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!                              

                               

Let's Gloss over it!

   Because I love gloss. When I was younger, I preferred lipstick.Now...it's almost always lip gloss. My favorite splurge being a small tub of Christian Dior gloss that just makes my lips so soft and shiny. But wait...this blog isn't about beauty tips. It's about scrapbook pages. So what does gloss have to do with anything? Well, It's about a bottle of Glossy Accents to be exact. And I have discovered that I love it about as much as my lip gloss.

   Initially, I had wanted a bottle of Diamond Glaze. Unfortunately, the Little Scrapbook store closest to me does not carry it...but they do carry Glossy accents. Same difference, or so I am told. I still want to try Diamond Glaze, if only to compare. For now though, I am liking what I can create with the Glossy Accents.

   So, what did I make? Well, I wanted to do something special for DH's birthday photo. I decided to make a frame for the photo that said Happy Birthday...and then use the glossy accents to suspend some sequins into the letters. It was a lot of work, but I do like what I made. AND... I was able to submit it for the Sketchy Thursday's 6-03 challenge:

http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/06/603-sketch-challenge.html

  So, Now you are asking yourself, how did I make this frame? Well, If life were easy, I'd have a Big Cricut. As it stands, I only have a baby bug. So, I couldn't just make the frame fit into the cutting mat. Honestly, you could make this type of frame even without a cricut or die cut machine. You will need to have the following:

-Patience

-an exacto knife or other craft knife

-letters( these can be chipboard letters, stencils, or print letters using your word processor and cut them out to make your own stencil)

-Glossy accents or Diamond Glaze

You can see in this photo the white CS letter I traced.

1. Trace around the edge of the photo that you want to frame onto a piece of Cardstock.

2.Take  your letters(or numbers or even shapes for that matter), trace them around the edge of the rectangle( in this case 4x6) as desired.

3. use your craft knife to fussycut the frame out.

4. apply the glossy accents or Diamond glaze to the letters. Before I did so, I put pieces of cut up sequins onto the letters. On some letters, I painted with smooch ink so it would have a slight shimmery effect under the clear glaze. You could also use confetti, glitter, small beads, sand...use your creativity to figure out what you want to add to your creation.

5. let dry and then adhere photo.

Here is a photo at an angle so that you can see the raised effect of the glaze. The Glossy Accents are also a great way to turn old flat stickers into epoxy style stickers.