Glue Dots & Glitter

Let's get messy in February!

2012-02-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

The True Xoxo challenge is up for February. I will walk you through my messy layout. I tried to do just about every messy thing I could think of.

As always I started off with a clean, pre-shrunk 12-inch square of canvas purchased from Jo-anns. I prepped the fabric with gesso and then a coat of pale pink acrylic paint. Out came the punchinella and gray paint mixed with modeling paste. The left over mixture was scraped around the edges of the canvas. I pulled any frayed pieces to give an even more frayed look. Next I added Pan Pastels and randomly. I used embossing ink and powder to give even more of a gritty texture. What is more messy than embossing powder? Glitter! Yes there is some of that too. I keep a bottle of Perfect Pearls mixed with water handy so I spritzed the entire surface.

Now Riley did the ultimate messy fling of paint on me. So I went in and tried to cover up turquoise paint. I started back at the beginning to clean up the spots. The final messy product was Color Bazaar powder.

Challenge 25 at True XOXO Girls

2012-01-02T02:05:00.000-08:00

January's design challenge at True XOXO Girls went live yesterday afternoon. The challenge this month was for the design team to create a layout containing "ONE," which would be anything from the word down to one of a variety of items on your layout such as my fun take. Now I did use the same photo in my New Year's card so forgive me if you see it two days in a row.

Now one (haha! keeping with the "One" theme!) would think that it would be quick and easy to stick with just one of something. I spent quite a bit of time on this layout. I had already taken the photo in between holiday shows for the musical theater company. But as always I tend to scrap without thinking of a photo because I am too lazy to print an image up to start with. I used to always start with a photo but that led to too many printed images and I always felt like I was behind. So anyhow...back to the process. I decided that I needed to stash bust. Christmas was going to be the theme. I must have had this paper since I started scrapbooking five years ago.

I ruffled the red grossgrain ribbon myself using the ruffler foot on the sewing machine. That is probably the one item that took the most work to be done but was the quickest thing for me to do. It was all about placement of items and lonely stash that needed to go. I really did have a lot of fun with this. I suggest you give the "ONE" concept a try. I know it may be difficult with other themes but I know you have to have Christmas paper and lots of photos.

Here is a run-down of everything I used:

One of EACH: sheet Bazzill Dotted Swiss, CI paper, strip of other side of paper, sticker border, scalloped snowflake border rubon, ruffled grosgrain ribbon, red/green string of sequins, bottle cap, Bath and Body Works reindeer gift card, Build-a-Bear heart, holiday newspaper archive film strip, red/green photo turn, green brad, pink velvet brad, silver sequin rickrack trim, felt flower, beaded snowflake, fabric/bling candy cane brad, snowflake brad, brown bling, red arrow, blue arrow, Santa sticker, tiny red button, silver stud, Santa's helper tag, gold bow, epoxy sticker, green gem, blue velvet brad, pink bling, snowflake blink, sting of pearls, green glittered strip of double sided tape, red wire, gold bow, Good/Bad list button, printed decorative tape, and one photo of one silly elf.

Happy 2012!

2012-01-01T10:56:00.001-08:00

Custom Fit Sewing Adventure

2011-12-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks, I have been consumed with costume design and construction. I have a friend who led me to tutu.com last year. I had purchased their smallest pattern for a bodice (size 6 slim) and instructions to construct a ballet tutu over a year ago. Well I lost the pattern. So I bought a size 7 slim this time around plus the smallest panty bottom.

Riley wanted to participate in the school talent show at the local mall. I wanted her to do a Tahitian dance solo...no luck. She wanted to sing so she chose "Let It Snow" with her vocal teacher. I decided to make her a tutu. She selected the color and the fabrics. Tulle with glitter....seriously I had glitter clogging my sewing machine. It needs to be taken in for cleaning.

Anyhow the panty pattern was a size 8. I think it fit me. So I had to cut a pair of underwear and wing it. I winged a lot of the process. The pattern was REALLY big. I admit, Riley is small. Maybe in tutu.com's terms, she could have been been a size 4 or smaller. So I had to draft my own pattern pieces for just about everything. I didn't know the technical names for the pieces. I didn't have an example. Their expensive instruction booklet (it's on spiral bound, one sided photo copies) has really no photos or diagrams. Very few I should say. But I am proud to say I constructed this professional level tutu. If Riley would have chosen a stiffer net (of course without glitter), this would have been a "pancake" style ballet tutu which I hooped and used steel spiral boning as well.

After this, I just may be ready to take on any project.

True XOXO December Challenge

2011-12-01T21:12:00.001-08:00

It's the 1st of the month again! Check out the True XoXo blog challenge. The design team was challenged to create a project using this photo as inspiration.

Now this isn't an image I would normally scrapbook so I was indeed challenged. I knew I liked the black and white pattern. Okay I have to admit that I knew I had similar paper in my stash. HA! The rest of the vintage type images/colors...well I initially thought of Webster's Pages. But then I looked down at my feet and stared at a class kit I got at Scrapbook Expo in Anaheim from a Prima class. It was perfect since all the papers were under 6" and great for stash busting.

The flowers and doily were sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The letters are wood from Pink Paislee. The small "embrace" block is from Melody Ross' GCD Studio line and came from one of the prize packs I won from the Spring contests they had earlier this year. This layout is a whole lot of layers and nothing complicated. No cutting because I really had cut it all in the class. I still don't know how I feel about the contrast of vintage and black and white....

Fall Burlap Wreath Tutorial

2011-11-14T13:14:00.001-08:00

I've seen various burlap wreaths on Pinterest so I decided to make one myself. It helped that I had all of the supplies already on hand. A few weeks ago, I had purchased many yards of colored burlap from Scrap in San Francisco. It's a city run organization where people donate items and they sell most of the stuff pretty cheap. This project cost me no more than $2 but takes some patience to complete. I forgot to take a photo of the wreath in good light so sorry for the crappy photo.

Materials:
Glue gun
Glue sticks
Scissors
Burlap (I used four colors total)
Dies (flower and leaves) and diecutter or hand cut
Buttons

The wreath comes from Dollar Tree. I also had this on hand for several months since I was supposed to teach the Spring chipboard floral wreath but the class fell through. It is a 9-inch wreath.

Plug in glue gun now to warm up. I started with cutting the natural colored burlap into 4" squares. Warning: the fibers get everywhere. My glue gun is covered in them. It was all over my clothes and on my sewing machine on the floor. It stuck to my cutting mat too. (Somehow my phone's camera turned on to black and white.) You'll need a lot of squares.

Next I placed hot glue on one corner and folded the square into a triangle.

Then put a bit more glue onto the same corner and fold over one point to the center.

Flip over the fabric and place yet again another dot of glue than fold over other corner. One thing I found is that the glue stayed hotter than usual on the burlap than on other materials. Yes I did burn my fingers several times on hot glue. You may have to hold onto the glued fabric because it doesn't seem to want to stay shut (again...felt like it wanted to stay hot). It will look like a folded origami square.

Once glue is cold and the piece stays shut, you'll want to slide your finger into it and puff it up into a bubble.

Now glue whatever way you wish onto the wreath with the bubble side up. Vary how you glue each onto the wreath so it's not all uniform to look ruffle-like. I started with the center of the wreath and completed the entire circle. Then I glued the inside row of the wreath and finished with the outside.

I used Sizzix's Tim Holtz Tattered Flower die to cut the flowers. The leaves were also Sizzix cut on the Big Shot. And I cut off the plastic shanks vintage buttons I also found at Scrap.

The Little Mermaid Musical

2011-11-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

I know I've shown you pictures of Riley's costume for The Little Mermaid. I've discussed how much time the costumes in general took away from scrapbooking. Here is your chance to see my creations in action. Michael made the headpieces and I did the costumes. Glad it's over. We started The Lion King but it looks like I don't have to do much this time around since we will just buy them premade.

Under The Sea

Concert Scene

Battle Scene/Finale

Enjoy!

This year's costume

2011-11-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

I have to admit...there's only been one other time I've dressed up for Halloween. And that one time was really a partial dress up because I had to for work. Since Riley wanted to be a pirate (we got her costume at Disneyland), she wanted me to be a pirate too. I picked a few patterns. I was going to mix them up with pieces from each. In the end, I settled for one with a coat. I didn't initially like the neck piece but it worked. I had scraps left over so it was a done deal. This actually cost far less than it would have if I would have bought a premade costume and of course of better quality. I even had people tell me that it looked like "real clothes" haha sorry but it is. What they meant was that it wasn't costume quality.

Too bad you can't see my boots. I love these boots. They have a top that folds over and these cute stud/hook things up the back. When I bought these, I did think they would be cute as pirate boots. The bad part is I love one of the studs in the back. Who knows where it went. I did get them from Nordstrom during the pre-sale so they weren't as expensive as you see now. But I'm wondering if they can get me a new stud for a replacement.

Zombie Halloween Hybrid Layout

2011-11-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know if the photo freaks you out but it sure does scare me...and I was there when Riley created this look for the haunted house at her dance school. I constructed most of the layout digitally. The photo is printed on photo paper to give it some extra texture. One thing I love about digital is how I can make so much of a 12" page but I does lack true texture. So that's when my over-embellishing fingers get to work. I pulled out Making Memories Halloween stash. The rubons and metal tags (which are so hard to see in the photo) are probably 2 years old. The flowers with skeleton heads are most likely a year old from Scrapbuck at the Scrapbook Expo. The digital kit comes from www.katehadfielddesigns.com and www.the-lilypad.com.

Back in black

2011-11-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

The True XOXO challenge is back for the month of November and the theme is BLACK. I initially was going to go with a monochromatic black look but felt something needed color. I toyed around with an idea of a title with every letter a different color...but I was too lazy to diecut letters and have a ton of colored cardstock scrap.

I started off with a piece of Making Memories flocked cardstock. I don't know how long ago this line was created but I'd say at least 2 years old. I picked it up when we went to the MM warehouse sale two April's ago. You can see the original paper as the photo mat. Riley's guitar is really a bunch of blue, pink and purple but with the editing....looks a lot more grey. I brushed the entire sheet of cardstock with black PanPastels. I selected Prima black flowers from the 1 pound pillar containers and some black bling. Oh and I see I added some Making Memories stickers to it as well.

For my pop of color, I decided to use a rectangle of the original paper. I roughed up the edges of the paper (as well as the base sheet). I placed the rectangle in the spot where it matched the pattern in the background. Next I diecut glitter DCWV cardstock and wrote in the rest of my title in silver ink. Pretty simple but sure was a lot of time pondering what to do with the challenge. I think I will try more monochromatic layouts. I'm thinking BRIGHT this time around.

Halloween Madness

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! We have a busy day ahead of us. We have costume parades galore and Riley wants me to dress up too. I've been prepping for this day for months. We've had a haunted house for Riley's musical theater company, school carnival, dance school carnival. Have I mentioned that I had arranged for a donation of 140 pumpkins for the Tahitian dance group to sell at the carnival? Not only did we have to drive 90 miles to pick them up but we had to store them for two weeks. This year I even made my own costume. You won't see the photos yet. But you can see what Riley looked like after she watched a YouTube tutorial and did her own zombie makeup for the Haunted House.

Not bad for a 6-year old, huh? Haha well here's something not so scary.

She was making googley eyed spider treats for class. Ms. Silly glue dotted the eyes to her own...luckily they were removal glue dots and didn't take off her eyelashes!

Okay something a lot more interesting...a layout! Amazing how such a scary looking zombie is so cute. Now go out and have fun today trick or treating!

Scraps stump me

2011-10-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

In Shimelle's class, we had a prompt which instructed us to pick a few background sheets, a few small patterns, a few large ones. And then we were supposed to hack everything into rectangles and squares. Just random cuts. The thinking behind it makes sense....tons of layouts from a few cut papers. Now I have major issues with this. For one, I have a hard enough time using scraps. But to think I cut scraps just to make layouts with no specific purpose is almost like scratching a blackboard with my nails. This layout...I didn't do too well with. I mean there are two cut blocks from different manufacturers. It's all right but it sure isn't something I am happy with. I think I need a whole lot more in the embellishment department.

Seriously it was a good lesson for me to learn that this type of scrapbooking is NOT and I repeat...is NOT for me. But this next page wasn't so horrible and I used up a lot of tags and stickers. I think it may need more but I need to just walk away and leave it at that. A lesson learned. I am happier with this layout than the previous. So maybe it's just that I don't like the thought of cutting something valuable in my mind...a precious resource (yes just a 12" piece of cardstock) for no reason whatsoever. But when given a true scrap....I can well...make lemonade.

Next time I'm approached with a project like this...remind me that it just isn't my style.

Summer swimming layout

2011-10-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's stash busting time without scrap clutter. I used two sheets of cardstock (one patterned and one solid) for this layout and cut a circle from an existing piece of scrap. The strips of paper are from Echo Park. It's one of the sheets with strips of different patterns. The embellishments are random epoxy stickers from Creative Imaginations that I get from Scrapbuck.com at the scrapbook show.

Zipper layout

2011-10-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

I recently went to Scrap in San Francisco. I thought it would be in a really bad part of town but it wasn't where I had thought (where I'd get shot or mugged). It's in an industrial area near my dad's work. Anyhow, I dragged my mom along for protection because I was just unsure. A teacher friend told me I would be fine as long as I parked along the fence...see she scared me! The store receives donations from individuals and companies. A lot of the stuff is really old. If you like to upcycle, it could be your type of place. I like the Oakland reuse store a whole lot better but that is in a bad area and well, I have to pay bridge toll to get home. Anyhow, I guess Scrap gives a lot of stuff away for free. I quite a bit of colored burlap and wool and it was only $6 for my total purchase. I left with an entire paper grocery bag filled with zippers.

We are learning to make masks similar to The Lion King musical right now and I so happened to stumble upon plaster gauze. I had no clue what it was but I looked at it. Then two nights later, Michael asks me if I know what this stuff is. Well no but I saw it at the store I think. So I went back to Scrap and bought all they had because it sells for $25 per pound in some cases. I paid $1 per roll. Not bad and I left with another bag of zippers. I tried to make zipper flowers. I wasn't so thrilled with my first try but I'll have to try again with probably a thousand of them now.

Haha I had a long story just to get to my layout. I added zippers to this to add some softness and rough edges. I had more zipper on the layout but I made the photo too big so I had to pull off the existing embellishment and cover it up with Prima flowers. How can I be in stash busting mode (two year old Fancy Pants papers) and bring car loads of really cheap stuff?

Oh by the way, here's a peek into the making of our Lion King Musical adult Simba mask. Riley is a whole lot smaller than the guy who will wear this. We don't know who will be cast until Wednesday. And actually this is more of a mold we are making. We are hoping to make two casts from the plaster gauze I bought. Then we have lionesses, Pumba, Scar, probably Zazu, hyhenas, and the crazy baboon. Haha I can't remember his name right now.

True XOXO blog hop winner plus Halloween glue gun trick!

2011-10-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

The winner of my trim grab bag from the True XOXO blog hop is Karen in Houston! Please email me Karen!

As you may know, I split my time doing crafts I said I would die before I even did. Haha sorry I think it's funny. I never thought I would like sewing. It consumes me because I don't stop until I am finished with a project. I've found myself doing quite a bit of costume designing for my daughter's musical theater group. I thought the Little Mermaid musical was going to kill me. Now, I've found myself with sewing work for her new ballet school for The Nutcracker production. Plus...I just started with designing the costumes for musical theater's holiday production (it actually is the dance school's production but MT hosts the three shows) AND started picking out costumes and thinking about how to make what is necessary for The Lion King production. I think a bell is needed for the hat. I am picturing the red fleece as red sequined fabric. Plus I will add a green sequined belt.

So with all this sewing, I haven't done too much scrapbooking. I did a last minute registration to Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party which started on Monday. I needed a boost to stash bust and she always provides so much inspiration to get me out of my scrapper's block. I don't use tend to look at templates which is probably why I've felt that my layouts have been looking too similar. What is fun is that I get four templates and some direction on what type of paper to play with every day. So this leads me to today's layout.

The papers and the photo are a year old. I think the Prima paper may even be two or three years old. I added eyes to all the characters. But what I love most is the smaller details you probably can't see in this image.

Check it out here....

I used a glue gun to create a spider web look on my layout and across the photo. Is that fun or what? I would squeeze a small bead of glue and drag the gun across the page and touch down on another item. I kept going. BTW, I use a glue gun that has a FINE detail nozzle. That is key here. I hope I've given you inspiration for your Halloween layouts and albums.

True XOXO Blog Hop!

2011-10-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the True XOXO blog hop! I was challenged by fellow design team member, Michelle Hernandez, to use a chevron pattern, yellow thread, red rubber stamped image, and NO cardstock as the background.

I searched every paper in my stash and I did not have anything with a chevron pattern. I had no choice but to create my own. First I thought about diecutting then I realized there was something better. I took a pink rickrack (velvet) ribbon and colored it with a quick swipe of yellow PanPastels and sprayed with a fixative to ensure the powder would not rub off. You have to get a good coating of fixative on what you are working with. Even with paper, I find that the PanPastels like to come off. Once the ribbon was adhered to a clear page protector (my background-- there is no white cardstock...I photographed this against a white board), I stitched the protector with yellow thread. I used Basic Grey scraps from a 6" paper pad to create the strips and used a date stamp as my image in the challenge. After random Sassafras Lass buttons and a few rubons, I almost had the layout completed. One of the very last things I ever do is place my photos. I cut open the back side of the page protector and slipped the photos in.

The grand prize for this blog hop is an opportunity to become the guest designer for December. Here's what you have to do to qualify for the chance to win:

* Visit and comment on each of the True XOXO designer's blogs.
* For every layout you scraplift from this blog hop, you get an additional chance to win. Be sure to post your layout(s) on the True XOXO blog.

As an added BONUS, I have included grab bag prize. The pack so far has over 50 different ribbons (Maya Road, Making Memories, Crate Paper, etc.), gold and silver chain, an Arount the Block clipper and clips, Basic Grey trim, clear elements, decorative tape, two mini wreaths, vintage pins, metallic thread pack...and let me tell you I will throw in more because I know those Priority flat rate boxes and be packed with stuff and you'll be sure to find things that you won't at scrapbook stores! I collect things from the craziest stores.

So comment here and make sure I know how to get in touch with you. Good luck! Now hop on over to fellow designer, Ana Oxendale-White's blog.

October True XOXO Challenge Layout

2011-10-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

I admit I've been trying to adjust to the new Fall schedule. This school year, Riley has more activities than ever. I just read through a book I got at the library about tantrums and all things normal with kids. I really didn't feel anything helped because Riley truly is a great kid. But the interesting thing is that it suggested that a child should not have more than TWO extracurricular activities. Do you agree with this? If she only had two...look at what we'd be missing. I know some parents (personally know they) fill up every hour of every day with an activity so they don't need to pay extra for childcare. Some don't care to spend time with their children either. I actually spend time with Riley talking about and teaching her more about her activities. It's easy because I danced professionally. But again, I've gotten sucked up in the chauffeuring and I feel like I only prepare lunches and snacks which has not left any time to scrapbook. I don't even take photos anymore because I am always in the car.

I did manage to get my layout done for the True XOXO Instagram challenge.

I spent quite a few hours on this but I actually didn't change the cardstock too much from it's original state. I used PanPastels to do a little bit of extra shading around the edges of all of the elements. The ribbon is from May Arts...it's velvet. I haven't played around too much with the PanPastels since I got them back in June. But I have another challege coming up and needed yellow chevron. I didn't have paper with a chevron patter nor did I want to diecut anything at 3am. So here came my thought about changing the color of the ribbon.

I used the sponge applicator and swiped it across the ribbon. Easy as that. Seriously! Then I sprayed it with fixative. Yes, I did that too in the middle of the night indoors. I don't have an iPhone and I know I've played around with various photo apps. My phone doesn't compare to my camera so I used Lightroom to edit my photo. After about three Presets, I had an over saturated photo that is an Instagram wannabe. I added a white box behind the image (as a layer in Photoshop Elements) and gave that a shadow. Once I was done with my coloring, I created my own sparkly mist out of Ranger Perfect Pearls and water. This layout is full of color and sparkle in person. There are also gold ring stickers by Starform which I ordered through Glitter Ritz/Elizabeth Craft.

I had so much fun just shading in the colors that I want the new musical costumes to use PanPastels too. Okay that would be way too expensive, but I can just imagine the possibilities. Have I mentioned that this year's musical is going to be The Lion King? Yes, you may lose me again when I begin designing costumes but this time my friend says I have to take you along for the ride in my costume making process.

Halloween will be here soon!

2011-09-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

I started this album last year before Halloween. This album has been shuffled beneath things on my work surface and can you tell I lost some chipboard?

The reason I am posting this album is to show you how I made the cover. This was a 4x6 premade photo album. Actually it's a 2008 graduation album. I covered the embroidered year under the green BoBunny paper. I ripped out all of the pages inside.

Here you can see I sprayed the inside cover with Black Gold Glimmer Mist and used a paper towel to soak up a bit of the spray to give a grungy look. My base pages are made of chipboard and they are painted black with acrylic paint. They actually look like wood because I used the paint sparingly. The Bind-it-All got dusted off (oh I am sure it's got a good coat of dust on it again!) to bind all the pages together. I used a ribbon scrap to adhere the book to the cover. It's just strung through the rings and tied into a knot on the outside spine.

To ensure there was no shifting of the book, I used brads. I used the Crop-o-dile to punch through the cover and ribbon. Now i don't have to worry about having a stray book without a cover and I used up random bits of stash to get the job done.

Here are the other pages of the book, which is far less exciting than to use/re-use something that you thought was garbage to a scrapbooker. I mean seriously....haven't you gotten on of those photo albums and wondered what you were going to do with it? A scrapbooker wouldn't dare fill the thing in with just photos!!!

School has started and I am back!

2011-09-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Summer is over and Riley is in school full time now. I have to admit that I have not been scrapbooking much because I've felt my mojo slipping away. I can't tell if it's back with the layout I created for True XOXO scraplift challenge.

Here is a look at my layout for September.

I used Webster's Pages paper and embellishments from their warehouse sale they had a few months ago. What I really wanted to focus on is my new favorite tool. Some of you may not know, I am heat accident prone. I don't like glue guns. I've gotten my thumb stuck into the hole and glued into the hot glue stick.

Surebonder High Temp Detail Mini Glue Gun

This glue gun has become my new best friend. I initially purchased this to make the costumes for The Little Mermaid musical. The fine detail tip makes it perfect for my paper crafting. Even LAYOUTS! I get no bulk and my thumb can't get into the back of the gun because it uses the smaller glue sticks. It doesn't even drip a lot of glue so most times I don't have to use the stand. I work off a glass surface so it doesn't really matter in my case. But if you are not a huge fan of glue guns but need a more secure adhesive for your layouts....consider this gun with a Joann's 40% or 50% coupon.

Goosebump spray

2011-08-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'd have to say that my favorite product that I have found this year is Tsukineko's Goosebumps spray. Not only does it dry fast but it maintains it's water droplet shape. I know you can't see it well here on this Peppermint Creative layout but it's the shiny stuff on the bottom. I found it at Michael's and used a 40% coupon on it. I think it runs about $10/bottle.

My Way to Hybrid

2011-08-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today on the Peppermint Creative blog, you will see how I interpret hybrid scrapbooking and came about this shaped layout.

Spring Bird Cage --GCD contest

2011-08-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

This little baby won 2nd runner up to the GCD Studio Brave Girl contest. I think this is enough to get me to start crafting again!

Woody Car Album

2011-08-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I made this album in early June. This was a class at the LSS. In general, I don't take many project based classes but this custom car was so cute, I couldn't pass it up. The car itself is made of actual wood. The teacher had custom Accucut dies made to cut the pieces. I, of course, took tracings of the car just in case I ever decided I wanted to make a pink woody car album. A lot of the embellishments are from my personal stash. . . you know the dollar scrapbooking booth at the Expo shows. BTW, there's a show coming up next week!

The right page shown above is a thin acrylic. I had purchased Tsukineko's Goose Bumps spray days before the class at Michael's with a coupon. It was fabulous. . . hopefully you can see a bit of what it does. I think it is like Diamond Glaze but watered down. I have yet to actually test a watered down version to see if it performs the same.

The spray bubbles up like water droplets. I thought it was perfect for a beach album.

I made the straw umbrella with Lifestyle Crafts umbrella drink dies. I knew that the album would get crushed so I cut the umbrella out of Grunge Paper. It is painted with a high pigment/glittered powder my mom purchased while I was on vacation. It's made by Object Arts called Color Bizarre. Everything shown online shows the product is made specifically for glass. I mixed the powder with a bit of decoupage glue and WOW! It looks great as if I had used Glitter Ritz. The color was strong and the glitter was super shimmery.

The page on the right is one of my favorites. The beach chair was so much fun. I misted the chipboard and bent it a bit so that it would hold shape. Then I adhered with a glue gun to give dimension.

And this little flip out, we used Basic Grey magnets as an enclosure.

These last two pages are my least favorite but I think overall the album was really fun to work with.

Back from vacation

2011-08-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted ...we are officially back from vacation and all settled in. What an adventure it was and I look forward to creating again. I should have lots of photos to use for scrapbooking. . . but will I have paper to match???

Build texture to digital layouts

2011-06-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

I love the ability to cut and re-cut digital papers without being stuck with something that just didn't seem to work (and not having the pieces fall all over the place when trying to store them). So here's a layout I did the other night for the Peppermint Creative one word challenge. The theme was "Sparkle". I could have gone with just a digital layout. But as you know I love texture. So after building my layout and printing this baby, I diecut letters on double sided adhesive. First I backed one side of the adhesive with paper. Then I placed the adhesive sheet on my Pazzles mat and cut. Once done, I glued the letters down. Actually I could have done two sheets of adhesive but I initially tried to put the sandwich through the Big Shot with a Quickutz die and it bombed big time. Quickutz dies are not good for cutting anything thicker than one sheet of cardstock. I guess I never mentioned that I broke my Revolution machine trying to cut one of these adhesive sandwiches months ago. We really had to break open the machine to get the die out to save just the die. So my advice is to stay away from their dies unless you have old ones in your stash like me.

Next came the glitter. I really love the texture of Glitter Ritz. Not only the look (because it's not overly glittery--like cheap chunky stuff) but it feels so soft on paper. It really doesn't feel like any other glitter. . .kind of like fabric that it's so smooth. So I glittered my title and around the frames in the layout. For that I used Sobo glue and just sprinkled away. One hint to use Glitter Ritz is that when died or stuck to adhesive is to burnish it into the surface. This will get all the particles to line up and shine. Unfortunately you can't see it at all in my layout because we have crappy summer weather and it sure doesn't catch light. Well that is because there is no SUN!

Beach fun

2011-06-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

We had a little bit of sun for the past few days. Honestly it felt like only the morning hours were hot but that was inspiration enough for a beach layout.

I completed most of the layout using kits from Peppermint Creative.
Teen Queen Kit
Sunkissed Summer Kit

New 'Do Kit which btw is a freebie!

After I printed out my layout, I added Creative Imaginations rub-ons for my title, trees, and flip flops. Then I used Thermoweb's 3D dots to pop two epoxy stickers as well. After I stuck on Pink Paislee letter stickers. My sun wasn't as bright (or the layout itself after printing) as I had wanted so I used a bit of Pan Pastels to give that baby some pop.

Bad at Posting

2011-06-20T00:19:00.000-07:00

Seriously I have been horrible at posting the past few weeks. With kindergarten graduation, a trip to Disneyland, and rehearsals up the wazoo for the year end recitals and making costumes. . . there has been little time to be crafty. I don't know how much of a break we will have but the shows are over and I can hopefully resume my crafty ways.

I wanted to let you know two things. One, True XOXO blog challenges are back. I wasn't paying attention but a week or so ago, the layouts went live. Here was my layout. You still have some time to lift or any of my other teammates' layouts.

Now here is a really cool thing. I managed to successfully print on regular canvas and it went through my Epson R1900 without a hitch. Check out my hybrid layout. I took the dress form and "patterned papers" from Peppermint Creative's Teen Queen kit.

Be back soon!

Peppermint Creative tutorial

2011-06-01T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hi! I know I have been MIA yet again. I found myself creating 50 WWII USO hats for Riley's Musical Theater company. They are doing the finale for each of the recitals coming up. At least they'll wear the hats 5 times. While I was in sewing mode, I was contacted by Miss Mint of Peppermint Creative and notified that I would be joining the creative team working on hybrid projects.

Take a look at the first of my projects on the Peppermint Creative blog. I show you how to make a waterproof book cover. Even if you aren't into digital scrapbooking, you can apply the technique to any paper or light cardstock you own. So go on over to the blog and try your hand at this project!

Triple threat album

2011-05-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

I wanted to do a really quick album for Riley's singing, dancing and acting. That's why I think of it as her "triple threat" album. I was able to mix media and use just about any odds and ends that were sitting on my scrap table. I think I need to do more of these to clear off the surface (which is pretty big and my workable surface. . . so small).

Spring Bird Cage

2011-05-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

It's been warming up around here and I'm seeing so many things pop up that are signs Spring is in full bloom. I can say my eyes have been itchy for over a month so I know they are. But one of the truest signs is that we have had a hummingbird nesting right by our porch for at least a month now. We had another bird how seems to love the porch but it's not so exciting. What you are seeing in the photo are the two hatched babies. So this leads me to my project today.

In February, my step sister gave me three fabulous bird cages. Now I wouldn't say they necessarily are my "style" but I make things my style (if I even have one).

Inside where all those colorful eggs are is a candle votive holder. One day Riley and I were picking up her friend for a playdate and we found a warehouse sale. I bought a punch of these for $0.50 each in different colors. So I first laid down leaves from flowers I got at Dollar Tree. Next I put the votive holder in the cage. It would have helped a lot if I knew the top opened too! I put another layer of leaves together while stacking them with 3D glue dots. You can actually see under the branch that the bird is standing on a dot.

Again, some of the newest flowers at Dollar Tree with Prima flower centers and Melissa Frances pearls.

Finally the most time consuming part of this. I diecut two chipboard pieces. Then I used two font sets and one corner stamp from Melody Ross' Chip Art Tools. Actually I painted the chipboard red first. Then I stamped my metal stamp into archival ink. I hammered in the design to deboss and stamp. I added an additional 7 Gypsies color wash. I have no clue where it came from. Probably from my step sister Susan! I glued the two pieces of chipboard together while sandwiching a layer of gathered lace in between. To hand the piece I also added clear nylon fishing wire. The bead caps were colored with Chili Pepper alcohol ink by Ranger and pearls added to the top.

All this was inspired by a cute mama hummingbird who almost poked my eyes out while I was shooting photos of it's babies. Boy do those hummingbirds fly in fast. It's a good thing they are loud and I could hear her coming!

Ready Made Photo Album ALTERED Part 2

2011-05-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

I decided to take real photo of the cover of the altered album. Now let's pick up where I left off.

1. After I ironed on the canvas, I used a mustard colored, thin body acrylic paint. The color was a little too strong to match my paper so I used a spray bottle and misted the canvas to dilute the paint a bit. I didn't worry too much about the paint spilling off the edges because I colored the threads in the stitching as well (below).

2. I used Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed Distress Inks around the edges.

3. I laid down some Super tape around the window and placed a decorative ribbon. I don't like to use wet glue because you never know how the fabric/ribbon will react to the glue. Some glues leave nasty stains on the ribbon.

4. I also grabbed a paper doily and used Twinkling H20s which is a sparkly watercolor paint. Glued the Prima flowers down and slipped a piece of patterned cardstock into the window. I removed the prongs from We R Memory Keepers glitter brads and glued them on.

5. Above you see three 3D glue dots from Thermoweb stacked together to give my chipboard leaf dimension and shape. I mist the chipboard and bend the edge to give a real life shape to the leaf. Place the glue dots underneath and mold the leaf some more.

6. Next I used some fabulous lace tape I got from Daiso. If you have a store near you, most items are $1.50 and you get 19" on the roll. Not necessarily the cheapest but if you compare it to what you buy at your LSS. . . you get variety and almost no one else will be using it on their layouts!

7. Finally I cut a square of book board thickness chipboard and used Melody Ross' Chipart Tools to place my Soul Restoration cover text. I painted it first with black acrylic paint. Then I added a cream color on top and wiped away before fully dried.

Hope I provided you with tips on handling readily available items you already may have at home. It's a nice sunny day outside. . . so I'm going to craft in the sun.

I won!

2011-05-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

I won the Spring contest at GCD Studios! Here is my original link to the project. Yeah!!!!! Haha I'll need to jump myself all the way back downstairs to the scrapbook room and get moving on the next project.

Ready made photo album ALTERED part 1

2011-05-02T11:16:00.000-07:00

I decided to venture into the Brave Girls Club Soul Restoration class. I don't think so much for the art journalling aspect but more for creative inspiration. I am really getting a late start at the class.

One of the many zillion projects is a book to hold the weekly assignments. The ones I have seen have been chipboard, sketch books or ones with canvas covers. I thought about stitching one together but really didn't want to spend a whole lot of time with the book because I wasn't sure I would like the class. I've found myself loving my book already. I will show you the steps I took to complete the cover.

1. This is what I started with. I got a bunch of photo albums last year for $1. This one is a pleather cover with a bunch of page. It has a spine like a traditional scrapbook with the screws. I originally was going to replace the pages with chipboard covered pages but had a total brainstorm going on in my head.

2. I took a piece of canvas and did a good estimate on size and traced where I thought the window was. I had to because I could not find a ruler. Looks good enough, right? I cut the piece slightly smaller so I could still see the stitching.

3. I grabbed some Thermoweb Heat n Bond No Sew and headed to the ironing board after I cut a piece to match the canvas. Remember that I have already preshrunk my canvas fabric (I saw a 25% shrinkage when working with it direct from the store).

4. Next I ironed my canvas because geesh it sits in a crumpled pile. I starched the canvas as well. Then followed the directions on the package of Heat n Bond and adhered it to the canvas.

5. I cut out the window and peeled the backing off the fabric.

6. You will have to keep in mind that my album is synthetic. I could not keep the iron in one place for too long nor touch the iron to the album. So I kept the iron moving and the canvas adhered perfectly! I didn't put the piece on perfectly lined up but no one will notice once I am done.

I will be back tomorrow with the creative portion of the altered photo album. Have a nice day! I am heading to the beach!!

Altered Silver Platter Wall Hanging

2011-04-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

I spend quite a bit of time roaming the aisles of Dollar Tree and one day it just hit me to pick up a few of the different shaped "silver" platters. As with my post yesterday, I am not so fond of shiny metal for my crafts. Maybe it comes from not photographing well. . . but anyhow, the first thing I did was to look for a sheet of paper that would suit the edge of the platter. I knew it had to be vintage so I grabbed my pile of Webster's Pages and committed myself to a brown alcohol ink and swiped it across only the edge of the platter.

Once I figured out the paper I was going to use, I placed the platter on top of the paper and did an estimate on the width and height. I cut the paper first then traced the corners on the paper to fit inside of the platter. I did ink the paper with pink and brown.

I fussy cut the "Live the life you have imagined" from the same sheet of Webster's paper. I wanted it to stand out so I really inked that baby. Then I popped it with three layers of foam tape. After that I still needed something to make it stand out so I used a glue pen and some Glitter Ritz Grasshopper glitter. The Melissa Frances pearls finished the piece off. On top of that I used a Sizzix die to cut book board thickness chipboard. Then I used Melody Ross's doodle stamp to imprint the squiggly on the center. While the chipboard was still wet, I bent it to hold a real leaf shape. Once dried, I painted the leaf green (again always with my finger) and then inked the edges with Distress Ink.

Although it is very difficult to see in the photos, I used the glue pen to also add Melissa Frances' mica flakes. The white flowers are Prima with the colored centers. The small pink and peach flowers are from a local reuse store. And the big peach flowers are from a floral, planning shop called Fantastico in San Francisco. I think they were 6 for $0.59. The frame around the bird cage and keyhole are also Melissa Frances.

I actually made a special trip over to Scrapbook Territory just to find something to fill in the spot where the K & Company chipboard bird is off to the side. Everyone in the store was WOWed by this piece just walking around in the store searching for my perfect match. And I did not leave disappointed.

I filled in empty areas with Making Memories rubons and the Melisaa Frances pearls. Oh and that "paper" behind the photo is the Prima packaging from the flowers.

Hope you are inspired to create a beautiful piece from something so ordinary at the dollar store.

Altered Silver Luggage Tag

2011-04-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

Today I have an altered luggage tag. My friend, Bonnie (and I know she'll read this!), got a few of these babies as a wedding favor. As they are, they are just kind of blah (no offense to the bride for picking these out). When I saw the raised hearts, I knew I had to add alcohol inks to them. I contemplated sanding the silver to get a brushed metal look as I had here. I decided to go against my tendency to always want to scuff up metal and leave it alone.

I actually applied the alcohol ink direct from the nozzle, which I touched it to the heart for only a second or two. The ink came out in a small circle and looked like it would spill over but then self leveled into the beveled heart shape.

The handle I used Melody Ross's Chip Art Tool. I picked these tiny letters up cheap at Scrapbook Territory on clearance. I contemplated even trying the tools on the band because I've made attempts in the past to imprint the metal stamps into imitation leather with no results whatsoever. But this band, I actually could press the stamps with my thumb to get a nice indentation.

After stamping, I used my index finger to white wash the band and accent the quote. I took a metallic (red) paint pen and colored in my hearts (one on each side of my quote). The quote by the way is from last year's version of Alice in Wonderland. Yes... the hearts reminded me of the Red Queen. And I was going to put a photo of Riley with the Queen or as Alice. I used distress ink to give the band a red edge, however it didn't look right and I was able to take it right off with water hours later.

I found myself in Japantown yesterday at the Daiso store and found a roll of Alice in Wonderland tape. Travel. . . luggage tag. .. .match made in heaven. Since this was packing tape, it is shiny and did not photograph well as it looks unfinished around the edges in the photo. So again, because of the tape, I had to keep this piece as a luggage tag.

Mixed Media Canvas in the Making Part 2

2011-04-26T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today I have Part 2 of the mixed media canvas I started on Friday. If you missed Part 1, you can see it here.

I used Liquitex gold acrylic paint and used my finger to color the sun. It's difficult to see here but it made the sun appear more yellow.

Below are bead caps with an Antique Silver finish. I took some Ranger alcohol inks and colored them pink with a small piece of scrap felt.

Next I used another Stamping Bella stamps (can you tell I just got them?) and stamped the girl onto the grass where I wanted her to stand.

I stamped the image again onto cardstock a few times to construct her dress to not only add color but also dimension.

I was going to leave her green. . . no not really because she looked like an alien. So I grabbed my favorite peach color from the Neocolor water soluble wax pastel set to give her face a flesh color. To be honest, I laid it on heavier than I normally would because the area is quite textured and I really wanted to make her not look green. Better, right? And I laid the color on so thick, well . . .I had to draw in her eyes with a permanent pen.

Now back to the bead caps. I glued those babies down to the ends of the clothes line. Also added cream colored jute as the actual line with regular Sobo glue. I say cream colored jute because I go to Daiso who offers it in sets with various shades of a color.

I colored the poles with DecoColor Opaque Glitter paint pens.

I colored in the pins and placed seed beads to give dimension. I also colored in the clothes with the same line of pens.

Above I stamped clouds using Hampton Arts stamps. The white cloud was stamped with white Brilliance ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder. I then used Stazon to stamp the outline. Added a bit of Sobo glue with my finger onto the white parts of the clouds and sprinkled a light dusting of the Cool Highlight glitter from Glitter Ritz for extra pizzazz (not shown). Also on the sun, I used my finger to "paint" in between the sun rays (Dew Drops) and onto the sun with gold and yellow Liquitex acrylic ink.

While this was all happening, I made molds of Prima resin flower cabs and made a few flowers. While my flowers were in the oven, I added a Creative Imaginations rubon, a flower to my girl's hair, a Hampton Arts bird and doodled a few music notes.

I actually didn't want to move big items out of the closet to find a matching color of clay so I painted the cooled flowers with acrylic paint and distressed them with Distress Ink using my fingers. I glued those babies on and drew in stems.

A girl needs diamond earrings and some Stickles! And I was done!!!!!

XOXO April Challenge

2011-04-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

This month's challenge passed me by! The sponsor for April's prize is Candy Shoppe Designs so stop by XOXO for a scraplift. You just may be the lucky winner!

Mixed media canvas in the making

2011-04-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me apologize for not being around. As you already know, I had been working on costumes but another unexpected event happened. A long-time family friend passed away and I have been in charge of managing the estate. So instead of bringing this down, let's just say I have been busy.

I did manage to finally get all the costume pieces out of my house. We did a quick trial run at the Urban Paradise festival at Riley's dance school last weekend. Here is a peek. I can finally breathe and can come up from "Under the Sea."

Now onto the canvas. I have yet to finish but I will walk you though how I am making this as I go along. A bit different than the way I usually show you things as completed projects. You'll have to excuse the photos as I took them with my phone.

First I started off with a 6" canvas panel. I've had a ton of these since Quick Quotes started making canvas projects several years ago. They get to be really cheap at Cheap Joes or Dick Blick (online). These are pre-gessoed and the sheet on top is a piece of left over pattern paper. I chose not to go with designs on the paper. I use the Tracy Bautista collage medium because I wanted to try it and it was cheaper than Mod Podge. It works well. So I squirted it onto the canvas and used a stiff brush to paint it on across the entire surface. See that wrinkle/fold? I left that and you'll see why. This all creates texture in the piece. I don't care for the brown pattern paper so I reapplied gesso on top so I'd have a white surface for brighter colors.

I then use watercolors to paint the sky and grass. The fold that I created was used as the line for the top of the grass.

I used Stamping Bella's clothes line and accessory stamps with Stazon ink. Don't worry about the messy stamping as we will cover up some of it later.

I used a new Hero Arts background stamp with chalk ink to emboss the impression with American Craft's Zing embossing powder. While wet, you may apply another layer of powder for extra dimension after you heat the first layer.

Here is where my mess began. I used another shade of Zing embossing powder and a Stamping Bella texture stamp to give the grass dimension. On top of that is Glitter Ritz glitter.

Use a stiff brush to wipe away the excess. It was a little too sparkly for me, so I applied collage medium on top of it. Not only to make sure it wasn't going anywhere but to dull it down. If you've ever worked with Glitter Ritz you know how wonderful and vibrant this glitter is.

If you look close enough, I used another Stamping Bella background stamp (bubble wrap) in the sky. It is clear so it is difficult to see in this photo. To make it pop a bit more, I added a little bit of ink on top as a resist and some to the grass as an accent. I wasn't getting exactly what I wanted because my blue ink was too dark, so I shot some Caribbean Blue Glimmer Mist onto the canvas. If you find that it is too dark in spots, wipe them away or even spritz with water to remove. Then I covered the piece with another layer of collage medium.

I cut a circle (My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose) and applied collage medium to the canvas. Next I put the circle on top and trimmed. Another layer of medium was used to seal the circle in. I next used a Close to My Heart glue pen (back from when I was a rep) and sprinkled yellow Glitter Ritz around my sun.

Finally my last step for today (I am waiting for my mom to call me to pick them up from the airport after a 3 week trip. . . they could almost be done clearing customs). . . was to add Dew Drops as my sun rays. Actually these are from Cat's Pajamas.

I will be back with part 2 on Monday!

Fabric apron using Chip Art Tools

2011-03-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

Since I have been on a roll using the Chip Art Tools, I thought I would apply them to fabric. There was the obvious embossing of leather. Actually I tried that but I used an old leather jacket which was of very high quality (leather) and it didn't work well. The leather was really smooth and soft and the tools no matter how hard I hit would want to cut the shapes out. Then I had the opposite where if I didn't hit it hard enough, it would not emboss well and I would have needed to shade the areas with paint...and I didn't want that.

So I was lead down the path of traditional stamping on suede microcloth. I tried to emboss it but it wasn't working well it enough and I thought it was burning the fabric (you know that glossy look). The nap of corduroy didn't work either because the stamps are really too small to imprint.

The fabrics I chose were so busy that I decided to keep the stamps as outlines vs. painting them in with metallic paints like I had initially hoped. Really it would have sent the entire apron into over the top mode for me.

Polymer clay meets Chip Art Tools

2011-03-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Today I used Melody Ross' Chip Art Tools in polymer clay. I did a faux enamel technique to create a floral headband for Riley (no big surprise there). . . and actually I forgot the gold paint. Guess you wouldn't know it if you've never seen it. Riley loves her headband anyhow. I sure wish she didn't have such sensitive eyes. She won't ever face toward the sunlight.

Plus while I had the black clay out, I made a cuff bracelet, again using the tools. It was difficult to take a photo of the bracelet on my own arm. I guess I could have dug out the tripod but that would have created an avalanche of "waiting to be upcycled clothes." Next up. . . a trial using the tools on fabric.

Chipboard floral wreath

2011-03-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

We finally got a little peek of sun around here. Actually they say that there is going to be sun for the entire week. So to celebrate, today I have a floral wreath I made with scraps of chipboard. I used Sizzix's tattered flowers die along with their butterfly die. To give the chipboard texture, I used Melody Ross's Chip Art tools. After I created the impressions, I painted the pieces with acrylic paint, Brilliance ink, paint pens and "watercolored" them with shimmer chalks.

I picked up the wreath at Dollar Tree. The pieces were created using flowers I had also purchased at Dollar Tree (the red and purple ones). So I disassembled the fabric flowers and placed one layer on the bottom, then I placed a tattered flower on top and a 3-D flower in the center. To create fullness, I added extra Prima flowers.

Shadow box makeover

2011-03-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Today I gave a Making Memories wood shadow box a makeover. Here is the before.

And now my AFTER!

Initially I combined a red and pink acrylic paint to match the red in the Urban Lily paper. Then I added Delta's Crackle Medium. I can't say that it is a crackle. . . it's more of a true wood finish. But I thinned some black fluid acrylic paint with water and brushed it on while the crackle was a bit tacky and wiped it off almost immediately.

For the chipboard pieces, I wanted to use Melody Ross' Chip Art tools to create an embossed, colored leather feel that is worn. So I embossed the chipboard and then while still wet, I bent the pieces to create the leather texture. The edges are worn and separated. . . again like leather. Spring is here and so are the cherry blossoms so I made my little flowers pink. After I curled the chipboard, I dried them with a heat gun (of course, right?) and painted them with my finger. Next I rubbed my finger in Distress ink and rubbed it onto the chipboard. I got the look of a torn leather jacket and that was exactly what I was hoping for. To highlight the pieces, I added a bit of Liquitex acrylic ink and Twinkling H20s.

Bead caps, bling and glitter later. . . it was done! Lately I have been in a "kitchen sink" mode where I use just about anything in my stash. . .and really I am loving it! Hope you give it a try too.

Altered book-- quick how-to tutorial

2011-03-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Yeh! It's still the same day and I am back as promised. You'll have to excuse the poor lighting and the white balance being off. I took these in the middle of the night with my cell phone.

Let me just say I lied when I said quick. You know I am long winded with my words. So here is how I started this book. I actually cut these pretty often and just let them sit for a while. Not for any reason other than I have some hot idea and drop it for another project. So what you need to do is sketch out how you want your "window" or "shadow box". Then take a metal ruler and a box cutter (or if you are like me I start off with a ruler and go freehand. . . see my lumpy cuts, but it won't matter because no one will see it) cut on your lines. Cut a few pages at a time and it will keep the pages somewhat even. Don't go too far down if you don't have many pages to your book unless you want to use your back cover as the background.

Tip for books. You can find free books at the library. You'll also find some interesting "vintage" books that you could use for backgrounds. I found some tree house construction books and today even a huge old dictionary probably from the 1940s. You can also buy books at places like Dollar Tree. They are far cheaper than going to Goodwill!!!! What you will find is that more expensive books have even pages along the sides. There is no real way to even them out. Most times the top and bottoms match but the side opposite the spine is lumpy. Once you cut the pages out, feel free to use those pages to make upcycled flowers for your other projects.

Next I stamped the door on the front cover with black Stazon ink. Then I used my box cutter to cut on the lines of the door. Bend the door back a few times. There are other options like cutting the door off but I wanted the door to close correctly without the canvas falling through. Of course if you have small hinges, you could cut and hinge the "door" back on. I took a sanding block and I sanded both the book cover and the "door" edges so they were smooth and looked clean.

Pull out your gesso and give a thin coat of paint to covers and spine of the book. You can prime the sides of the pages but it is not necessary. I prime the inside edges as well that show when the book is closed. Make sure you don't goop the gesso in your doorway! You can sand again but it is easier if you just wipe it with a dedicated rag for paints, your finger or paper towels. I didn't need much paint at all and you would never be able to tell the book was black and maroon.

You can give the edges of your book a coat of Mod Podge (matte) all around. Close the book and put a good weight on top to ensure your pages stay closed. If you don't want the book to open, it won't matter if your top page is ripped open for you to finish the book. If you care, put a piece of wax paper between your covers. When working with books in this capacity, I am patient and do not pull out the heat gun for this step.

Meet Tuesday from the Greeting Farm. I don't buy many of these type of stamps although I adore them. I am not one for coloring with Copics. I have some but I rarely use them as a pen and I cannot color very well. If I ever do color, I tend to reach for Prismacolor markers but again, I don't color well at all! So I used a water soluble wax pastel (Neocolor crayons) on Tuesday. Then I cut my girl out.

I started painting the sky and worked my way down. There is no need to paint your door! Do you see the tulle I have in front of the door? I was going to a cobblestone look. Well I have a lot of tulle because I make tutus for Riley and seriously it was all to the right of me and I didn't even have to move my feet to get to it. I Mod Podged that baby on three times to make sure it stuck. Then I painted the rest of the book.

I used a house die from Sizzix. It actually is a Bigz die made to be a mini album. I covered the holes. Again, I have mentioned this before but I buy my own canvas. I go to Joann's armed and dangerous with my 50% coupons and buy a yard or two. I like white. Some like that natural look and claim colors are deeper with that cream color but it's not for me. I am not against the Prima canvas look. . . hell I have quite a bit of theirs; I just like white. Once home, I wash the canvas because I tried it one time with a layout and it shrunk once the paint dried. What I found was that I lost a good 20% or so. The benefit though is that the fabric became much heavier and was a better to paint on than when I bought it. Some of the loss (I don't know how much) can be avoided if you take the time to do a quick stitch around all the edges to prevent fraying. Back to the house, I actually was going to stitch two layers shut (the recent heart album was stitched) but I decided to glue them. Once dried, I actually got over spray from Glimmer Mist onto my house so I used it anyhow and put pink on top. It gave good color blending. Stamp your door onto your house and cut around the door. Glue onto your book cover and opening and you're all set to start embellishing.

So I hope you enjoyed my long-winded walk through on creating your own altered book!

Mixed Media Altered Book

2011-03-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

Today I have an altered book. I saw this door stamp months ago and contemplated buying it. Then when I went back to the store, I decided I had to have it for an altered book. I never imagined my book quite like this but I can say I am more than happy with it. Everything is either acrylic paint or watercolors. I even dug into my stash and brought out the polymer clay!

When you open the door, you find Greeting Farm's Tuesday girl. I don't know if you can tell that I created a :window" behind her with a fabric valance.

Here is the back side of the book. Now I am not as happy with that but it's all right. What I love about this painting technique inspired by my taking "The She Art Workshop" is that I can use just about anything in my stash that I have collected along the way. . . yes that means all of my past and present hobbies.

I even found a way to use the Melody Ross chipboard tools I have had for over a year.

I need to run but I will be back later to give you a peek into how I created the book.

Hybrid Mixed Media Canvas

2011-03-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

I just completed my third She Art canvas. I can't say I am really fond of it but I did like working in digital elements. I printed them onto tissue paper and applied them with Mod Podge. I have a few ideas on how to make this process better the next time around. I think I figured out why I don't like this. . .it was my choice of Basic Grey papers for the dress which blends too much with the green of the grass.

XOXO March Challenge

2011-03-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

There was a delay in posting the March XOXO Lipstick Chicks challenge this month. The sponsor is Candy Shoppe Designs. For a chance to win a cool prize, lift one of the designs from the team. I used Sassafras Lass, Unity Stamp, Pink Paislee stamp, and upcycled denim.

Here is my layout for the month.

St. Patrick's Day Teacher Gifts

2011-03-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today I completed Riley's St. Patrick's Day teacher gifts. I created a rainbow of Air Head candies. They come in a box of 60 for $7 at Target. I originally was going to use the rainbow Twizzlers but could not find them. In all honesty. . . they aren't very good. So I was left with a variety of options like those wax bottle candies but they ran pretty expensive. We headed to Target and found the Air Heads. Problem was that they come in red, orange, green, blue, white and pink. The white is a bit of a blue-ish tint so I grabbed my Ranger alcohol inks. I dropped a few drops of yellow onto a small piece of felt and swiped it across the Mystery White candy wrapper. The pink. . . I turned purple using the same method.

Here is a free download of the rainbow image I used. Have fun making your own gifts!

She Art Canvas

2011-03-13T23:05:00.000-07:00

I made another She Art canvas. This time around I was really hesitant on making a "She" and creating a background. I actually had to tear my first attempt to use patterned paper off the canvas. I didn't feel quite the same creative freedom as I had just using acrylic paint.

My girl really goes more with my fun, (going to label myself now) whimsical tendencies. These canvases are really fun to create and I get to use stash that I wouldn't normally. I grabbed a 6" paper pad I received in a Pink Paislee warehouse sale box, used bead caps that have been around since my polymer clay days, and rubons (BoBunny, Cosmo Cricket, We R Memory Keepers) that were left over from other projects. Even stamps. . . rarely do I ever use stamps but I managed to dig out different stamps.

I really went through bling withdrawl the last time so I worked it in to create texture. What appears as white spots in the photo are actually silver foil. These are really fun to create but what am I going to do with them? Next time I think I will need to add Riley's face to the pictures.

Canvas mini album from scratch

2011-03-08T22:43:00.000-08:00

I told you I would be back today. . .and I am! See mom!!!!! Haha she said that I have been so consumed in costume design that I have not been posting. Well it doesn't help that I've had the worst sinus infection and the doctor made me fight it out without antibiotics. I was truly a zombie for two weeks until he gave in and gave me meds after a CT scan. So let's get down to business (hey that's a Mulan quote). Okay too many Disney movies for me and anyways, I am supposed to be in The Little Mermaid frame of mind.

I created a canvas album from canvas I purchased from Joanns. One thing you will need to keep in mind if painting on sewing canvas is that you will experience shrinkage if the fabric gets wet. It's not so much of an issue if you are sticking to acrylics but there is a little shrinkage there. With watercolors, I found the shrinkage to be pretty extreme. So I pre-washed the fabric right after I found that a layout I had done (months ago) shrunk. I lost 25% after washing and that was not due to the fabric fraying.

I diecut the butterfly using a Sizzix Bigz die. Then I stitched pages together. I thought that the threads may show through so I sewed on the body of the butterfly first before stitching the back side of the page on. If I would have made the album using a single layer of canvas, the watercolor would have bled through.

Next I primed the canvas with gesso. I keep saying I used watercolors but actually I used Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Artists' Water Soluble Crayon Set. I have seen these in the store and some brands call them water soluble wax pastels. You color as you would with a normal crayon and add water and there you have watercolor. Totally blendable. And you can also take your wet brush and pull color directly off the crayon and place on your paint surface. You can even draw on your hand and pick up color from there. We have gone to a birthday party and the woman doing face painting was using these same crayons to paint.

I used Glimmer Mist and Hampton Arts spritz screens to create the designs. Then I took the spray that was on the masks and used the rest on other parts of the pages and the back cover. I know I should create tutorials but I go with the flow and without a creative plan. If you have specific questions, please feel free to email me.

Got Paint? Got a technique for you!

2011-03-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

I am taking Got Paint @ Big Picture. This is week 2. Nothing really so far (and it is a 4 week workshop) has been any different than what I have done before. I did however want to show you a simple technique in the layout above. If you will notice, I stamped the rose using two colors of paint. Then I applied the paint with my fingers to the acrylic stamp. And you already know I am impatient and used a heat gun. But I stopped myself before the paint was fully dry and applied embossing powder to the wet spots. This actually makes the paint still look wet. As long as the paint is wet, the powder adheres.

I painted paint around the edges of the overlay and paint stamped the butterflies.

This layout somehow took me hours because I created two layers of paint resist on the white bird sheet. I first applied a layer of Mod Podge. Then spread Vaseline randomly around the sheet. I applied the iridescent pearl paint all over then let dry for a minute and took a paper towel and wiped everything off. The sheet of paper is toned down in color and sparkly. . . (which you can't see). Then I applied the Vaseline again and a layer of turquoise paint. I applied paint pretty much everywhere on this layout. I used my ruffler foot on my sewing machine to create the crate paper ruffle.

And this layout, well it has no paint at all. I just wanted to include it. I used SEI's Bridgeport and Donna Downey's dress form to complete the layout. Back tomorrow because I have a lot more that I did yesterday!

Winners and painted canvas

2011-03-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

I decided to give an inro pendant to all who commented in the last post. Look for it in the mail!

I have ventured into mixed media canvas art. This is the first week of the She Art Workshop. Here is my first canvas I created. I used pattern paper, SEI cardstock (Bridgeport), DCWV cardstock, acrylic paints, water color (wax pastel) crayons, Staz On inks, Glitz Girls stamps, Pink Paislee and BoBunny rubons, Making Memories trim, Glimmer Mist , American Crafts brad, Tattered Angels mask.

The hardest part of this was painting the hair. Then next toning down the green in the DCWV music note cardstock I used for the face and neck. We'll see how the next comes out. It actually was a lot of fun to create. Riley wants to do one and I'm sure hers will be better than mine.

Giveaway!!!

2011-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't been scrapbooking much because I have been designing and making costumes. . . yes STILL! Anyways, Michael cleaned out the garage this weekend and found some of my old polymer clay pendants. So here is the deal. All except for the ginko leaf pin at the bottom left, they are all Japanese inspired inro pendants. I've included a few from different techniques below. Some use mica shift, mokume gane, custom silk screens I created, image transfers, etc. The open up and you can store something small like a $20 bill in them when you go out. Back in the day, the Japanese would tie these to their belts and store their drugs in them. These took me hours to make and outside of the cording, it is made of 100% polymer clay.

Anyhow, I will be giving one of these away next week. To win, please leave a comment by March 1. Good luck!

XOXO Challenge #16 - Sponsored by Candy Shoppe Designs

2011-02-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

I know I have really been MIA this time. There is a good reason. Promise. I'll get to that a bit later though.

This month's XOXO's challenge is sponsored by Candy Shoppe Designs and the prize is full of Pink Paislee and Prima products. Here is my layout I completed for the design team. I layered several overlays to complete this layout. The products include Pink Paislee, Making Memories, Creative Imaginations, Glimmer Mist. The top overlay was spritzed with Glimmer Mist and edged with pink acrylic paint to give definition. Making Memories trim was added to soften up the look of the hard overlay.

Please visit the XOXO blog for this month's lift challenge and possibly win a prize.

Okay now onto why I have not been scrapbooking. Riley's musical theater group is going to be doing the Little Mermaid musical. The costumes we were told were not available for purchase and if they were, the prices would be through the roof. Let me just say they already are for the simplest designs. So the teacher called for a group of volunteers. That lead to my being in charge of designing and making 24 different costumes for the younger kids. I had 5 seahorses, 6 sea snails, 5 rainbow fish, 2 starfish, 2 jellyfish, 2 sea anemone, and 2 coral. So needless to say I have been consumed in costume design. Here is a peek at what we have done thus far.

Well I don't seem to have a photo of the fish fins that will attach to the girls' unitards. And I am not quite ready for each and every one of you seeing me in a tutu (jelly fish and anemone). Hope to be back soon since I have made several layouts without photos.

Dies and cutting fabric

2011-01-25T00:28:00.000-08:00

When I let Riley loose in the fabric store with the pattern books. . . this is what we get. She wanted this so she could wear it to Gnomeo and Juliet when it opens in a few weeks.

I didn't stray too far from the pattern. They used iron on daisies and a mushroom for the hat. Well our Joann's isn't stocked so well so I didn't have too many options. I used to have a Revolution die cutter but then last year got a Sizzix Big Shot. Recently I broke the Revolution (not that it was used much . . .nor are the dies) but it jammed with a piece of paper and two pieces of double stick tape. It was a horrible death. We fought the machine just to get one border die out. There was no saving it. I think in a way, I was relieved. I put my sewing things in it's case and the machine in the bottom of the garbage.

Anyways, to the point, I can't really cut much with the Quickutz dies. Seriously even using the Big Shot. What I have found is that the Big Shot will cut fabric with their dies no problem. But I don't have many of those dies. So I hit up my mom's stash. She's a Nestabilities addict. But no daisies. She did have custom dies from Heartfelt (they make dies and stamps to match. . .super cool). I was hesitant because the dies are just as thick as the Quickutz dies. It cut wonderfully. The problem I had was that I needed to flip the die around to get an even cut. If you run it through one pass, parts don't cut.

I used felt even though I wanted to use fleece but was worried about the bulkiness. So if you are a scrapbooker, like to sew, or recycle clothing. . . use your existing dies. I picked up Beacon's felt glue as well. It was amazing. I have used other glues with felt (ones that die clear. . .blah blah blah) but you could always see the glue and it died hard. This is undetectable. I pulled ribbon and cardstock out of my stash to finish the project as well.

The skirt was so cute on it's own that I also recycled a pair of jeans and made a denim vest with the red polkadot lining.

Creative Scrapper's January Challenge

2011-01-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

I felt like mixing things up a bit and in my de-stashing mode, I needed to hit the challenge sites. I found Creative Scrappers and decided to take a lift for a whirl. Here is my take on the sketch 139 below.

Here is the photo under the flap.

Materials: My Mind's Eye paper and rubons, Prima flower and flower centers, Tim Holtz die and inks, Diamond Glaze, Diztress it all.

Destashing

2011-01-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

I am always trying to destash and us as much as possible on layouts. I find that when I start to cut papers and am left with scraps, I create more of a mess because I can't seem to get the small pieces to fit onto my paper racks and they eventually get ruined. So yesterday I hit the scrap room with the intentions of using whole sheets that have been hiding out on the bottom of piles in the racks.

I have been in sort of a transparency overlay state of mind which lead me to this layout.

I used Sandy Lion paper and a Best Creations overlay I have been hoarding for a few years. A couple of flowers, butterflies and Prima e-line pearls. Once I had everything in place I used Crate Paper rubons in the corners of the frame and spritzed the entire sheet with Glimmer Mist. Once the Glimmer Mist dried on the overlay, I took a damp paper towel and wiped away the drops of mist across my face.

Here is a Prima die cut sheet. I love the $1 scrapbooking booth which carries a lot of Creative Imaginations embellishments at the Scrapbook Expo. You probably wonder sometimes how I can stick so much onto one page. Well that is it. I have no love lost when I get a product for $1 vs. $6 in the store. If you ever want me to help you pick up stuff. . . early March and I think August or September are the shows. I can text you photos while at the booth. It's actually kind of crazy where you enter one side of the booth to look but have to stand in line to do so and it's the same line you stay in for check out. Boy do those women get catty if someone doesn't go with the flow. Ok so either I get the products wholesale (like the Prima flowers that are the same ones I always use in different colors) or the $1 booth. So I loaded up on CI's road trip embellishments. Nothing fancy and used a bit of ribbon to soften up a boy's line of paper and colors I don't tend to use very often.

I admit that I recently picked up this Prima sheet. but I used Diamond Glaze (it was so old the bottle cracked and I have it in a Frappuchino bottle) and applied it to all the water spots and puddles. I also hit the Stickles and applied Diamond Glaze over the rainbow once dry. Die cut some Prima pearlescent cardstock and found some epoxy Mickey heads at the bottom of the closet. Riley is totally into hidden Mickeys plus they went along with the water theme. The orange parasol umbrellas were from Meri Meri (the hand made card company) where I pick up embellishments really cheap. . . think I mentioned that before. If you are local and interested in when they have a sale, hit me up.

I can't really tell you how long I have had this sheet. Maybe two weeks. . . haha who knows. But the Prima felt diecut and red K&Co. glitter letters and flourishes. . . many years. The black, glitter letters are Making Memories and the white flowers are Prima that I inked with distress inks. Queen and Co. music note brads.

Well I think I may have over baked my banana bread muffins in the over. Let me tell you that I tend to underbake by a minute or two. So this should make my mom happy that I have these babies over done. (Wonder if she's reading this.)

DIY Dish

2011-01-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

DIY Dish has a new episode out and they use HeatnBond to adhere appliques. One thing I am not very good at is pinning my items down. If I would have thought about using what I had in my stash, I could have had mistake proof appliques long ago. Which also reminds me. . . did you know that you can turn paper into a "fabric" with HeatnBond? I'll have to think of a good project to share with you and put up a tutorial for you to try it for yourself. In the meantime, check out this video.

Jack Skellington Earmuffs

2011-01-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

Although we don't live near Disneyland, we spend quite a bit of time there. We even spent 4 days there over New Years. I sure don't know why Riley didn't say she wanted Jack Skellington earmuffs then. . . but she has over the past 2 days. So I kind of knew that if I found them at Hot Topic or Spencer's that they would be a little big. And well, we didn't find them. So I made a set. Pretty easy actually.

They remind me of the big headphones I used to have in high school. Think they have made it back around as a trend. It took me about an hour to have the completed project. In the end, it cost me less than $1 to make. Here's the rundown of what I used:

1 headband from a set of 4 from Dollar Tree (I chose the color she would like the least to wear by itself)
12" square of felt
inkjet printable fabric (cotton twill from Joann's; think it was $20 but I used a 50% coupon and there is probably a few yards of fabric on the roll)
batting (very little used)
a thin plastic sheet (I used this from an old Cropper Hopper storage folder I don't use any longer http://www.cropperhopper.com/dividers.aspx) Plus if you aren't planning on cleaning these, you could recycle cardboard)
coordinating thread
paper trimmer
scissors
sewing machine

The headband is about a little more than 1/4" thick. So I cut my felt into a 12"x2" rectangle on the paper trimmer. Yes I said paper trimmer. I am that lazy. I then pinned it in half and stitched it with a 3/8" seam allowance. It has quite a bit to move around. It was hard to turn the piece to turn the inside out so I left it and trimmed the seam allowance down. Slid the headband inside.

Next I used a circle cutter to trim one 4" circle out of the plastic divider. I then cut 4 felt circles with it. Set aside. I then cut two more circles (around 3-1/4"). Keep in mind that Riley is a small 5 year old but actually the earmuffs fit me too. So your circles may be larger.

I guess I forgot to mention that I searched for an image of Jack Skellington. Actually I went to Disney's Family Fun and searched "disney printables" and "Jack Skellington".It returned a Jack doll in PDF format. I opened the page in Photoshop Elements 9 (just the first page). Then I cropped Jack's head and erased the neck. Resized the image to a 3" square. I cut a piece of printable fabric to 8-1/2" x 4" because it comes in a 8-1/2" roll. I formatted my print surface to 4x6 and placed two Jack heads on there and printed it on the Velvet Art paper setting. It says to let the fabric set for 15 minutes. After I cut the heads out and pinned one on a felt circle. Even with a walking foot, I was having issues using a small zigzag to get an applique look. So I used a straight stitch then went over it with a zigzag (no where close to as small as I was dealing with). Repeat with another circle.

I then pinned a blank felt circle to the Jack head circle (right sides together) and stitched around the edge just short of a full circle so I could turn it inside out and place the headband inside. Repeat and turn the muffs right side out. Then I bent the plastic and inserted inside. This is where you can trim down the plastic if needed to fit inside. Then Riley stuffed the front part of the muffs with batting.

Finally I inserted the fabric covered headband half way inside of the muff (end of headband to the center point of the earmuff) sandwiched between the plastic circle and batting and stitched up the opening. Repeat.

There you go. Totally simple and saved me probably $20. I wanted to make them out of fur but didn't know if it would work. Well it did so I'm brainstorming with Hello Kitty shapes dancing around in my mind and hearts for Valentines Day. Again, if your head or ears larger, you may want to use bigger circles and not necessarily stick the headband as far down into the stuffed muffs.

XOXO Challege #15

2011-01-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

This month's XOXO challenge has gone live. The sponsor is Sweet Peach Crop Shop who offers 3 different kits each month.

My layout for January consists of SEI's Bridgeport papers and a bunch of Prima and SEI flowers. There are elements from Creative Imaginations, chipboard stickers from Making Memories and pearls from KaiserCraft. Letters are from American Craft. Also I used a Brother label maker to create the text. To pull it together, I inked the label with the blue color to match the layout. If you ink a label, let it dry for a few minutes before handling. Even if you are impatient like me, you actually won't pull a lot of ink onto your fingers while peeling off the backing. And if you do, just smudge a little around to cover up. It won't look like a mistake. . . I promise.

Brrrrrr it is cold outside!

2011-01-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

It's been so cold outside that I have buried myself in my scrap cave with a heater. It's kind of funny how time flies as I scrap and watch Days of Our Lives and reruns of Grey's Anatomy and Law and Order all afternoon. Here are the results of my seclusion.

His layout used the present fabric which comes in the December The Sampler kit. I didn't have stabilizer on hand so I starched the fabric to death. Then I tucked the edges under and gave it a 1/4" seam allowance (using a 1/4" foot). I am horrible with the straight lines without a guide. My new sewing machine actually sews itself in a straight line thanks to good feed dogs. Anyways, if I would have used stabilizer, I could have just cut the edges on my paper trimmer and they would not have frayed and it would have been a very clean cut without the need to turn the edges down. Again, spray starch at Dollar Tree is a lot cheaper than stabilizer from the fabric store and goes a lot further.

Next up is another really quick layout from The Sampler kit. I used straps from the November and December kits. Thanks to my mom we get free tickets every year to San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker. As a former professional ballet dancer, it was good and clean but nothing technically difficult. I guess that goes the same for this layout.

And now a layout that is not from The Sampler. I used Bizou Zoo paper. Actually I only used one sheet of cardstock. The paper is so beautiful in itself that I did not want to cover anything up with additional paper. I added Stickles to elements and embellished this like crazy. This truly was a fun stash buster using Prima flowers and Say it with Pearls, Creative Imaginations epoxy stickers SEI brads and buttons (I cut off the shanks). Since I already had started embellishing, I could not put the sheet through the printer so I used my Brother label maker for part of the title. I just love the Bizou Zoo papers. . . yes I bought more so you'll see additional one sheet layouts soon.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

We spent our New Years at Disneyland. Does that surprise you? I am not usually one for paper piecing but thought it was good cute idea for our Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger photos. The products are from The Sampler's December kit. The beaded snowflakes are from Meri Meri, which is a greeting card manufacturer who has warehouse sales twice a year. You wouldn't believe it but I got a huge bag of them for $0.25. A quarter doesn't buy a person much these days and I sure wish I would have bought all of the bags vs. most of them (haha...didn't know they were a quarter. Thought they were a quarter each snowflake). Ok back to the layout. I used my Pazzles to cut out the snowy branch.

Teacher gifts

2010-12-20T23:37:00.000-08:00

Now I know it's probably too late to wrap teacher gifts since school is out. . . at least here it is. Anyways, I totally spaced out last week and forgot to post a little (okay mostly big) paper stockings I created for Riley's teachers. I stitched them together to contain each gift card and gift and decorated away. On top of that, this baby comes with my patterns. I have created two for you. One is the smaller version and the other was cut from a 12" sheet of scrapbook paper. I like double sided because it made cutting with my Pazzles very easy since I only needed to flip the top of the stocking for another pattern.

Here are the patterns:

smaller- http://www.mediafire.com/i/?x25i2bln2pawm21
larger- http://www.mediafire.com/i/?n73rfg83p362hyl

Cut 2 stockings and one top (contract paper). I then stitched lace to the bottom of the "top" (of the stocking). Then I put the three pieces of paper together and started stitching in the upper right corner. Once I got to the upper left corner, I stopped with the needle down and inserted the gifts into the stockings. I actually gave gift cards and Jamberry nail shields to the teachers. If there was a male teacher, well he'd get the smaller version which just held the gift cards. So after I inserted the gifts inside, I continued to stitch them shut at the very top (sewing through three sheets of cardstock).

Now I've had teachers who did not want to open the stockings at all. So I suggest you either lock the stitch before inserting the gifts inside the stocking and leave them open at the top. Up to you. Michael said I needed to come up with a pull tab after the fact of course. Once stitched, I actually added red velvet ribbon on top of my stitching of the lace. My seam allowance was about 1/8" - 1/4".

Well hope you procrastinated on disguising your gift card gifts and can give this baby a whirl. BTW, I used Martha Stewart paper and gave these a Nutcracker theme.

December Sketch Challenge

2010-12-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

It is time for the December sketch challenge at ScrapbookingSuppliesRUs.com. Enter by January 26 (that gives you more than a month!) and you could win a great prize.

Here is my take. As you can see, I even put the gingerbread boy inside the house. Now you'll have to forgive my sketch. I own an Epson R1900 printer. And if you've ever seen one of these babies, they print out fabulous photos. The drawback of course is that you have to have ink in every one of the 8 cartridges for it to print. Well since the printers are not that common, I have to drive 30 miles to pick up a cartridge or have one on hand. At the last minute, well. . . I ran out of orange. So I had no other option than to slip in my digital images in place of the printed photos.

Remember you always have a great chance to win with ScrapbookingSuppliesRUs.com! And once I get that one ink cartridge, I will be sure to show you my over embellished page again.

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze!

2010-12-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

No I'm not riding on last week's Glee episode's coat tails. We've been in full Grinch mode for months practicing for the WSPA holiday show hosted by Riley's musical theater group. The junior company is doing Grinch while the senior company is singing Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm wishing right now that I took a picture of Cindy Lou Who's hair the other day from dress rehearsal. Here's my first practice run. . . to see if the hair was even possible a few months ago. It is a bad mess but it'll give you a good laugh.

And now onto The Sampler business. Here's more Grinch inspiration for you. It's a canvas door hanger. It was a fun little project I did this morning with all the bits of scrap I had left over from the kit. By the way, if you have a digital cutter that can cut any font and does not need a cartridge, you can find the Grinch font at dafont.com. As you can see, I cut up some of the canvas tags in the kit and even hung bells from the one with the metal eyelet. Super fun but yes. . . I'm covered in micro glitter again.

Lipstick Chicks December Challenge

2010-12-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

I'm a few days behind on getting this layout up. This month on XOXO, which is sponsored by Candy Shoppe Designs, I came up with this pink layout. I made the Prima dress from in Donna Downey's Big Picture class last month. Visit the XOXO site and scraplift one of the designs to win an awesome prize.

Moody

2010-12-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

Not me. . . this little one. Okay it's staged but seriously she can change moods by the second sometimes. She'll sit there laughing and then something will upset her and she'll cry. Then you can make her laugh but she's still in the middle of her crying and fit. So The Sampler's papers came in handy. . .the mood tracker was so Riley. If you haven't taken a peek at the wonderful kits, do so now and put yourself on the list to start getting them for next year!

Winners for The Sampler Blog Hop

2010-11-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have just pulled out my random number generator (random.org) and it helped me select three winners from The Sampler's blog hop.

The lucky winners are:

janetpaz said...: Love the glitter!; November 27, 2010 8:24 PM

pdrnc said...: I love those ornament dies!! They look great.; November 19, 2010 12:28 PM

ScrappnBee said...: Love your LO, even if you think that it is minimalist. I think it rocks! Funniest story- in my 2nd house growing up, my parents bought it because of the 2 story open foyer-so they could put up a ginormous tree (my mom's dream). 2 story tree came home wrapped tight, throught the front door- no prob. Time to take the tree out-too big with branches extended! My dad had to take the chainsaw to it in the house!; November 24, 2010 11:58 AM

Please email me at alainas @ gmail.com and I will get you the hook up courtesy of The Sampler.

Christmas come this way!

2010-11-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

I am all ready for Christmas. We seem to be busy every weekend with something musical theater related so we really didn't have too much of an option on when we were going to cut a tree. Well. . . we came home with the biggest yet. We haven't found the Tinkerbell topper which I have no clue how we would get it on the tree at this point because it's so tall. It's a good 13' high..... Oh yeah. .. ignore the mess and the disorganized presents. I had to do a quick wrap job on Riley's gifts so she could put them under her tree.

But now on to scrappy-ness. Here's a layout I had done for Riley's visit with Santa last week. I can't get out of her what she told Santa she wanted because she told me that if she would, her wish wouldn't come true. Well we have a good idea on what she wants. Kind of difficult when a kid gets about everything she wants to begin with. . . but we're onto her. And by the way. . . this goodness is brought to you by THE SAMPLER. You can still get your hands on this November kit!

What's the deal?

2010-11-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

I am seriously at a loss for words today. As you know and I've said many times, I build layouts and wait for the time when I actually print photos. I have one of the best printers on the market and I just hate to go through the motions of printing them. So I finally got off my end this morning and put photos on. You can tell I didn't make these layouts today because the photos aren't the sizes that I probably would have made them if I had.

Blue inspirations: Fancy Pants papers. I actually took a glitter class with my mom last week (merely there to drive and keep her company) but got sucked into the product BIG TIME! Anyhow I made the flowers. . .and yes there's glitter everywhere but I am in love with this glitter. You get full, even coverage and use very little of it. Maybe I'll even show you some tips on coloring the glitter with Copic Markers. I also used Prima flower packaging.

Green inspiration: here I used Basic Grey, We R Memory Keepers, Urban Lily papers. Then I have Creative Imaginations butterfly brads, Prima flowers, Making Memories stickers

Anyhow, I hope I have given you some inspiration today to do a few layouts this weekend. I will see you after I come up for air from a six hour sewing class to learn how to use the new Janome machine my mommy bought me for Christmas and my birthday. Yes I've used it and we know that Christmas is weeks away and my birthday isn't until February!

The Sampler Blog Hop

2010-11-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to The Sampler's Blog Hop! We have some great surprises in store for you to start the giving season off right. As you know every month, you receive great products that challenge your creativity. The kit this month is no exception and is full of Falalala Yuletidings.

If you haven't participated in The Sampler's sketch challenges, you really should because Holly puts together some fabulous prizes.

Here is my take on the sketch. My tendency is to turn to flowers, mists and bling. Here I took the bling to another level... GLITTER! I die cut a few of Tim Holtz's ornament dies and well. . . let's just say I may be covered in glitter for a few months. This layout was a stretch from my usual heavily embellished pages but with so much sparkle. . . simple was the way to go.

We at The Crop Spot have prizes we can't wait to give away. Hmmmm this could be a secret but let me tell you there are 16 prizes in total (including 5 November kits). Tell me about your funniest holiday story. I'm tempted to tell you about one of mine. Should I? Hmmm let's just say my mom parked her car on top of the Christmas tree we had just brought home that was sitting in the garage. I will be selecting three (3) winners at random from comments made on this post. The winners will be selected on November 30th so please stop by to check out if you are one of the lucky ones.

And now for more fun. . . stop by the other Design Team members' blogs and enter their drawings as well. You never know . . .you really may be lucky enough to win 6 times! And don't forget to stop by the site either and post a comment there.
Sandy
Amber
Holly
Sarah
The Crop Spot

P.S. --There's also a DT call. . .so please submit your samples because I know they are fabulous!

The Sampler stikes again!

2010-11-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

I am totally loving this layout for The Sampler. I broke away from my usual one photo, lots of white space layouts. Stop by the blog because there's going to be a lots of prizes on a blog hop this month!

Lipstick Chicks -XOXO Girls are back!

2010-11-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

The challenges on XOXO are live again! Here is my layout for November using My Mind's Eye, Bazzill, Crate Paper and Prima.

Late night sewing madness

2010-11-03T21:36:00.001-07:00

I've been having trouble sleeping since it's gotten a bit warm lately. Kind of weird since we've had a really cold Summer and rain in October. So I've been having issues sleeping. Here are two projects I've gone mad putting together while I really should be sleeping.

Covered in Pixy Dust

2010-10-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

I decided it would be good this year to give out Giant Pixy Stix for Halloween. I have 50 more to make for Riley's classes and for handing out the left overs on Halloween night. We have the usual chocolates, etc. but I thought it would be cute to have a scarecrow on a stick for the kids. Was pretty easy with Darcy's clip art and I used the Pazzles to cut the images out. So very little work but I'm still covered in PIXY dust.

Colour? Or is it Color?

2010-10-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

I'm venturing off again into another Big Picture class. This time it's playing around with colors. Here is my pre-class assignment: tags. It so happened that I as you know do not make tags. It also is a coincidence that Tinkerbell and her fairy friends matched the color scheme perfectly. In the class we are starting with the colors of the rainbow and then venturing into neutrals. The pre-class project filled up our rainy afternoon. Riley made her own set of matching tags and included tags for Bobble and Clank. I made mine for her because I knew I wouldn't have much use for them afterwards. Actually now that I say that. . . I probably could add them to layouts.

Canvas cuff bracelet

2010-10-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

Today I have a canvas cuff bracelet I made. It's not something I would usually wear. And honestly I probably won't wear it at all. My crafty-ness comes more out of keeping my mind busy than out of necessity. Although you cannot tell, I painted the bracelet with Making Memories pearlescent acrylic paint (actually picked that up for Riley at the warehouse sale in April). The Prima flowers were sprayed with three colors of Glimmer Mist. For this project, I sure was able to do a little bit of stash busting on trims in remnant bags from a super expensive fabric store.

Plus here's a peek into where we've been hiding lately. Oh and by the way, my mom sewed the Alice costume. I started to make it but Simplicity patterns are truly my enemy. And she, the experienced one, even said this was the worst pattern she had ever sewn.

Canvas luggage tag & layout

2010-10-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

You know I love canvas. So here's another fun adaption I made for the Big Picture class I'm taking. I used more from the October The Sampler kit for the layout.

I really wasn't too happy with the tree because I stamped it while the canvas was wet. It gave a water color look. But this next one I love.

Now I am only kicking myself because I am not more organized keeping my stamps together. They are together but the Tinkerbell set is truly missing in action. I sit here looking at the birthday party invitation from a year and three months ago where I used the stamp. Okay but where is it?! So long story short is I used what I could find. I covered up the stamping mess of a blurred image with an applique style where I ran Fray Check along the edges of the fairy and butterfly. I colored it with Sharpies and no running whatsoever. I also colored this with watercolor instead of acrylic paints. I selected the colors to go with a new rolling Tinkerbell backpack I got Riley. Yes we are off to Disneyland again, So yes a girl needs a matching luggage tag,

Canvas layout

2010-10-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

You know I've taken a few classes from Donna Downey and haven't done a ton with what I learned. So here I am again taking her class at Big Picture Classes. I took a piece of duck cloth I purchased from Joann's at 50% (can't help but love coupons) and a sheet of diecut paper and created the shape. I wet the canvas and blended three colors of paint. Next I impatiently dried the piece with a heat gun which I felt took forever to dry. I stitched around the sheet (which did shrink by the way) with brown thread around the edges and then created the stitching for the banner. Next I took a scrap from October's The Sampler kit (Echo Park) and cut out the little banner pieces and glued them to the canvas. From there it was a decision on what to do with the piece. I contemplated using an iron on, a mask, flocking and glitter. I hadn't yet scrapbooked riley's birthday party photos (probably didn't do last year's party either. . .hmmm and quite possibly the year before) so I was checking to see if I had balloon brads. Well I didn't have that but I had a few button embellishments which I have probably had for 4 years now. So I got to gluing. I tried to take a bit of the crazy color-ness (I know not a word) out of it so I added a black and white photo underneath the popped color image. Anyways, here is what I ended up with. I think really what took the most time was waiting for my canvas to dry.

The first project for the class was to paint a point and shoot camera bag. If you've seen my every day setup, you'd know that even the Prima DSLR camera bag is too small. So I opted to make a quick coffee cozy because I had Halloween iron ons from SEI.

I probably would make it differently the next time around. But who knows, I may not make another because I don't drink coffee. It was a shame that the end result was so small because there were some awesome iron ons from the same sheet. Riley gave the cozy to her teacher. . . I don't think she liked it. Plus when I made her a "Back to school" tin with cookies. . . I don't think she appreciates much. So I guess we'll stick to making teacher gifts for her dance and swimming teachers who LOVE Riley's gifts.

Altered book from The Sampler October

2010-10-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

I altered a book a little different than I normally do for this month's The Sampler kit. I like to think of this as more of a big greeting card. This was actually really quick and fun. My nephews would tell me about books the library would give away. Riley started reading over the summer and I've collected quite a few hard covered books to experiment with. This little baby I actually folded all the pages in half. Once that was done it looked a little like this from the side.

I inked it a bit to add some color. Then measured the book cover slightly larger than the folded pages and cut them with a knife. I didn't cut it all the way through and then folded them back onto itself. I didn't feel like painting so I made a cover out of left over fabric.

As you can see I decorated both sides. And the tag that is under "Happy Day" is actually a gift card. So this makes a nice little decorate "card" of sorts to leave for your coworker on his/her birthday. And how about adding a cupcake in front of it with a flag made from the same paper? Oh that would definitely get the office buzzing about your creativity!

Since I can't sleep. . .

2010-09-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

I decided instead of going into my scrap room and creating more minis (I know I haven't posted photos yet), I would post a few photos of layouts. I went with papers that were hidden in my stash which I don't tend to use as often as I should There's a bit of Prima, Pink Paislee, and Urban Lily.

I've had scrapper's block for a few weeks now and am waiting for something to come to me. If you have any ideas to get me back into the game. . . I'd greatly appreciate the suggestions.

The Sampler September

2010-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

This month for The Sampler I created another canvas shadow box. I will be teaching this class at Memories Live On in Cupertino next week on the 30th. Feel free to bring papers of your choice if you attend. I cleared it with the store and will work with you on the design.

I managed to use scraps for the following layout. Can you tell where the scalloped circle came from?

I will see you tomorrow with more layouts! I've been on a roll constructing mini albums but of course they have no photos and are not fully embellished because the photos have not been taken. I've completed Fall and Halloween albums, 2 Pink Paislee albums and a Summer album I just haven't gotten around to editing photos.

It's been a while

2010-09-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

I know I've really been MIA. I have had moments where I've made a few mini albums but have yet to select photos. Do you ever make minis or layouts and not have the perfect photo? Gees I do that a lot. I think scrapbooking is really about keeping myself busy and my mind off of the rest of the world. A huge reason I love scrapbooking is that it allows me to get creative but not be what people typically think of being creative. . . like drawing or painting.

You probably know that I don't really like to take photos with any type of artificial light or flashes. So that's another reason I've been MIA. Just because I haven't been around during the daylight hours. Well since my mom was complaining that I haven't posted recently and (2) I am around today. . . here's a mini (8x8) that I made while watching Diary of a Whimpy Kid.

I know where I got the album. . . Pink Paislee's warehouse sale box kit. The papers are Pink Paislee but they were packaged differently. Maybe it came from there. . . could have been the sale from the year before too. But had this album that isn't really my style. Well the papers aren't either but they matched because of the orange. The problem was I only had 5 sheets of paper from the line. So I chopped them up to create a cohesive mini. I don't generally make any of the pages alike. In this case I had to. The chipboard as well were Pink Paislee. I was going to leave sort of bare. . .simple. Yeah we know that I couldn't resist. I actually added some Crate Paper ribbon, Jenni Bowlin blinged out butterflies, Prima e-line pearls, and Kaiser Craft rubons and tags, flowers and buttons. Well enjoy! Hopefully tomorrow I can put some photos into a bright Bella Blvd album I made. It's kind of difficult to do because we've had such crappy weather this year. . . even for California. I guess that's why I had no issues with the colors in this album. . .because it already feels like we're deep into Fall and teetering into Winter.

MIA again

2010-08-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

I know I've been MIA but not in Craftland or Scrappy Central. I've been working. Yes, you read that right. I did want to bring you a few layouts.

This one I amazingly did just for fun. It's a combo of BoBunny and Creative Cafe.

This is full of The Sampler goodness! August's kit. . . can't help but love it.

And finally. . . I don't know if and when this will really hit the blog but last I checked, XOXO's design team's layouts never got published for August. As you can see it's left overs from Bobunny, a bit of lace and Making Memories.

Upcycled hat

2010-08-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Here is a hat made from daddy's old Indigo Palms jeans. Not only were they "GREEN" to start with but we made them even more so. To get this hat done, I used less than half a leg including the lining. I wish I had a commerical machine to go through a zillion layers of denim without the needle breaking. I doubt any machine can successfully stitch through 12 layers.

A girl and her hat

2010-08-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

The Heidi Grace fabric here all represent my attempt to learn how to sew. I know I already can sew now but one year ago, I purchased the fabrics for a scrapbooking with fabric class. I went from trying to stitch a straight line to zipping my way through sewing a hat that Riley actually wears. This is her fourth one of these. What is great about this hat is it requires very little fabric and I can use up scraps that are blocking the light trying to come in from the window. My mom would say that scraps like this are meant to be thrown away. . . for now, Riley will be getting more hats. Maybe this will be the December holiday craft show item of the year.

Today's green craft

2010-08-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

I decided to upcycle an old t-shirt (Angry Little Asian Girl circa 2002) because gees it's so obvious I wouldn't fit into this shirt again. It was an XS so there was very little I needed to do to it. I cut the arms off at the seams then cut it straight beneath the neck line. Next I gathered and basted the top with a 1/4" seam in the front and back. Then added the seam binding, which was a good match in the package. . . not in the photo, to the front and back in a straight line. Then I used the rest of the package to stitch around the arm holes. I think the straps probably could be trimmed down. Riley says that it's her and her friend Arthur on the shirt vs. mommy and daddy. It's probably still more us. . . even though Arthur had to shower and put gel in his hair because Riley was coming over to play the other day. Oh . . .her arm. . . it's dirty because she had tattoos which are wearing off. Gees I hate those things!

Here is another layout which I did for the Sampler. The grey-ish BoBunny polkadot paper has the Rock Candy crackle medium on it so all the edges are curled and raised off the page. The photo I desaturated but not to the point of black and white. The green in her headband was so strong, that I left it with a slight green tint. In PSE, all you need to do is CTRL+U and slide the Saturation bar to your left. Plus I used the glitter in the kit and lined the photos with a Sakura glue pen.

The Sampler Giveaway!

2010-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Holly has just put up a giveaway at The Crop Spot for some goodies. You have until August 15 to leave a comment. Plus if you tell a friend and post a link, you'll get an extra entry. Enter here!

Today I have another layout from this month's kit.

I used a clear plastic sheet from Clear Scraps for the background and edged it with a gold Krylon pen. Some of the elements are placed on the backside of the sheet to give a little bit of depth such as the sun and tree. I've wanted to use Echo Park for a while now and well. . .this month was lucky enough to receive it in the kit.

I made the tree by punching small circles from the patterned patter (Pinwheels) and then I sprayed the back side with Glimmer Mist to make it appear a little more green vs. turquoise. Next I bent the circles from the center to curl up the edges. No two circles were really alike and it gave real dimension to the piece. It's at the store right now but you may see it at the Scrapbook Expo this weekend.

August is here!

2010-08-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

And so is the new Sampler kit. Here was the first project I created from the kit. I had a bracelet bender and blanks from years ago when I did polymer clay. I recently found all the blanks so I decide I would make Riley a bracelet. The thing I liked least about the blanks is that it's a 1" rectangular shape with sharp corners so I decided I was putting the Chomper up to a challenge to round the corners. It took a little muscle but I got all four corners done. At first I thought it was going to break but after I did one, I had to do the other three whether it was going to break the tool or not. It's kind of like a haircut. . . you start it so you really have to finish it.

I next colored the sides and back with the alcohol pen that came in last month's kit. It wasn't the coverage I got so as you can see I covered that with fabric. Then I bent the bracelet into shape. I took a tiny piece of Echo Park paper and layered it with the diagonal stripe. Using Diamond Glaze instead of resin because of the time involved, I painted four layers on and dried each with the heat gun. Yes. . . impatient but it was QUICK. Then I took a little more Diamond Glaze and mixed in Perfect Pearls. Probably two more layers later, I was ready to glue on the bling. The final part was the white ribbon (again, July kit) and cut it in half and glued it to the bracelet. Then I took a scrap of the left over Dorothy costume fabric and glued it to the inside of the blank. And now I have a 5 year old that will not part with her bracelet. All in all, this took me less than a half hour and I just may make a few more.

More from the Sampler!

2010-07-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

Here are the layouts I was unable to post last week from this month's The Sampler kit. Full of BoBunny, Bazzill and cut with the Pazzles. Lots of color this month! And for some reason one of the files still does not want to upload. Oh by the way, the "MY" in the bottom layout is actually a metallic pink chipboard letter that didn't photograph well.

July's The Sampler kit

2010-07-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

Finally I have some layouts using the July The Sampler kit at ScrapbookingSuppliesRUs.com. Take a peek. Hope you like them.

I did this to match Riley's costume for her "I won't grow up" musical theater piece. It's a 2" profile canvas. Well it looks like I'm having issues uploading so I'll be back later with more.

Party Favors

2010-07-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

I know I'm late posting the party favors. I'm usually so on top of this every year. I was kind of lazy too this year. I made 50 giant Pixy Stix flowers out of My Mind's Eye cardstock cut into flower shapes and cut with the Pazzles. These were for the children at the kids party at Safari Run. Every child received two plus a goodie bag. No real theme this year because we had the party somewhere other than the house and I couldn't decorate.

I tried to find the old Hawaiian monkey birthday banner and Hawaiian themed party stuff (I think that was birthday #2 or #3). So I had bought flip flop and surf board plates from Dollar Tree. Michael made Amaretto chocolate truffles so that was for each of the adults at the family party.

Nothing too exciting this year.

XOXO July Challenge Layout

2010-07-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

My layout this month seemed to have missed being published on XOXO. Here's a peek. I used a Sassafras, Oriental Trading, Colorbok, SEI, Maya Road, Creative Imaginations. Sorry got to run. . . I'm getting ready for two birthday parties for Riley tomorrow. Seriously I think I've gone mad!

She's gone country!

2010-07-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

I bought a Simplicity pattern a few months ago because I thought that Riley would look cute in one of the costumes. Actually I thought she would select the fairy version but she chose to be the cowgirl. I sewed the skirt and had my mom finish the top because I have issues reading the patterns from the company. I have no problem reading boutique or patterns from Amy Butler. My mom has issues reading those because she says they aren't written by pattern makers. Sorry but they are in English and I completely get what they are saying. This on the other hand. . .I have found that any pattern that comes with that brown tissue paper is hard to figure out. So now my mom has inherited the Dorothy costume as well.

Riley had to wear the costume yesterday to Musical Theater class. Here's how she looked.

I used Prima's pearlescent cardstock (base and balck) with Making Memories gingham, Martha Stewart bandana paper. I cut the title and cowgirl with the Pazzles. The pink letters are Colorbok and the epoxy embellishments are Creative Imaginations with Stickles.

Back to scrapping!

2010-07-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yeh! Now that the puppy is getting use to us and we're getting used to him, I've found out that he leaves my scrapbook supplies alone. So now I can have him lay in his bed I made him in the room and get back to what I love doing.

So to get back into the swing of things I did some quick layouts. I found this photo of Riley from when she was about 20 months old. I used Making Memories paper (got 25 sheets for $2 at the sale so I need to use a lot of it) and various embellishments from Colorbok, Oriental Trading and of course Distress Inks.

Here's a layout I did really about my stepping on these Littlest Pet Shoppe toys. We R Memory Keepers, Basic Grey, Maya Road and Sandy Lion.

And an ode to Buster. . . This I think is Prima, Making Memories, Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket, and Creative Imaginations. He's had a hard week whether he knows it or not. We've contemplated keeping him and well think we've worked through Riley not being the only one getting attention in the house. So for now, he's here to stay. Don't worry though. . . if he goes, he will go to a friend with all the stuff we've spoiled him with. He went from living in dirt (although he still likes laying in it in the backyard) to being inside on his fluffy beds and sleeping bags.

Challenge layout

2010-06-30T20:21:00.000-07:00

I totally missed the post on the challenge layouts @ ScrapbookingSuppliesRUs this month. Here's the layout I had done for it.

Summer stress!

2010-06-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

Just when one thinks she'll have a carefree summer, we ended our dance school year on Sunday. Seven hours of dancing. Some really the same pieces we saw in the other shows. After the show on Saturday (yes shows that day too besides all the dress rehearsals during the week), we picked up a puppy. Here's a photo of us taking him into Target to get a leash minutes after picking him up from the breeder.

Buster is a mini Dachshund and can't say how big he is now but he's pretty light. Full grown he will be about 9-11 pounds. He has a white body and brown spots. His head is all brown with the exception of that little spot in the middle of his head. I'm sure you'll see more of him.

He sure doesn't like to be left outside or be alone. I like to think of him as the dog I wanted minus 50 pounds. He's looking like he is a lap dog. That's the last thing I wanted. . . especially being on my lap. But it is my lap he is drawn toward.

So I guess if you're bored of seeing every layout containing just Riley. . . we now have someone new to scrapbook. Although he likes the camera a bit too much and gets really close. Well. . . wish us luck on our new venture. Gees the CARPET!

Winnie the Pooh flies with a real fairy

2010-06-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

Riley found a photo of herself with Pooh and wanted me to scrapbook it. I know that I've done a page with her and Pooh in this costume but I figured I would appease her and do it again. It really was cute, I have a series of shots that the two of them are "flapping their wings." Even Tigger did it. Oh maybe it should have been a Tigger page. Oh well . . . it's done.

I used products from the June The Sampler kit as well as the tag from May's kit. I used the printed side of the transparency and trimmed it out because I am not a fan of the glare it creates. I also debossed the book board which comes with the kit with the Melody Ross chipboard stamps. I haven't yet perfected my leather look but the chipboard matches the background of the photo. I really like the embossed, fabric like paper that comes in the kit. It adds enough blue to tie in the colors but not too much that it takes away from the Pooh colored background. Riley gave the page two thumbs up so I think I'll be saved from doing another.

I decided to do something different with the scraps of paper I had left from the other pages I had made from The Sampler. Here I utilized the "Journey" title in the upper left corner to read, "Taylor's Journey into Adulthood." Yes, little Taylor just turned 18 and graduated from high school a week ago. I say little but that was when she was 3 years old. She is taller than I am.

More from The Sampler

2010-06-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

Here are two simple layouts I completed using The Sampler products. I've been in a "Real Simple" (as in the magazine) so these two pages came about. No flowers. . .GASP! But there is bling in the second layout. I'm trying to convince myself that not all layouts need a bunch of flowers. Don't tell Prima that.

"Red, White & Cute". . . was done using free vectors that I cut and used as new layers in Photoshop Elements. I sampled the colors from the t-shirt to get the colors. If you would like a quick tutorial, just let me know. I like printing my title on photos which saves me from using diecuts.

Spring mini album

2010-06-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a tag album I created for the XOXO design team challenge for the month of June. The album is a bit larger than 4x6. Each tag was designed and cut on the Pazzles. I used alcohol inks to color some of the bling butterflies. Traced over the Crate Paper rubons to make them black (vs brown). You know the drill. . .Prima flowers, My Mind's Eye paper.

June -- The Sampler + Tutorial

2010-06-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

I've been still busy running around with all sorts of end of year activities and trying to figure out what I'll do for Riley's birthday party. If I would have realized it were June yesterday, I probably would have posted this adorable framed piece I made for The Sampler this month. I guess I haven't officially said but I am on the design team now. Here is the first project I had made.

If I would have known how it could have turned out, I probably would have taken more photos during the painting process. But here's a run down with what I had done.

Michael stretches canvas for me and this frame was one that was turned the wrong way for a profile piece. But I kept it anyhow. It was just plain, unfinished wood and I coated it with Golden Titan Buff acrylic paint. It's an off-white color. I had Delta's crackle medium but I never can get a crackle. Maybe it's because I'm impatient. But I continued to try to get a crackle. I used my heat gun to dry between layers. Yes even partially through the crackle medium. Probably why it will never crackle. I recently read that you can use Elmer's to get your paint to crackle too.

I added another layer of Titan Buff then another layer of crackle medium. I sometimes would leave the heat directed onto one spot and the paint would bubble. Once dried, I took a paper towel and used my nails on the other side to scrape some of the paint off. Where the bubbles were created a nice uneven texture in the wood. The parts I scraped off would create grooves. Next, I grabbed Golden's Interference Blue which is a white pearl like paint with blue metallic mica. I painted that on and the crackle medium again. The final layer was Golden's Turquois (Phthalo) which was a perfect match for the Webster's Paper that comes in the kit. I heated all that and again let the bubbles happen. I scraped a few more spots of paint off and it looked like a real antiqued piece just in a happy color.

There doesn't look like there was much done to the Webster's Pages Seaside Retreat diecut paper; however, I did coat it with Pearl Glimmer Mist. Up in the top, left corner is a lighter circular pattern that resembles a compass. I placed the largest Tim Holtz Time Works mask in the kit within the compass. Then I sprayed it with Glimmer Mist Seafoam. The paper looks a bit yellow in the image above, but it's actually a nice blue match for Seafoam. You can see where I sprayed it above in the photo that goes around Riley's face.

I loved the paper so much that I didn't want to cover it up so I printed the photo on a transparency, which also gave it a look like there is glass in the frame. I grabbed a hibiscus flower I had purchased at dollar tree and added vintage glass glitter to the edges. Then added the Prima roses to the frame. I had some pearl beads in my stash so I used those around the flowers.

This really needed some seashells, so I cut the remainder of shells from the diecut paper then I bent and curved the edges to give it a real shell look. And the trim was left over from last month's Sampler kit. Now you may not have a Tahitian costume or the ocean near you but you sure can get the beach look by printing your photo onto a transparency and using up the natural goodness of the paper.