Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker and Ribbon Carousel Blog Hop

Is hopping with Ribbon Carousel today! 

We usually do not "hop" just swap, so it's a little different for us today!  All of our designers have some fun projects for you to see along the way.  And I am sure those Ribbon Carousel girls have some great projects also.  

There are some prizes involved so be sure to comment on everyone's blog postings to be eligible.  We have an InLinkz at the end of the post to make it easier for you to hop along with us.  

Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker will be giving away a collection kit of the winner's choosing and Ribbon Carousel will be giving away a $25.00 gift certificate to the Ribbon Carousel Store!  Winners will be announced on Saturday night at 8:00 PM Eastern time.  So you have a couple of days to get thru everyone's blog and comment to be eligible to win.  

We are so excited because Nikki got to play along with us this time.  She made an adorable matchbook mini album out of the Exit Here collection.  This a perfect way to make a mini without having a chipboard album.  (Maybe we can get her to do a tutorial on here?!) 

The ribbon package that we received to work with went perfect with Exit Here.  

How cute!  Now, if I can just find the time to make all these projects I want to make.  Could someone please find it for me, because I cannot seem to!

Ok, the InLinkz is below.  Make sure to hop and comment on everyone's blogs and projects.  We will announce the winners on Saturday.  Thanks for stopping by today!

It's Thursday and Laurel is in the house today!

Hi everyone! We have some amazing projects to share from Laurel today! This girl is just AWESOME! I always love her creations!

"Hi everyone, Laurel here.  I hope you are all enjoying your summer.  I sure have it has been a busy one with one vacation after another!  I am looking forward to a couple of quiet days at home though!

 For my first 2 projects I used the new Summer collection to make a couple of summer themed cards. 

 This first one is a super simple card that could be used for any summer occasion.  The sentiment is from The Stamps of Life.

 Flip flops are definitely a sign of summer and when I saw the pink and yellow papers in the collection, I thought of flip flops.  I used a template from The Cutting Cafe.  I adhered the pieces using my Zip Dry from Beacon before sewing and finally, embellished with some rhinestones from Want2Scrap.

 

 Next up I have some Exit Here projects.

 Our first vacation was a trip to Alberta, of course I took a lot of photos and am happy to say that I have now scrapped some of them!  I did a 2 page layout, the sketch is an older Sketch Support sketch, as this is for my daughter's album and she likes 2 pagers with lots of photos.

 Finally, another summer staple is lemonade so I used the Exit Here collection to make this fun lemonade shaped card.  The sentiment is from Paper Smooches." ~~Laurel

How stinkin' cute cute cute are Laurel's shaped cards!!??!!??!!??

 

Thanks for stopping by!!

Welcome (back) Delaina Burns, July's Guest Diva!

Our guest Diva this month is not a stranger to us and we miss her a great deal!  Delaina Burns was a previous Diva and we just had to have her back to work with the Exit Here collection.

I am Delaina Burns and it's such a thrill to be designing with Nikki's adorable products once again. I have been blessed with many design opportunities over the past 5 or so years, from Magazine pubs to DT positions.  Thanks to Nikki for this awesome Guest gig...she just happens to be one of the sweetest people in the great industry.  

Delaina's blog is Embellished Memories

Delaina's signature, as I like to call it, she loves circles and it makes this layout so fun!

And she also loves to stitch on her pages.  I love this double rounded corner square she did on this page, plus all the fun layers! 

Delaina, thank you so much for being our guest today.  We were so excited to see what you would create with the Exit Here collection.  We miss you bunches!

Would you like to win the collection that Delaina worked with, Exit Here?  If so, just leave a comment letting us know what you love about Delaina's pages and we will pick a winner and announce them on Friday, July 27th.  You have until Thursday, July 26th 11:59 PM to leave a comment.  

Melanie is our Friday girl today!

Melanie Jarocki is here on this fabulous Friday with a couple of card and a couple of layouts to share.  

Oh Snap Card

The camera cut-up from the Exit Here collection was perfect for this sentiment with belated birthday wishes. In addition to the Exit Here papers and die cuts, I used the red mini letters from Nikki's collection, twine from The Twinery, and an SRM sticker sentiment. 

#1 Fan Layout

My little guy gets toted around to his older siblings sports events all year. So I thought it would be fitting to make a layout documenting that he is their #1 fan. The Noah Collection provided the perfect game-day colors and images for the layout. I love all the die-cuts and cut-outs in Nikki's collections. They make for the perfect page embellishments. I also used my Slice to cut out the #1 and then used a white gel pen to fill it in. I added in some more pen outlines in red, white stitching, and edge-inking to finish off the page.

Celebrate Card

My daughter was attending a friend's birthday party and asked me to make a card for her. Her friend, Cora, loves ballet and bright colors. So, I turned to the Audrey collection for it's colors and feminine patterns. The ballerina image was cut with my Slice machine. I added some yellow tulle and beading with Beacon's 3-in-1 adhesive to make the dancer's tutu. (BTW, I saw Cora and her dad the next day. Cora told me how much she loved the card, and even her dad mentioned that it was really neat. LOL).

Always Layout

I broke from my traditional 12x12 format and made an 8-1/2x11 layout for this photo of my son. I used the Messages collection to match the photo's outdoor, masculine image. But because of the message I wanted to convey, I added in the heart images to form a visual triangle around the page. 

Well that was a lot of goodness to share right there!  Thanks Melanie for taking the "holiday" spot on the blog!  

Be sure to visit Melanie's blog also to see what she has been up to.

A fun tutorial from Deana!!

Hi everyone!

So happy to be sharing Deana's creations today! She is so inspiring!

First, Deana has a tutorial to share with us!

I made pinwheels for my cards.  They are very simple to 

make.  Cut a square… any size.   I’ve even used a full 12x12 sheet of paper to make a large pinwheel.  Then cut diagonal lines from each corner, almost to the center of your square, leaving about ½ inch space in the middle…  

Try to ignore the fact that a manicure might be a good idea.  Ahem.

Put a sticky dot in the middle of your square.  Take every other corner & fold it in to the center, without actually a creasing your fold (unless you want that look)… so you still have some dimension. ...

Then add a pop dot to the center of your pinwheel and embellish it.  Or… you could even add a brad or a button to the center.  The options are limitless!

 

Pinwheels can make fun centerpieces, too, when put on wooden skewers and grouped in a bunch and in a vase!  Could be a fun idea for 4^th of July décor?!   And the Noah collection has lots of red, white & blue if you want to try it out! 

~~And Deana also has two gorgeous lo's to share with us today!

"Dear Bryn"

I used the Exit Here collection for this page & added journaling cards from the Messages collection.  Every year I write a letter to my daughter to include as the last page of that year's scrapbook.  Usually it's a hand-written letter, but this time I thought I'd make a whole page... thus the title "Dear Bryn."  I used my Beacon 3-in-1 Craft Glue over lightly drawn pencil lines & then put my Pink Sorbet twine from The Twinery on top to create my title. 

"TWO SWEET MAY BIRTHDAYS"

Did you catch Katrina Hunt's projects on the blog the other day?  I was inspired by her pages that used multiple letter stickers for her titles when I made this page using the Exit Here collection.  Both of my pages that I created with this "travel-themed" collection, were NOT travel-themed pages which shows just how versatile this collection is!  In fact, it's one of my favorite Nikki Sivils' collections EVER!    

Thanks for stopping by!

Katrina with some Alpha Sticker Fun

Hey everyone, it's Katrina here just sharing some layouts with you!  I have one from Exit Here and a couple from the Noah collection.  Also, I am going to show you how you can mix all those fun alphas from the alpha sticker sheets that are in the collections.

We Call Road Trip

The dogs love taking car rides most of the time (as long as they don't know it's a "v.e.t." trip!) and they also like going to get Andy's Frozen Custard!  So, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of them hanging out the back of my Element in the parking lot waiting for their custard!  Exit Here was the perfect collection for this...since they are calling a road trip for ice cream!  (BTW...we have four dogs now, this was before the puppy.)  This is an 8.5 x 11 layout, which is a size that was perfect for the photo strip I created.

I love to mix the alphas!

Adding little touches  with the Cute as a Button Burlap Buttons and with layering the punch outs and stickers gives your layouts some interesting focal points and details.  

Snips, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Jetson loves to dig and I had captured these pictures one day when he was in full digging mode.  The Noah word strip was where I "started" with the layout idea and it grew from there.  The title was inspired by the cut-up snail that I think is so cute and had to use!  Titles are hard sometimes for me, so I look for something in the paper lines to inspire a "play on words" a lot of the time.

Once again, I love mixing the alphas in the title and the tiny journaling tags are a great place to add some of those fun mini letter stickers to highlight your title.  

I used the negative space of circles, backed them with pattern paper and then embellished the centers to make them stand out.  I used an odd number of circles, which always seems to work better....3, 5, or 7, etc.  I backed two of the circles with the same paper to give some unity to the circles and to also make the center one stand out.  

Spending Time with Dad

I love this picture of Carleen and her dad at the baseball game we went to when he came for a visit.  The Noah papers were perfect for the picture and I played off the stars all over the layout. 

I punched a few various sized stars out of some of the papers of the collection and used them as accents on the layout.  

 Once again, I mixed the alpha stickers.  These blend seamlessly between collections and are perfect for long titles. 

I hope I have encouraged you to try mixing up those alpha stickers you have in the collections and creating some fun and unique looking titles for your pages.  I will have a couple of additional photos of a the projects on my blog.  Thanks for stopping by today!

A Fun Mini Album with Exit Here and Melissa

Melissa Pablo created this adorable mini album, so we decided to give it it's own post!  She has lots of details and fun pictures thru out the entire album.  She used the Exit Here collection and the Scalloped Chipboard album pieces.

Las Vegas Road Trip Mini Album

This was a fun project to make using the Exit Here collection. This photos were taken last February when we went on a 24-hour back & forth road trip to Las Vegas. I used the scallop chipboard albums and also added a couple of extra pages so i can include all my fave photo from that day.

Melissa had SO much eye candy in this mini, that we didn't post a few of the pages, but she will have them on her blog!  So make sure to check the entire mini album out over there!  (she is making me want to do a mini right now!)