Happy Halloween

We hope that you are prepared for all of the ghouls and goblins to descend upon your homes for candy and mischief. To celebrate this much anticipated holiday, Pebbles has the cutest Halloween collection called Spooky. A few of the Design Team members created some projects to share with you. You can find these super fun kits on the Pebbles Inc. retail site.

I felt really inspired by the little ghosts in this line because of their fresh patterns and funky eyes, so I used a combination of Pebbles Chips and Candy Dots to create the same effect on the hand-cut ghost. The Spooky collection also comes with some really fun die cuts, ribbon and cardstock stickers. In the I Want Candy layout, my daughter is actually holding a wand in the photo, but I used the Trick or Treat sticker, backed with cardstock, to make it look like she is holding a big lollipop.


Marielle LeBlanc created these fun layouts; one to celebrate Halloween and one non-holiday related layout to show how versatile the papers are in the Spooky line because of its bright, playful colors and patterns. Not only were the papers perfect for her little trick or treater, they were also a great palette for the layout of her little boy and his first bout with shaving.



Ginnifer Maloney made this Spooky layout. Along with the awesome photos of her little ninja, she added many of the sticker and die cut elements from the kit. The Halloween title is also a sticker word from this collection and don't forget to check out all of the funky little ghosts.


Hope to see some of your Spooky projects soon. Happy Halloween everyone.

Friday Tip: Use those circles!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope that you've enjoyed the blog this week, and for a final posting from me this week, I bring you an easy way to enhance your projects and layouts. Everywhere I look, in patterns, punches, stickers and other things, circles are everywhere! They are such an easy thing to add to you layouts and such a fun way to create a "punch" in the layout.

With this week's tip, I asked the design team members to come up with some great ways to incorporate circles into their layouts. For my own layout, I used an ad from the Wednesday inspiration posting to create this fun 8.5 x 11 layout. I just love the way the way the circles really make this layout fun and unique. For me, the circles also have some hidden meaning to it, seeing as the title is grow and explore, the circles to me represent the circle of life that my son is going through each and everyday that he grows as an individual. I punched out the circles with a circle punch and also added a piece of circle chipboard to emphasize my son's photo. Here you'll see the results from using circle's in this layout:

Here are the layouts that the design team members came up with as well.

With this layout, Beth was able to incorporate the circles in her title, the flower shapes, the brads, ribbon balls and even the clip. Her papers even got into the fun of the circles with the flower shapes and the polka dot papers. Even though Beth used a lot of different types of circle shapes in her layout, it's not overpowering and it all works so well together.

"Motley" by Beth Root

In this second layout that Beth did, again, her circles are subtle, as when you look at her flowers, and the circle stickers as well. Very well done, and such a gorgeous layout!

"Today" by Beth Root

With this next layout, I just love how Ginnifer used all of the circles in her layout. It's such a fun layout and the circles lead your eye throughout her layout. I love all of the different sizes she used as well. This is a very fun layout!

"Goodies 4 sale" by Ginnifer Maloney

Finally, design team member Sophia made her layout with circles by making the circles a main part of the layout and one of her main embellishments on the page. This is a wonderful way to make your own circle embellishments on the page, as you will see in the close up photos that Sophia took for us with this layout.

"U & U" by Sophia Allison

Here are two close up photos showing off these great circles.

Just look at how fun those circles are!

I hope you will go ahead and add circles to you layouts, cards and projects as well! I would love to see what you come up, so please add your links to your projects and leave a comment! Next week, your blog hostess has a great Monday challenge ahead, so remember to stop by to see what the Pebble's team has in store for you!

Have a wonderful weekend, and enjoy your Halloween!
-Deanna

Wednesday Inspiration

Hello everyone, I hope your Wednesday is finding you all well. Today I would like to talk about where I draw a lot of my inspiration from for my layouts, cards and projects. There are so many things that inspire the things I create and in the world of scrapping, I draw inspiration from magazines, sketch sites, challenge sites and from online galleries. However, there are so many other places I draw my inspiration from.

One thing I love to get inspiration from is from magazine ads and from graphic design projects. You can choose to try to recreate the design with you pages, pick out colors that inspired you from the ad or graphic design, choose design elements that caught your eye, or perhaps it was the shapes that you found inspiration from. Whatever it is, ads and graphic design projects like the following examples are great ways to get the creative juices just flowing.

With this ad, I love the circles that the page has one it, and I love the big circle photo on the left side of the ad. I would be able to draw the circles and the design from this, as where the type is, would be a perfect spot to put your journaling at.

This is such a fun piece, the colors, the circles, I can really see trying to recreate this in a scrapbook page, and making it my own by using more circles with photos, and putting embellishments where some of the circles are currently. The possibilities are endless from this and such a great piece to inspire you.

With this ad, I love the design that the ad carries, and I can see trying to reproduce this just as it is as a layout. I love the colors, love the mixed title, and LOVE the flourishes in this. I love that the color combination is pink/orange/brown/black and white. Everything about this ad just screams "COPY ME!". With this piece, I love the different sizes the title offers. From this piece I would draw from it the typography, as it would be a great way to do a title on the page of a layout.
In this piece, I love the color combinations of the blues with the browns. I can see myself trying to recreate the colors in a layout of my own from this piece.

With this, I love the angles that the page offers. I envision this as being a layout where the photos are angles and the title being in the center just as it is on this page.

With this ad, I love the simplicity that the page offers, and again, the circle elements on this page. I can see myself recreating a page with this with similar style.

Finally, with this graphic page, I really love the color combination, and from this piece I would draw as my inspiration the colors. I love that it has the title in squares and I love the distressed feel of this piece. Well, now that I have shared some examples with you, the next time you are looking at an ad or any type of graphic design project (think packaging, movies covers, CD covers, flyer's, the possibilities are endless) think about what you'd pull as inspiration from these pieces into your own work. You'll be surprised with how much inspiration you can actually pull from ads and graphic projects! Happy creating!

-Deanna

Crazy for Sketches

Hello everyone, my name is Deanna Kroll, and I will be the blog host for this week, here at the Pebbles blog!

Have you noticed how much sketches seem to be everywhere to inspire scrapbookers and even card makers? I have been using sketches with my layouts for well over 4 years now, and most of the sketches I use, have been my own. I of course have also gotten inspiration in my work with other peoples sketches as well, like Becky Higgins, Becky Fleck (page maps), and from places like Got Sketch?, Sketch It, Pencils Lines, and so many more! One can draw so much inspiration from sketches, especially when you are having scrappers or card making block.

This week, I challenged members from the Pebbles design team to use a sketch that I made as their inspiration for the layouts that they made this week. Here is sketch that they were provided to use:


For my own layout, I kept my layout pretty close to what the original sketch was, and kept placement of everything pretty similar. I added a few elements in places that were not in the original sketch, but that is what makes this layout my own from the sketch.

What is great about sketches is that you are able to interpret them as you like and you can either stick with the sketch as it is, you can turn them around, or as the following two team members did - you can even change the size to what you would normally scrap.

As you see with the following layout, done by fellow design team member Celeste Smith, she made the layout into an 8.5 x 11 layout and kept the photo placement similar as well as some of the elements in the layout, however, she simplified it to her own style, and kept the layout true to her simple scrapping style."Nature Girl" by Celeste Smith

Another 8.5 x 11 layout interpretation was done by Mimi Leinbac, where you'll see she kept many of the same features that were from the original sketch.

"Blueberry Hill" by Mimi Leinbach

Lynn Ghahary's layout simplified the sketch but she also added simple little touches to the layout, like the button off to the side of her journal spot, and the heart embellishment added to the main photo. This is just a simply stunning layout!

"First Day" by Lynn Ghahary

Maureen Blanc made the sketch her own by replacing the two lower photos in the sketch with embellishments and also by simplifying the sketch to what would work for her her own unique style as well. This layout also adds some humor to it, as Maureen's title stands for "Baleen Whale" (and see where she has her Pebbles chipboard arrow pointing to....you just have to love her humor!).

"Baleine" by Maureen Blanc

I love the interpretation that Marielle LeBlanc did with this sketch. Her layout really shows how you can make a sketch into your own work! Beautifully done with this layout.

"Discovering" by Marielle LeBlanc

And finally, Suzanne Sergi made this adorable layout with her daughter and her pink bear. The way she interpreted the sketch is absolutely wonderful. I love the way she did her lower embellishments is wonderful and I love her dimension in this layout. She did a fantastic job with this sketch!

"Sweet and Cuddly" by Suzanne Sergi

I was so happy to see the layouts that the team created with this sketch, and I hope that you'll also play along with the challenge this week. If you do - link up your work to the comments section, I would love to see what you create!!!

See you all on Wednesday for some more inspiration!

Friday Tip - Stitching & Chalking

Today I will show you a very simple way to change the colour of your stitching without too much fuss. Sometimes it can be more of a pain to keep changing the bobbin in our sewing machines, just to match the colour of our paper/project. So, as to save time in the future keep your cotton in your machine to the basic white, do all the stitching you need to do.

Now the fun starts...

Pull out your {Pebbles} chalks and start to run over your stitching with the colour of your choice. Once you have done that, I simply used my {Pebbles} eraser to rub off the excess chalk, only the colour remains behind on your cotton...and voila, your have matched your cotton to your paper/project and nobody is none the wiser...

Here is the final project completed with the stitching in the colour of my choice to match my project.

Here is a layout done by Emeline Seet. She used a running stitch at the base of her layout and she added some colour to her white flowers by using the chalks.

This layout was designed by Maureen Blanc, of her beautiful new baby boy.  She used some stitches on the pattern paper as a border. Also added blue chalk around the edges of the layout, to give it a great soft baby effect.

Now, I hope this {TIP} will get you to sew more on your beautiful projects.

Wednesday Inspiration

I just love the inspirations I can get from Shabby Chic Designs.

The awesome romantic and softness it portrays. The ideas one can get from pictures like these below are endless, portrays a sense of calmness within us, which is when I find I can create more...no distractions of any kind.

I can see simple, lots of white space and very minimalistic layouts being designed.

Notice in each picture how certain aspects are highlighted in the pictures. As if to draw your eye to it immediately. For example if you look at the last photo above your eye goes straight to the butterfly swirl design. Like a single photo on a layout makes more of an impact than many.

Everything looks so dreamy and heavenly, like it's a place you could go and loose yourself in, even if for just a few hours.

The only advice I can give you is to try using these ideas on your pages, keep it simple with clean lines.

At the end of the day, these two below are what inspires me to Scrapbook.

I certainly hope I have been able to inspire you with this week's inspirations and get your creative juices flowing...

**Edited** For those of you interested in where I got the photos from, credit is due at Shabby Chic Blog.

Everything That Dangles

Hi, Sophia Allison here and I will  be your Blog Host this week, all the way from South Africa.

My challenge for you is to create a MOBILE to decorate your Studio or even your child's room. It adds a wonderful touch and you can make it with whatever colour combos you like to match with your decor.

You can add chipboard shapes (Chips), like I have. Bling it with jewels and trinkets. Simply add your personal touch to it..."As they say, anything goes..."

In my project below, you will see that I have used a wooden hoop, which I painted cerise. Used clear fishing nylon to thread the paper butterflies onto, Chip shapes, beads and jewels. This sure will add a great feature to one of my little girls room.

Liz Qualman made this little beauty from the Lil' Miss Collection. She focused on the super cute stickers that come with the line and stuck them to brown cardstock to add some thickness to them. Then she cut them out, tied them to string and attached a Pebbles Chips flower for some weight. She used an embroidery circle for her mobile frame, tied string and ribbon to it and then wrapped the paper design around it.

Michele Beck made this beauty below using Pebbles paper, ribbons and chips.

Samantha Sibbert used only 3 large butterflies and added the Chips scrolls as the butterfly feelers, what a great idea.

Look at this Fall mobile by Amy Sorro made with the colours of the season as a home project. Just love how she used strips of patterned paper...great idea!

Then, just for something different...Mimi Leinbach altered a box and this was the end result. Using the paper as ribbons twirls, adds a wonderful touch to the little box.

Now, I hope that we have been able to inspire you to create your very own masterpiece. It sure is a great way to use up your scraps you have lying around...

Come back on Wednesday for some Inspiration ideas...!