12 tags of 2012

  I must admit, that I did not do one for February. There was just too much going on. I decided that I MUST try the one for March. Quite honestly, tags are not my thing. I like making them. I just don't remember to use them on my pages. So, I decided to make a 4x6 card for my March Project life pages. I know it will get used!

Kraft cardstock base, American crafts stamp
Stazon ink, chipboard, stickles
various stickers, glossy accents
Making Memories Alphas

I ended up making four leaf clovers out of chipboard. I hand drew them, then cut up a few stickers. Since I did not have the same embossing powder Tim used, I substituted stickles. I think it will be a nice addition to my March Project life page. Now, I just need to finish the February PL pages so I can start March.

The Making of a Monster Shirt

  I have a very vague memory of making an iron on shirt with my mom as a kid. The memory is so vague that I am not sure if it ever even happened. Saying that makes me feel quite sad. So much so that I hope  my son manages to have more vivid memories of me. At the least, he will have tons of scrapbook pages to reference what some may believe is an over-documented childhood. Isn't it great to be a mamarazzi?!?!

  Anyway, When I saw Amanda's page for the Scrap our Stash Pagerize this challenge, I knew I had to lift it. I loved the dynamic look of the circles on her page. I also liked how the smaller cropped photos acted like embellishments to support the main photo.

SEI papers, Basci Grey Brads,DMC floss, glass beads
artsylicious green brad, Fancy pants star sticker
papr trunk alphas, basic grey woolie
Cosmo cricket chipboard arrow with souffle pen in white
colorbox black ink

   Can you spy my new favourite product? I began using them on my pages within the last few months. They are glass beads. I have some that have been in my stash for awhile now. They are sprinkled onto the word   "monster" and then adhered using glossy accents. The little black beads were salvaged from one of my favourite evening bags( I was pretty sad when it broke!). I am finding that glass beads are an economical way to add a little more umph to my pages without breaking the bank. I have made my own stick pins as well as using them to decorate pages or embellishments. I hope to add more colours to my stash at some point in the future. Meanwhile, I am glad I finally pulled these out to play with.
  If you have something new to share or would like to pagerize Amanda's page, please pop over to Scrap Our Stash and drop us a note.

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!

Cookies For Santa

No...we did not bake them this year. At least not yet. I just finally got around to scrapping about last year's cookies. LOL. Nothing like being a bit behind, right? Months ago, I scrapped the photos of my son baking said cookies. As I was flipping through last December's album, I thought now might be a good time to use the scraps up. I must say, that when I saw that the Sketchy Thursday sketch really helped this page come together quickly.

Sketchy Thursday 12-8-11 sketch
Little Yellow Bicycle canvas border
Basic grey papers
Sassafrass alphas with glossy accents and glass beads
glimmer mist in Candy apple red and meadow
October afternoon stickers
I-rock gems
K and Co. brad
coffee filter

Perhaps soon, I shall get to baking this years cookies. Those photos sure make me hungry for some!

Twelve Tags of Christmas- Day 4

 As much as I liked the tag from Day 3, I decided to skip it...at least for now. The interesting techniques for the day 4 tag were beckoning. As usual, I lacked many of the supplies Tim used for his tag. What I did have was an embossing folder with the snowman. So I pulled out a thin piece of chipboard...the kind you can get from the top of a scrapbook paper pad. It was just the right thickness to emboss while at the same time thin enough so that I could cut out parts of the center. After embossing the chipboard, I cut the snowman out and carefully extracted the snowflakes with an exacto knife.

Once the cutting was complete, I applied a thin coat of white acrylic paint.After the paint dried, I added the rock candy crackle glaze.

While I waited for the glaze to dry and crack to perfection, I made the background sheet. I used a plain sheet of kraft paper as my base. Since I do not have all of the inks Tim used, I chose to stamp my blue ink pad onto wax paper. I stamped a square about the same size as the base paper. I then added a little bit of my homemade white mist. The white mist consists of watered down acrylic paint with a bit of perfect pearls powder.

Swirling the cardstock around on the wax paper created a wonderful sort of mottled effect. I set it aside to allow it time to dry. Now it was time to move back to the snowman. Once again, I did not have the inks Tim used. This time, I substituted glimmer mist. I opend the bottle and dabbed the dropper onto various sections of the snowman. I was pleased at how the mist seeped into the cracks. I applied the heat tool as Tim suggested and saw the white of the base coat become more apparent while the cracks kept the colour I had infused them with. I later noticed some of the glaze falling off.I am not sure why. Maybe it was the materials I used. To combat this, I applied a thin coat of glossy accents over the whole snowman.

Tim Holtz Embossing folder, Gauze from a first aide kit.glossy accents,
Ranger rock candy crackle glaze, Martha Stewart snowflake punch
clear packaging, Basic Grey Flourish stamp,
Technique Tuesday snowflake stamps
Colorbox ink in white and Blue Lagoon
Glimmer mist in electric blue, frost and spring violet

I raided the first aid kit for some gauze which I cut down and tied into a scarf. Thin clear packaging was punched into snowflake shapes. I am very pleased with the results. Most of all though, I am pleased with the new technique I learned for creating a unique background.

The Silly Rabbit

Yes, I know it may seem odd to scrap an Easter page during December. However, the photo wwas really begging me to scrap it. I was keeping current pretty well up until a few months ago. Now I am woefully behind. Aren't we all though!?!? Anyway, here's a little something spring during the cold months of winter. We had taken my son to an Easter carnival earlier this year.  When I saw the rabbit walking around, I knew I wanted a photo of my son with him. My son obliged and the rabbit added a little silliness to the whole thing which equaled the perfect photo!

Sketchy Thursday 12-1-11 sketch- Cosmo cricket papers-floral and bunnies, polka dot paper-sassafrass, sassafrass flowers, cosmo cricket border sticker, Sassafrass chipboard, pink paislee button, DMC floss, MM ribbon, American crafts rub on letters, Webster's pages alph stickers with glossy accents, glimmer mist in Electric blue and viva pink

update: on 12-8-11, this page was chosen as a Sketchy Thursday Fave! I am so excited. This is the first time I have been picked!

Sneaking in Some Pink and Yellow

  I think everyone has a colour nemesis. Two of mine are pink and yellow. Yellow...I just don't care for a whole lot. Pink... well, I've talked before about how a male dominated household means scrapping with pink is not a regular occurrence. So I really surprised myself with this next LO for the November challenge at Scrap Our Stash.  I pulled out this plaid paper by Cosmo Cricket. The yellow and pink reminded me so of a cozy morning. It became the basis for the design behind Pancake Morning.
  While there is nothing wrong with pancakes from a box, it's really not hard to just make your own mix. My son loves helping me and so, when the challenge to scrap a family recipe was issued, it was the perfect excuse to make pancakes for breakfast. I should do this more often. I guess I am just more of a " let's have cereal" type of mom. Anyway, to make your own pancakes " not from a box", try this recipe"

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/4 cup of sugar( yes I know it's a lot of sugar. We like em' sweet. You can reduce the sugar if you want to), 1 Tbsp. baking powder, 1 egg, 1 cup milk, 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

- stir dry ingredients together
- in a separate bowl, mix egg milk and oil. then mix with dry ingredients
- spoon onto a heated pan, allow to bubble, then flip and cook until golden brown

It's such an easy recipe! It makes a lot more than we can eat. So I proportion the leftover pancakes into zip loc bags and freeze. I then have my own toaster pancakes!

paper- Cosmo Cricket
ribbon- unknown
BG paper clip
Sassafrass flowers
glass beads
 K and Co. chipboard- Let's eat
Pink Paislee pink foam alphas
Rusty pickle brown alphas
 glossy accents
Webster's pages sparkler button
knife and Fork- unknown
tiger lily glimmer mist
Plum pudding smooch spritz
maya road sheer journal spot- recipe card

  To make the page more quickly, I left the white edges from the photo paper.The smaller photos are all one sheet of wallet size photos, three to a row. Some of them printed in groups with the photos in those rows aligning the same direction. I kept one group of three and simply cropped away the excess white. I cut the two photos which were horizontal and left the vertical photos in groups of two. This allowed me to save time( and supplies) by having photos that were already matted and easy to place on the page.

  I don't have a lot of cooking themed embellishments in my stash. I had a Eureka moment when I discovered food themed embellishments in my travel supplies. Prior to this page, I might never have thought to look in my travel stash for such a thing. I noticed many of the travel themed collections had papers or items about places you had eaten. So next time I have a cooking themed page, I will also look to the travel themed papers.

 I am very happy with the title. Glossy accents is one of my go to adhesives. It allowed me to add dimension to the flat brown letters. Now they look more like epoxy letters and I was able to add some glass beads to add more texture.

  This year, my goal was to learn how to take better photos of my pages. I am best at photographing one page LO's. Two pagers are very difficult given that they often have a warped or bent look to them. With this two pager, I think I finally found a trick to reduce the warped look and get a more flat, even photo. I placed the LO on a travel trunk which reached to my knees. I was then able to bend over the photo and I found that if I cocked my wrist as I photographed the page, the page came out more flat as I cropped in afterwards. So try finding something to lay your page on that is about the height of your knees and experiment with moving the angle of your wrist. 

  Overall, I really enjoyed making this page...from staging a photo shoot with a pancake breakfast, to adding the finishing touches on the page. Yes, it's true...I staged the photos. So now it's your turn. Find a recipe you like and stage your own photos to make a wonderful LO. Don't forget to submit it to Scrap Our Stash.

Add a little fur...

and this month's Counterfeit kit was purrfect! I truly love everything in the Counterfeit kit I made for the month of February. However, one of the reasons some of the things have sat in my stash is due to the fact that I had no clue how to use them. I admit, that I was stumped for a little bit...until I realized I could make these supplies work with photos of my sweet cat on one of her prissy days.

Sketch Inspiration #206

She is a steadfast companion and is often nearby while I scrapbook. Most days, she hangs out on a chair. On this particular day, she chose to get into my scrap basket. Keep in mind, she is not supposed to be on the table. She had been removed several times and deposited upon the chair or the floor...only to persistently hop back onto the table. I decided to snap these photos of her after she had defiantly crammed herself into the little basket.

sketch inspiration #207

I felt like the color palette of my kit lent a prissy, refined tone that these pages seemed to call for. I got the idea for the silver frames from the Counterfeit kit blog. Unfortunately, I did not have all of the same materials used in the recommended tutorials. So instead, I used a sizzix folder to emboss a piece of scrap pad cover. I then painted it silver with acrylic paint and inked the edges with Colorbox black ink. I think my version is quite passable and I love the texture it adds to the page. I also loved the ease of making a bling flourish with my i-rock and a Bazzill flourish  stitching template.

  Now that I was on a roll with my kit, I  pulled out some photos of my dog running around after a bath. After all...furry cuteness is a good thing. Admittedly, some of these shots were not the best. It's hard to get your dog to pose for photos when he's busy running around the house and rolling on the rugs. I took care of bad lighting in the shots by converting them to black and white. The movement in the photos was something I loved. The photo in which part of my dog is cut off only serves to emphasize it...at least in my opinion.

I will admit, I added an extra glimmer mist color to my kit. The moonlight blue just worked so well with the blue papers from the Bayberry cottage pad. I loved the way it looked splattered across the page. I used glossy accents on the hole punched circles to make my own mini pebbles. I also added some as droplets on the photo of my dog shaking.

I wish my camera better emphasized the blue of the papers in these pages.  It makes such a nice pop of color with the black and white papers.

  I am really enjoying using my kit. It's been so much fun rediscovering things in my stash and finding photos to use them with. I am really looking forward to using more and to making up a kit for March( WOW...it's almost here!). Stay tuned for more creations with my counterfeit kit...

New Sassafrass line at CHA

For everyone watching for the winner of my blog candy from the blog hop...stay tuned. it shall be posted shortly.

Head on over to the  Sassafrass' blog to check out their newest CHA release. I love the color and look of this new line. But then again who does not love anything Sassafrass.

Recently, I even used some Sassafrass scraps and leftover packaging to make a journal tag. I had just finished up a package of In Stitch Blossoms.


 I realized it was the perfect size for a tag. I covered the logo with a sticker and fussycut some flowers. I made a flower out of a bottle cap and some ribbon scraps. I filled the center with beads and glossy accents. It was a fun easy way to recycle! This is just one of the great challenges over at Sketches for you.

Tip: use smaller beads to fill the center so there are no gaps. I realized my error after the fact. The ribbon is folded and pleated around the bottle cap base. I used glue dots as I went which makes things a lot easier.

Diary of a Tadpole

While I did not make it to round two of the last Scrapper Standing contest at Memorable Seasons, I decided to keep participating for a chance to win a gift certificate. Challenge two asked for us to use a black cardstock base and to make at least two handmade flowers. I immediately thought of water lilies. My son and I had found some tadpole eggs...which we promptly brought home in an empty water bottle. Currently, the little guys have hatched and are growing at a wonderfully steady rate. I have been taking photos along the way with the intent to document their stay in our home. This will be the title page for those layouts. I liked the idea of a black background. The photos seem striking against it.

I made the lily pads by cutting circles of various sizes. I cut out a little wedge, giving them the appearance of pac man. I then used my bone folder to crease them. I felt this gave the appearance of leaf veins. I folded the edges of the circle and inked them with colorbox olive ink. I then used various green chalks to add a little variable color to the leaf and to accent the veins. For the tadpole eggs, I used glossy accents and black pony beads. To make the flowers, I cut them on my cricut. They come in two pieces. I rolled up the edges of the top layer and inked them with colorbox ruby satin and royal silk ink. These were the closest colors to the actual flowers we saws and added more depth to the paper flowers. I rolled crate paper sweet branch trim for the centers.
  The title was cut on my cricut. I used CK's sloppy and beantree fonts. The tadpole egg "o" was made from a chipboard alpha. I flipped it over to the white back, added the button and used glossy accents. I am looking forward to making little tadpoles and frogs for the rest of the pages. Stay tuned for those.

I have also decided to post my first project for Last Scrapper standing round one here. The theme was "An American Child." We were asked to use star and stripes. I cut the stars on my cricut...some of which I creased and glued down to add dimension. To help the star hold it's crease, I glued cotton ball pieces inside. The striped ribbon was purchased from the dollar section of target. I chose to keep this LO very simple. I journaled inside a star on my word processor and added it to the border. I added a few small star brads and  buttons.

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.