Clear Scraps DT

Yay me!! Just wanted to quickly share the news that I've been invited to join the Clear Scraps DT! 

I've always enjoyed incorporating and experimenting with acrylics whether it be on a layout, card or even a mini album.  Because of the clear nature of this product--it really opens up the possibilities for some innovative & creative effects & projects!

You can check out the official announcment here as well as get to know the other newest DT members.

Am looking forward to this new creative journey!

Autumn Layout

Hello once again fellow scrappers!  It's time for another reveal over at Once Upon A...Sketch (OUAS).  This month's theme is: Season (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring).

For me this was a no-brainer.  I've been an Autumn fan my whole life.  I love the colors that come with Autumn, the changing of the leaves, the crisp mornings, the immaculate blue skies.  It's Mother Nature at her best.  I know many people love Summer--but for me Summer here in the North East is just too humid for comfort.  I don't mind hot--but when you add humidity into the mix--that's when you lose me!  In addition, I was married in the Autumn and this is what this page represents.

This is me & my hubby almost five years ago celebrating our first year wedding anniversary.  We went away to a Bed & Breakfast when the foliage was at it's most colorful.  I incorporated as much of the colors that I witnessed on this getaway as I could on this page.  It was a mixture of burgundy, browns, golds, yellows, oranges and just a hint of green.  The turquoise splashes here & there represent the blue skies--which in October the sky is usually as blue as it can get!

Here's the sketch provided by Nadia that is to be used for this challenge.

The background is paper from Tim Holtz's Kraft Resist Cardstock.  I added a hint of turquoise to it by randomly inking it with Tumbled Glass distress ink.

The chipboard title & fence are by Imaginarium Designs.  For the fence I kept it simple.  I simply inked it with embossing ink & then heat embossed it with Kaleidoscope embossing powder by Stampendous.  In person, this gives off such a shimmery effect.  I tried to capture it as best as I could here.

I finally got to use a peacock feather I've had in my stash for ages!

These butterflies will soon be the latest addition to my Etsy shop.  They were the perfect finishing touch to this page.

In the background I also randomly stamped the 'Bubble Wrap' stamp by Donna Salazar with Aged Mahogany Distress Embossing powder.  Once embossed, I scratched off a bit of the powder with my finger in order to give it a more shimmery effect.

A close up of one of my clusters.  This is a mixture of Prima flowers, mulberry flowers from my stash, handmade flowers and beads, pins & trinkets from my own stash.  A Prima crystal flourish is in the background.

My other lil' cluster.  Once again this is composed of a handmade flower, mulberry flowers from my stash and other trinkets from my stash.  In the bottom is a bright orange crochet doily and I tucked a bit of light turquoise tulle in the bottom as well.

To give the title some shimmer & texture it was first painted with gesso--then spritzed with the following: Pralines & Cream Smooch, Cashmere Smooch & Terra Cotta Spritz by Shimmerz. It was then heat embossed in order to have all those mists soak into the chipboard.  Finally I gave it a coat of Glossy Accents.

I once again stored my journaling inside a brown glass vial.  I wrapped a bit of twine around it & adhered a leaf charm to it.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit--do take the time to visit the OUAS blog and check out the other talented DT's take on this challenge and to play along!

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Carnation Tutorial

Good evening fellow scrappers!  Today I'm bringing you another brief tutorial.  This one is very similar to my 'Ruffled Flower' tutorial but with just a couple of changes.  Primary difference is my use of a different die--which gives this flower it's distinctive look.

For these flowers I'm using Spellbinders Carnation Creations die by Donna Salazar.  These dies seem to be made for carnations since they're named after the flower!  So I figured why not make a carnation flower!?  You can use any size die--it depends on what you need for your project.  For this tutorial I used the second to largest sized 6 petal flower.

Sad Puppy Eyes Layout

Good evening fellow scrappers!  Today's page is one I did for the current challenge going on over at Colors...Stories...Inspiration C.S.I.  I fell in love with their current color challenge and had the perfect picture of my little Toby to scrap.

Here's my Toby giving me his best 'sad puppy eyes'.  He tends to give me these whenever he does something naughty--it's his way of getting away with things. I take one look at his adorable big, brown childlike eyes and I'm done being angry with him!  To me he'll forever be a little 2 year old boy trapped in a furry body.

Here's the color combo & challenge my page is based on.  As I describe my page I'll highlight what I used as my 'Evidence' & what I used as my 'Testimony' for the challenge.

Here's a bit of crazy, random hand stitching.  I actually used a stamp from Kaisercraft's Technologic collection to create this crazy random stitching.  TIP: Stamp any image on vellum or any other kind of transparent paper and use it as a guide for stitching.  That's what I did here. I stamped the image on a piece of vellum and then with my paper piercer used the stamped image as a guide to pierce my holes.  A shout out goes to Ngaire who recently used this same stamp on one of her pages & therefore allowed me to discover this fabulous stamp.

The random 'drips' are also a stamp.  These are part of my 'Evidence' for the C.S.I challenge.  I used brown Staz On to stamp these since I'm stamping on Pink Paislee's Mistables paper.  They're supposed to 'resist' ink...so if you want to stamp on these you need those strong permanent, solvent inks like Staz On.

My brief journaling is my 'Testimony'.  I used a distressed frame to display it. I printed my journaling on a transparency & then adhered it with clear dry glue.

The metal circles are also part of my 'Evidence' as are those light pink organza ribbon flowers.

The random inking I did in the background is a combination of two distress inks: Spun Sugar & Crushed Olive.

A close up of my other cluster of flowers, bits & bobs.  The felt gray flower is by Jolees and the mulberry light teal & green flowers are by Petaloo.  Underneath all of my flowers you'll see some felt branches.  These are by Prima.  I've had these in my stash since forever!  So happy to finally use them.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit!  Have a great weekend...

The Beginning & Beyond Layout

Good evening fellow scrappers!  Today's page is for one of the latest Bird is the Word (BITW) challenges.  The challenge is to use the word 'Beyond'.  I've incorporated it as part of my title.

This photo was taken on our first wedding anniversary.  We were married in the Fall which is both our favorite season & also makes for some colorful scrapbook pages!  Since this was our first year married I titled it 'The Beginning & Beyond' which is how I felt at the moment.  It was barely the beginning of our lives together and we were both anticipating what was beyond this first year together.

I manually tore a piece of corrugated cardboard and went mixed media crazy with it!  I gave the corrugated cardboard lots of texture by combining a bit of molding paste, mists in shades of browns, oranges & reds and randomly heat embossing with some gold embossing powder by Stampendous and Fake Bake Enamelz embossing powder by Shimmerz.

I've once again stored my journaling in the form of a scroll. If interested on how I went about creating this scroll--find the tutorial for it here.  This has quickly become my favorite way of storing lengthy journaling.  Instead of hiding my journaling behind my page like I used to--my journaling is now a unique embellishment to my page!

The large chipboard tree is by Dusty Attic.  Just like the background I used a variety of mixed media to give it texture.  It was first painted with dark brown acrylic paint then randomly heat embossed with a bit of mahogany distress embossing powder.  With my finger I spread a bit of Vintage Photo Distress Stickles randomly on the branches and finally with my finger again I added a bit of Martha Stewart brown leaf glitter here n' there on several of the branches.

Finally my cluster of 'Autumn' themed flowers, bits & bobbits.  Many of these items are from my own stash.  The large brown fabric flower is actually a left over from a kit I bought from the Funtoolas Etsy shop.

The transparent butterfly resting on the Prima nest is a butterfly from my small Etsy shop--you can find this butterfly & many more in my shop here.  I tucked a bit of tulle underneath my large brown fabric flower & the bright yellow bird is also from my stash.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit!  Have a great rest of the week!

Withstood the Test of Time Layout

Hello once again fellow scrappers! I'm so happy to present my debut DT layout for Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS)!! I was very happy with this month's challenge because it's a theme that once received; I knew exactly how I was going to approach it. As soon as I saw that the theme was 'Friends' there was one person that instantly popped into my head--and once inspiration strikes I do not dare argue with it!

 I've known my friend Mellisa going on 20 years now. We met freshman year in high school. She'll be one of the first ones to tell you that I was FOREVER with a camera in my hand--well now, years later, this habit of mine is paying off because I actually have a photo of us when we first met back in 1992. That would be the picture on the left. So having that one photo allowed me to show us together 20 years apart. The photo on the right was taken this year, 2012. I loved being able to show the 20 years of friendship by having then & now photos. This also helped me in determining the title for this page which I felt was quite appropriate.

Here's the sketch provided to us by Nadia that I based my page on.  I enjoyed working with this sketch & found that it could be interpreted in many ways.

I also used papers & a few embellies from May's C'est Magnifique kit titled "Wings of Imagination".

The large chipboard clock is by Dusty Attic.  I kept the texture on this chippie simple.  All I did was dip the chippie into some embossing ink & then heat embossed it with Star Dust embossing powder by Stampendous.

Here you can also see a bit of the hand stitching I did.  I created a layer by simply stitching a large, long rectangle in the background.

The birds are by Glitz Design.  I hand cut them out of the paper they came on.  The pearl flourish is by Prima.  I kept the pearl flourish on the clear packaging it came on.  This made it easy for me to adhere it on top of the twine & chipboard clock.

I've seen several scrappers utilize scrolls of paper as embellies.  I figured I'd give it a shot.  I curled several pieces of leftover scraps, adhered them closed and then tied some twine around them.  Amongst all the rolled up paper I adhered a brown glass vial and tied a gold charm clock to it.  You can see my journaling sticking out of the glass vial.  I printed my journaling on vellum and rolled it up very tight in order to squeeze it into my glass vial.  I thought this would be the perfect holding spot for my journaling!  You can see the bottle's cork adhered a little bit to the right of it.

Journaling reads as follows:  We met in pre-Algebra class freshman year of high school.  The fact that we met in pre-Algebra class is a joke we carry till today--that both of us are just so very awful in math that neither of us even made it to regular Alegebra--but 'pre' Algebra instead.  I don't remember who talked to whom first; but at this point it doesn't matter.  Like many friends do we did lose touch for a few years but like true friends, we found each other once again & this time it's for keeps.
We've seen each other grow, mature, graduate from college, begin our careers, go from girls to women.  We've seen each other at our best & at our worst.  Even though we've known each other for so long--I like to think that this is only the beginning & that there will be many more years of friendship for us to share & enjoy.
This one is for you, dear friend.  

A resin bird house by Prima.  The mulberry flowers are from my own stash.

The word 'Time' from my title was raw cardboard.  In order to add some interest to it I covered each letter in Glossy Accents and then poured a bit of Gala Glitz Blue by Art Glitter on it.  This is a sort of vintage glass glitter.  As you can see it adds a lot of texture.

I inserted a yellow mulberry paper flower in the center of my blue sheer bow.  From the paper flower I have both a pin by Prima & a couple of charms hanging from it.  I'm still sticking to my New Year's resolution of using as much ribbon/strings on my pages as I can!  I have such a large stash of these & I really need to use them up.

Make sure you head on over to the OUAS blog and check out the other DT's amazing interpretation of this challenge. Also do play along--especially if inspiration strikes! A big thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit!

Ruffled Flower Tutorial

Hello once again fellow bloggers & scrappers! Today's post is a tutorial on how to make these really cute two-tone ruffled flowers.

First of all I'd like to give a big thank you to Anna Fearer who inspired me to take a new look at the many punches & dies I have collecting dust in my stash. Anna has a gorgeous Etsy shop full of beautiful handmade flowers. She also has a very inspiring blog where she shares all her lovely creations plus a couple of tutorials on how she goes about making a few of her flowers. It was after watching one of these tutorials that I was motivated to try my own little creation & this was the result. Make sure you visit Anna's Etsy shop More Paper Than Shoes & her blog for lots of handmade flower inspiration.

So for these particular flowers I ended up using the Flower Layers Die by Sizzix--a die that I've had in my stash for years and never really used.

So let's get started!

You & Me Layout

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I made several months ago. In fact it was in November of 2011 I believe. This was a page I made for C'est Magnifique kits when I guest designed for them. The November kit was used for this page. This would be me & my husband on our vacation to Puerto Rico last year. I kept the page fairly simple--I was concentrating more on the photo and the fabulous view we had in the background.

The birds and some of the flowers are from a 'songbird' Prima Marketing vine that I ripped apart. :-) Doesn't sound pleasant but sometimes you have to improvise! I curled one of the corners by using several coordinating scraps. I would just cut the corners and adhere them one behind the other--and finally just curl them. This gives the effect of having several pieces of paper together when in fact it's just the corner with several pieces of paper. By the way, just about everything seen on this page came with the kit. I believe just a few of the scraps I used in the corner and the thread I used for the sewing were not part of the kit. I used a Martha Stewart punch around the page for the edges of the page.
 The edges were inked with a bit of Marmalade distress ink by Tim Holtz to make them stand out a bit more. I hand stitched all around the border with some thread from my stash. The letters used in the title were plain white corrugated cardboard. They were inked & spritzed in shades of yellow, orange & brown. I then tied a bit of the thread I used for my stitching around a few of the letters in the title.

Several of the papers in the kit came with designs that lent themselves for fussy cutting. The green cluster of leaves seen here were cut from one of the papers in the kit. I then added clear stickles on several of my cut pieces in order to further decorate them. Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit! Enjoy the rest of the week...

Chickadee Altered Picture Frame

Hello again fellow scrap peeps! Today I'm posting yet another picture frame that I altered many moons ago--but never got the chance to display here on my blog.

This is actually a plain wooden circular picture frame that I bought at my local Michaels that I altered. I used pink paper by Basic Grey plus beads, vines, fabric flowers & mulberry flowers from my stash.  The chickadees are actually a stamp that I colored in & then carefully cut out.  All of the edges are inked with Tea Dye distress ink by Tim Holtz.

I actually sold this picture frame in my Etsy shop some time last year.


Here's a closeup of the stamped cluster of chickadees at the bottom. I colored them in with Prismacolor markers and then added a bit of Star Dust stickles to further decorate each chickadee.

The fabric flowers & beads are actually pieces that I pulled apart from a larger cluster of flowers.  You can find these at any local arts & crafts store.  Sometimes I find them on clearance and purchase them with the intention of pulling them apart in order to decorate frames or boxes & even layouts.  I randomly added mulberry flowers here & there to further embellish my frame.

Thanks for stopping by & enjoy the rest of the week!

Once Upon A Sketch Design Team!

Just wanted to quickly share the latest news.  I've been asked to join the 2012-2013 Once Upon A Sketch Design Team!  Yay!!

Am very honored & humbled to be a part of such a talented group of ladies.  A big thank you goes to Nadia for giving me such a great opportunity!

Just check out the fabulous talent that I'll have the pleasure in working with:

Nadia Cannizzo 

Jeni O'Connor -Administrator (Australia /Canada)

Georgia Heald - Guest Designer coordinator (Australia)

Patti Hamil - Sponsorship Administrator(USA)

Eila Sandberg (Sweden)

Efi Stamatelli (Greece)

Erin Blegen ( USA)

Kelly Foster (USA)

Romy Veul (The Netherlands)

Jolaine Frias (USA)

Vicky Alberto (Canada)

Luzma Bruna (Chile)

Mona Pendleton (USA)

Solange Marques (Brazil)

Anna Zaprzelska/Brises (Poland)

Evgenia Petzer (South Africa) 

Renata Moni (Brazil)

Elena Stefanidou (Greece) 

Melenia Agapides (Greece) 

Cathy Cafun (Australia) 

Tina Walker (USA)

Kim Jeffress (Australia)

Florence Teixeira - (France)

Helena Virpi (Italy)

Hilde Aaslund (Norway) 

YAY! ----> Kay Fatula (USA)

Camilla Ekman (Sweden)

Svetlana Austin (South Africa)

To see the full announcement, click here.

Am looking very much forward to working with this great team!  What a great creative journey this will be...