Shadow box makeover

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.

It's been a while

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.

Jenni Bowlin/MME layout

Here's the layout I did for today's LOAD. I actually used the left over Jenni Bowlin book paper which had an offset hole in the middle from a layout a while ago. Layered and inked a bunch of My Mind's Eye papers and cut the bracket shape on the Pazzles. Theme for today is to use ribbon. I was going to make ribbon flowers but I had to figure out what pictures I haven't scrapped yet.

Plus I did another where I was supposed to let someone else layout so Riley did this one with a bit of help. It's from a fairytale shoot oh gees almost two years ago.

Jenni Bowlin layout

I don't usually buy vintage style papers but the new Jenni Bowlin papers were calling me last week. Part of it was with the intentions of using scallop circles punched out of leftovers from the altered book to create flowers. I sprayed a few with glimmer mist last night and decided it didn't look as good as my first one I had made. So I decided to move on with the layout. I used one of Riley's Chinese New Year photos. I did the layout while watching Dancing with the Stars. I don't tend to watch but there was nothing on and rare. . .Riley was asleep. She woke up right after and that meant Sprout TV and Mickey Mouse for me. Used Prima flowers, felt and brads (from Peaches just because it was sitting next to me in the bedroom). Also a few Basic Grey rubons.