The Twelve Tags of Christmas-Day 2

The tag for day two was simpler than day one. I think it's a good thing as it took me two days to make the first tag! LOL Once again, I did not have many of the materials, so I improvised.

Materials: Tim Holtz metal charm
Colorbox gold ink and Chestnut roan ink,
making memories snaps
Pink Paislee trim, twine, Bazzil cardstock
Holly  from K and Co. paper
diamond stickler

I used a printed kraft paper from the Paper Studio. To get the same effect as having the resist paper, I stamped the word Christmas with rusty pickle alphas and clear embossing powder. After I heat set the powder, I rubbed white acrylic paint across the paper. I quickly wiped it down to reveal the word. The holly was fussy cut from the k and co.paper. I hand cut the border on the bottom from chipboard. Inking it in cold achieved a nice, metal like appearance.
    I really liked how Tim had the indentations in his brads. I chose to use snaps. I did not attach them to the chipboard right away.Instead, I crimped the back of the snaps in my crop-o-dile. to do this, place the snap in the crop-o-dile without any paper. Then punch down. The result is a somewhat flattened back to the snap.

I then flipped the snap over and used the bump in the crop-o-dile to add the dent. Once I had five done, I used glossy accents to adhere them to the page. It's so much easier than trying to set the snap directly into the paper.
  I drew the dear by hand, then carefully cut it out. I inked the edges with the chestnut roan, then carefully edged it with Diamond stickles. My son says he likes it better than the day one tag! No kidding! LOL and this one was so much less work for me! Sometimes, simple really is best I guess!

Reach for the Sky

Now you may think I had photos of us riding horses or spending time on a farm, but in reality, I have these photos of my husband playing with our cat. So how does that go with a western theme?He gets our cat to put his paws up in the air. It's very silly and a lot of fun to watch. It makes me think of a little kid playing cowboy and my cat is just sort of happily going along with it all.
 So now that I had decided to go with a western theme, I set about trying to carry it to the page. I decided I wanted to use a phrase like " get your paws up" or " reach for the sky". I imagined using western themed papers and embellishments. However, in going through my supplies, I really had very little in that genre. What I did finally find were some die cuts, well over 10 years in age( still not sure why I have those. I bought them when my son was about two.) and some more current My Mind's Eye die cuts in a boy theme which just happened to feature a saddle. With die cuts in hand, I set out to find the perfect paper to go with them. I asked myself what reminded me of the western theme. I came up with denim, bandannas ,hand-tooled leather...all with a somewhat weathered look.
  For the hand- tooled leather, I decided to stamp and heat emboss the old boot die cut. It's subtle, but I think it gives just enough texture and adds to the theme.

 It reminds me of the fancy boots and leather saddles I saw as a child.
   I used an off colour cowboy die cut as a mask. The colour just did not work well with the rest of the page, but as a mask, it was perfect. I think I have discovered a use for all those old, plain die cuts sitting un-loved in my stash.

Sketchy Thursday 9-8-11 sketch
scrap of old blue jeans
sapphire glimmer mist
My Mind's eye die cuts
unknown die cut boot from the dawn of scrapping
i-rock jewels- brown square metal
Making Memories snaps(antique)
unknown gingham ribbon
colorbox chestnut roan ink

Leftover scraps from old jeans made the perfect background since I never could find just the right paper. Twine outlining the circle and accents of gingham ribbon also added to the texture and theme. All in all, a page proving that having specifically themed papers is not a necessity to set the right tone for your page.

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...

Finding Inspiration on Ebay

This is my first year participating in LOAD211(aka Layout a Day 2011). The theme this year is to find inspiration. On our challenge for day two, we were asked to go onto eBay and to do a web search for our name(or the name of a loved one). Then choose something on page one that inspired you to make a page.It was something I never thought to try before. I honestly did not expect much to appear with my name in it. However, a variety of novels and DVD's appeared. I settled for the cover of an Agatha Christie DVD. I could envision it as a sketch for some of my photos.

Amer. Crafts Cardstock, Cosmo Cricket Snorkel papers
Colorbok arrow, Basic Grey Brads,
Colorbox Chestnut Roan Ink

It ended up being a simple yet satisfying page. I invite you to try it out if you are missing a little mojo in your life right now. If you do find some mojo and want to share your work, pop on over to Scrap Our Stash. We'd love to post it for Show and Tell Sundays.