Load 512 progress report

 So far so good. It always seems to start this way. I keep up just fine. This go around, I am really shocked that I have found a way to keep up with the daily prompts. I made it a point to have all of my page calls and assignments done for Scrapbook News and Review magazine.  Working on their staff has been awesome so far. it was a bit harrying at first, as is any job. Now I have a handle on the workload and am just enjoying being a part of the team. What did throw me a monkey wrench was life, as usual.On day one I was dealing with a sewage back up in the house. I haven't been feeling my best. The landlord asked me to show our house( it's for sale.) Little things here and there, but I have still manages to pull out pages.


Day one was to use a self portrait. I really dislike these type of prompts. Then I remembered I had a wedding photo of me prepping for the big day. So the issue of the self portrait became a non-issue. I used Paula Gilarde's ad inspiration challenge and was able to crank out a page with ease.

Cardstock: Bazzill; patterned paper: Basic grey
alphas and Stickers: basic grey, trim: Maya road
stamp: glitz designs with colorbox gold ink
mist: tattered angels, other: pearls, button, DMC floss, tulle

I am not 100% in love with the page. I liked everything until I got a little experimental. I painted the vine design with glimmer mist in the hopes of mimicking a design on the BG paper is was using. I then stamped the frames to use as journal spots. I have received many nice compliments about that portion of the page. I personally feel like it's kind of flat. It's funny how the parts you love are usually a miss but others rave about the parts of the page you think look horrid. LOL.

Day 2: I worked on my project life pages for February. I am no where near finished with those. I will share the full February pages in a later post. I know I am seriously behind with PL. Quite honestly though, it's not worrying me in the least.

day 3: My favorite page so far.  I have these HORRIBLY grainy photos of my new kitten meeting the family dog. Since these photos were a one of kind/ time deal, I am using them. I cleaned them up with photoshop the best I could. I used a stencil to make a custom background. Then I just layered some paint and embellies. The page came together fast. It's a fun page and I adore it!

Patterned paper: Die Cuts with a View
paint: claudine hellmuth; Die cuts: the Girls' paperie and
iloveitall- etsy; Buttons: October afternoon
Stickers: October Afternoon Other: acrylic paint, stencil,
and heart button

For whatever reason, the Beatles song was stuck in my head while I made this page. : You say "goodbye, I say hello..." It's time for me to go make dinner now. Check back with me later for the Mother's day blog hop and more LOAD pages.

Painted Out

  About a year or so ago, I would have never considered painting on a scrapbook page. Paint has become  a staple product in my arsenal of tools. I was glad to have it when I pulled out some Halloween photos from a carnival we had taken my son to. I always struggle with photographing him at carnivals. There are just so many people around. It seems like strangers always get into the shots. When I do come around to scrapping pages from events like these, I often find myself trying to come up with ways to hide the unwanted people in the background. Sometimes I use embellishments. Other times, journaling on strips of paper does the trick. For this page, I chose to use paint.

Frosted Designs Sketch #31
Basic Grey papers
DMC floss, white acrylic paint
Glimmer mist in black magic and tiger lily
K and company border stickers
Prima black ribbon
Cosmor Cricket tiny type alphas
glossy accents
 Marcella K large black alphas

 I just started the photography class at big Picture. So maybe the next time I take my son to a carnival, I will know some tricks to take better photos in crowds. Meanwhile, I have photos of the less than perfect nature from past years. I guess it's a good thing that I like paint!

Scrap Our Stash On the Grid Challenge

When most people think of a grid design in scrapbooking, they tend to think of photos and papers evenly aligned. Yet here I was, painting wayward lines in a grid pattern on a piece of cardstock. The lines came first, and then came the photo. I began placing page elements around it...some floating free, other held fast with a bit of hand stitching. The placement is sort of haphazard with a plan. Fussycut items are anchored to the grid while the eye flows across it. The page reminds me of how my cat was rolling across the rug...and I hope it gives a sense of motion as you view it. I myself can see him now, wiggling and moving, pausing just long enough to shoot me that imploring look.

We R Memory Keepers papers- grandma's kitchen
K and company yellow frames- cut apart
acrylic paint
dmc floss
Kiasercraft tiny type alphas
Pink Paislee alphas
Colorbox chestnut roan ink

  In the making of this page, I have come to realize two things. 1. I almost  never use a frame as a frame. I almost always cut it apart. Sometime earlier this year, I came to the realization that I am allowed to alter and use the items in my stash as I want to. So if there is something in your stash, like a frame, and you want to cut it apart or change the colour of it, go for it! 2. One of my favourite tools is my hole punch. Yep, just a cheap school supply style hole punch! It works wonders on many pages. In this case, I punched out tiny stars from the patterned paper and sprinkled them on my page.

There is still plenty of time for you to try out the grid challenge at Scrap Our Stash. We would love to see tour work!

Legos and Acrylic Paint

   My son is not very happy with me. The other morning, I borrowed some of his legos so I could use them on a page. I could not ask him if it was ok because he was still sleeping. So, I snuck into his room and got some. You may be wondering what I did them with. Well, I stamped with them and some acrylic paint to create a background for a Lego themed page. I had a lot of fun doing it, but I must admit, the page is busier than I normally prefer. Either way, it another page completed.

Artastic challenge- August Inspiration challenge
Echo park papers
acrylic paint
legos fussy cut from unkown papers
photogenix laser cuts-title

  My son was part of a homeschool Lego club. I wanted to make sure we took photos of some of the projects he made. After all, they are legos and are meant to build and rebuild with over and over again. 

page maps sketch
echo park papers, stickers and die cut
legos and number stickers unknown

  So now, the Legos are back in their proper place. I have made a promise to my son that I will wait to ask him before using his toys with paint supplies( no matter how much my creative juices are flowing). The world is right again and I have two more pages for my album. 

The First Set of Honeymoon Photos...

have officially been scrapped! It has been fun for my husband and I to go back through our honeymoon photos after 13 plus years. I was a little sad when I found them, though. There really are not many pictures at all. I guess since the honeymoon took place in the pre-digital camera era and the cost of film was so high for a young couple...well,We just did not take many photos at all. I guess it's a good thing those memories are so vividly in my head. Looks like I will be journaling those stories in the album rather than sharing photos. On the positive side, it should not take long to get the honeymoon album done.
  As far as our honeymoon, We spent the first few days after our wedding hanging out with the best man and his wife. It might sound strange to some, but we hardly get to see the two of them since they live on the other side of the country. On one of our evenings out, we enjoyed some music and barbecue at the House of Blues.

Basic Grey papers
Prima flowers with making memories jewels
white and blue acrylic paint
Sapphire glimmer mist
cloth with music print
Submitted to Scrapfit Weekend Warmup #11,August

The photos are not the best, but they are what I have of that night. So I scrapped them in spite of the bad lighting. Sometimes the story is more important than the quality of the photo.
  I based this page on a card sketch on the Sketch Support site. Since this was for the Counterfeit Kit Challenges Sketch swap, I chose card sketch #8 and converted it to a layout.

 I then stretched it into a two pager. From the looks of things at the Counterfeit Kit blog, it looks like I wasn't the only one to favor this sketch.

Raising Polliwogs

Last summer, we had a unique experience. We found some tadpole eggs in a local pond and were lucky enough to watch them hatch. We have raised tadpoles before, but they had always been caught just after hatching. This time, we had found the eggs, conveniently sitting on a lilly pad close to the water's edge. I scooped them up in an empty water bottle and we set up a habitat for them in our kitchen. Little did I know, our kitchen was the perfect environment for the polliwogs. Shortly after they came home, my son noticed the eggs wiggling and jiggling. Almost every egg hatched totalling about 30 of the tiny creatures! Of the thirty, most of them survived and were released back into the pond from which they had come.
  Now here is is a year later, and I am just getting to scrap those photos. Technically, I picked out the papers in this kit for my counterfeit kit challenge carnival kit. Yet when I saw this green print paper from echo park, it reminded me so much of frog eggs that I decided to use it right away.

 Echo Park paper with white acrylic paint, Making Memories Chloe's closet leather frame cut into part, Webster' spages green satin pleated trim, K and CO. Transparency frame, DMC floss, KI Memories alpha stamps, Inkadinkadoo circles and dots stamps, Colorbox olive ink, Autumn leaves red ink
Submitted at Frosted Designs for the Fabulous Friday Animal challenge

I stuck with a sort of green theme, mixing and matching some of the textures that seemed to feel right for the page. Since I had many photos of this event, I used many of the same materials over the next few pages.

Sketch Inspiration #232, white acrylic paint, green water color crayon, Meadow green glimmer mist, echo park papers, colorbox ink: olive and chestnut roan, Autumn leaves ink:red, KI memories alpha stamps, inkadinkadoo circles and dots stamps, Fancy pants grid paper,Making Memories leather frame by Chloe's closet, webster's pages ruffles

My favourite part of both pages are the hand made alphas. I followed the tutorial at the counterfeit kit challenge to copy the design behind some Fancy pants alpha stickers. It's such a simple thing to do, however, it's one of those things that I never would have though of on my own. I love how they look and have a good feeling about using up my stash.
  Speaking of stash, the original intent of these kits for August were to scrap some very specific photos. I am glad I was inspired to get these frog photos done, however, I guess I really need to figure out where my honeymoon photos are. Off to look for those and hopefully scrap a bit more...

A Kitty Comparison Part One

  Anyone who has pets will tell you that each pet has their very own, unique personality. My two cats are no exception to that rule. Each of my cats prefers to be held and cuddled in different ways. I decided this might be a good thing to document. So for once, the idea for the layout and the journalling to go with it came before the photos.  So last fall, I staged some photo ops with my son and both of our cats.
  I did get around to making one of the the pages last December. In the coming days, you will get to see that page as part of my post for Scrap Our Stash. For now, you'll have to be satisfied with seeing the page about Sweetpea, my female cat.

Sketchy Thursday's 8-4-11 sketch
Basic Grey max and Whiskers collection: Stickers,
papers and trim
Maya Road heart
Twinery twine in cappucino
Fancy Pants alphas
white acrylic paint
Smooch Spritz in spun sugar
DMC floss

  Sweetpea is one of those cats who can't get enough time to cuddle with you. You can hug her, carry her around the house in a basket, throw her over your shoulder...whatever the method, she just wants to be close to you and she is happy. Sometimes though, as in the photo, she can be a bit of a distraction during school work. She has a tendency of climbing onto you and then sort of draping herself over your shoulder like a scarf.
  In the next few days, you will see the post with the layout about Boo. He is a little more aloof than Sweetpea is. He prefers to hang out close by. When he does want to be held, he wants to be held like a baby being rocked. GO Figure! So stay tuned...

The Method Behind the Little Monsters

  I am in the process of training for a Marathon. It's not the kind you run. It's the kind you scrap. It's also known as the Mother LOAD. Over the next few weeks, we'll be training to scrap 26 pages over the course of 26 days. For those of you who don't know what LOAD stands for, it means LayOut A Day. Finding the time to make a scrapbook page every single day is quite the undertaking. I have completed two other LOAD's this year. During the first one, in February, I managed to create a page every day. For the second one, in May, I managed to make a lot of pages but did not get to scrap daily. I did learn a lot during both. The main thing being that letting go of perfection is fine. Just choose your photos and products and start scrapping. I have made a lot more pages since then. I find that I am loving more of my pages now that I have freed myself from making them perfect. After all, people are looking at your albums for the story, not your page composition.
 As part of the Mother Load, we were asked to go over our creative process. While creating pages this week, I realized that I have more than one process. I think this is a good thing, as it open me up to different means of inspiration. I thought I would share a couple of those creative methods with you today.
  The first page was inspired by an HTC phone ad that I saw while reading a magazine at the hair salon. It looked a lot like this one:    
                                                           
                                                     
So I snapped a photo of it on my smart phone. What I liked most about it was how the phone made the letter O in the center of You. I wanted to do something like it on a page.I actually held onto it for awhile until I came across the right photos. I ended up using a photo and hand stitching to create the O in Monster's.

SEI papers and sticker
Basic Grey alphas
paper trunk Black alphas
colorbox black ink

This was one of those photos that I had been unsure what to do with. Sometimes ideas or thoughts sort of stew around for a bit in my head.The same went for the paper( no clue how to use it), but once I got the idea for the title, the page came together. By sticking with the SEI kit, I was able to quickly select papers and stickers to go on the page. Paint has become a go to medium for me. I can always get the colour I need versus spending time searching for the perfect Cardstock. In this case, the paint helped tone down the busy pattern. I used to hang onto elements like the sticker because I felt they had to be used a certain way as they were intended. Now, I have no fear about altering them. In this case, it was designed to be about one person. I just chose to cross over the word "is" and write in the word "are" so that I could include all of the kids' names. I also made an error on this page. I wrote the date incorrectly. While I was able to wipe it off, it left a smudge. I decided I was ok with it, since the page was a bit messy anyway.
 Sometimes photos inspire me. Other times, I see a sketch and instantly know what photo to use with it. I tend to print off a bunch of photos and I have them in my albums in the order I want the finished pages to be in. When I saw the Sketchy Thursday 7-14-11 sketch, I knew at once which photo I wanted to scrap. I had a second little monster themed photo.

Sei papers and puffy black alphas
Cosmo Cricket tiny type alphas
dmc floss
white acrylic paint
Sassafrass chipboard number
Sketchy Thursday's 7-14-11 sketch

Having made the prior page, it was easy to find and use the same supplies. In fact, I often tuck scraps from the first completed page into the album right along with the other photos. Then they are right there when I am ready to work on page two. Having the sketch right there meant it was easy to pull the elements I wanted for the page from the scraps. The title took a little more thought. often on the second page, I will not include a title or will make a subtitle. In this case, the title is part of the journaling which reads " I could hear them giggling. So I peaked under the bed and 6 eyes stared back at me." The white paint helps anchor the photo on the page along with the shelf created by the scraps and stitching. A visual triangle has been created with the orange monster, orange writing in the journaling, and the orange strip of paper under the title.
  I have a few other creative methods that inspire me to work. Most of the time it's a photo. Sometimes, it's a new product or a kit I made from shopping my stash. What allows me the most time to scrap is the way I arrange my photos. I think that's something I shall have to photograph and share in another blog post.

Cool...Like a Fool in a Pool

  It's a fun title. The rhyming sing song chant of it sort of gest you amped up for a fun scrapbook page. It's one of the rub on titles from Fancy pant's beach bum line. It was perfect for these shots of my son and husband in the pool. My son was actually being quite the silly fool on this particular day. Apparently, it's quite fun to swim underneath a waterfall...which he then decided to do over and over again. I guess it's a kid thing. My favourite part about these photos is how my husband is always nearby and smiling. He's not one to pose for photos very often ( partly because I take too many photos). Quite truthfully, these are candid shots of him watching our son...which makes the shots all the more special to me.
  I went a little out of my comfort zone for this page. I chose to try some free collage software recommended by Club CK. It's called Photovisi.You just go to their website, pick a collage and add photos. Then you can move your photos around and edit it.After you are done editing, you save the collage to your computer and print.The only downside is that when you print your collage, there is a small watermark on one corner. I cleverly hid it with the ric rac trim and swimsuit style banner.

Making Memorie sabrina frames, cut and painted turquoise
dmc floss
twinery twine in carribbean
Fancy Pants paper and rub on
maya road Ric rac
Basic grey brads

The rub on and swimsuit trunks are from my July Counterfeit kit. I fussy cut those swim trunks from some of the fancy pants paper. The photo corners were my son's idea. I had scraplifted this page from Kathleen Summers ( see her page here- Fabulous 4th). Her page has photo corners. looking through my stash just did not reveal the right thing. I had this MM frame from the Sabrina collection and my son made the comment that it was a shame it wasn't blue. This gave me the great idea to paint it with turquoise acrylic paint. I cut it apart and did just that. It left enough pieces for use of my second, complimentary page.

We R Memory Keepers chipboard sign
Maya road chipboard brackets with yellow acrylic paint, gold pen, and diamond stickles
We R Memory keepers eyelets
ATD sticker
American crafts rub on alphas
basic grey brads

  This is a page of my own design. I placed the photos, in what seemed to me, a pattern that reminded me of the slide's shape. I also chose the road sign for that reason. I used scraps from the previous page with more fussy cut swimsuits. I wanted brackets to match the sign, so I painted them yellow and used gold pen.
  I can feel really good about these pages because I used up several things from my stash that, before now, I had no clue what to do with: the frame, bathing suit patterned paper, and the road sign. Combining the travel and beach theme in my counterfeit kit really helped me see these products in a new way.

* also submitted at Scrapfit for WWU#9

One Man's Trash is A Scrapper's Treasure

   Lately, I have been experimenting with a more artsy side in my scrapbooking pages. It's not one that works with every page I do, but in some cases, I think it lends a wonderful tone to the story of the page. This is one of those pages.
  I have the misfortune( or perhaps fortune) of having 3 pairs of jeans that have become worse for wear. So much so, that I retired them quite recently. Much to my husband's dismay, this did not mean I threw them out. On the contrary...they have found a new life as a scrapbooking supply. After all, he doesn't want for me to go out and BUY any denim for a page, right? So when I started pulling supplies for this page about my son and husband tossing a football around our patio, the scrap denim was one of the first things I chose.
   The next supply I gathered up was a small piece of bubble wrap. The previous inhabitants of our rented condo were gracious enough to leave me a roll in our top closet. I like to use it every now and again to stamp with paint onto a page. I think it was quite considerate of them to supply me with enough of it to last quite awhile.
   Now that leads me to the next supply. I am sure you are wondering about traditional things, like patterned paper or rub ons. We'll get there...just not yet. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? Which leads me to my next choice....cardboard. I took a little of the box my recent scrappy goodness arrived in. USPS boxes have this wonderful tiny corrugated pattern inside, once you rip off the outer layers.
  If you are like my husband, you may have a strange look on your face, especially given that, when  asked about what I was doing, my response was that I was scrapbooking some photos featuring images of him and our son tossing a football around the patio.  I can't imagine what he was thinking as I ran around the house cutting up jeans, stamping them with paint and bubble wrap and then with the utmost precision, ripping cardboard. Perhaps, he is wondering why I ever bought traditional scrapbook supplies. LOL I am sure you are quite intrigued about what I created as well. So here it is:

Sketch Inspiration #223
Scrapfit Workout#45-around the house
Paper issues submission-for the guys
Fancy Pants rub ons
Cosmo Cricket football tag inked with colorbox chestnut roan
Colorbok star epoxy sticker
Basic Grey brads
Fancy pants dot border cut from a transparency
Basic Grey mini marks alphas
Homemade mist-walnut ink with silver paint
Candy Apple red glimmer mist
white acrylic paint
denim
cardboard
DMC floss

I splattered some Candy apple red glimmer mist along with some homemade mist onto the page.I used some staples to attach the denim scraps. I had a handy chipboard template for the bracket which I hand cut from the cardboard( after I sprayed it with archival mist). I then began applying the more traditional scrapbook supplies. It's a fun page. The cool part about it...these photos all show my husband facing left. When I make page two, they will be photos of my son will be facing right...just like they are IRL tossing the ball. I am not sure quite when I will get to page two though. My black evening bag broke this weekend. SO I am off to recycle the gazillion black beads and wonderful hardware off of the bag. Wonder what I can make with those things....

Echo Park's Fresh Face Campaign

   Recently, I realized that I have a big love of Echo Park's paper lines. Each kit is so easy to use and most of them are very unisex. I love that a quick change of embellishments can make the paper have a masculine or feminine feel. Papers from one kit easily interchange and mix with other kits. Of all the paper kits I have, I find theirs to be the most versatile.Since I have such a big crush on everything Echo park, I figured I would give their new fresh face campaign a shot. How awesome would it be to be featured on their blog?!?! So wish me luck, sit back and enjoy some layouts I have created using some fabulous Echo Park papers!
   This first layout is one of my new favourites. I love the bold, bright feel and overall tone of the page. Every time I see " Swing Like a Demolition Ball", I immediately smile. I love how the rich colour and layered details  highlight these wonderful photos of my husband as he pushes my son and his friends on a tire swing. I hand cut all of the elements on this page.Inking the patterned papers and using the Bic Mark It's added subtle detail to the page. Lately, I have really been favouring my pens and stamp inks as an inexpensive way to add a more finished look. I used an EK Success punch along the notebook style paper. I wanted it to look as though it was really torn from a notebook, so I bent and ripped the tabs a little to provide that effect. Rolling the paper at the edges also gave it a more worn feel, adding another subtle detail.

Scraplift of Little Stingray by Amy Peterman for Club CK Scraplift challenge
Card stock: white- Colorbok,
 blue-Coredinations sanded slightly to show the core
Patterned papers: notebook paper-Basic Grey
all other papers from Echo Parks' Summer Days,Sweet Summer time and Playground collections
Ek Success notebook border punch
Alpah stickers- Echo park - green alphas from Echo Park's Playground collection
all other alphas from the Echo Park's Summer days collection
Arrow and yellow photo corner from Echo park's Summer days collection
Bic mark it's: Rambunctious red,Sunset orange,tuxedo black and Blue Skies Blue
SEI ink blue ink on patterned papers
Studio G orange ink on the sun's papers
DMC floss-white

  If you are wondering about the title...it came from some song lyrics. I love using song titles or lyrics on my pages. They provide some very interesting titles that jump from the page and capture your attention. This particular set of lyrics comes from " Write a Song" by the Dave Matthews Band. It's part of challenge#173 over at Scrappin' the Music.
  When you think of the colour pink, you don't immediately think of boys or fish. So this next page may surprise you a little. I chose pink as the base card stock, not because of it's feminine quality, but rather for how it reminds me of the Caribbean. It ended up being a nice compliment to these photos of my son feeding stingrays at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, Bahamas. The bright shade of pink with this fun combination of  Echo Park Papers screams out "summer fun". Papers cut into round shapes give the hint of bubbles floating on the page. I used a black pen to add a bit more detail and to refine the idea of a bubble. Hand cut fish also lend to the theme.

Scrapbook Challenges Sketch #240
White Acrylic paint
Card stock-DCWV
Bic Mark it-tuxedo black
papers,border sticker and Alphas from Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection

   Since the title of this page is feeding frenzy, I chose fun alphas over a layer of white acrylic paint. The messy paint and splatters of glimmer mist add to the feeling of chaos amidst a feeding frenzy. If you are now wondering whether or not to ever participate in a stingray feeding, have no worries. The stingrays are really quite gentle and are more like excited puppies wanting a treat when they see you holding that metal bucket full of fish.
   The last page I will share with you tonight is one you may remember is you have been following my blog. It features the only other female in my household, my cat Sweetpea. This page is the perfect example of how a few embellishments can make a page more feminine. For " A Pair of Roguish Eyes", I wanted a fun,yet girly page. I chose pink and yellow papers paired with prima flowers to achieve that effect. the use of an orange pen adds to the fun feel of the page and provides the added detail it needs without adding bulk.

Scrapbook challenges sketch#252
plum pudding spritz
martha stewart border punch on vellum
prima flowers
making memories jewels
chipboard stamped with a studio g stamp in colorbox white ink
K and co, wood alphas
making memories tiny type alphas
bread tags
Echo Park Sweet Summertime Papers
Bic Mark it in Sunset Orange

My husband captured this photo of Sweetpea peering out of the bathroom sink. It's one of her favourite places. She loves to lay init when she's warm. She also loves playing with the water out of the faucet. She is quite the little imp, hence the title of the page.
   I hope you have enjoyed these pages featuring some of Echo Park's paper collections. Now it's time for me to cross my fingers and hope that just maybe you will get to see some of my pages featured on Echo Park's blog.

Gingerbread Houses in May

  I'm not up to date on all of my latest photos. Then again, what Scrapper is? Part of my problem is more than likely due to my need to take a gazillion photos of every family event that occurs. This is one problem, however, that I refuse to curb. I love all of the wonderful photos of my family. I often wonder if my son will not let me take as many pictures of him when he's a teen as he does now. Either way, here I am in the month of May scrapping Christmas photos.
  Every year we make a gingerbread something or other. Some years, it has been a gingerbread Christmas tree made from star shaped cookies. Other years, we have attempted to make a gingerbread house( despite the fact that I am the only soul in the house who will eat gingerbread!). Despite the wonderful house cookie cutter shapes we have, the house always ends in ruins. It just won't hold together. So this past year, I chose to go a simpler route...the pre-made gingerbread house kit.
   At first, I almost opted to make yet another standard Christmas page. After all, I have a HUGE collection of holiday papers in my stash. Something else came to mind though. I have this Echo Park paper with little house on it. It matched wonderfully with the Pink Paislee striped candy looking paper I had. Kraft paper simulated a gingerbread base while white Acrylic paint played the role of icing. I fussy cut some candy pieces from an unkown paper then topped them with glossy accents. This made them look more like a real piece of candy.

Punky Scraps Challenge 16 Sketch 5-13-11

   I wanted a fun title, so I chose to use a variety of alphabet stickers from Echo Park and Pink Paislee. Embellishments such as the chipboard key from Crate Paper and the Echo park house sticker made interesting substitutions for words in the title. Faux stitching and Making Memories chipboard pieces embellished with stickles completed the page.

Scrap lift for May Flaum's " May with May" BPS class

  I chose to journal as a set of directions versus just telling the story. It added a fun twist and with the page elements I chose, these pages stand out as just a little bit different from the usual holiday pages I create.

A Journey into the Past

  If you are Looking for the Sketches For All blog hop, hop to this link...or scroll down, if you are feeling in the mood to read along.

  Almost 20 years ago, a tornado destroyed my Great grandmother's home. She survived and came to live with us. She brought with her a few things she had managed to salvage including some very beaten up photos. As you may have guessed, this was one of them. The photo matte was beaten and bruised with part of the photo missing. I had no idea how, or even if, I should scrap these until a recent NSD challenge at Let's Scrap inspired me to do just that. The challenge asked for us to scrap photos cut on the diagonal. Mother nature had already done the job of cutting the photo. So I scanned it, then set about to scrap the original. I matched the papers to the original scroll work on the matte. It's a wonderful black embossed leaf print over the chipboard style base.

Let's Scrap Sketch NSD#1 from 4-30-10
papers-Jenni Bowlin, Creative Memories, Basic Grey
Acrylic paint-buttermilk
walnut stain, alos used as a spritz
prima flower
making memories tag witj Jillibean Soup twine
DMC floss
7 Gypsies brads
Lace- unkown
Crate Paper banner
Basic Grey Stamp in paint-leaves
submitted to Let's Scrap, Punky Sprouts, and Sketches for All

The wonderful thing about my paper selection today is that each one was a paper I was not sure when I would ever use. The base is a piece called feed store by Jenni Bowlin which I received with a scrap kit. I liked the vintage look and so I chose to use acrylic paint to cover the feed store name, date and location. The red paper has been in my stash for at least 3-4 years. It's by Creative Memories. I liked the way it and the brown tones of the Basic grey paper made the photo pop out.  I am very happy to have made another page for my son to see in our family heritage album. I hope someday, he is able to share it with his kids. I invite you to scrap your old photos, no matter what their shape.
 Now, on a less serious note, I am off to submit this to a banner challenge over at Sketches for All and to Punky Scraps. I absolutely LOVE their cat button!

Day 2 of NSD!!!

First off...Happy Mother's Day!!!

It's been nice having so much time to relax and scrap this weekend. I have two more pages to share with you. Also, if you haven't checked it out,Scrapbook Challenges is having an NSD blog hop. You can start the hop here with Brynn's blog. The cool thing is that you too can participate in the hop by completing a Scrapbook Challenges sketch and then linking your blog to the hop. For my sketch, I chose a more current one.

Sketch 252 Scrapbook Challenges

Some items are from my Couterfeit kit for May
Echo park papers
prima flowers
making memories jewels
bread tags-recycled from pantry
recycled note pad cover, cut into circle then stamped with a studoi G stamp
colorbox white and chestnut roan inks
Plum pudding shimmerz spritz
making memories tiny type alphas
K and Co. wood veneer alphas
marth stewart opaque punch on vellum
Orange Bic mark it-faux stitching

I wanted to enter a current challenge while still getting a page completed. I love combining things. I get a lot of challenges done by combing them with others. It can be a challenge in and of itself, but it makes things a bit more fun.Which is why you may see this page at a few spots around the web like BPS, Frosted and Sketches for You. (hint: it will be part of an upcoming challenge over hosted by yours truly at Sketches for You). Since the word roguish means michievous, I wanted fun, playful colours. I paired them with pink and flowers for a feminine tone. My husband snapped this picture of our cat, Sweetpea hiding in the sink. She is always full of mischief but very girly...so I think the page suits her well.
  My second page features our other cat, Boo. He is one of those long slinky cats. I call him the contortionist, because he looks folded up when he sleeps. To capture the theme, I used bright colours and circus style papers. The paint and stars remind me of circus paint and clowns.

Sketchy Thursday 5-5-11
Sassafrass papers and borders
white paint
star punch
yellow stickles
My Mind's Eye chipboard frame centers
Colorbok die cuts-arrow and star

I chose to use some leftovers from some My Mind's eye chipboard frames. I wrapped them with thread and used them to frame the circles for a fun pattern.
  There is still a little more time to get in on the NSD fun. Don't forget about being part of the Scrapbook challenges blog hop. I am off to try to get a few more pages done...

The Wave Machine

   For me...sunshine means getting outside to play in the pool! Living in a warm climate means that I have tons of poolside photos to scrap.So, I was very excited to see that Scrap Our Stash's April challenge revolved around the sun. I started off by pulling out my pool and beach theme project folder. It is bursting at the seams with paper and embellishments perfect for scrapping water based activities. However, the more I looked at the photos I had chosen for this project, the more I knew that these were not the right papers to use this time.
   Sometimes the story behind a page takes precedence over a traditional theme. This two page layout was just such a case. In the photos I had picked, my husband is pushing a raft up and down in the water to create waves for my son to play in. My son has come to refer to this as the Daddy wave machine. So rather than use traditional papers with a sun or pool theme,I decided to make things look a little more mechanical.

I chose a metallic silver card stock as the base. Splattering it with Sapphire blue glimmer mist gave the appearance of water. I staggered the photos in a diagonal line across both pages... giving it the appearance of movement, like waves moving up and down.I painted some Maya road gear shaped chipboard pieces with silver acrylic paint. I used a tuxedo black bic mark it to outline the cogs and gears. This gave it a little more detail and helped them stand out from the page a bit more. To make the word " wave", I hand cut some letters from the cover of a paper pad, then wrapped them in foil. I used Stream alcohol ink( from ranger) to give the turquoise color. I visually anchored the photos to the page using strips of recollections paper. and hand stitching. To make the appearance of waves in the machine, I used a template to trace a wave border onto a piece of blue textured carstock. it's been in my stash for awhile and was actually the only thing I used out of my project pack.

I used the same border template to make the journal strips. I traced it on a scrap sheet of white card stock, then moved the template down a bit and tracing the border again. I do recommend journaling before you cut out the strips. It makes it easier to write.

Scrap Our Stash Pagerize Challenge #8

When I was a child, I learned my times tables by rote memorization. I recall hating it! While it did work for me, when it came time to homeschool my son, rote memorization was just not his way. He is always in motion, constantly chattering and just seems to need to "do" to learn. So we opted for some multiplication games. I think maybe it takes him a little longer this way than if I made him sit down and memorize everything. Then again, maybe not, because he'd fight me the whole way. Either way, we are having a ton more fun together. I documented it with this page. We are playing multiplication UNO. It's the same as regular UNO only you choose a multiple and work through it as you play. For example, every number card you draw is multiplied by 3. So if you  play a four then you multiply it by three. When we first start out, my son gets to use a chart. As we advance, the chart goes away. He sees the problem, hears the problem and says the problem and his hands are active. It's a win- win scenario!

Pagerize this Scraplift #8- of Helena

White acrylic paint with doodled black pen made a great border for this page.I then cut some K and co. ticket style border strips apart and used scraps of Sasafrass and crate paper as accents. The brown ribbon is unknown. The scallop was a scrap of a crate paper border. I inked a Sassafrass paper whimsy card. It reminded me of the symbol for multiplying. I added some patina glimmer mist for some fun flair.

Waiting for the World Record

  Last summer, we enjoyed the opportunity to witness a Guinness world record.That was something I thought we'd never get to do  and quite honestly, not something I thought to ever seek out. However, when a local resort heralded the opportunity to watch Nick Wallenda break his own world record, we decided it would be a nice family outing. We chose to sit at one of the resort's outdoor cafes. We enjoyed a pizza and some virgin frozen daquiris while we waited for the main event. After about a half an hour, Nick Wallenda made his appearance. He first walked across the tight rope about 260 feet in the air without a safety net. After which, He rode a bicycle across, thereby breaking his own world record.
 To commemorate this event, I chose some of Crate paper's restoration line from my Counterfeit kit  challenge March kit.I liked the bright fun colors and the vintage feel. I went on-line to Vintage Printables and found some wonderful vintage style circus posters.

submitted to Artastic Inspiration challenge blog
note the small bear riding a white horse on the vintage poster
also submitted to the Chopped Challenge for week 2 at Challenge Masters

I drew scallops and then filled them with white paint. The white paint with Bic mark it's Fandango pink and Summer melon reminded me of circus clown make up. I hand made the flowers using cardstock scraps, a prima flower and artsylicious brads. The tutorial for those can be found here at the Making Memories blog. Twinery lemondrop twine was stretched across both pages to symbolize the high wire.

Sassy Lil Sketch 3-7-11

Overall, it was a fun page for me to make. The colours are somewhat feminine and ones that I do not normally get to use. Yet here, with both the circus theme and the resort setting, they serve as a fun accent to the story of watching a world record in the making.

Frugal Friday Tip: Tin Can Recycling

  Last November, I got a Sizzix Texture Boutique. While I love what I can do with it, I really have not used it to its fullest potential. When I saw a recent tutorial about using soda cans and punches, I had the idea to dust off the texture Boutique and embossing folders to see what I could come up with. The results were quite wonderful!

Materials: Embossing machine and folders
               soda cans, rinsed out
               old scissors
               a Bic Mark it or other permanent marker
              optional: a child ( My son likes to use my embossing machine. So I cut the soda cans while he worked      
                 the machine.My son thinks this is great fun. )

You will need to carefully cut a slit into the can. Then remove the top and bottom. You are left with a curled piece of aluminium. Then it's just a matter of placing this into an embossing folder and putting it through the machine. I would just advise caution since the can is a little sharp after you cut it.

We experimented with a variety of designs. Some look better than others. You can use some punches to create your own shapes or use the permanent marker to draw a design of your choice.Then use old scissors to cut it out. The marker also comes in handy to draw an inked look to the edges of your cut shape.

I found glue dots to be the best way to adhere the shapes to my page. It's also very easy to punch holes  for brads with your paper piercing tool. You could also conceivably choose to hand stitch on your metal embellishment. I plan to dust off my alcohol inks to see how well they would look on my newly embossed designs.

Sassy Lil Sketches 3-14-11 design
Cream Acrylic paint
MME paper
Maya road Chipboard motif inked in Colorbox black ink
Paper Trunk Carson, black alphas
Black paint stamped with a round lid
DMC floss

All in all...a wonderful and inexpensive way to make your own page embellishments and recycle. If you have a Frugal Friday tip like this one, please share it at Scrap Our Stash.

Counterfeiting and Catnip

  Catnip...who knows why a cat loves it so much?!?! I know my cats love it, but I sure hate the mess! We recently discovered the catnip ball. I love it almost as much as my cats do...almost. I captured these photos of my cat. She knew the catnip was in our suitcase for her, and once we gave it to her, she immediately commenced coveting her newest treasure. She rolled around with it, cuddled it, and then proceeded to lick it. It's messy, but not nearly as much as the sprinkle kind. So I foresee more of these in her future.

Scraphappy.org March 2011 Sketch
Submitted for Scrapfit's Workout#39

As far as the pages I created regarding Sweetpea's love of the catnip ball. Well, I used items from my counterfeit kit.I decided to use yellow cardstock. Yellow is my least liked and thus least used paper color. It however, seemed to beckon me as I checked my cardstock stash. It was the perfect base color, adding some bright flair to the earthy, catnip type tones I had chosen.

  You may recall a circle stamp in one of the Studio Calico add on kits. Well, sad to say it...but I don't own said circle stamp. I set out to find something in my collection to come close to it.The best option I came up with was to stamp circles. I don't have circle stamps...but I do have a collection of lids in varying sizes.

Three sizes worked best for the pattern I chose here. I used lids from my Oil of Olay eye cream tube, a water bottle and a hair spray bottle. I recommend keeping an eye out for usable lids in your home. There are some neat shapes out there...like the oval from my deodorant,or the oddly rounded squarish shape from my dog's food container, the flower shaped lid from my son's juice... I admit. I am a lid collector. I do recommend washing your lids thoroughly with soap and water before using them on your page. Or, if you are lazy like me ( I like to think of it as spending time on more creative endeavours), you can stick them in your dishwasher. The lids are great for stamping with paint or ink onto paper. In this case, I chose to paint onto the cardstock and then to use the lids to stamp brown circles onto the page.

Pencil Lines Sketch 228

I rather like the effect of these stamped circles. It adds a fun organic feel to the page and corresponds to the theme of a catnip ball. I wish my photo editing brought out the true yellow tone of the base Cardstock. I enjoyed using fussy cut flowers from the Crate Paper Season collection along with the matching chipboard accents, embellishments and stickers for a whimsical, feminine touch. Christmas red stickles added a little flair on both of the pages.

I really love my first two pages. However, I can't stop here...I have a ton of other items in my counterfeit kit to use up. Off I go...

I really didn't like that!

   That's what my son told me when he saw the pictures I had printed. They were photos of him and his Dad riding "Storm Force Accelatron" at Islands of Adventure. Both he and his Dad thought they would be getting on something akin to The Mad Hatter's tea cups at Walt Disney World. Let's just say this ride was not quite so tame.
   While they both were not fond of the ride, I am fond of the Layout I made about their experience. Since the ride was about Storm, from Marvel's X-men, I used white paint to create a tornado. To further the effect, I smeared and splattered Black Magic and Glacier glimmer mist, then drew swirls with a pencil. The fun, colorful polka dots of SEI's monsterville paper seemed the perfect complement to a theme park page. using a Kraft paper background softened some of the bright colors and busy action.



also submitted to Frosted Designs 1-21-11 challenge

 I made it a point the day we were there, to photograph the ride's sign so I could use it as a title. I fussy cut this out of the photo, along with Storm. I made Storm jump out from the page with some 3-d foam. I left part of the white boarder from the photo paper when I cropped down these wallet size photos for page two. it was a time saver and also helped me create separation between the busy blurred images. I wanted the photo of my husband and son exiting the ride to be set apart. So I mounted it on a chipboard block and added a transparency to it. The transparency said "you and me" on a small corner. I found these cloud and lightening shapes from American crafts Vinyl Teen to be perfect( prior to this page, I had no clue where I was going to use them! ). I used them to cover the word on the transparency and then as accents on the page. Green and black sequins add the finishing touches.

I completed this as the January Scraplift Challenge over at Sketches 4 all. My Fellow DT Stacy made this page for us to lift:

Made by Stacy Rodriguez

As you can see, mine changed quite a bit from the original. That's the beauty and the fun of scraplifting though. Maybe you should give it a shot...post your creation over at Sketches 4 all!