindor!

I took a picture of the books and added the dates I started them and finished them with Photoshop. I also took a picture of my “library” and stamped on a Studio Calico parcel tag using a Kellie Stamps alpha set.

I had a lot of fun with this two layouts. I normally don’t add any words on my pictures with Photoshop, I prefer to stamp, but I’ve been seeing a lot of “digital” stamping and wanted to try it for myself. I added sentiments to two pictures I took during the summer, one from Fourth of July, and the other from our Dallas vacation.

That is 4 goals down, 8 more to document! I can tell you I did not meet all of my goals and I know I won’t by next week but I did do other things this summer to make up for it!

I hope you guys enjoyed and will join me on the next one!