Cocoa Daisy Hip Bag Hop--Emily Style

ETA Winner announced! Congratulations to Renee, you are my randomly selected winner! I've got the giveaway all boxed up and will get it mailed as soon as I can get your address. Email me at emilygpitts at gmail dot com!

 Renee said...

Love the text, such a great job!!

May 4, 2013 at 10:38 AM

 

Say that five times fast :)

Hi! Welcome to my stop on the Cocoa Daisy Day of Inspiration Blog Hop! You should

have come from Denise’s blog. If you’re starting here, be sure to go to the Cocoa Daisy blog and check out the rest of the team’s bags!

Here’s my Maya Road hip bag, inspired by distressed type, I used the Nate Alphabet with a permanent ink and stamped out a favorite quote. On canvas, I get the look I wanted, a little messy and grunged up.

I did the whole quote backwards so the part I wanted to be on the front flap would be where it needed to be. I made a couple of errors, but that adds to the charm, right? The quote starts about 1/3 of the way down the back side so I'm glad I did it how I did, it wouldn't have all fit had I started at the top of the flap. When I was done, I painted in some of the letters for bits of color. I really like how it turned out, but my daughter loves it even more. She's claimed it for college. And I'm fine with that. I think the message is wonderful for setting out into the world!

Here's the whole quote:

For my giveaway, I’ve got paper, stamps, alphabet stickers, some trim, and a mini book. The collection has a very masculine feel, perfect for upcoming Father's Day scrapping.  Please leave a comment with your favorite quote, and if you LIKE the Cocoa Daisy Facebook page and let me know, I’ll enter you a second time in my drawing! I’ll be closing the drawing on Monday the 6th of May at 8 AM EST. I’ll announce the winner here later on Monday. Make sure I can get ahold of you easily.

Good luck! And have fun on the rest of the hop, I'm truly amazed at the talent and diversity on the Cocoa Daisy team, we really have an awesom group of ladies!

Now it’s on to Jaime's blog. I hope you’ve been inspired by my bag!

Here’s a master list if you started in the middle:

1. Alissa Fast

2. Anna Bjorkland

3. Ashley Calder

4. Denise Morrison

5. Emily Pitts YOU ARE HERE

6. Jaime Warren

7. Jody Ferlaak

8. Kim Stewart

9. Lisa Saunders

10. Mandie Pierce

11. Mandy Koeppen

12. Mandy Kay Starner

13. Sharmaine Kruijver

14. Stephanie Wheeler

NSD–Scrapbook and Cards Today Style

I'm so happy to be a part of this great day over at Scrapbook and Cards Today. It's become an annual tradition of inspiration, prizes, and this year, a cool surprise indeed! Make sure you head over every hour, there will be a new post up when the clock strikes twelve. Starting at 8 AM Eastern (note time change, too much to pack into 12 hours, we had to start even earlier), all the way until 9 PM, you have chances to win very generous giveaways from our sponsors. 

My hour is 1 PM and I've got an easy Photoshop trick for you. My hour's manufacturing sponsor is Maya Road, and since I work for them, Caroline let me pick what the giveaway would be. So I picked some of my favorite things, narrowed them down and here you are!

We'd love to have you stop by every hour, but if life gets in the way, you've got a week to enter each of the drawings. Pretty sweet deal, don't you think?

Jamming out with Cocoa Daisy

Here we are, Cocoa Daisy's May kit, Record Label. Can you tell I had fun with this kit? :) I love scrapbooking but sometimes I can take HOURS to design a page. That part, I don't love. But happy me, I got each of these pages done in an hour or less. It was just easy. It was bright and cheery, but you could also go very soft and subdued. There was so much retro funk to this kit, or you could ignore that and keep it pretty modern. I was just amazed at how versatile this month was. Loved it! So if you haven't yet hit BUY with these kits, I highly suggest you do that soon. I got the main as well as Johnny B., Buddy, and Chuck. All very good add ons indeed.

This is Ethan at an orchestra concert, perfect picture to correspond with the conversation we had with Annie about how all of his favorite "bands" are really old. He doesn't share her love of Classic Rock bands, but he does go for old music. I love my kids.

I used Record Label, Johnny B, Buddy, and Chuck.

This is my beautiful new nephew, Gabriel. I'm so happy for my sister and her family, he's such a blessing! I used mostly the Chuck add on for this, I love the Jillibean Soup Placemats paper, the possibilities are endless!

And finally, a really fun week spent with my daughter creating the perfect prom dress. It was months in the planning and to have the dress turn out exactly like she'd hoped and just as I'd imagined, totally cool! The dance step stamp was designed just for me by our talented graphic designer, Stephanie Wheeler. It was fun to see the whole thing come together!

I used Record Label, Johnny B, and Buddy.

 

The stamps this month were amazing! You should be a stamp subscriber so you don't miss out on any of them :) ever. Hello, Hipster glasses?

And finally.

Tomorrow is our Day of Inspiration over at Cocoa Daisy. We've got games, a challenge, a blog hop, and lots of inspiration all day, so please spend some time chatting with us. It's going to be low key but lots of fun.

And we've got a little contest going, you could win something pretty cool! And your friend might win something too. See the blog for details.

colouring it up with the colour suite

Hello! Happy SPRING (it's snowing as I write this, I'm shooting for the power of suggestion by capitalizing the spring...)!

My friend Summer Fullerton does a monthly challenge on the Scrapbook and Cards Today blog which is an offshoot of her column in the same magazine. She asked me to play along this month. I did it because I love Summer. Colour challenges always freak me out. I can do challenges like no one's business, but colour ones are tricky for me for some reason.

That being said, I really had fun with this. The colours were super out of my box, but put them all together and they really worked well. I made this card and pushed paper for a couple of hours, nothing really looking right. When I finally added the kelly green "friend," it gelled and all was good in the world.

Supplies: Cardstock by Bazzill; Patterned Papers by Jillibean Soup, Elle's Studio and Echo Park Paper; Die cut by Jillibean Soup; Paper Twine, Chipboard, Mist by Maya Road; embossing powder by American Crafts; Ink by Tsukeniko; adhesive; vintage book page; font is Allura.

So thank you for asking me to play along Summer, I'll consider it again in the future! ;)

Note my Canadian spelling of the word colour, a nod to you Catherine!

investigating

I have really been blessed to do some fun guest design gigs in my time as a scrapbooker. I'm not very good about sharing what I've done for these gigs, but I'm going to try and change that.

Debbi Tehrani is a long time friend I met early on at Two Peas. We were both really into the challenges hosted in The Pub. I got an email from her a while back asking if I'd be interested in being the April Special Agent for her CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration challenge blog. I couldn't resist, she has put together a very unique site and it was so fun to put together a layout for the first challenge.

I didn't have ink for my printer and have been working madly on Annie's prom dress (ALMOST DONE!!!!) so I haven't had a chance to go to the store to get some new cartridges. Enter digital. 

If you go to the blog, you'll see my layout is a bit different than the one below. Paula, my wonderful genius digi friend helped me tweak some design issues I was having. I'm not the best, I've played with it a little in the past, but it was fun to dabble in it again. When I was on the Sassafras Lass team, Rebecca sent us the digital files for their last release, Sunshine Broadcast. I'd forgotten about them until I was fishing around for some stuff to make this layout. It was really hard for me to not add a ton of color, but I ended up really enjoying the process, I think I was able to remain true to my style.  

Still out of ink, might have to whip up another digital layout...

forecasting april

Cocoa Daisy's April kit, "Forecast" was so much fun to work with. Not color combinations I'm used to creating with, but I do like the results. I have three layouts to share, this first one uses the main and Wellies add on. It also features one of the 4x6 Elements from the Simple Stories exclusive papers as part of the background for my photo. It's the stripe and wood grain. I love that we are working with Simple Stories on this, the possibilities are exciting! This is about my friend Stephanie and I, she's our graphic designer, she makes all the stamps and the exclusive Project Life cards. We chat back and forth about the next few month's products as she's creating the stamps, it's fun to see them come to life!

This is the B side of one of the exclusive Simple Stories papers. I love how rich the teal color is! My funny son, he ate the whole a hamburger with chopsticks. He has a collection of them, waiting for the right moment to use them. I used the Elle's Studio paper that said "love you to pieces" because it kind of cracked me up, his taking apart he hamburger into pieces...

This layout was based on the sketch challenge for this month. You should play along! Annie came out of the bathroom one morning with this lovely flip and more than willingly posed for us. She's such a ham!

There you have it, what I created this month. It was a lot of really fun things to put together, wood and kraft from Maya Road, bright happy colors from Simple Stories, and lots of fun embellishments from Jillibean Soup. I got the Wellies add on too.

There are still a very small amount of the main kit, Forecast, available, the Project Life add on sold out between the morning and now, but there are a few Bumbershoots still available, so head on over if you like what you see!

And have a good one.

Next Up in the Weather Forecast: Sneaks

It's that day again, it's Reveal at Cocoa Daisy!

The stars have aligned.

Good times, be on the MB starting at 8 PM EST for chatting.

Come on over and say:

You can register for the message boards and join us for chatting and a few giveaways, we always have fun and you'll love this month's kits. We've got three add ons, plus the new PL inspired kit. It's going to be one crazy month--it's a full moon!

Here's a look at the main, all of the addons, and Day in the Life kit as well. This is the first month we've collaborated with Simple Stories and I'm so excited about how that turned out. Such fun colors and patterns, this was a good month to play with, it was just the perfect mix of Maya Road, Simple Stories, Jillibean Soup, and Elle's Studio. Lots of favorites all in one!

Kits go on sale to subscribers at 9 EST, the Day in the Life kit isn't a subscription, so if you're not a subscriber, you'll get to pick your's up on April 1st at midnight when all the extra kits will be on sale to the general public, don't worry, Christine has ordered plenty for everyone!

blogging monthly

I guess it has come to that.

I did have another post in the works, but it obviously didn't happen :)

Since it's the first of the month, I'll share my Cocoa Daisy pages with you. I'm so happy with how these turned out. I saw the storyboard for this kit and just really didn't like it. It seemed really pastel and I didn't care for a few of the papers. I whined a lot.

Then I got the kit and this happened and I completely changed my mind. I got the patterned paper add on, Line Drawing, and that really helped me, I used the pinky red Glitz paper on every layout, it was just the bright I needed!

Christine increased the quantities of the kit and add ons this month, so there should be a few left when the kit goes on sale tomorrow, so yay! :)

Here is my interpretation of Sketchbook, Cocoa Daisy's March kit, starting with a recent observation by Ethan. He had hopes of living on the moon. I used a cut file we're testing out at Cocoa Daisy for the background, totally cool how it turned out. AND now I have a bunch of confetti stars for another layout! Hee hee!

I sprayed the alphabet with gold spray paint. I think I'm developing a problem :)

This is for my sweetheart. He really is my perfect match and he is so patient with me. I am blessed. I used the City Streets Map stamp as a block of pattern, it works really well with the Jenni Bowlin dye inks. I'll be using that stamp a lot! It's much larger than what you see here, I just needed a small block. :)

And finally, Annie found out last week that she was accepted to BYU. To say that we are thrilled would be an understatement. I wanted to be a Cougar from the time I was a little girl. Even though both her parents were Cougars, she wasn't sure that's where she wanted to go. She loves being home with the family and I think going a state away, 8 whole hours by car, was a bit too much for her. But as her friends started going away to college and she saw that they were OK, she eventually decided it might be alright to apply there. That and EFY helped a lot. So now comes the fun part of getting ready! I'm not even going to think about the fact that she's going to be a whole state away 8 hours by car. I can't handle that part yet.

Behind that vellum below, that's the Wood Handle Stamp Collage and it's super graphic and funky and cool. My friend, Stephanie Wheeler, is our graphic designer at Cocoa Daisy and she does the most lovely work ever. I'm always excited to see what she's got up her sleeve and I loved this month especially much!

There you have it, three layouts that just fell together, layouts that I love, out of a kit that I thought I'd hate. Kind of funny how that happens.

Happy weekend!

cocoa daisy's double feature is double good!

Cocoa Daisy's February kit, Double Feature really performed well this month. I loved how easy it was to create such varied layouts, the colors were happy, and the embellishments were really fun to play with. Included in the kit is a 6x6 stencil from my friend Ronda's debut line with Crafter's Workshop. I tried to use it, but majorly messed it up, so be on the lookout for another shot soon :) But check out this post to see all the fabulous ways the team used the stencil.

The kit sold out really fast and I know why, it was awesome. But Christine has increased quantities for March, hopefully avoiding so many disappointed scrappers come next month.

I made a couple of layouts and a framed art piece. 

The art was for my word of the year, BUILD. I'd gone to IKEA mid month and saw a really great quote as you entered the store, I knew it would make for a great word to focus on. I also had this inspiration piece pinned and thought the colors in the kit would be perfect. I designed it in Photoshop the then transfered everything over to my Silhouette. It took some thinking and planning, but I love how it turned out.

The next design is about my wonderful sweet boy.

My son is always surprising us, this is just one example of that. He has to get up really early every weekday morning and I thought it would be like pulling teeth. In reality, he's been almost pleasant most days. I'm so proud of him. Love the exclusive flair from Ormolu in the kit!

And just to show you the versatility of this kit, not only can I do a boy layout, but there's just enough pink to do a girl layout justice as well. Annie has the most positive and lovely outlook on life. I think this captures her very well. I used silver metallic embossing powder and embossed the title I'd stamped with the Nate alphabets available in the stamp sub for an amazing deal, the sub is only $.51 more for two more awesome stamp. This is the way to get them. Our stamp sub has been wildly popular, you really should check it out :)

So there you have it, my work for Cocoa Daisy this month, such a fun kit, I really enjoyed it and if you're interested, you can add your name to the waiting list, sometimes a random kit or two will pop up after Christine has finalized all the orders. You can email her at mailbox@cocoadaisy.com and add your name to the list.