U R on my Mind Layout

Good evening fellow scrap-peeps! Today’s page is titled ‘U R on my Mind’ & is a remake of one of my first pages. This layout serves two purposes—to show how much my scrapbooking style has changed & as a submission for the Bo Bunny sketch challenge.

This is my husband & my little Toby taking a nap together. I just happened to be around at the perfect time to capture a perfect moment. They really are sleeping here too…no acting!

First some details on the challenge. Here’s the sketch we were given. This sketch provided much room for creativity.

I used BoBunny’s Cambridge collection for this page. The papers in the Cambridge collection were just right for a masculine themed page. I concentrated on two main concepts here—the harlequin design & random dots. My stitching, punch work & choice of paper all have either random dots or harlequin designs on them.

The metal flowers you see scattered about my page are actually bead caps. I had a few of these laying around & realized that they make perfect flowers.

The random dots were done with the EK Success Swiss punch. I just punched randomly not caring if I overlapped the dots. Then with a red permanent marker I traced around the circles in order to highlight them. I did this technique on the corner of my main photo & on the top & bottom borders of my page. I’ve seen Irene Tan (Scrapperlicious) do a similar technique—however I did not do such heavy random dot distressing as I’ve seen her do.

With a paper cutter I cut an area in my page in order to insert a tag that contains my journaling. The tag was first inked with distress inks & the journaling was printed on a transparency & then adhered to the tag. Finally I embossed the entire tag with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Two acid free safety pins & a charm add the final touch to my journaling tag!

Journaling reads as follows: I took this picture while the two of you slept together. You looked so peaceful...at that moment I realized how grateful I am to have you. It's needless to say that no matter where I am or what I'm doing, my thoughts rarely stray from my two sweethearts.

I used Martha Stewart’s Garden Trellis punch to make the frame going around the top of my main picture. The edges of my picture are distressed & inked in Fired Brick distress ink.

I ended up using the woven stitch technique again on this page. For a tutorial on this woven stitch, please go here.

Finally, here’s a close up of my man flower. I call it a man flower because I wanted it to be a rugged, grungy sort of flower. Pink frilly flowers will not do for a page where my husband is involved! I’m afraid he’d file a complaint. I used a combination of Tim Holtz’s Tattered Florals die, Retro flower punch & a 2-tone brown mulberry flower for my man rose.

I hope to make a tutorial on this flower soon. So keep an eye out for it!


I’ve come a long way with my scrapbooking style. Mostly I’ve simply stopped being afraid to try new things. I’m starting to realize that the more adventurous I become…the more creative I can get!

That wraps up today’s post. Thanks for stopping by & I appreciate all your wonderful comments!

Heart Breaker Layout

Good evening! Am sitting here watching American Idol & at the same time uploading my latest page titled 'Heart Breaker'--and I mean this in the literal sense.

Here's my little Toby tearing apart my heart! My red doily heart that is. Yep, this is one of Toby's favorite past times--ripping up any paper from my scrapbook stash that he can get his little paws on. When I saw him ripping into my heart doily I decided to take pictures as he did it. Besides--it was too late to save the heart! With Valentines just having passed, I figured this would be a perfect page for the occasion.

There are a variety of techniques on this page. There's masking, stamping, embossing, painting, stitching & a version of lacing.

I used a combination of papers from two Swirlydoos kits. Most of the script you see on the paper is actually a stamp. The vines & swirls you see in the red background was made with a mask & three layers of painting/inking. First layer was white acrylic paint, second layer was a dab of Fired Brick distress ink & final layer was Black Soot distress ink.

In this screen shot you can also see the black stitching going around the page.

The paper behind the photos is actually white vellum that I wrinkled & tore, inked in Fired Brick distress ink & stamped with a script stamp.

I did a version of stitching/lacing once again to make the harlequin background you see in this screen shot.


A closeup of the heart chippie. The heart was painted with three colors of acrylic paint--black, ivory & red. I tapped my paintbrush on the chippie to give it that 'splattered' effect. Then I used a crackle medium to give it that broken glass look.

Finally a closeup of the black swirls. The swirls are made out of grungeboard. I painted the swirls in black acrylic paint. Once dry, I dipped the grungeboard in embossing ink, poured clear Star Dust embossing powder on it & then heat embossed it. In person, the texture of these flourishes are really pretty!


Finally I randomly added Star Dust stickles around the page--it's hard to see in these photos...but they're there!

Well off to finish watching American Idol...believe it or not--it's my husband who loves this show...I just go along for the ride.

Woven Stitch Tutorial

This tutorial was used in my Essential Cog layout. This stitch can be used straight or in a circular form.  I think this is what makes this fairly large stitch unique--it can be used in a variety of ways. In a circle, straight at a slant--the choice is yours.

Opposites Really Do Attract Layout

Hello again from a very icy North East. Mother Nature seems to be angry for some reason--it's been a rough winter in my book...can you say Spring?

My latest layout all began with the discovery of one picture--a picture of my husband when he was 12 sporting one very goofy smile! He still has that goofy smile--it's one of the many little things that I loved about him...

When I found this picture of him while helping him organize his boxes & boxes of junk (e-hem--I mean 'valuables' as he puts it) I knew I had to scrap it. But I didn't want to just scrap that one photo...I wanted a then & now of both him & myself & I also wanted to convey how different we are but yet, we were still drawn together.

I'm a full blown city girl. My husband is a hardcore country boy. He grew up surrounded with trees, quietness & all sorts of animals like bears, bull frogs, deer & rabbits. I grew up in the city where I could count the trees in my town on one hand, it was always loud & the only animals I remember seeing growing up were the dogs that people took out for their daily walks! Our up bringing affects us up till now. I'm very loud & you can hear my big mouth miles away. My husband is very quiet & tends to blend into the wall paper! But I think that's why we connected. He tones me down & I add tend to turn his usual quiet life upside down!

I did some distressing & stitching on this page--but what I did the most of was stamping. The entire background you see here was made with stamps & some masking.

I used a couple of metal flowers by Tim Holtz to decorate the corners. You can see some bling peeking out from the tear in my paper.

The flourishes you see all along the border of the layout is a flourish stamp by Tim Holtz.

Here you see a closeup of the masking, stitching, more stamping & the texture of the heart chipboard. I used the leaf glitter with UTEE technique to give the heart this texture. It looks amazing in person! If interested in this technique, feel free to find the tutorial here.

On my husband's side I wanted items that identified with him. So I have a picket fence, a rabbit (to represent nature) & a branch. The branch is actually a Prima felt vine that I covered in Copper Stickles & then with Broken China Distress Stickles. Here you can also see the stamping on the fence & the grass I stamped right below the fence.
On my side I stamped a brick wall background & used a stamp of the city of course what else! The stamp is by Tim Holtz & was perfect for this page.

I finished up the page by adding Star Dust stickles on all the flourishes & on the majority of my stamping. It's something I tend to do on all my pages but you can hardly tell from these pictures.

Hope you all enjoyed this page & that it serves as some proof that opposites really do attract!