Star Trek Blog Hop: Cupcakes!

I'm so excited to be participating in Katie's Star Trek blog hop today! There are many other bloggers with great projects. To find the whole list, scroll to the bottom of this post. I'm happy to share with you my project, Star Trek-themed cupcakes! I've included a tutorial for several designs below!

Star Trek Uniform:

1. Ice in red, blue, or gold (eat the redshirts first!) The easiest was to get a smooth cupcake is to ice a very thick layer on first, making sure you go all the way to the edges, and then hold your spatula vertically against the cupcake and scrape off excess icing from the sides. Then, hold your spatula level horizontally with the top of the cupcake and very lightly skim across it for a smooth finish. 

2. The uniform details are quite easy, just a black triangle for the top and pipe on the insignia!

Star Trek Enterprise:

1. This cupcake is more show than tell, so ice the cupcake (as discussed in the previous tutorial), and then, using grey icing, pipe on the general outline of the enterprise. Fill in the shape.

2. Using black icing, add teeny details on the various parts of the ship.

Star Trek Faces:

1. Ice in skin-colored icing. Then pipe on the facial details. I found it easiest to pipe in this order: hair, face, eyebrows. Easy-peasy!

TIPS:

1. You can use a toothpick to mark out a pattern for piping. I did this with Kirk and Spock's hair and found it very helpful.

2. Get crafty and make speech bubbles! Our quotes are from the new series and were a cute addition to the Starfleet uniform cupcakes.

Thanks for reading! 

-Taylor

Bloggers Participating in the blog hop:
• Katie- Punk Projects
• Taylor- This Memorable Life
• Megan- The Nerd Nest
• Mandy- Chocolate and Cream Cake
• Kam- Campfire Chic
• Regena- The Distracted Domestic
• Melissa- Scrappy Jedi
• Emily- Oh! Emily Made That

National Scrapbook Day

Katie and I did a bit of scrapbooking and card making today. I've been trying to use up my stash a bit so I used a lot of paper scraps in these projects.

Layout for Creating Keepsakes Paper Scraps challenge, Recipe Challenge on Paper Lovers Studio and the Color challenge by Basic Grey.

 Card for card challenge by Basic Grey

Card for  Stamped Background Challenge at Studio Calico

Card for the  5 Patterned Papers Challenge by Studio Calico

Happy National Scrapbook day! Challenges are super inspiring to me and there were a ton to choose from today. :)

-Taylor

Scrapbooking on a Bright White Background

Hello everyone!

It's been awhile. It's the end of the semester, a drop-dead-exhaustion kind of week. The end is in sight, but I've got to put my glasses on to see it. Okay not really, but you get the idea. I have managed to squeeze in a little bit of scrapbooking time here and there. I've been really inspired by the new Paper Lovers Studio blog lately. They've got some awesome challenges and freebies are always nice.

I've decided that for the time being, while I try and rediscover what I liked about scrapbooking and why I want to continue doing it, I'm going to make white my signature background color. It keeps things minimal, focuses on the photos and the journaling. I'm a big fan of white in scrapbooking these days. It's so clean and focused. So here are the layouts I've been doing.

This one was for the Paper Lover's "tough supply" challenge. I love transparencies but I find them so hard to use. When I made this layout, I discovered how easy it is to attach a full page transparency to a background using washi tape! If you look closely on the edges of the page, I used washi tape to adhere my transparency sheet.

2. I love how this layout turned out. It's exactly what I've been feeling in my minimalist-scrapbooker vibe. It's clean and calming, rather than overwhelming and stressful. The beach photo evokes calming, cool colors so I tried to mimic that in my page design.

3. Scrapbooking Jamaica! Even though Jamaica was my least favorite stop on the cruise the boyfriend and I took last year, I still wanted to scrapbook a few of the nicer photos. My journaling talks about how colorful everything was, even though Ochos Rios itself was disappointing and not very clean. 

I'm happy to be getting back into scrapbooking. I think it's the crafting I'll stick to for awhile. It's very personal and I don't feel tied down to any tedious projects. 

Reentering the scrapbooking world

I've been doing a lot of blog reading this week and I discovered I'm not alone out there in thinking scrapbooking has just gone crazy. It's become something it was never supposed to be. But still, I want to scrapbook because telling a story is beautiful. So that's what I will do with my supplies. Here's my first layout, my first jump back into scrapbooking. This is inspired by the sketch challenge at Paper Lovers Studio, an awesome new scrapbooking challenge blog.

I'm really into mint, peach, and salmon, so I tried to incorporate those colors in my layout. Since my scrapbooking is about storytelling, I've decided to share some stories here as well. My boyfriend and I went to Flamingo Gardens in Davie, FL, over spring break. It's this crazy botanical garden gone wild, mixed with swamp, mixed with animal sanctuary. In addition, it's got this island vibe (which really just means everything smells moist and on one is in a hurry to do anything!) that seems to say its glory days are long gone. Anyway, it was a fun, if not quirky place to visit.

I would say my venture back into papercrafting has gotten off to a good start. Any tips to take photos of scrapbook layouts with getting a glare on the photos?

Sugared Lime Spring Wreath DIY

I found this website, Design Seeds, through my sister Katie. Anyway, I need I wanted to make a spring wreath, and when I saw this beautiful color scheme of various limes on Design Seeds that I had my inspiration. I love how bright lime can be, yet in this color scheme, the lime is subtle and serene. Enjoy my wreath tutorial below and my take on these beautiful shades of spring green.

Supplies:

Paper Flowers

Ribbon Scraps in different shades of lime green

Plain Straw Wreath

Muslin or Canvas Scrap 12" long (to hang the wreath with)

White Acrylic Paint

Lace Paper Doilies

1. Paint on polka dots first. I used a cosmetic sponge to make my dots, but if you don't already have a circular sponge, you could easily cut one from a regular sponge.

2. Tie your muslin scrap onto the top of the wreath. Layer your ribbons on one side of the wreath and pin in place. 

3. Hot glue ribbons in place at the top of each ribbon. Add a lace paper doily on top of the ribbons.

4. Glue paper flowers on top of lace doily. Arrange the flowers in an odd number for the most aesthetic appeal. Three or five flowers will look best. 

5. Enjoy your wreath, hang it in the sunshine to greet your spring visitors and enjoy your spring!

Bunny Garden Rocks

Katie and I whipped up this project a few weeks ago. Toss these cute little rocks into your garden. They're easy on your supplies too, you only need white and black paint pens and small rocks or stones.

Draw on white bunnies first, then use a finer black pen to add on details. With other colors, you could easily make chicks, ducks, Easter eggs, flowers, or other spring-y designs.

What do you think? Have any decorated rocks in your garden?

Thanks Katie, for sharing this DIY!

Scrapbooking: Finding a new perspective

Sometimes we get discouraged as bloggers. I've been feeling this way recently and haven't blogged for a couple of weeks as a result. Sometimes it's hard to judge the response that you will get for publishing a post, or whether you will get any response at all. I apologize in advance if this post seems somewhat gloomy, but I'll try to end on a positive note. Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by craft things. There's just so much. Pinterest, social media, product shopping- all of these are online just to start with- and then when you actually craft something, the amount of supplies is just unfathomable. 

Why can't we simplify? The variety in craft products available is in a way, crossing the line from memory-making to cold consumerism. Why do we really need a million different letter stickers to tell a story? Granted, I love scrapbooking and craft supplies just as much as the next crafter/blogger, but at the moment it's rather overwhelming. It's not fun anymore. I need to find a new perspective, a new way to create, one without that doesn't leave me feeling stressed that I didn't use enough supplies, or the "right" ones, or just that I didn't complete enough. This being said, I'm going to try and find a simplified approach to scrapbooking.

I decided to just order some of my photos from Snapfish, rather than spending hours editing them on the computer and printing them in varying sizes at home. 4 x 6 prints will still tell my story. Katie has been telling me about Project Life and while I like the idea, even it requires MORE supplies, more consumption. I want to use what I have without stress. So, here's to trying a minimalist approach. One where I scrapbook just to tell a story. I'm no longer going to be so concerned with creating a "trendy piece of art." I'm going to try and find the purpose of scrapbooking again.

Has anyone else felt this way recently or at some other point? What's your stress-free scrapbook style?