celebrating a WCS birthday

write.click.scrapbook. is turning 3 today!

and you are invited to our little party.

we've set up a delightful blog hop for you to enjoy.

first you're going to collect some letters. you can either start here at my blog and work forward then backward, or start at the very beginning (probably the easiest way to collect letters in the right order), which is alexandra's blog. but if you are here from donna's blog, ready to move on through the rest of the hop, the letter you're collecting from me is the letter:

image courtesy urban outfitters

next, you get to read why i love WCS, which would be because of three things: 

1. the very unique format we follow. the weeks dedicated to one thing. the months dedicated to whatever the hostess wants to write about. eclectic at its finest.
2. the desire to promote simple scrapbooking. i still haven't quite gotten it, but i keep trying.
3. marnie. she is my friend.

moving on, june's gallery is all about being inspired: WCSer by WCSer. we were paired with another team member and had very little direction other than, "be inspired by her." i was very lucky to be paired with alexandra sirugue-macleod. she has long been one of my favorite scrappers because she is so very neat and tidy, but with a dash of wonkiness sprinkled in for good measure. her card, seen below, is what i took for my inspiration piece. it was so easy to jump off from this point, my layout fell together in less than an hour. good for me. see? still learning to embrace simple...

here's a sneak of my layout inspired by alexandra's:

now it is time to continue on to the next stop on our celebratory blog hop. lucky you, that takes you to the blog of the ever talented and even more lovely fellow emily, emily spahn.

happy to see my friend shine

thanks for stopping by my part of the art of layers blog hop!

i met ronda two years ago (has it really been only two years, maybe it was three years?) through her blog. i had first heard mention of her through summer fullerton, who had a memory maker's issue with a picture of the recent masters, of which ronda was one. summer asked if i knew her because we lived in the same city. i meant to contact her somehow and find out if where she lived. a while later, i learned from an online message board that she had recently lost her dear sister chrissi and i commented on her blog that i thought we lived pretty close because our fences looked the same, maybe we could meet and she could tell me stories about chrissi. there was a 50/50 chance she would think i was a weirdo and not write back, but i got lucky and she agreed we should meet up at a nearby starbucks for tea. we instantly clicked, each decided the other was OK, exchanged phone numbers, and well, we've talked nearly every day since. turns out i was right, we live about mile apart as the crow flies, about 5 minutes drive. she's such a blessing in my life and i can't believe it took so long to find her :)

because we live so close, i often head over to scrap in ronda's awesome scraproom. i got to see a great deal of the process behind the writing of her book and i will tell you she poured her whole heart and soul into it. i'm so proud of her! and i'm happy to be a part of this hop celebrating her and this fabulous book. so many fun techniques to get an extra layer or two onto your scrapbook pages. the ideas are accessible and presented with great detail.

here's a bit about the book:

“Basic scrapbooking has you place photos and embellishments on cardstock or patterned paper - easy and...well, basic. The next step for most scrapbookers is layering. But trying to get that rich, interesting layered look can be very intimidating. Where do you even start? "Art of Layers" teaches scrapbookers and beginning mixed media artists just how easy it is to get to that layered look in any papercrafting project. Author Ronda Palazzari teaches readers 50+ techniques that will serve as tools to pull out whenever a layered look is desired. The chapters allow the reader to build their skills, from paper techniques they won't be afraid to try adding fabric, embellishments, and stamping to finally giving spray inks, paints and gesso a try.”

you can purchase Art of Layers from a number of vendors, including amazon.com, ronda has a list on the side of her blog. but i'd like to suggest buying it from cocoa daisy, a long time home of ronda's :)

i get to share with you a piece of ronda's artwork from the book, representing both our friendship and the chapter on stamps. you could try and guess the technique, but i think it would be better to get out there and buy this book! you'll love it! 

here's the hop list, please stop by each blog, leave a comment for a chance to win your own copy of this wonderful book. we'll each be giving one away! comments will be closed sunday night at 6 MST. have fun taking a peek inside ronda's book :)

Ronda Palazzari (you should have come from here)

Emily Pitts (you are here)

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Lisa Pace

Nathalie Kalbach

Kelly Purkey

Dina Wakley

Amy Tangerine

Lisa Dickinson

Birgit Koopsen

Ali Edwards

Comments are now closed, the randomly selected winner is Holly Preslar! Congrats to you Holly and to the rest of you, please head out and pick up Ronda's awesome book :)

and the winner is...

Source: sundancecatalog.com via DiDi Hobbs on Pinterest

thank you all for your sweet comments about my card. yes, it was done on watercolor paper, but i think i'll try it on orange peel bazzill next, just to see... the watercolors are opaque, they're a little richer in color than the regular transparent variety you can get. i like brighter colors. can you tell?

 Nicole Brenna said...

Like the simplicity and clean look... very cool... thanks for the chance o win!

March 10, 2012 4:40 AM

i randomly selected nicole brenna as the winner for the entire set of march stamps, so if you see this nicole before you get my email, shoot me one at emilygpitts at gmail dot com with your mailing information. if you aren't familiar with nicole's work (like i wasn't before this) you must go check out her work, it's gorgeous!

i hope you enjoyed the blog hop, i loved seeing what everyone created! and don't you love the new look of the site? i'm so excited for christine!

winner, winner, chicken dinner clock is sadly no longer available in the sundance catalog, because if it were, i'd SO be buying it.

with some inspiration

i got this facebook message from my friend kimberly neddo saying she'd found this fun inspiration piece on pinterest and thought it would be fun to see how a few different very talented scrappers interpreted it. sadly, the original source is nowhere to be found, so if you know, we'd all appreciate knowing so we can give credit!

kimberly, diane payne, mandie pierce, and sasha farina all played along, please check out their blogs to see what they took from the piece.

here's my version, i'd been working on a challenge post for scrapbook and cards today's blog about journaling the right now things and realized the layout i'd shared was from almost exactly a year ago, so i thought this design would work great for doing a year later version. I used only scraps on my desk, those destined for the recycling bin for most of this, added some ribbons and such for texture and journaled between the strips. i love how it turned out!