Long Time, No Craft

Well, I'm back. Holy moly. I can't believe I neglected my poor blog for over two months! There went that New Year's resolution. =P Anyway, Bloglandians, let's just say that it was a long, busy summer, without a lot of time for crafting, but I'm looking forward to fall and holiday crafting, and this month I decided to try to focus on getting some scrapbooking done. So I'm here to share a layout I did yesterday, and hopefully over the next few days/weeks I can share some more layouts as well.

I've been working on going through all of the family photos from my childhood and getting them scanned in and digitized so I can get them safely stored. It's been really fun seeing all of the old photos and every once in a while I see one that I just can't wait to scrap. Today's layout is an adorable photo of my mom, when she was about 6 months pregant with me. It's not the greatest quality photo, but I was able to restore it a little using some techniques I learned in Jessica Sprague's This Old Photo class. I highly recommend this class if you have a lot of old photos. I'm only 3 lessons in and it's already helped me so much. Alright, enough chatter, here's the layout:

And here are some close ups of the embellishments and title:

I got the sketch and inspiration for this layout at the CSI:Color, Stories, Inspiration website. It's a very fun site where they have a new "case" every week to inspire you. I really liked the sketch they had this week and the color scheme seemed to work well with this photo. Check it out if you are looking for some fun inspiration.

Also, I've decided to enter this layout in the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week. The theme is "hero", and the more I thought about it, the more I realized my mom truly is one of my heroes. I know it sounds cliche, but especially when I look at these old photos of her, I am reminded of what a great mom she was. I was her first child.....and I was a HELL of a first child, I assure you. =P Yet somehow she out-stubborned me and managed to raise me up right...and I think I may have turned out okay. =) And now here I am, 31 years old, and she's still helping me out; she's currently teaching me to drive, and just helped my buy my first car a few days ago. Thanks, Mom, you're the best.

And thanks to you, for taking the time to check out my blog! =)

*~M~*

P.S. I'm going to try something new here on the old blog, and I'm going to attempt to list my supplies using the InLinkz Link Manager. Here's hoping I did it right.....

A Bit of Brown

Hello all! I'm here to share a tag today. This week the challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show is to use brown on a project, so of course I got out my Distress Inks and made an attempt at a tag. I thought a nice blue background with brown accents would be nice, so here's what I came up with:

I used Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Stormy Sky Distress inks for the background. I just smooshed some ink onto my craft sheet, sprayed with water and then placed the tag in the inks. I dried it and then added more ink a couple of times to create some layers. Then I edged the tag with Frayed Burlap and Gathered Twigs inks. The sentiment (from Tim's Stuff to Say set) was also stamped with Gathered Twigs.

I created the shatter effect in the corners by stamping the pattern from Tim's Ultimate Grunge set in Frayed Burlap and then embossing with Antique Linen Distress embossing powder. The ticket was also inked with Frayed Burlap and Gathered Twigs, and then added to the tag with a memo pin. 

The trimmings at both the top and bottom of the tag were dyed with Tea Dye Distress ink. I've never used this color before - it was one of the last colors of Distress I purchased - and I have to say I was a little skeptical at first when I got it on my craft sheet. I had no idea it was going to be so orange, and it almost looks pink on here, since it's been considerably lightened by all the water I added and then the drying process. However, once I got it on the tag I loved the effect. What was looking like a very grungy tag with all that brown suddenly had almost a feminine look, which I love. I had an extra little rose after I was done dying so I cut it off and made a little cluster to put my memo pin in. A little additional Idea-oloy at the top and the tag was finished! =)

I think I will also enter this in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge. The theme this week is anything but a card, so a tag is perfect! Two Simon Says challenges in one week! =)

Thanks so much for looking!

*~M~*

CC2 Challenge #8

Hello all! Today I'm here to post my entry for this week's Compendium of Curiosities 2 Challenge (I think I got it done on time this time! =P) . This challenge is run by the always fabulous Linda Ledbetter at the Studio L3 blog, and is based on the techniques of Tim Holtz. You can buy his book here. (And get it autographed too!) This week we're doing the technique on page 62 of the book. And here's my entry:

For the background I used a Sticky-Back Canvas ATC and stuck it to an ATC Art Part to make it sturdy. It was painted, inked and stamped before adding my embellishments. I painted the heart and the lace border with gold paint dabber. The heart is attached paint side down which gives it an interesting look. Then I just cut a banner with the Tattered Banners die, did some stamping and stuck it down. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I also sprayed the background with Biscotti Perfect Pearls mist, so it's really quite sparkly in real life. =) 

I'm writing this quite late so I'm going to keep it short. I think I will also enter this into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge for this week, which is all about texture. I think I have quite a bit between my canvas and my painting.

I hope you have some time to create this week! Thanks so much for looking! =)

*~M~*



(Belated) Mother's Day Card

Hello Bloglandians! I just realized that I never posted the card I made this year for Mother's Day. I intended to post it the day after Mom's Day (so that my blog post didn't spoil the surprise...) and apparently never got around to it. So here it is....finally. =) I wanted to play with the new Spring Seasonal Distress Inks and make a shaded background. This is probably my favorite technique to use with Distress Inks, because I really feel like I'm not doing any work at all, and the inks just blend so beautifully together. It's like magic. For this card I used the new Squeezed Lemonade and Shaded Lilac inks, along with Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves. I then stamped the background stamp from Tim's Papillon set using Seedless Preserves. Here's what the background looked like before I attached it to the card:

I had originally intended to build up some kind of embellishment in the center of the card and have quite a bit of decoration on the front. But when the background was done I couldn't bear to cover it up! So I decided to just add a simple flower to the front, along with a little twine from the Twinery. I'm not sure who makes the flower...it came in a Jenni Bowlin kit. Here it is all finished:

I think I will also put this in as a last minute entry to the Inspiration Emporium monthly challenge, where the theme is flowers. Thanks so much for looking!

*~M~*



Using Up Those @ Symbols

Hello Blog Readers! I managed to make another layout today. As far as my LOAD challenge goes, I've made 13 paper layouts...and one digital layout. I'm so new to this digital thing that it feels like cheating to count that layout. =P But I have two more days to get creative before the end of the month so hopefully I can get my total up to 15 and then I will have completed 50% of LOAD! Much better than the last time I tried it, when I only managed to make 8 layouts. (Doh!) I'm looking forward to doing this challenge again in the future. I've also noticed that it's really improved my scrapping - I feel much more motivated, and I'm more comfortable with my process now. So I think, overall, this month has been a success!

Anywho, here's the layout I made today:

I got the sketch for this layout from Shimelle's blog. It's an older Sketch of the Week that can be found here. While at first glance this appears to be just another layout about a cat in a bag, the story on this layout is actually about how I tweeted this silly photo of my cat, and then got some pretty fun responses. I used Instagram to edit the photo, but then I had screen shots of the responses that I also wanted to include. Unfortunately the colors in the photo and the colors in the screen shots were not a match at all and so I wasn't sure how I was going to get them on one layout. Luckily, these Heidi Swapp Memory Files came to the rescue. I got these with my Studio Calico kit this month, and I have to say I had no idea what I would ever do with them.  I figured I would maybe take them apart and use them for photo mats or embellishments or something. Well I did take them apart, but I kept this piece intact so that it could still flip open and closed, so I could hide the screen shots inside! I have to say I felt like a bit of a genius. =P I also reinforced the edge with some tissue tape so it wouldn't fall apart.

Almost everything I used on this layout was from my Studio Calico kit from this month, except for the letter stickers and the wood veneer asterisks (I'm going to be sad when I run out of those. I don't think they're available anymore). The hexagons are this really cool "Mistables" product that SC just came out with. (I think the hexagons are exclusive to the kit, but Two Peas has another cool shape here. You get a LOT in a package - I can't wait to try the other shapes.) The light colored ones were misted with Mr. Huey's, but I wanted a darker one for more contrast. Lo and behold, I had the perfect color sitting on my desk: the new Peacock Feathers Distress Ink! I just tapped the ink pad directly on the hexagon until it was mostly colored. The surface is textured though, so it doesn't get all the way into the fabric, and the edges needed more color. So I sprayed it with some water to get the ink to wick out through the fabric and it worked like a charm. I love Distress Ink. =)

I got the idea for using the @ symbols in my embellishment clusters when I was looking for letters for my title and saw them on a couple of the sheets. After all, where else are you going to use those things except on a page about Twitter?? =P

I hope everyone has a great last week of May, and hopefully wherever you are you're starting to see some more summery weather. Thanks for looking!

*~M~*





My First Ever Project Life!

Hello Bloglandians! I have a quick layout share today. After attending Lain Ehmann's True Scrap in April (a fantastic twice-yearly event which I highly recommend), I was inspired to dabble in both digital scrapping and Project Life. I had a lightbulb moment where I realized I could do both together, so I've been learning digi scrapping in order to be able to do my Project Life digitally. I started taking a digi scrapping class at JessicaSprague.com, and it is amazing. Her teaching style is so great, I never feel overwhelmed at all and I learned so much in just the first two lessons of class! I already feel so much more comfortable with Photoshop Elements. You can also buy the digital Project Life supplies at Jessica's website. I went ahead and got the set of PL templates plus the Amber Edition full kit, and I used them today to make my first PL layout! I've been trying to take more photos all month in anticipation of starting this project. So here's what I have to start:

I have to say I'm kind of proud of this. I went from not even understanding what a 'layer' was to doing this whole layout! Of course I had a lot of help from the template, but I didn't even know how to use one of those a couple weeks ago either. =P Seriously, the classes from Jessica Sprague are so awesome, I can't wait to finish the first one so I can take some more! =) The page is centered around my cat, (pretty obvious from the photos =P ) because he turned 5 at the beginning of the month. He will always be my little kitten - I can't believe he's 5 already! Also I saw The Avengers right after it came out this month, so I documented that using some images I found on Google and some journaling. I'm planning on seeing it again, it was that good. =)

Here's to more fun Project Life pages!

Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge #6

Hello all! I've been absent lately, I kind of fell off the crafting/blogging wagon for a bit there. Today I came home from work and decided to try and do something for the latest Compendium of Cusiosities Challenge at the Studio L3 blog. This challenge features the techniques of the ever-amazing Tim Holtz, and this week the challenge was to do the technique on page 38 of his awesome book, Compendium of Curiosities 2. So, I made a pretty nice tag (if I do say so myself =P) but it turns out....I was two hours too late to enter the challenge! Oh dear.... =P But I had everything ready so I decided to blog my tag anyway. Here's some photos:

I went a little purple/butterfly crazy. =P I'm really excited about the coloring on the background because I got that awesome purple color by mixing two colors of Claudine Hellmuth's Studio paints: Sky Blue and Dash of Red. I just put a big ol' blob of the blue on my craft sheet and then added the tiniest amount of red and it came out way better than I could have hoped! The flowers are from Prima, and the butterflies are punched from the Distress Core'dinations paper using my Martha Stewart butterfly punches. The lacy edge is cut from the Vintage Lace die and then colored with the Pearl paint dabber. I really just can't get enough of that dabber. =) Oh, I almost forgot! I also covered my butterflies with Rock Candy Distress Stickles, which you can see a little bit of in the close up.

I really had fun making this tag. I got to try a couple new techniques and just had fun with it! Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~* 

LOAD, Day 8

Hello Bloglandians! Another LOAD layout to share with you today. For some reason this one had me stumped for a while. I basically just really wanted to scrap a pretty photo today, but then had a heck of a time figuring out which papers and embellishments to use. I really like how it turned out, it just took sooooooo long to get there. Oh well, we all have those days. =) Here's the pics:

The stamping in the corners was done with Vintage Photo ink and two sets from the My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart collection. The letters are the new DIY Thickers. I covered them with some Core'dinations cardstock from the Distress collection. This was pretty time consuming because I had to hand cut them, sand the edges, and then add some Stickles for sparkle. Totally worth it, although I wouldn't recommend it for every page! =P

A note about the photo: I took this photo of my fuchsia with my iPhone and then edited it using the Camera + app. I applied the nostalgia filter to it, then just e-mailed it to myself so I could print it from my computer. I didn't have to do any other editing before printing, it was all done in the app. I'm loving working with this app and if you take a lot of pictures with your phone I would highly recommend it!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*



LOAD, Day 7

Well I'm feelin pretty good today, Blogfriends. I made myself get up early and get my scrapping and blogging done before work so that I didn't fall behind today. One obstacle to keeping up conquered! =) Today I did a quick layout about a funny little story involving one of my cat's toys, which now has it's own theme song. It makes me laugh when I think about it, so I decided I should get this story down in my scrapbook! Here's the layout:

I got the sketch for this layout from Kelly Purkey's Sketchbook class over at Studio Calico. I highly recommend these classes if you like to work from a sketch. It was fun to just grab a bunch of bits and pieces from my embellishment basket and kind of collage them on there. I especially liked sneaking in bits of the spider web tissue tape (Tim's Hobgoblin tape collection). I get so cheesy in my scrapping sometimes.... =P

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

LOAD, Day 6

Hello, Blog Readers! Another layout for today. I'm feeling pretty good that I've kept up for the first 6 days of LOAD. Tomorrow will be tough because I work late so I won't really have any scrapping time but we'll see what happens. I'm currently working on scanning/editing/preserving the family photos from my childhood so I'm also scrapping them as inspiration strikes. This is the reason for all the childhood photos so far. =) Here's one with my brother's first grade photo:



When I was scanning in photos I discovered that my brother had written on the back of some of his school pictures and I thought his handwriting and the way he had preserved his "statistics" was so sweet I had to scan that in too to preserve it. Almost everything on this layout is Jenni Bowlin except for the wooden letters which are Studio Calico. I love those things and should probably buy a couple more packs before they stop making them! I'm not sure if the wooden rulers are actually made by Jenni Bowlin but I got them in one of her kits. Using up more kit stash and breaking into my huge stash of paper...not to mention getting adorable photos and stories scrapped....all reasons I love LOAD right now! =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

LOAD, Day 5

A very lovely Saturday to you all out in Blogland! I'm got in some early scrapping today because I'm about to head out to see the new Avengers movie. I'm so excited! I've been waiting on pins and needles for this movie ever since the Captain America movie was out, which I believe was almost a year ago. Yay for fun action movies! (Especially ones with Robert Downey Jr. =P ) I went away from the LOAD prompt today just because I didn't have an immediate idea for it and I didn't have a lot of time for thinking today. I found this amazing layout on the Two Peas site today amongst their NSD festivities and decided I needed to scraplift it NOW. =) So here is the result:

I used a bunch of goodies from my Studio Calico kits, some Crate Paper patterned paper, brads from Basic Grey's Picadilly collection, and the big 3D butterflies are from the new PB&J collection. Then I sprinkled in some rhinestones and some stamping and it was done!

I hope you're all having a very crafty weekend, and thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*

LOAD, Day 4

Still keeping up with LOAD and feeling pretty good about it. =) For today, I scrapped a funny quote of my brother's from our last game night. I am really enjoying the LOAD prompts because they are getting me to scrap things I wouldn't otherwise have thought of, and this layout is a good example. We will be laughing about this for years in my family but I never would have scrapped it if it weren't for this challenge. Anyway, here's the pics:



I went 8.5x11 today just because I felt the layout would fit better on that size. I used the Sizzix 1&1/2 inch hexagon die for my hexes. They were cut from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found stack as well as some Core'dinations cardstock that had been embossed with the Bingo and Patchwork embossing folders. After everything was done I added a few Idea-ology game spinners and bingo pieces, and one of those little hanger clips just for the heck of it. The twine is Lawn Fawn's new twine. I used this on yesterday's layout too....it's so versatile! Before I know it I'll have to buy another roll. =P Oh, and this fantastic sketch is on the Studio Calico blog this weekend, as part of their National Scrapbooking Day challenges.

Speaking of NSD, I hope everyone has a great one, and gets some time to craft! I will be going to see the new Avengers movie in the afternoon (so excited!!) but hopefully I will get some scrapping done in the morning. Happy National Scrapbooking Day, and thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*



LOAD, Day 3

I very gloomy, rainy day to you all! We're supposed to be getting nice weather this weekend, and I can't WAIT. =) Here's my third layout for the month:

Once again I was taking photos without daylight so they're terrible, but I think you can get the gist. =P This is just an adorable photo I have of my brother as a toddler that was too cute not to scrap. I got the inspiration for the design of the layout from this sketch on the Twisted Sketches blog. I also knew I wanted to use those fun yellow Thickers for the title, which was the whole basis for adding the rest of the yellow embellishments. It was fun to add those little pops for color.

Thanks for looking!

*~M~* ....crossing my fingers for sun..... 

LOAD, Day 2

Hello all, it's day 2 of LOAD, and -hurrah!- I'm still keeping up. =P Today's prompt involved not using a photo, which ended up being a great prompt for me because it pushed me to finally scrapbook my weight loss/diet journey that I've been on since the end of March. I've hit a lot of awesome milestones and not scrapped ANY of them, so I decided that today I would just get a screen shot from my phone of my progress (I've been using the My Fitness Pal app, and it's AWESOME) and scrap where I was today. It actually worked out great because it turns out I'm at the halfway mark! So enough about that, here's the layout and some close-ups: (the photos aren't that great because I was out of daylight and I had to have my Ottlite on)

I used this awesome template and some Jenni Bowlin paint to do the masking in the corners. Since this layout is essentially about numbers, I immediately thought about this template. I'm not super happy with how it turned out, but it was fun to do. =) The rest of the supplies came from my Studio Calico kits (I LOVE that I'm being pushed to finally use my kit stuff!). Super fun and relatively quick. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Layout a Day, Day 1

Hello all! I just have a quick layout to share today. I'm participating in Lain Ehmann's LOAD challenge and today is day 1, and -surprise!- I haven't fallen behind yet. =P Here's some pics of the whole layout as well as a couple close-ups:

 This layout is mostly My Mind's Eye loveliness (Miss Caroline paper and Follow Your Heart embellies) and I got to use up some bits from my Studio Calico kits. I'm so excited that I got to use up some of my stash and finally get this photo out of a pile and into my album!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Fun With Canvas

Hello again, Bloglanders! I wanted to share a canvas I made just for fun. Lately I've had a little bit of awesome-class-overload, because there are just so many cool online classes going on right now. Two that I have been really enjoying are May Flaum's Field Guide class (I'm pretty sure registration for this is closed, but I think she has more fun classes coming up this year at Big Picture Classes if you want to keep an eye out) and Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry at Online Card Classes. I think the best lesson that I've learned from both of these classes is that it is okay to just sit down and play with your crafting supplies and see what happens! I had a small canvas lying around that I had applied some Crackle Paint to and then never finished, so yesterday I just decided to play with some paint and see what happened. Here is the result:

The original Crackle Paint that was on the canvas was Worn Lipstick, so I stuck with a pink color scheme. Yesterday in Tim's class he showed us how to make a wash with acrylic paint so I did that to color the rest of the background. Then I used Gold Paint Dabber and a Crafter's Workshop stencil to do the gold stars in the corners. The hearts were cut from Grungeboard that was covered in bits from Tim's Vintage Shabby paper stash using the Mini Hearts die. I edged them with Vintage Photo ink and then stamped on them using Coffee Archival ink before coating with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. The stamping on the canvas was done with Vintage Photo and Plum Archival. Here's some close-ups:

You can really see a lot of the crackling going on in this one. =)

I think that's it for today! Thanks for looking!

*~M~*





12 Tags of 2012 - March Tag

Hello Blog Readers! I've been absent for a while but I have a couple projects to post today. The first is my take on the March tag for 12 Tags of 2012 that Tim is doing on his blog. I didn't get to do a February tag but the mosaic technique that Tim did for this month was so cool I had to give it a try. Here's a picture of my tag:

I had to make some adjustments since I didn't have all of the same supplies that Tim had. First off, I didn't have the woodgrain stamp, but I really wanted to use this background stamp from Hero Arts. Because it has so much solid area, I was worried that if I stamped it straight on with a dark ink that it would overwhelm the design a little bit. I thought about stamping in Versamark for a watermark effect, but I was worried that would be too plain, so to add a little interest I did a "kissing" technique using one of Tim's Reflections stamps and some Walnut Stain Distress Ink. (Tim has a cool video about using Reflections here) Here's a close-up so hopefully you can see the effect of the kissing technique, and maybe also some of the detail on my mosaic flowers.

I also don't have the butterfly die Tim used, so I substituted the Mini Tattered Florals die, but other than that everything else on the tag was done pretty much how Tim demonstrates on his blog. I love this mosaic technique and have several ideas for using it on the holiday dies. Can't wait to play with it some more!

Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*