Dusting off the cobwebs of my blog!

Hi there!  I cannot believe that I have neglected my blog for several months!!!!  That just never happens!  I am currently expecting another girl, so my creativity took a leave of absence!  I didn't want to walk into my craft room, or do any crafting whatsoever!  When I did have to create something, mainly for work, I would ask someone for their opinion to see if it was good enough!  That is SO out of character for me!  For those that know me personally, you know that I NEVER seek anyone's opinion!
Well, hopefully and thankfully, those times are history!  I was able to complete my first layout in over 4 months!  And I like it!  A lot!  LOL!

This was Olivia's second dance recital!  The name of the song was Rockin' Robin.  Get it??????

Here's a close up of the bird.  I drew the bird free hand and then colored him in w/ watercolors on regular cardstock.

Hopefully I'm back for good!  I'm trying to get myself interested again in scrapping!  Hopefully it will work!!!!
Have a great day!

Elephants for the new Baby!

Hi there! Today I would like to share with you a gift that I created for my sister and brother-in-law and their new baby that's due to arrive in early May!  Their baby shower is today, and I wanted to create something that will continue and last far longer than clothes or diapers will!  Plus, art is kind of my thing, so I wanted to create something special for my new nephew to be!

To create this is very easy!  I had a piece of scrap wood and painted the front with white gesso.  Then I took several ink sprays including Dylusions and Heidi Swapp to create the blue.  Before it dried, I dropped large and small droplets of alcohol blending solution  just to see what it would do!  I tilted the wood up and let it all drip!  This is how I achieved this look!  It looks like it's raining and the elephant is reveling in it!

I took a paintbrush and white gesso and free hand drew the elephant.  I wanted the trunk to go up to add more of an abstract look, and to not have a lot of empty space in the middle of the painting.  I drew the letters 'Baby Mine' and a heart with a red copic marker.









Here are some close up pics!

And here is the card that I made!  My clean and simple friends will be shocked!  Lol!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

It's Baseball Season!!!!!

Hello there, ePer's!  Today is the ePlay challenge on the eclectic Paperie blog and this month is all about wood!  I am sharing my wood project here with you now!  Sherry is back with us, which i am so excited about!  And she is the hostess with the mostess!  You can find the links to all of the team projects HERE!

In other news with eP, we welcomed a brand new team member, Julia Aston! Definitely check out her blog HERE!

Ok, on with the project!

In our house, baseball and softball have officially started!  Yay!!!! That means Spring is here and I am ready for bleacher butt! LOL!

Anyway, when we were presented with the challenge of working with wood, my mind went in a million different directions, but I decided on using Graphic 45's Good ol' Sport and a piece of scrap wood that I chiseled to make into a bat.  I shouldn't have wasted my time though, because you can't even tell with all of the ephemera on top!  Oh well!  That's what happens when you don't know what the end result is going to look like!  Hahaha!

Ok, so the first picture above is the entire bat.  The next one is a closeup.

This last one just shows the dimension.  I have a thing for Tim Holtz's Film Strip!  LOVE that stuff!  Love how it comes out of the jar already curly!  I just glue it in place and call it a day!

All of the paper and everything on the bat are from the G45 Good ol' Sport 12"x12" pack.  I did add a stamped bat and ball to complete the look.  And of course the film strip.  But, you can find the rest in the pack and you can find the pack right HERE!

Have a WONDERFUL day!  We hope that you can come and play in the ePlay challenge this month!!!!  If wood is not your thing, that's ok!  Just wait til May!  Oh my, now I'm rhyming!  It's time to end this post!!!
Bye!

Fairy Cottage!

I have my Fairy Cottage post up on the eclectic Paperie blog today!  Come and check it out!

www.eclecticpaperie.blogspot.com

Swirlydoos Round Robin challenge

Hi there! Today I would like to share with you my Round Robin challenge page that I created for the Swirlydoos forum that I'm a part of!

I was the last week spot for the month, so I followed 3 different scrappers!  From their pages, I took the following: placing the picture in the middle of the page, use of butterflies, pastel color scheme, dripping technique, use of a doily, and having a splotchy background.

I was already late in submitting this, so I didn't add all of the cutsidella that I would normally add.  This is pretty basic for me, and actually FLAT!  What???!!!!  Can you believe it?!  The only thing not flat are the flowers!  Gasp!

But, like I could have done a better job w/ the butterfly trail.  I was trying to use my distress glitter in a different way, and using it with 3 in 1 glue just doesn't cut it.  :(  That's my FAVORITE glue EVER!  But, for some things, it just doesn't work. 

Anyway, another page done!  Whoo hoo!

Ingredients used:
Paper: Floral stack by DCWV, kraft c/s, white c/s
Ink: Sassy Pink Smooch, Blue Ice color smooch, Bubble Gum Pink Dylusions Spray
Stencils: Hexagon 12" x 12", Splatters (TH)
Embellishments: Aqua Dolce & Bubble Gum Gelatos; assorted flowers, LYB flower pins; Sizzix SU!
                            Embosslits Beautiful Wings; Picked Raspberry Distress Glitter, assorted resin
                            swirl, doily

Have a great day!

Pallet Decorating

Hi there!  I have a new love and appreciation for altered wood projects!  Pallets are my new favorite surface!  I have a HUGE industrial pallet that my friend gave to me last week.  I'm still working out what to do with that!  But, today I am sharing a much smaller pallet with you!  You can find this exact pallet at the store where I work, which is where I picked it up!  We had 3 in stock, and every time I would pass by them, it felt like they were calling my name!  Pick me!  Pick me! So, I gave in and picked one up.  I also picked up some new paper from Kaisercraft, Key To My Heart.  LOVE this paper!  And I know that the first thought for this paper would be valentine-y.  I wanted to go in a more Victorian shabby chic direction so that I could display this in my house longer than the one day of the Valentine's holiday.  I also decided to showcase pictures of my family, and not just about "love".  The reason for this is to not only be able to keep this project out longer, but also to show the versatility in the paper!  Thirdly, to give you a jumping off point for what the heck to do with a pallet!  Haha!

So, how did my project come together?  Well, when I brought the pallet home, the tops of each board were kind of yucky.  So, I sanded it all down so that it was nice and smooth.  

I painted a thin coat of white gesso to further smooth it down, and to catch any errant splinters.  I had a little problem after this when I went to adhere the paper.  I painted a coat of Matte Medium on top of the gesso so that the paper that I cut to fit each board perfectly, would adhere.  Well, it came right up.  I tried painting the Matte Medium over the paper thinking that it would smooth out and adhere.  No again.  Ok, round three.  I sprayed each backside of paper w/ Elmer's Craft Bond Spray Adhesive.  I laid each piece down, and the edges came up!  Annoying!  So, finally, I reached for my 3 In 1 glue which is my all-time FAVORITE glue, and covered each backside and using a bone folder, I smoothed the paper down each board and made sure it stuck!  Whew!  FINALLY!  

Once the glue was dry, I painted a thin coat of Matte Medium on top of each board.  I just like what it does to the paper.  It gives it a subtle sheen.  Once that dried, I sanded the edges of all the boards, rounded the corners, and sanded away some of the paper.  That's how I am able to get the shabby look.  

Once the board layer was complete, I wanted to incorporate some sort of bling.  I hate to waste (I'm such a hoarder when it comes to embellishments!) those large pearl bling swirls for something that I have to essentiallly cut up since the boards aren't side by side.  So, what's the next best thing?  Viva Pearl Pens!  And a stencil of course!  I picked up the Stars stencil by Dreamweaver, which is a new line that we're carrying in the store!  These stencils are metal, so it's so nice when you're working with a liquidy material, it doesn't get under the stencil like regular vinyl stencils will do.  Well, not much anyway.  When I took the stencil away after using the Viva Pearl Pen, my "pearls" went flat.  So, I went w/ a different texture and used my Liquid Pearls.  It turned out to work perfectly!    And everywhere that there was a star, I made a flower to take its place.  (You can see a closeup of this at the beginning of this post).
 
The flowers I created using the following dies: Sizzix Tattered Florals & Sizzix Tattered Pinecone.  The pinecone die was also helpful for the greenery around the flowers.  In the very center of this large flower are just a grouping of microbeads.  (Just an FYI).

I wanted to make this pallet more than just a piece of "art".  Something that you just hang on a wall and forget about.  I want it to be a conversation piece.  I always like my creations to pull double duty, and to be interactive.  I pulled out my brand new Accordion Flip 3D Album die by Sizzix, and cut out several pieces of cardstock, and matching Kaiser paper.  I chose my pictures and created my little mini album!  I looked on the Sizzix site as to how the pieces went together, and from the pictures, it was easy to see how it works!

And then, here's the finished piece!

I hope that this has inspired you to try some new mediums instead of just scrapbooks!  Working on different surfaces is fun and opens up your creative mind to new possibilities!  Will you try something new?!


Ingredients:
Paper: Kaisercraft Key To My Heart Collection: Irresistable, Dreamy, Charismatic, Devine, 
                                                                                     Magnetizing, & Charmed
             pink cardstock (for making album more sturdy)
Ink: white gesso, matte medium, gold pen
Embellishments and Misc.: 11.5" x 11" wood pallet; Tattered Florals Die; Tattered Pinecone
                                                 Die; Accordion Flip 3-D Album Die; Stars Dreamweaver Stencil;
                                                 Viva Pearl Pen - Ice; Platinum Liquid Pearls; glue dots; 3-IN-1
                                                  glue; sandpaper (any grit)

You can pick up any of these materials at our store!  Scrapbook Super Station, Butler, PA

Have a wonderful day!

Sketch layout

Hi there!  Today I would like to share a quick layout that I started earlier this week, and finally finished this morning!

I am a part of a facebook group where a sketch is posted each week.  It's just a motivator and a way to get scrappin'!

I participated in last week's sketch, so here it is!  This week's was just posted yesterday, so I'm still ok!  LOL!

I am completely in love with the Bo Bunny line Country Garden!  I'm using the heck out of this paper!

I followed the sketch very closely, which I don't always do.  Sometimes I get an idea in my head and go off on a tangent.  But, I have more ideas for future pages, so I just wanted to get this one done!  Esp. since I had been looking at the pictures that I had chosen earlier in the week for a few days, ready to be placed on a page!

I doodled the date and title for this page.  I didn't feel like cutting letters out, or using stencils to create my lettering.  I'm pulling a Julie Fei-Fan Balzer!  I love how she can just start writing and it's considered art!  I want to be like her!  LOL!  My writing is very blocky and boring, but that's ok!

I used joint compound for the chevrons, and my Donna Downey chevron stencil.  It's bigger than what the sketch called for, but that's all I had, and it looks fine!  

In the sketch, it looks like there are mini dew drops on top of paper buttons.  Well, I have more buttons than I know what to do with, so I added real buttons and I can't believe my good luck, but I didn't throw out my dew drops that I got a zillion years ago!  Ok, maybe 4 years to be exact.  But, I still had them!  I added them all around the page to act like actual dew drops.  See, the picture is taken in front of the Aquarium at Broadway at the Beach in Myrtle Beach.  Plus, we're at the beach.  Sun, sand, and ......water!  Are you getting my line of reasoning???!!!!

So, that's it!  I'm off to start another page!

HOPE

 Hi there!  I FINALLY had time to photograph, albeit not very well, my HOPE project for the eP eTeams Picks challenge: HOPE!  My friend Andie is in charge of this challenge!  It was so awesome to be able to create a project that she challenged us with in her presence!  To see what this challenge entails, click on the eP link.

For my project, I decided to make a vertical banner using tags.

How was this created?  Well, all of the tags are the same except for the letters.  I pulled some Bo Bunny papers, and using Matte Medium, adhered the papers to the tags.  I sponged the edges w/ Black Soot.

I added strips of drywall tape along the R side.  I used a stencil and smeared some white embossing paste and sprayed w/ Dylusions sprays.  I used different stencils and more Dylusions sprays on the letters.  I used silver embossing paste on the edges of the butterflies.  For the honeycomb in the top corner, I sprayed Black Marble Dylusions spray onto my Tim Holtz Honeycomb stencil and then stamped onto the paper.

For the letters, I drew them, as I didn't have any stencils or anything large enough.  And I didn't bring my Cricut, so I had to draw them freehand.  Then, once I cut them out, they were really boring! So, I laid each letter down on black paper and drew the shadow layer.

I attached each tag to a ribbon and knotted each end.  I cheated and added red line tape to the backs of each tag to insure that the ribbon doesn't move as it hangs in my craft room.


If this was inspiring to you, you should definitely head over to the eP blog and create something!  Once you link your creation, you are entered to win a gift cert to the eP store!!!!!

Have a wonderful day!

My MI Swirly Girls Gathering Creations

Hi there!  Today I FINALLY took time to take pictures of my layouts and projects that I created while away this last weekend scrapbooking in MI w/ some of my Swirlydoos friends!  I only had met my friend Adriana Templeton, who is on the eclectic Paperie design team w/ me, in real life last fall when I invited her on a scrapbooking weekend in West Virginia!  What fun we had!  Anyway, this past weekend, I met some more Swirly girls that I chat w/ occasionally on the forums and 2 more that I just knew from the forums.  The most wonderful part of this weekend was that we all scrapped the same way!  No Creative Memories crap to be found!!!!  Call me a snob, but it is what it is!  I learned to scrap the Swirlydoos way, which is gaining fame everywhere I look, which is incredible!, and LOVE that I only need ONE picture to create a complete layout and along w/ embellishments, it becomes a stunning page!  I was in GREAT company this weekend!  I wish the weekend didn't have to end!  But, reality has to step in at some point and we all had to go back to our normal lives.  :(
I was really motivated this weekend and ended up making 5 layouts and 2 projects!  I taught an Inky Fingers class at Scrapbook Station this past Monday, and the main focus was Studio 490's Embossing Paste!  I actually got all of my pastes from eclectic Paperie, so I worked w/ the different colors on all of my creations.

Take a look!

To create this page, I started w/ a 7 Dots paper.  ( I have no idea which one it is!)  I sprayed it w/ Leather Tattered Angels spray.  Then, I went a little crazy w/ the texture!  I smeared some white embossing paste along the L side, and adhered a small lace doily.  I added more paste, and then sprayed w/ Dylusions Sprays.  I added some silver paste to the page w/ Tim Holtz's Honeycomb stencil.  Oh, and I added some drywall tape on the horizontal panel, smeared some white paste, sprayed w/ Dylusions, and then peeled off the tape.  I love that it took off some of the paper!!!!

I added the picture and embellishments, and that's it!

This is my least favorite textured page.  I love the picture, obviously, but the textures aren't really present in this page.  That's ok!
I used 7 Dots again for this page.  I used circle stencils and translucent embossing paste.  I got the shell at Jo's in the clearance section!  The clear buttons are from SU!.

This is the first page that I created this weekend.  It's fairly simple, with not a lot of height and dimension.  That's ok too!  I wanted to show off my fussy cutting w/ this paper!  I have no idea what paper I used.  It might be Bo Bunny, but I'm not entirely sure!

I used a bowl to cut out the circle layer.  I used Andie's large leafy flourish dies, and then I cut out the flowers w/ my exacto knife!  I added drywall tape, watered down white gesso, and gold embossing paste to the gate behind the picture.  added some lace and gold paper and my first page was done!

To create these pages, I used Bo Bunny's latest Winter pages.  I LOVE this paper!!!!  I am going to have to replenish before we run out of it!
I created my own large label shapes from a cutout I have in my stash.  The fence was chipboard from Blue Fern Studios.  I cut it to mirror each other and sprayed w/ Slate Tattered Angels spray.  Then, I applied the white embossing paste onto each fence to make it look like snow.  I smeared some along the bottoms of the pages as well as the tops of each picture to mimic snow piling up.

I'll have my HOPE project in my next post!

Thanks for stopping by!
Have a wonderful day!

PEACE

Hi there!  Today I would like to share a project that I created for one of the Swirlydoos challenges this month, to create a project using one word.  More points if we DON'T create a layout!

I got my thinking cap on, and suddenly remembered my goal that I have this year, to be at peace, especially when I drive on the roads.  I'm pretty impatient, and when people aren't driving as fast as I want them to, or are just annoying to me, I tend to fill up with rage.  And then my blood pressure skyrockets, and then I'm exhausted before I get to wherever I'm going!  Not good and not healthy. 

After praying about it and trying to figure out how to NOT be that way, I decided that as soon as I start to get hot, to just calm down immediately and think peaceful thoughts.  It's actually working!  YAY!  I'm a happier person when this happens too, so the results are positive!  :D

Ok, where am I going with this?  I decided to create a cross that I will hang somewhere in my car that I will see when I'm getting annoyed, or annoying others, a.k.a my husband! Ha!  Here's what I created!

The cross itself is made from 2 manilla tags.  I reinforced the main part of the cross by cutting a third piece of a manilla tag and gluing it to the bag.  That's why it can stand so tall without wanting to lean!

I used a stencil for the main letters, but then, I drew the halos around each letter myself.  I cut them out from Xpress it cardstock and then colored them with copics.  I used the dot technique that I found in a copic technique book.  I wanted the letters to be light where the halos hung, and then gradually go to stone.  The dot technique seemed to work the best to achieve this look.  I wanted the letters to look like stone, but softer.

Ingredients:
Paper: manilla tags, Mother Nature paper (2 types), Xpress It Cardstock
Ink: Y17, Y13, Y35, Y32, O, C1, C2, C3; Metallic Gold Embossing Paste
Embellishments and Other Things:  Chalkboard Letters Stencil, Resin crown, Swallows dies (Amuse);
Fancy Flourish (MFT); gold elastic ribbon (from a Christmas gift)

Have a great day!