Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Recipe of the Week

Today I thought I would share a recipe with you. I found myself with a LOT of peaches this past week, after my husband and daughter went peach picking. I was looking for some things to make other than pie or crumble. I remembered this apple cake that my mom always made. It's delicious! She made it often when we were growing up, with granny smith apples, but any kind works. It always turns out very moist and delicious!

But this time I used peaches! I reduced the oil a little bit - to 3/4 of a cup, and added a little bit of flour a little less than a 1/4 cup, to compensate for the fact that peaches are less firm than apples and have more water. But I will give you the recipe for apples.

Apple Cake
1 cup oil
4 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
5 to 8 apples cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350
Spray bundt pan with non stick spray.
Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl.
Mix wet ingredients in large bowl then add dry ingredients mixing well.
Fold in the apples.

Bake in bundt pan for 45 minutes to an hour.


hope you enjoy!
Megan

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Double Page Layout Discussion

Every month each design team member makes at least one double page layout with the kit. One of the great things about Scrapdango kits is that there are always at two sheets of at least one paper, so it is easy to make double page layouts.

I think most people find double page layouts challenging though. I know I do! so I thought I would share a little about how I create my two page layouts.

I always start by choosing a group of photos where I have several photos that I want to put on one page. Then I look at whether they are vertical or horizontal, or some combination of the two. Then I start sketching!

I can't make a double page layout without a sketch. Working with a premade sketch - like pagemaps - makes things easy, but sometimes it's problematic if you dont have the right photos. So I often make my own sketches.

I usually go for blocks of photos, so I try to arrange the photos in a balanced way, so that not all the vertical and all the horizontal are next to each other. Another thing I often do, is size one of the other, to fit in amongst the others. So for the page below, I resized the horizontal photos, so that two of them together, and a little space in between, ended up being the same size as the verticals.

Once I have found a good configuration for the photos, I think about the rest of the space. I usually try to add something to contrast with the photo block's, well, blockiness. So for the layout below, I added a big circle on one side, and whitespace on the other. Then make room for a title and journaling - sometimes that requires reworking the sketch a little.

Finally, work with the sketch that you have made, just like you would work with a premade sketch - which usually means, some tweaking. Since I planned the sketch around my photos, it usually means less tweaking than using a premade sketch, but this layout is a good example of how some adjustments still need to be made.

I had originally put the two horizontal photos in the middle, but when I laid them out on the papers, I realized that I would have to cut them in half, and there was no good place to cut them that wouldnt totally mess up the photos. so I moved them. Then , I had forgotten a title in my sketch, so I moved the other three down to make room for the title.




Monday, August 29, 2011

Member Monday


I love this page from Lisa (pictures2pages). What a great photo from her DH's childhood! And I love the monochromatic color scheme. Gorgeous!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Sugar Kit Tips

Today's tips are from Nessa and Ellen featuring the Sugar Kit.

Nessa recommends using mini letters for you cards, too!


Ellen suggests making a handmade flower accent from the trim that comes in the kit with your Tiny Attacher (or any stapler will do)\


Also don't forget to get out those Shimmerz for the flowers.
you can make the white ones any color you want.




Thursday, August 25, 2011

More Spice Kit Tips

Today's kit tips come from Celeste.

Check out this flower! Celeste used her banner stickers!!!



Hand stitching is the perfect way to accent any page.
Celeste hand stitched a border here...



Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Get Your School Supplies Ready...

Because School's In is returning to Scrapdango this September.  And guess what the prize is going to be.  It is going to be so awesomely fantabulistic!!!  It is going to be a...

3 Month Sugar Kit Subscription!!!

Yes, that is 3 whole months of the lovely Scrapdango sugar kit shipped to your door for free.  So be sure to head to the Scrapdango forum and find your desk and get organized and ready for this fabulous contest to start. 


August Kit tips

Good morning!

Ellen here with some August kit tips from the team.

Today we have tips from the Spice kit.

Laura had a great tip to combine the flourishes to make one big one!



And Laura flipped over her buttons to use the Earth Tone side of them versus the shiney side:



And last but not least....Fussy cut like Laura did on this  layout...GORGEOUS!


Check back all week long for kit tips!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Sugar Kit Tips

Today we have some Sugar Kit tips from Megan.


First up, hand cut some petals for the gorgeous flowers that come in the kit. This way the coordinate perfectly!




Cut out the circle shapes from the Euphoria paper for awesome handmade flowers!
A GREAT way to use up those scraps.




Monday, August 22, 2011

It is Member Monday!

Ellen here. I just love member monday because 
I get to browse all of the AMAZING projects I see in the gallery.

And today I spied LISA M uploading some treasures. 
Check out her gallery here.

Here is a lo she did for Meg's August Challenge.



And Another one from LisaM..since I LOVE food
this one jumped out at  me,too.
She used Celeste's August sketch for this one.





KEEP LOADING THOSE LAYOUTS
FOR A CHANCE TO SEE YOURSELF UP ON OUR
BLOG MONDAY

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Wild Wacky Wednesday

Well, my design team has been such a fabulous job at keeping this blog updated with the Member Monday posts and fantastic tips, tutorials and inspirational ideas for you all.  It gets to my week to post, and what happens?  Nada!  Sorry I didn't manage to get the Member Monday posted, but what I wanted to do was reveal the August kits and feature some layouts from these same fabulous designers. 

If you haven't seen them on the main page or message board, here are the August kits.  These are lines from the brand new company, Authentique, and these papers are such high quality and so gorgeous in person.  You can pre-order these kits here.

August Spice Kit featuring Authentique Journey

August Sugar Kit featuring Authentique Blissful 

And here some examples of what my uber talented design team did with the kits.  These are my favorite layouts from each member.

"Beautiful Bride" by Celeste Brodnik

"Dyeing the Eggs" by Megan Aaron

"Family" by Ellen Sosnoski

"Everyday I Love you More" by Laura Gilhuly

"Our Little Furballz" by Vanessa Blythe

You can see the rest of the design team layouts in the forum here.  Be on the lookout for information on the next big Scrapdango event.  It's going to be fun-tastic.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Stretch Your Kit

I always want to hoard my kit when I get it or worry that I will run out of one of the papers before I get to the end of the kit. To help stretch my kit, I usually cut out large blocks of paper that are hidden behind other items. For instance, if you are using pattern paper as your background and are layering other papers and photos onto it you can easily cut out the background paper that isn’t showing.

Compose your layout by laying your photos, mats, other layers of pattern paper, embellishments, etc. onto the background paper. Then, lift up the corner of your layers and mark with a pencil where you can cut…this photo should make it easier to understand.
Photobucket

Once you have marked the four corners cut out the paper with your trimmer or scissors and save the large center piece for other layouts or cards. This is what the background will look like once you are done (you can see some of my pecil marks just outside the cut lines).
Photobucket

And the finished layout.


This idea is from Laura using the June Spice Kit.

I love the Websters Pages but I didn't have two sheets of the paper and I really wanted to fussy cut the lighthouse....so I used a piece of the coordinating cardstock and very carefully cut out the lighthouse. I adhered both parts of the paper to the cardstock using 3D foam dots to raise the lighthouse.




These techniques not only let you stretch a kit, they also stretch your scrapping budget….something us scrappers are always trying to do.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Member Monday

As I looked through the gallery for this week's Member Monday, it looks like Ginni is the only person who has been scrapping. Shame on the rest of us.

Look at this fun, bright layout of Ginni's grandson playing in the pool. Perfect colors and papers for these summer photos.

Congrats Ginni.

Friday, August 5, 2011

less is more

Sometimes a project doesn't need much....just a few things here and there and you are all set. I am one that usually layers and crumples and adds more and more but I really wanted to try and simplify my layout and this is what I created....



How often do you do a simple layout? Are you happy with the results?

Hope you have a great day!
Laura

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Just Beachy...and a few starfish too!!!!

My family and I spend a lot of time in the summer at one of our local beaches! its perfect family time....so when the June Spice kit arrived featuring Fancy Pants Beach Bum I was happy! I had a fabulous kit for all the great photos I have taken!

here is another layout I created using the June Spice kit....


To create the 'starfish' I punched the stars (actually I used my cricut) but you can use a punch, then I scored the star...use the red lines as a guide...then round the points....add a few pen marks to the star and then I folded along the scored lines....to finish I inked the edges and a bit along the scored lines....




Hope you all have a great day!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Sketch

Good morning ladies! Today I thought I would share a sketch I created (using delicious scraps' Spring Mini digital kit)



And for those of you that prefer it in black and white.....


And here is my example of the sketch using June's Spice Kit.....



Hope you all have a great day!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Summer is full swing!

Are you like me? Do you scrap mostly the season you are in....since it is summer I am scrapping summery photos? After a while do you get stuck on titles? I thought I would share a few titles over the next couple of posts to help out!

2 Hot
A Perfect Summer Day
A Taste of Summer
Barefootin'
Camping Capers
Dive into Summer
Dog Days Of Summer
Endless Summer
Fun in the Sun
Hello Sunshine
Lazy Days of Summer
Lazy Daze
Pool side
Pool time
Slice of Summer
Soakin' up the sun
Splash into summer
Splash Zone
Summer Fun
The Boys of Summer
The Girls of Summer
Walking on Sunshine
Wet N' Wild
You are my Sunshine

Monday, August 1, 2011

Member Monday August 1st!

It's Monday so it is time to highlight some fantastic projects in the scrapdango gallery!!!!

I love the design and the colors in this fabulous layout by BarbP! Love those stars!!!

And This layout by Rebecca in Mi is so very sweet.....the photos really stand out and I love the design!


This layout by Karennie34 is wonderful! I love it! That owl is so adorable and those photos are so sweet! Terrific layout!


come by the gallery and see all the wonderful inspiration!

Have a great day
Laura