It's Summer!

I feel like I have been waiting on summer for FOREVER!  I don't know about you but the end of the school year is hard and long and filled with stuff and makes me want summer to hurry up and get here.  This is my kid's first week off for summer and so far it has been filled with pool time and hanging out.  It's nice.  And we needed it.

Summer mostly to me is about the beach.  Ahhh...  I love the beach.  And this year it is even better because we have two beach trips planned.  One in June and one in July.  I can't tell you how excited I am and the countdown is posted and reviewed daily!

So in anticipation of my be achy summer...

I took this picture over Mother's Day weekend this year.  Maybe that was just the kickoff for summertime for me.  The page is simple.  I used the May Jenni Bowlin kits.  I am down to bits and pieces of these kits left, but used the Heidi Swapp stencils from the Historian Add On and some spray ink as the main way to create this page.  It was a perfect way to keep my page colorful yet simple so the awesome photo really jumped off the page.  I think this will be the first page in my summer 2014 album.

So what summer plans do you have this year?

~Corrie

Getting messy with paint and rub ons

I love that this month we are spending the time getting messy.  There are so many fun things to play with and get messy on a scrapbook layout.  My favorite things!!  Gesso, paint, mist, ink, and rub ons all are perfect messy supplies.  These products are the best for me to use to really create a page that feels like my page.

For this page about my daughter being 16 (how did that happen???) I started by covering the background with gesso.  This is a great way to create a stronger paper base.  I then combined gesso and Speckled Egg paint from the paint dauber and brushed it down the page.  I used washi tape, some sprinkled ink, rub ons and sequins to finish off the background.

Everything else is a fun embellishment.  Plenty of reminders that she is sixteen.

I hope you play with paints and rub ons and really allow yourself to try some messy techniques.

~ Corrie

Corrie Jones Shows Us How : Video!

Corrie Jones has such a light-hearted and whimsical signature style.  In this video she makes a layout using a single piece of white cardstock, adding background layers of gesso, watercolor, stitching, and rub-ons and uses layers of embellishments to finish.  Watch Corrie's process below!

Thank you Corrie for letting us watch you make your beautiful works of art!

Valentine Cards

I have a theory about Valentine's Day and sometimes I think I may be a little "grinchy".  But my thought about Valentine's Day is that it is silly.  I mean, if you only tell those you love that you love them on one day each year, something is really, really wrong!  This is probably one of the reasons my hubby fell for me (just kidding) because I have never wanted him to buy me a gift for Valentine's Day.

But we have kiddos now and although we tell them every day how much we love them, they WANT Valentine cards, and candy and gifts.  I guess it is the kid in them.  I guess I don't blame them.  Candy is pretty awesome.

But being a scrapbooker, I cannot just buy them cards, well, I can and often do because I am not a cardmaker, but not this year!!  Nope, this year I am stuck inside my house because of ice and snow, so I made them Valentine cards.  Thankfully the Jenni Bowlin February kit was on my desk and worked PERFECTLY for this task!

One for each.  I love the colors.  I hope they like them.  Now to try to get to the store for some candy.  Walking may be the safest way!

Happy Valentine's day!

~ Corrie

My 2014 One Little Word

I have been thinking about this one little word thing for awhile.  What word would be one that I could focus on this year?  There were so many that I could choose...  discipline, love, intentional...  The list goes on.  To wrap it all up in one word...

hmmm...

Well, I chose one.

Care.

I thought about taking care, caring about, careful...  Care seemed to sum up everything I needed to do this year.  Care about my girls, my husband, my house, my commitments.  Care about my job, my creative side, my emotions.  Care about my community, my friends, and what I can do.  Care seemed intentional and disciplined and focused to me.  So that is what I am setting out to do in 2014.  Care.

To create one page about "care" seemed to big of a project, so I focused this on the caring for my girls part.

I used the January kits for this page.  The alphas  and flower and parts of the transparencies and the vellum pockets.  The "OLW" was punched out of some of the awesome Lisa Dickinson exclusive paper.  The background I created using Chewing Gum and Speckled Egg re-inkers.

So here I go.  Off to live this year.  Remembering to intentionally care each day.

What is your One Little Word?

~ Corrie

Summer lovin'

I have that song in my head now.  You know, the one from the movie Grease.  When Sandy and Danny don't know they are at the same high school and they are telling their friends about their summer.  Okay, enough of that.

I love me some summer!  And so does my youngest girl.  We are cut from the same mold on this one.  Summer is hot and sunny and awesome.  This is her via Instagram, enjoying summer.

I used the July kits for this page.  I love the colors in Lisa's exclusive papers in the papercrafting kit. I used those and the stencil from Artisian add on to create the background.

These yellow sequins are a favorite embellishment and I used up every single one this month.  How could I not??  They are the cutest!!

I tacked down these acrylic letters using my sewing machine.  They are just fun and colorful.  Perfect for a summer page.

Thank goodness it is summertime right now.  I will have pictures to scrapbook all year long with as many as I am taking.  I hope you are loving your summertime too!  

~ Corrie

More Jenni Bowlin and Fiskars!

I am loving all the inspiration with the team up of Jenni Bowlin and Fiskars!  So much awesome-ness.  Today, I am going to show you a little fun with Jenni Bowlin stamps and the Fiskars Easy Stamp Press.  I think I am a not such a good stamper, but this thing made it way more fun to play with stamps.

Okay, I pulled out 9 different stamps so I could make a grid background for my page.  And I used the stamp press to line it up.  I just eyeballed it, but still each image stamped more straight than ever before.

No measuring.  Just kept on going.

I am so excited about this!

Here is my page finished.

I love the grid and the custom made background.  And all the new Jenni Bowlin goodies like the flatbacks and the feather tags.  Well, and the rub on letters are incredible.

That's all!  I hope you enjoyed my stamping adventure!  Come back tomorrow for more inspiration!

~ Corrie

The cutest stencil...

The cutest stencil ever is in this month's paper crafting kit.  Oh my goodness it is awesome.  Have you seen it?  Here is the stencil cut file image to give you an idea of how cool it is.

I really enjoy using stencils.  There are so many ways to use them too.  You can use a stencil with mist or paints or gesso or even a pencil.  I also like to use them with some modeling paste to create a dimensional image from the stencil.  They really are a lot of fun to play with.

I used this month's stencil with some modeling paste and then painted right over it.  It is awesome for a customized look on your pages and projects.

I just love the texture.

Here is another detail of my page.

And all together!

These kits are FABULOUS!  Definitely snag one before they are all gone!

~Corrie

JBS and the Play Date Cafe

This week, Jenni Bowlin and the Play Date Cafe have teamed up and it was fun to get to participate and play along with them.  The Play Date Cafe is a fun color palette challenge, which is something I have never done before, and I really enjoyed it.  So much that I actually made two projects.  I just couldn't help myself.

Besides using the Play Date Cafe color challenge, we needed to also use some or one of the new Jenni Bowlin stamps.  Awesome!

I used the stamps for two things.  One, to house my journaling.  And two, for a cool background effect.  I like how the stamped images are layered over the brown and tan dots.  And I feel like my stampping may be improving some!  Yay for that!

I used other JBS embellishments like the buttons and such.  And although there was no green in the color palette, I could not seem to help pulling some in.

I hope you go play along with the Play Date Cafe this week.  There is a cool prize!!

Have a great day!!

~ Corrie

Loving Modern Mercantile with Corrie Jones

Modern Mercantile by Lisa Dickinson is just incredible.  All of my favorite colors all together in one line.  I love the colorful softness to the whole thing.  It just makes me happy.  I can totally see myself hoarding it.  My favorite sheet of paper is this one...

I love the smaller scaled patterns.  Plus I LOVE having them all on one sheet that I can cut out.  It is so much easier to store.  I had already used a fair bit of this sheet of paper and decided to use it all up.  I think it is a much better idea than hoarding.

I used up my scraps of this by punching the whole thing up with a star punch.  I had little star confetti everywhere!  This is happy stuff.

I love how the colors of the papers were perfect matches to the colors in my photos.  Just soft and beautiful.

I cut the word star out on my Cameo from a full sized sheet of Modern Mercantile paper and was pleased that the different Jenni Bowlin letter stickers also matched.

This new line is so great!  I hope you get your hands on some of it soon!

Seal Cuts with Corrie

The digital cut files from the JBS Mercantile and Jessica Sprague are so much fun.  We have been showing you projects all month long using our favorite die cut files.  It is amazing what these machines can do!  I will be honest with you.  The first time I tried to use one of these, I had no idea what I was doing!  Thankfully it was pretty easy to learn, with a little help.  (Thanks Betsy!)

One of my favorites is the seal stencil.  I loved it as a stencil in the kit as well, but as a cut file it was even better because I could make it as large or small as I wanted.  For this page I wanted the cuts to take up an entire page.

I cut the large shapes out of kraft cardstock.  Then I layered different papers and a photo behind the different spaces.  I found the mini patterned sheets of paper were perfect with their scaled down patterns.

Then I added fun Jenni Bowlin embellishments like the rhinestone stars, the printed tags, and butterflies.

The vellum feathers are a must.

And a little journaling typed out on paper and the banner stickers.

I love the grid look without being square.  The seals really add a little more interest to a basic design, plus they are so much fun to customize on a layout.

Keep checking back all month long to see all the other amazing designs.

Coca-Cola Santa Memories

Hey everyone!! Corrie here today with one of my Christmas memories!

Now that Thanksgiving has happened, my attention has turned to really focusing on Christmas.  The radio has been fixed to 24-7 Christmas music, the inside of the house is getting decorated, and with much groaning from my hubby, the outdoor lights are ready too.  I love Christmas time.

As my sisters and I have gotten older and had families of our own, my mom has shared some of the decorations we grew up with.  It is cool to have stuff up that I always remember being there.  One of the coolest Christmas decorations we had was a stuffed Coca-Cola Santa.  I did not realize how old he actually was until I pulled out this picture, which was dated 1977.  I was not yet 2 years old.

So the Santa is at least as old as me.  Crazy.  Back in 1977 he was holding a small bottle of Coca-Cola too.  That has been lost for years now.

I used the new Jenni Bowlin Christmas paper, some of her awesome vintage buttons, the bling stars, skinny alphas, and the quilting chipboard pieces along with a little Seed Packet paint dabber.  

And the Santa on this card I cut out of one of the sheets of paper totally reminds me of my Coca-Cola Santa.

So, I must admit, I love this Santa very much, but I do not have him.  I am not really sure how my sister ended up with him, but she did.  I only see him in the pictures she send of her kids with him now.  At least he is still being loved on because he really is very cool.

Have some very Happy Holidays all!!

~ Corrie

Back to School: Recess

We have been learning a lot so far this month and I think it is time for a little playtime, a little rest, a little bit of space to run and jump and be free. A little bit of recess.

Sadly, recess seems like a lost art at so many schools. There is so much time devoted to academics that kids and teachers do not get a chance to breathe in a little fresh air and stretch their legs. I am so thankful that my girls still get this 30 minutes of free time each day, but I know plenty of kids who live nearby that do not. Sad. I remember as a kid in school having a HUGE field and playground with swings and slides and teeter totters. Do you remember those?? My girls do not even know what a teeter totter is! LOL.

I really believe in free time to play and be a kid, whether you are a kid or not doesn't matter. Acting like one every now and then really helps us stay young, don't you think?



My girl got my love of play time. We see a playground and it becomes a NEED to visit it!



She runs.



She flies.



She plays. And life is good.

Class is in session all this month on the Jenni Bowlin Studio Inspiration Blog, as we head back to school! We are focusing on all things school this month so check back often!