Give a big welcome to our November Guest Designer Liz Chidester!

A quick apology to Liz by me is due.  I should have posted her beautiful work on the 15th, but as you can see, that date has come and gone!  Sorry Liz!  Saying that, I can't begin to tell you how honored we are to have Liz as our guest designer this month!  There are so many times I have admired her work in other galleries, and now we get to share it here on ours.  Before we show off her amazing layouts, Liz wanted to share a little about herself.  Here is what she has to say:

Hello, my name is Liz Chidester. I am 32 yrs old, married to my best friend and a mother of 4 adorable children (2 boys and 2 girls). I started scrapbooking when my oldest was born about 11 years ago and I haven't stopped since. I love the creative outlet that scrapbooking brings to me and I love the opportunity to document our family's lives. I am a cake decorator by profession but I love all things crafty: painting, toll painting, home decor, and writing. I am super excited to be designing for Nikki Sivils this month, I adore all of her collections and products here.

I have a sketch challenge blog which I also use as my scrapping blog...check it out!  www.thescrappiest.blogspot.com
 

 Now for those amazing layouts by Liz:

Liz did such a wonderful job on her layout titled 'Bee'autiful using Nikki's Willow Bee line.  Can you see she also threw in some of Nikki's cute brads and buttons?  

On the layout above Liz used one of my favorite lines of Nikki's - My Friend Birdie.  Liz did a great job of incorporating one of Nikki's cut outs for her title "Best Buds".  What a cute picture that is as well.

Ok, how cute is this?  What a clever idea Liz had to use blocks of paper to mimic building blocks like those in the photo?  Again, Liz is using My Friend Birdie in this adorable layout.

Wow, what amazing layouts from Liz!  Liz, you rocked it girl.  Thank you so much for being our guest designer this month.  We are so excited to have you.  You did a fabulous job with Nikki's products.  Thank you for the wonderful inspiration.

Also, don't forget today is day 2 of the fun Holiday Hoppin' blog hop with Spellbinders! 

See this post for more details and all the links!  You won't want to miss all the
fun and prizes! 

Until then, happy crafting!

Susan Dupre

All mixed up

Hey everyone,

It seems like I've been waiting for my post FOR-EVER!!!!  My last post was way back in August, and I won't be posting in October, so.............I thought I better give it to you with both barrels this month.  I decided to create several different layouts for this post, showcasing as many Product Lines/Collections that I possibly could & mixing things up a bit.

Here goes....................

12:  Boo-tiful & Pocket of Treats {title tag}.

Backyard Lessons:  Tree Love, Willow Bee, My Sweet Cherry Pie, Victoria's Street, Burlap Buttons & packaging (title tag), Cardstock Stickers (title).

fall glow:  Blueberry Hill, Ellie's Day Out, Tree Love, My Sweet Cherry Pie, Victoria's Street, Cardstock Stickers & Pocket of Treats.

Touch football:  Tree Love, My Friend Birdie, Cardstock Stickers & Burlap Buttons.

 Wide Open Spaces: Tree Love, Boo-tiful, My Sweet Cherry Pie, U R My Favorite & Pocket of Treats.

Hopefully I have inspired you to dip into ALL the Nikki Sivils Scrapbookers product lines that you own and begin to use them altogether in your layouts, cards & projects. 

Have fun trying to find these layouts in the gallery -- I'm not quite sure WHICH COLLECTION I will be showcasing them in {??!?}. 

Now.......get out that fabulous NS paper you've been saving for a fun day of scrappin'.........and don't forget to mix it up a bit!!!!!!

Have fun.
- jill

SHOWCASING MY FRIEND BIRDIE (and a lot more!!!)

SHOWCASING MY FRIEND BIRDIE

Hello everyone! When I received my package of Nikki Sivils' latest collections, I knew right away that I'm going to play with My Friend Birdie first as it's perfect for my kids' recent pictures.

My first layout features my daughter with her gang at a recent party that we attended (ain't the banners bring out the festive mood?!!!):

My second layout is about friendship - - a furry kind of love actually. ;o) Played a lot with circles, dimensions and layers on this one. Just a fun fact: I think this layout totally predicted the arrival of our new baby (gotta continue reading until the end of my post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). ;o)

My Friend Birdie is versatile enough to be used in non-friendship themed pages too. Here's a page of my son frolicking in the sun as an example!!!!


NIKKI SIVILS AND DIGITAL STAMPS

Just want to invite everyone to view my Nikki Sivils' creations over at Scrapstreet.com Magazine's this month. I got to work with Meljen Designs' digital stamps and I used Nikki Sivils' papers to complement the digital stamps' whimsical images!!! I used Henry's Brilliance in my CLIFFORD layout while I used Willow Bee in my HOWDY Card. Nikki Sivils' papers' versatility rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY NEW BABY

Just want to share too my new baby!!! He's Logan (aka Wolverine!!!!!), a mini-schnauzer (about 2 1/2 months old) that we got only this Saturday night at a local pet shop!!! We totally had no plans of getting a pet at this time (we were thinking next year when our house is fully constructed already!!!), but when my hubby and my kids saw him - - they just fell in love with him at first sight!!!! I just have to announce his arrival into our lives here at NS blog - - because I knew that you could all totally relate and share my happiness!!!!! Thanks for letting me share!!!! ;o)

Do expect Logan in my future Nikki Sivils' creations!!!!!!!!!! Until next time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have fun creating,
janis

Nikki Sivils and Pencillines sketches

Hello girls!

Last month Nikki Sivils has sponsored the Pencil lines DT and we had the great pleasure of getting to work on the beautiful Nikki’s papers in two amazing sketches provided by Anna Bowkis.

Today, I would like to show you what I’ve done.

First, sketch 196:

And sketch 197:

Sketches are wonderful tools for our creativity. Through them, we can already see beforehand where we position every element of our page and adequate the design to our supplies.

Sketches are also very versatile. We can adapt them, turn over, invert, increase or decrease its size, substitute elements, accentuate one or another, adapting them to our style.

It is right that when making use of the sketches, we end up obtaining new designs for our works, making them more creative.

I hope you liked these amazing sketches!

See ya!
Larissa

Love, love, love...

Sarah here with my first official blog post as a member of the Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker design team!! I still can't believe I am a part of this team!! I wanted to be a part of this team so badly, but in the end it was my husband who talked me into applying. He was right and has given me so much support over the years I don't know what I would do without him. You gotta love husbands for that!

Last week I was lucky enough to spend three whole days at CHA with Nikki, Dan, Lanie, Susan and Rae. I had a blast and everyone was so nice and fun to hang out with. Nikki is the sweetest and just a little bit taller than me (I am about 5 feet, well maybe 4'11", but I like to round up ;)) so just another reason to like her! And I have to say if you think the new collections look good on the internet, wait until you see them in person!!!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE {triple heart} love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a few projects I created with some classic (it's not "old" to me!) and some new collections:

First up is the Blueberry Hill collection-

A Little Green Thumb

Blueberry Hill 3 inch mini cards (set of 6)

I used the Blueberry Hill 12x12 patterned paper, 6x6 mini pad, blueberry cut ups and cardstock stickers for these projects.


Up next is two cards from the Willow Bee collection-

Bee Kind Card

Bee Happy Card

I used the Willow Bee 12 x 12 patterned paper, mini pad, and Willow Bee clear acrylic stamps. Oh and see that striped paper strip on the Bee Happy card? I cut that from one of the burlap button packages. Even the packaging is too cute not to scrap with!!!

And lastly the Boo-tiful collection-

OK, ok, so you are probably thinking it is a little early for halloween, but I couldn't resist!! These Boo-tiful papers are just too "Boo-tiful" to pass up!

Boo Card

Trick or Treat Card

On these I used the Boo-tiful cut ups and mini pad.

Thanks for stopping by!!! ~~~~ Sarah

Dreamer

Howdy! Michelle Bertuzzi here. Hope you all are enjoying this great day! Who's getting ready to go to CHA? There will be lots of new Nikki Sivils products to drool from.

I'm sharing 3 projects with ya' all today using the super cute irresistible Willow Bee collection.
First project is a layout about myself. Yes, I'm a dreamer. It's free so why not take it. :)


My second project is this little bird house. Perfect to use for those scraps that you have hanging around. I painted the wooden bird house with white paint (perfect cover up for those teeny tiny mistakes you'll make with measuring the papers) and brown paint for the fence. I then covered it with this beautiful A Good Place to B and Bee Strips. I pierced the sunflower from the same Bee Strips paper to create dimensions in front of the bird house as well as the clouds. Embellish it however you like. This bird house is available at any Michaels' store.

This 3rd project is a layout of my youngest son. He's happy as a bee so the Willow Bee is so perfect for him and these silly photos.



So glad you popped over!
Have a wonderful time for all of you attending the CHA and give Nikki a big kiss from muah!
Enjoy the rest of this beautiful week!

Summer cards

Hello everyone! I’m Lea Albers and this is my first blog post as a Doghouse Diva! This month I am excited to share a little project and two cards with you!

The new products are underway and are located somewhere between America and the Netherlands. So this month I used the familiar Willow Bee and My Sweet Cherry Pie Papers.I painted a flowerpot with acrylic paint in a nice blue color, and filled it with potting soil. I’ve used my Nestabilities to make a lid. On the top cut out flowers and a bee. In the plastic bag are the flower seeds.
Adding a matching card, also made with the Willow Bee Papers. On the card I’ve used some bling bling! A nice gift, I thought so.

For the next Card I used the easy-cut-ups from my Sweet Cherry Pie. The Card is clean and simple. Except the cutout parts I only used some 'Glossy accents' and a pearl for the spot on the Cherry.

Until next month, I'll let you see some projects made with the new products.

Enjoy the weekend!

Bee Mine page step-by-step instructions

Today, I´ll show you step by step instrucions on how to do  this layout, “Bee Mine”, where I used Willow Bee collection and added a lot of three dimensional elements .

Instructions:

Cut out a honeycomb piece of paper from the Willow Bee paper.

Glue this cutout on the black background paper and retort the sides, leaving around 1/4 inches  of edge

 Next, position 2 letters “ z” taken from an alphabet and sprinkle yellow spray on.

Cut out 2 paper bees from Nikki Sivils’ Cutie cut ups paper and glue to the page, on the top right hand corner. 

Sew it as shown

Next, cut a rectangle (size 4 1/2 X  91/4 inches) and sew it to the page. Cut out a 8 inches strip from Nikki Sivils’ Bee strips paper and glue it to your project.

Cut out a piece from " A Good Place 2 B" paper

Adhere it to your project and also glue a plaid strip of paper and the honeycomb

Next, cut out all these elements: a blue journaling tag, 4 varied size sunflowers with stem, 3 halves of sunflowers, 4 varied size bees, 2 small clouds, 1 journaling tag cloud and 1 journaling tag sunflower

Add another strip of paper, the journaling tags and flowers with 3-D tape as shown 

Add glitter to the head, antenna and buns of  your bees. Also add stickles to the wings of the bees and puffy paint to your clouds.

Next, adhere sunflower halves to the page. One in the top part and another in the bottom, next to the journaling tag. The top one you should glue it with 3-D  tape and there´s also another one next to the honeycomb.

Glue other bees and clouds to the page and the sunflowers with stem (3 in the bottom, reversed and 1 on the right side next to the journaling tag cloud)

Add the photo corner  to the page.

Cut out two honeycombs with little bees from Nikki Sivils’ Willow Bee´s Cutie Cut- UPs paper .

Throw black glitter and take off the excess with a fine brush. Let it dry

Use a template taken from the inside of a honeycomb and cut out your pictures in the same hexagonal shape

Using the same template, cut out from a black cardstock paper two hexagonal boxes which will guarantee a special volume and shading to your page

Glue the inside parts from the honeycomb you prepared, on the top part of your hexagonal little box, and close all the sides of the box.

Glue the little boxes to the page. (For those of you who don’t want such a big volume  you  can  just glue the honeycombs with 3-D tape)

Next, with an open pair of scissors, it’s necessary to roll up a little the paper strips taken from Nikki Sivils´ Bee strips paper and add bees to its ends.

 Add ribbon to the stems and leaves of the sunflowers and your tittle.

Have a nice day! 
Larissa