Project Life: April ’17

June 6, 2017 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Hi there! I have a new Project Life layout to share with you today but first… I hope you guys can check out the latest issue of Jot Magazine, issue 18. You can see a couple of my layouts that I’ve already shared here on the blog on pages 184 and 185! How cool is that? I was so excited when I found out my layouts were going to appear in the magazine!

I will go ahead and spill the deets on April’s layout, I was not looking forward to it. I wasn’t. I took few photos and none matched, at all. So I thought to myself, “what do I do?” Just skip April or just throw something together and hurry and skip this page when I look through my album? Then I thought “having an all black and white layout would be kind of cool.” I mean, that is what I did with my WITL also and that’s one of my favorite layouts. So I started editing my photos and I was feeling content. Then I decided to look through Push Print Studios and find black and white inserts. Then I came across a couple of 3×4 inserts that were black and white, but also had other pretty colors. And voila! My April layout came together!

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Once I printed out the inserts I wanted, I added a couple of Color Cast Designs embellishments to add some dimension and more color. The “details” embellishment is from a past set, I don’t think it’s for sale anymore, but I love how it paired nicely with the striped insert and the two plastic tickets. You can find this ticket set on Studio Calico. Also from Color Cast Designs, is the Giant Ampersand in Caribbean.

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My Graphite Black Brilliance ink pad is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to use on layouts. I normallyy use Archival Ink, which I still love, but lately I’ve been using the Brilliance ink. The ink has this real nice matte finish that looks like it was printed on your photo. If you haven’t used this ink, I definitely recommend it! I did use my MISTI on my stamping though! The “you’re my favorite” stamp is from Kelly Purkey’s Favorite Things stamp set (sorry guys, I couldn’t find it on her site).

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I’m happy now with how it all turned out and I’m glad I didn’t just skip through to May, but now… I need to start May’s layout. Let’s see how that turns out!

Thanks for stopping by!

November ’15 Top 5

December 7, 2015December 6, 2015 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Hello! Can you believe it’s December?! I still can’t get over how fast this year went. I love this time of year, I love making Christmas cards, decorating the house, and have a couple of days off from work! This month’s Top 5 is a little different (if you don’t remember why, check out my last post.) November’s Top 5 is my “Why didn’t I put these items on my Top 5?” list. There have been a couple of times where I catch myself using something and think “Why didn’t I? What was I thinking?” So here they are!

Top 5

1. Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink
December Fave 1

This has become my “go-to” ink. Not only do I love the quality of the ink but I love this size it comes in. I always get nice, crisp images when stamping and this is perfect for stamping sentiments. Below you can see my Halloween cards I made using this ink.

2. Paper Smooches Uplifters Stamp Set
December Fave 2

I just love Paper Smooches and I especially love this set with all the different sentiments. These pair up nicely with all of Paper Smooches images and are funny/sweet and random. Of course my favorite is “You’re kick ass”, but you can see below the sentiment I went with for the card made in this post.

3. Studio Calico Mia Alpha Stamp Set
December Fave 3

You know I love me an alpha stamp set and Studio Calico happens to have the best alphas. I like to use the Mia Alpha set on my calendar refill in my traveler’s notebook. I love the look of brush script or hand written fonts and I would rather use this than to use my own handwriting.

4. Judikins Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder
December Fave 4

One of my most favorite techniques to use on cards is heat embossing. I’m real picky on choosing embossing powders, I like for my images to look crisp and clean and I know I will get that with Judikins Embossing Powder. Not only is it a good powder but the iridescent sparkle powder is so pretty. I try to use this as much as I can because I just love how it looks once it dries. I used this powder on one of my favorite cards I made this year, you can check that card out on this post.

Just Saying Hello 2

5. Wendi Vecchi White Embossing Paste
December Fave 5

Another favorite technique of mine is embossing with paste. This jar has lasted me this whole year, and now I’m even using it to make my Christmas cards. I like how I can create different textures with it, how I can add a couple of drops of ink to it to make it any color, and I love how it dries. Before I used it, I always thought if you touched the dried paste it would chip off, but it doesn’t. Once it dries, it turns into a hard “gummy” texture, I always end up messing with it after it dries and it never messes up.

It is so easy to use and if I don’t have a stencil to use, I just make my own like I did below. I made the heart stencil using My Favorite Things’ Flamingos die set and the pear stencil with WPlus9’s Clear Cut Stackers: Pear Die.

I hope you guys enjoyed my Top 5, I had fun going through my old posts and seeing how I’ve used some of these products. I am working on getting my Christmas cards done and I can’t wait to share them with you! You will see that I used a couple of items from this list for my cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

Links to items mentioned:
Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink
Paper Smooches Uplifters Stamp Set
Studio Calico Mia Alpha Stamp Set
Judikins Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder
Wendi Vecchi White Embossing Paste

Project Life

Project Life: October ’15

November 27, 2015November 27, 2015 Diana Sanchez1 Comment

Hi guys! I know I’ve been MIA lately, I have been so busy and any little free time I have had was used to relax. November started off pretty bad for us. Shadow, our male duck, was injured pretty badly but fortunately it was not as bad as we thought and he is doing and looking great! It was a team effort taking care of him and bringing him back to good health, but we managed to do that for a week and a half. It took a lot of time but it was well worth it. Just FYI, it is hard to give a duck oral medicine…

After we passed that storm, we had a crazy idea to look at houses one Saturday and long story short, we’re building a house! This happened all within one month, we’ve been back and forth with the builder, lendor, and realtor. We’re super excited and super busy trying to spruce up our current home.

Even though I tried to relax whenever I got the chance, I worked on my October Project Life layout little by little. October wasn’t a very busy month but I had a lot of photos from when my family came down to visit. How could I not use my nephew’s picture as my monthly cover photo?!

Most of the background papers are from the October Messy Box kit. You might also remember a couple of inserts I did for my October Top 5 using Illustrated Faith’s stamp set, I used those as backgrounds for my Instax pictures.

For this month, my “faves” were:

Amazon Prime Commercial (You know, the one where the guy is carrying his dog in a baby sling. Well it’s a fave because of the song that plays in it, I can’t get enough of it!)
The Amazing Race (So fun to see the couples arguing!)
The Voice (I heart Gwen Stefani!)
Fugees (I listened to The Score all freaking month, still am actually)
Cheesecake (When is this not a fave?)
Micheladas (Same, when is this not a fave?)

I used stamp sets from Studio Calico, Kellie Stamps, and Kelly Purkey and ink pads from Ranger and Tsukineko.

That’s it for my layout, I did have one more thing I wanted to share. Because we have decided to buy a new house and it came unexpected, my husband and I are putting ourselves on a tight budget until everything is done (meaning we’re moved in, and our current house is sold). My “allowance” has been put on hold and I will not be able to buy as much crafting supplies like I’m used to. So instead of doing a Top 5 of my favorite products that I bought, I have decided to switch things up for these next couple of months and maybe do a Top 5 of my favorite blogs or Instagram accounts, something along those lines. I think it will be fun plus, it’ll make me use supplies that I already have and haven’t used, I actually have plenty.

Thanks for stopping by and putting up with me and my blog while I try to get things situated. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving!

Project Life

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!

Project Life

Project Life: August ’15

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015 Diana SanchezLeave a comment

Hello again! I am actually done with my August Project Life layout the first week of the month! I learned that it is SO easy to do your layout if you have a lot of pictures and luckily I took plenty this month because of our trip to Dallas. I was done with my layout in one day which is a new record for me, it usually takes me longer because of my indecisiveness. I’m very happy with the shots I got and I even pushed myself out of my comfort zone and took a couple of selfies (gasp!).

During our trip we stayed at the Gaylord Texan Resort and they happened to have the inside of the hotel decorated with a “The Wizard of Oz” theme. I took a picture of the ruby red boots as we were about to check out, you can see that pic below. It ended up being a great pic to use as my “monthly cover pic”.

My dad is a huge baseball fan and my husband and I were able to take him and my mom to a Texas Rangers game. We had such a great time and it was awesome to take pictures of him checking out the field to be able to share with my sisters and for him to keep as a reminder.

I used a couple of Studio Calico alpha stamps (Laina and Alex & Ben). I also used my typewrite a lot for this layout along with a flair button and parcel tag from Pink Paradise.

I used label stamps and dies from Studio Calico and Kelly Purkey and a couple of sentiments from Kellie Stamps. For ink I used Ranger Archival Ink in jet black, Brilliance in moonlight white, and Mama Elephant Creative Color in winter. All the patterned paper I used is from Studio Calico.

I was able to get good shots of the concert with my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, that is after I turned on the HDR. I realized this AFTER the first band played… meaning I got no good pics of Deftones, only of Incubus. The good thing though is I have good pics from Deftones the first time I saw them, and I got good shots of Brandon Boyd shirtless, so all is ok.

We have another trip coming up this month, this time we’ll be going to Austin for my sister-in-law’s wedding. AJ’s birthday is also this month so we have some fun stuff planned for that so hopefully I’ll have plenty of pictures for the next PL layout.

See you guys next time!