1,2,3 Scrap!!!

It's the 15th and time for our little mid-month hop!  Tracey challenged us to use the egg shaped card on the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  I made my cards from soft pinks and used the Chantilly paper to make cute flowers, also cut from the same cartridge.  The bow and word Easter are cut from the Cricut Artiste cartridge.  I love how "Easter" turned out with sponged with the different colors from the Chantilly paper pack.  Be sure to hop over to Betsy's and Tracey's blogs and check out their "egg" ideas!

December Paper Trail Blog Hop: Avonlea

The lovely, cool bluesy-green Close to My Heart Avonlea paper is featured this month.  If you hopped here from Connie's blog, you have already seen the fabulously trendy and exclusive teal and green featured in this paper pack.  I see lots of possibilities with this paper from elegant thank yous, to wintery snow flakes, and timeless heritage artwork.

I created a front page for one of my albums.  Though I used the the greys and browns from Avonlea, I added some pinks to complement my sister's coat in the photo.  I love the way the title pops off the page when I used the Dimensional Alphabets under the perfectly cut cardstock letters.  How easy it was with the Cricut and CTMH cartridges!!!  

Close to My Heart Products

Chocolate Cardstock

Slate Cardstock

Whisper Cardstock

Blush Cardstock

Basics Exclusive Inks Mini Pad Pigment Set

Hollyhock Exclusive Inks Stamp Pad

Family Tree Stamp Set

Avonlea Workshop Stamp Set

Sparkles: Brown and Tan

Noteables Alphabet Dimensional Elements

Cricut Artiste Collection

Embroidery Floss Neutral Assortment

Sanding Kit

I also did a two page layout of one of my great grandfathers.  I keep promising myself to get through the pile of antique photos I have of our family.  No time like the present, huh?  This time I stayed true to the Avonlea paper colors.  

I love how these colors and patterns worked with these old photos!  I still have lots of paper left even after these projects!  

Close to My Heart Products

Avonlea Paper 

Mini Medley Accents Antiqued Gold

Avonlea Complements Canvas Shapes

Dakota Paper 

Chocolate Exclusive Inks Stamp Pad

Slate Exclusive Inks Stamp Pad

Chocolate Cardstock

Whisper Cardstock

I encourage you to continue  hopping along the trail to Linda's blog and see how she used these rich colors!  

Pear and Partridges featured along the Paper Trail!

This month the Paper Trail blog hop group is featuring the Close to My Heart Pear and Partridge paper and in rich red and green.  Wasn't Amy's layout a fabulous different take on traditional colors showing the versatility of this paper pack?  I love this paper and see so many possibilities with it!  If you are like me, you are behind in your scrapping.......always behind.  So, I dug out the family Christmas photos from last year to finish them before the new ones come, soon.  I love our warm family Christmases.  Last year we stayed in our jammies all day.  I love the relaxed snuggly photos which are showed off wonderfully with the red, green, and cashmere colors in the paper pack.

I used the wonderful November Stamp of the Month: Very Merry Christmas for the warm mittens.  The wonderful Artiste Cricut cut the amazing poinsettia and leaves that I simply scored with a stylist and lightly sanded for the veins.  I also put Artist to work cutting all the mittens, title images, and conversation bubble before stamping.  So fast and easy!  

If you want to see more wonderful ideas, hop on down the Trail to Tracey's blog!  

September Paper Trail Blog Hop: Moonlight

If you arrived here from Lynne's Fields of Finery blog, you are on the Paper Trail September Blog Hop.  This month's paper feature is the wonderful Moonlight with its wonderful fall color pallet and supported by the neutral Black and Colonial White.  It's perfect for Halloween, as I used it, but is also versatile and will be available until January 31, 2013 (wow, that number feels weird!).  I loved my granddaughter's costumes from 2010.  Every year they do something spectacular and I can't wait to see what they do this year, now that our little Katie is 5.  Don't you love the sparkly spider web cut from the Artiste cartridge?

I am loving Studio J and wanted to try to do a real comparison between digital scrapping and traditional paper cutting, stamping, and embellishments so I took the same photos to do a second layout using Studio J to compare.  Which do you like better?

Which do you like better?

Ready for more inspiration?  Hop over to Wizard's Hangout and see what Vicki is brewing up!