Kay's Kreative Korner

The Journey Awakens the Soul Layout

2012-02-24T22:40:00.002-05:00

Happy TGIF fellow scrappers! I can't say that I'm not thrilled that it's Friday & the weekend is ahead of me. Just being able to sleep past 6:30 a.m. is such a treat!

Today's page is based on a vacation to Puerto Rico my husband & I went to just this past September. It was our very first vacation where we actually went with friends. It was different for us--but a good kind of different. You definitely bond in ways you never thought of when you travel with others who are not family. You learn from one another & you simply get to know each other better! We all work in large corporations where stress is a common part of our daily routine. So this trip truly did 'awaken our souls'. We so very much needed the escape. I'm glad our trip went well and we hope to do another one soon!

This photo shows all six of us in Fort San Cristobal in Old San Juan. I have very limited photos where all six of us are together since it was usually one of us taking the group shots. For this photo I remember positioning the camera on top of a trash bin & setting the timer! Hey...it worked right?

I'm submitting this page for two challenges. Bird is the Word (BITW) for their Journey challenge & Once Upon a Sketch (OUAS) February 15th challenge. For OUAS the challenge was to scrap vacations. Either a recent vacation...one I'd like to go on or a favorite vacation.

Here's the sketch provided to us by Nadia over at OUAS.

I went with green embellies/accents to go along with my page. The papers are a combination of Prima & BoBunny.

The large swirls on the side are actually stamps by Prima. I stamped the swirls with Staz On Jet Black Ink--then cut along the flourish to create the border. I then further decorated the swirls with Stickles.

Lime green trim by Websters Pages was tucked underneath my scroll border.

The light green/silver flourishes are by Tim Holtz & made out of grunge board. They were first painted with a lime green acrylic paint. I then randomly dabbed a bit of Silver Paint Dabber on them. Finally, they were inked with embossing ink & heat embossed with transparent Star Dust embossing powder by Stampendous. In person, these flourishes give off a fabulous dimensional shimmer.

The journaling was made with my Dymo Caption maker and the title is actually a stamp by Tim Holtz (Stampers Anonymous). I stamped the image onto a transparency with embossing ink & heat embossed it with black embossing powder. NOTE: You have to be a bit careful when heat embossing on transparencies--you don't want to melt or warp the transparency. So it takes a light hand and a bit of patience. However, the end result is worth it. It's hard to tell from the photo but in person the title has a dimensional, almost epoxy look to it.

I punched a few holes into my large black circle & tied some lime ribbon through the holes. The transparent compass and globe is by Tattered Angels. The mulberry flowers are from my stash, the resin flowers are by Prima and the fabric rosette is by BoBunny.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit...your time is always very much appreciated! Have a great weekend.

Altered Ink Box

2012-02-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today I'm posting a wooden box that I altered some time in November of 2011. This is actually a box that I bought at my local craft store Michaels for $1.

The box itself was painted & heat embossed--then embellished with many bits, bobs & trinkets.

I use this box to hold samples of all my inks. I have just about all of the Distress Inks by Tim Holtz and many of the Adirondack dye inks by Ranger plus a few others from other brands. Having all of my inks handy in one location makes it easier for me to mix n' match colors for my projects.

The cover consists of a glimmer glass owl & a bronze key by Tattered Angels. The owl's belly is a metal clock by Tim Holtz. The flowers consist of a few mulberry paper flowers from my stash & a handmade 'frosted flower'. You can find a tutorial for the vellum frosted flower here.

The clear film strip is by Tim Holtz.

The key hole is once again by Tim Holtz. I used Star Dust glitter to give the key hole some shimmer. The transparent flourishes were cut out from a larger transparent overlay by Hambly.

The glass vial is by Tim Holtz. (Lots of Tim Holtz goodies it seems). I filled the glass vial with black beads from my stash. The bird is also cut out from a Hambly overlay.

Now to go into a bit more detail on how I gave the box it's texture. The box was first painted with pink acrylic paint. Once dry I randomly inked the box with embossing ink & heat embossed it with Mahogany distress embossing powder. Finally I lightly dry brushed it with a bit of cream/ivory acrylic paint.

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

Charming Adorable Sweet Layout

2012-02-11T20:39:00.001-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! With Valentine's Day around the corner, it felt very appropriate to play along with the February 1st challenge going on over at Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS). The topic of the challenge was none other than 'Love'. We had to scrap a male in our lives that is very special to us.

Well, I have two very special guys in my life. One would be my husband--the other would be my fur baby Toby. Technically Toby is the special little guy in both our lives. He gives us unconditional love & happiness...he's our little ray of sunshine. As you can see in this photo--Toby is quite the ham. He always seems to smile in his photos.

Here's the sketch the page is based on...I sorta flipped it and used the large acrylic heart for the circle in the background.

The large acrylic circle is by Clear Scraps. I inked the edges with Red Pepper alcohol ink--then further decorated it by adding gold Stickles, eyelets, black pearls & a couple of Prima Pebbles.

The film strip is by Tim Holtz. I twisted it & adhered it as such in order to give my page more dimension.

I punched a few holes into my heart & added a touch of tulle.

The title was part of the paper itself. I cut it out & then adhered it with some foam dots. I didn't want this part of the paper to be covered up with my heart--plus it was the perfect title. Cutting it out was a way to salvage it & use it as my title.

Here are all of the bits & bobs I used. The glass vial, Love Key, clasp, pen nib & memo pin are all by Tim Holtz. Tim Holtz products are still the best in my book to add masculine touches to a male themed page.

I once again used a scroll to hold my journaling. I first used a scroll to hold my journaling in my 'It All Began With A Promise' page.

I created the 'straps' that hold my journaling from 2 strips of strong card stock. The journaling itself is printed on plain white paper & then matted with vellum in order to give it the look of an actual scroll. The scroll itself measures approximately 3 3/4" x 6 3/4".

TIP: If you have a story to tell and don't want to take up too much room on your page--try using a scroll to hold your journaling. This also adds a unique embellishment to your page.

Here I'm displaying the scroll unrolled--as you can see you can store a good sized story, thoughts, poems, quotes etc. this way. NOTE: Remember to not obstruct your scroll once you decide where to put it on your page. You need to be able to slide your journaling out so always leave one side unobstructed.

Thanks for taking the time to visit! I hope you all have a fabulous Valentine's Day alongside your loved ones.

Family Layout

2012-02-04T00:20:00.002-05:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today's page is a favorite of mine. I absolutely love this candid shot of myself with my two fave guys--my husband & my little fur-baby Toby.

I used papers by Kaisercraft's Chapter One collection. It coordinated perfectly with the colors in the photo itself. The colors also went just right for Case File #4 going on over at C.S.I. To create the inner frame--I cut a large triangular shape into my paper and then 'peeled' it back, rolled it once and just left the outer corner out. (I hope that makes sense!) Oh & prior to adhering everything down I inked all the edges to make them stand out more.

This is the challenge from C.S.I my page is based on.

This is a stamp by Stamp Enjoy. I further decorated the image with Stickles & inked the edges to make it stand out more.

I used Martha Stewart's Deco Flowers punch for the border. The edges were inked to allow them to stand out more. I further highlighted the border with dots of white opal liquid pearls.

The flourish chipboard frame seen here is by Dusty Attic. I painted it first with white acrylic paint & then heat embossed it with clear Star Dust embossing powder by Stampendous.

Another very cute stamp by Stamp Enjoy. The large spray is by Petaloo. It's one of their Color Me Crazy Sprays...I spritzed it with a teal glimmer mist so it would match my page.

The label holding my title is also by Dusty Attic. The label went through a couple extra steps in order to give it more texture. It was first painted with a teal/blue metallic acrylic paint. I then gave it a coat of clear crackle paint (Rock Candy). Once dry I lightly spread a bit of Frosted Lace Stickles on it with my finger. I added more Frosted Lace in the center of the label & spread it out thinner with my finger towards the edges. I next highlighted the edges of the label with Stickles and finished it up by adding two rhinestones.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit and I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

It All Began With A Promise

2012-01-25T22:15:00.005-05:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! Seems like I've had a very productive January! I think this is the most I've posted in one month. :-) Let's just say that I started the New Year with lots of inspiration!

Today's page I made for the Bird Is The Word 'Promise' challenge & for Case #3 going on over at C.S.I. I think that the other reason for my consistent scrapping is these challenges that I've been participating in. They really do motivate you to scrap those pages.

This is my husband & I on our wedding day. Hard to believe that we're already heading into our 5th year of marriage.

Here's the challenge for C.S.I containing the color scheme I used on this page. The colors were more towards the pastel side but I took the darker shade of brown & made that my primary color. I then went with the lighter colors for everything else. Just a bit out of my comfort zone but that's what these challenges are about.

The bird cage is a wooden embellishment by Kaisercraft. The cute little bird on the cage I bought from Lidia's Etsy store--just one of several cute embellies she has in her shop.

The title is on a chipboard label by Dusty Attic. To give the chippie that metallic look--I first painted the chipboard with an ivory metallic acrylic paint. I then spritzed it with Pralines & Cream & Cashmere Smooch.

TIP: Want a unique way to store lengthy journaling but not exactly 'hide' it? Why not display it on your page as a scroll? As you can see from this photo--I used a scroll to hold my journaling & to add a unique embellishment to my page.

Just print your journaling on paper or vellum (or both like I did) & roll it up. Then take a pieces of scrap card stock or thick patterned paper--& cut two strips of paper about 1 3/4" inches long by 1/2" wide. NOTE: make sure that you use fairly thick card stock/patterned paper for the makeshift straps you're going to use to hold your scroll. If you use thin paper--the straps will most likely rip. Finally adhere the straps to your page making sure to leave enough room to slide your scroll through. NOTE: Use brads to decorate the ends of your straps. I adhered the brads to my straps as decoration. The straps are glued to my page with strong adhesive instead. These makeshift straps are what's going to hold your scroll in place so they have to be adhered very well onto your page. I felt that adhering them directly to the page with brads may end up ripping my page. So that's why I went about it this way.

Here's my scroll journaling taken out of it's holding spot. Once done, simply roll it back up & tuck it back into your straps!

As I mentioned in an earlier post--one of my resolutions was to use up the tons of ribbon in my stash. So I intertwined a bit of sheer gold ribbon amongst my flowers & Prima vine.

I once again used a bit of tulle for this page to give it a softer, delicate feel.

The cute little charm that I have hanging from my large mulberry paper rose with a Tim Holtz memo pin was also purchased in an Etsy shop. This one is owned by a very nice lady named Kat and her store Beyond Charms is full of lots of lovely charms just like this one that can be added to any page/card/project.

The two large light brown shabby roses was also bought at an Etsy store. Seems like I did a lot of shopping in Etsy for this page! That's the beauty of owning an Etsy shop of your own--you tend to support your other fellow crafters that are in the same boat as you. These shabby roses can be found over at Frog Feathers along with many other fabulous trims, lace & miscellaneous embellishments. The light pink crochet doily I also bought from Frog Feathers.

Finally an owl glimmer glass embellishment by Tattered Angels. I used a resin cameo by Webster's Pages for the owl's tummy.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit!

Winter Fairy Card

2012-01-23T19:40:00.000-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers. I thought I'd quickly upload this card I made in early December. I wanted to upload this while we were still in 'winter' mode.

I bought this very adorable stamp over at Whimsy Stamps titled 'Winter Fairy'. This stamp gave me the opportunity to take out my Prismacolor pencils & do something I've loved to do since I was a child--color!

I used Stickles to further decorate my image.

I stamped the image on a piece of transparency & layered it over my original stamped image. You can see in this photo the very cool dimension the transparency provides--especially for the wings.

I handmade the stick pin with beads from my stash & tucked a small white doily in the upper corner.

I used small dots of White Liquid Pearls to simulate snow flakes falling in the background.

I tucked a bit of gauze in the lower right had corner of my image to simulate a bit of snow.

The pine cones were made with Tim Holtz's Pine Cone die. I dabbed a bit of white acrylic paint on them along with some Rock Candy Stickles to give the effect of snow--a tip I got from Mr. Tim Holtz himself.

The metallic red poinsettia is by Prima.

All the papers I used to make this card are Christmas themed papers I've had in my stash since forever. It was great to finally get the chance to use some of them up.

Remember 2011 Layout

2012-01-20T23:25:00.002-05:00

TGIF fellow scrappers! Today was one of those Fridays that I refer to as 'Fiesty Friday'. Everybody was hyper at the office...not much work got done & we were all for the most part simply happy! Not sure if we're all burnt from the amount of work we've been having lately or we're all anticipating our supposed first 'snow storm' of the season or if there's just something in the air--but it was a great Friday!

I was also able to wrap up this page that I'm submitting for several challenges.

The first is for the Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS) January 15th challenge. The challenge was to journal about New Year's. Either 'Hello 2012' or 'Goodbye 2011'. I decided to journal about the one memory that most stood out in my mind for 2011--so I guess I went with 'Goodbye 2011'. I absolutely love this one photo me & my husband took while vacationing in Puerto Rico. The time, the place & the meaning behind it--just meant a lot to me. I've already scrapped it once before. You can see my first take of it here.

This is also being submitted for Case #2 going on over at C.S.I. I'm really enjoying their Alice in Wonderland theme.

Finally, this page also fit the requirements for the Bird Is The Word (BITW) 'Remember' challenge.

Here's the sketch provided by Nadia over at OUAS. I'm a fan of circular elements--so this sketch got my cogs & gears going as soon as I saw it. :-)

This is Case #2 for C.S.I. The colors for this case took me a little out of my comfort zone. I tend to be more of a 'grungy girl' & lean more towards the brownish/vintage colors & I don't tend to mix too many different colors on one page. However, all these bright colors just seemed to work/blend well together!? Who would've thought!

Ok, let's start with the close ups. The circle frame chippie is by Dusty Attic. I gave it the iridescent paint/embossing texture that I'm quite fond of when it comes to chipboard. I first painted the chipbard with metallic teal/green acrylic paint. With a white Sharpie paint marker I highlighted the edges of the flourishes on the circle frame in order to define them a bit more. Next, I inked the frame with embossing ink & heat embossed it with Kaleidoscope clear embossing powder by Stampendous. This particular embossing powder gives off this shimmery iridescent texture that is so very pretty in person & hard to truly capture with a camera.

The yellow butterflies I cut out from a Hambly overlay that I've had in my stash since before time. I finally found a use for it! :-) I wanted the butterflies to look as if they were flying out from behind the photo.

TIP: Want to try out a dimensional way of matting your photo? Simply rip & tear scraps of paper with your hands & layer them!

I ripped & tore several pieces of two sided paper straight & in angles. NOTE: This works best with two sided paper that has one light side & one dark side. I inked all the torn edges with Tea Dye Distress ink. I then layered all of these torn pieces one on top of the other in different angles & curled the edges on some of them. As I adhered the layers I tried to alternate the sides of the paper I used (dark versus light). This gives the effect of having many pieces of paper matting the photo when in reality it's just bits & scraps that are just layered one on top of the other.

One of the main reasons I love this photo so much is that I find it sweet & romantic. Sweet & romantic = tulle in my book. Tee-hee. There's something about tulle that 'softens' a page. So for the first time, I've incorporated a bit of tulle in my layout. I kept it simple. Just took a piece of tulle, tied it with a knot & then adhered it to my page. Done.

I also made the New Year's resolution to use up the tons of ribbon I have in my stash. So once again I've intertwined a piece of ribbon amongst all of my floral embellies.

The brick wall I traced with a fine point black marker and a Prima brick mask.

The random yellow misting was done with Yellow Daisy Glimmer Mist.

The gate stamp is by Prima. As I tend to do--I stamped my image on a transparency with StazOn Jet Black ink. This way I can place my image anywhere I wish & I don't have to worry about stamping it on crooked. I have total control of how my image will display! Yay!

A close up of the other cluster of embellies. The resin bird is by Prima. You can see my second tulle accent here as well.

I also used two small white doilies on either side of my matted photo. Since they're white like my background they add a soft subtle touch.

Finally...my hidden journaling. Ta-da! Turns out that one of those torn edges on top of my photo is actually a pull out tag where I hid a bit of nostalgic journaling. Journaling reads:

This was it. This was the defining moment of 2011 for me. This is the one memory I do not want to forget. One the eve of our 4th wedding anniversary we took a 'classic' photo during our vacation to Puerto Rico. One that I hope our future son or daughter will maybe one day try to reproduce. It's timeless. It's romantic...it's us.

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend & a big thanks as always to those who stop by for a visit.

New Years Slumber Layout

2012-01-12T20:30:00.005-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I made for the January 1st challenge going on over at Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS). The challenge is to scrap how you spend New Years.

The journaling is hidden behind the photos. More on this in a few.

This is my husband sleeping on New Year's Eve. :-) This is how we usually spend it due to his demanding job. He's pretty much 24/7 hour production support for his company & it's very common for him to work entire nights, holidays, weekends etc. New Year's is no exception. So it's a joy for me to watch him sleep when he actually gets the chance to get a good night's sleep on a holiday.

I've used the Dreamer collection by 7 Dots Studio, a lot of stamping & many different embellishments for this page.

I'll also be submitting this page to the first Case File going on over at Color...Stories...Inspiration (C.S.I). Couldn't help but play along with their first 'case'. The whole concept behind this new site is just too cool to resist!

This is what the first case file is based on. It's Johnny Depp...enough said! lol

Here's the sketch provided by OUAS the page is based on.

I used ribbon along with a string of pearl beads to really give this page some dimension. The large gold leaves are by Prima. The mulberry flowers are from my stash. I once again used a tiny glass vial on my page. Along with a metal pen nib by Tim Holtz. I filled the vial with small black glass beads & wrapped a bit of hemp cord around it. I tucked a couple of tags from the Dreamer collection behind the vial & the pen nib.

I also used half of a crochet doily...you can see it peeking underneath the cluster of embellies.

A close up of one of the chipboard keys. These keys are by Dusty Attic. I used a Gold Paint Dabber by Ranger on the keys & dried them with a heat gun. To give the keys that 'stone' look just heavily apply the paint dabber on them so that little globs of paint are left behind.

Here's a close up of the waterfall journaling. You can find a tutorial for this technique here.

Being able to journal the story behind my husbands hectic schedule and why it's actually a pleasure to see him sleep on New Year's required some extensive story telling. I needed a way to document all of this & I didn't really want to store it behind the layout & on the layout it would take up too much room. So I leveraged the concept behind the waterfall card for this technique. This is also a great way to display different photos in a condensed matter.

Here's the waterfall journaling half-way out. I printed the journaling on transparency.

In this photo the journaling is completely pulled out.

Finally a closeup of my stamping. The script stamp & the grid stamp are by Tim Holtz. The script stamp is from the Mini Ornates stamp set & the grid is from the Ultimate Grunge set. The splatter stamps are by Recollections. I found this stamp set at my local Michaels. These stamps have almost become a trademark of mine! I've used them in just about all of my pages lately. I'm in love with them! lol

Thanks to all of you who stop by! I appreciate you taking the time to visit.

Waterfall Journaling Tutorial

2012-01-12T20:15:00.001-05:00

Here's a brief tutorial on the waterfall journaling seen on my 'New Years Slumber' page.

I usually keep my journaling on the back of my pages. Sometimes--if I have the room--I'll have it in the front as part of my layout. However, for this layout I had an actual 'story' to tell with my page and I didn't necessarily want to put it behind my layout. I also didn't want to put it as part of my page because it would take up too much room. So what to do?

I had heard of the 'waterfall card' and knew of it for several years now actually. However, it wasn't until now that it occurred to me that I can leverage the waterfall card onto a layout and use it for journaling.

You can follow any waterfall card tutorial found on the internet & simply leverage it for your project. Following is how I went about doing the waterfall journaling for this particular page. TIP: This technique also allows you to display multiple photos in a condensed manner. My entire page is based specifically on this one photo--so I used multiples of the same photo for my layout.

So let's get started!

Step 1: Print 4 3" x 2" inch photos. Then cut out 4 3 1/4" x 2 1/4" inch card stocks that will be used to mat your photos

Step 2: Adhere your photos to the card stock mats. Cut out 1 3 1/4" x 9" inch card stock

Step 3: Starting at one end of the 3 1/4" x 9" piece of card stock score at 2", 2 3/4", 3 1/2" & 4 1/4" inches

Step 4: Fold along the scored lines. You should end up with a strip of paper like the one shown in the photo

Step 5: Adhere the photos along each scored section

Step 6: Cut out 1 4 1/2" x 3/4" piece of card stock/patterned paper & adhere it behind the first scored section (this should be behind the first photo from the bottom). Attach this small strip to the bottom edge of the larger strip...not to the bottom edge of the photo.

Attach an eyelet & a ribbon to the very bottom (long un-scored piece) of the 3 1/4" x 9" strip of paper. This is what will be used to pull your waterfall journaling out

Step 7: Punch holes on either side of the 4 1/2" x 3/4" inch strip of paper. This is where the eyelets will go & will attach your waterfall journaling to your layout. Figure out where you want your journaling to go. Punch corresponding holes based on where you decide to put your journaling & adhere it to your layout with eyelets. This is the only way your waterfall journaling will be attached to your layout.

NOTE: Do NOT glue the back of the waterfall journaling to your layout. Do NOT adhere any kind of embellishments that will block your journaling from being pulled out. You should be able to easily slide your waterfall journaling up & down with no obstacles when done

Hope you all enjoyed this tutorial & that it'll give some of you an option on how to document lengthy stories/journaling or multiple photos.

The Wonder Of You Layout

2012-01-10T22:25:00.002-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today I bring you a pastel Christmas page. Now, pastel colors are not my norm when it comes to scrapbooking--I tend to go more for vintage/grungy colors. However, I really like how this page came out! For some reason these two photos of Toby sitting on Santa's lap alongside Santa's Little Helper said 'pastel' to me. So pastel it was.

Isn't my Toby a little ham? I swear he 'smiles' for most of his photos--these two being no exception. He's such a little character...

I've used papers by Pion Designs from their Santa's Little Helper II line. These papers came with the December kit by Funtoolas--a very cute Etsy shop filled with delicate embellishments & very well coordinated kits for scrapbooking. This will be the third page I've completed with elements from this kit. Needless to say, I've thoroughly enjoyed this kit!

The peach crochet doilies are also from an Etsy shop titled 'Frog Feathers'. This little shop has lots of trims and other goodies that can be used for scrapbooking.

I'm submitting this page to the Bird Is The Word challenge blog. This page is for their 'Wonder' challenge.

The title is a combination of clear labels made with my Dymo Caption maker & letters adhered to a piece of clear acrylic/transparency. I've been using transparencies more & more on my layouts because it offers more dimensional possibilities. If you're a dimensional lover like yours truly--then this is the way to go.

TIP: To position titles over ribbon, beads, pearls, brads or any other bulky embellishment--consider adhering the letters to a piece of transparency. As shown here the word 'wonder' was first adhered to a piece of transparency and then adhered over my string of pearls. You can't even see the transparency which makes it look like the word 'wonder' is perfectly balanced on my string of pearls!

Speaking of pearls...I've had strings of pearls in my stash for the longest time in all sorts of colors. I figured it's about time I started using them. So lately I've been adhering them in a random sorta way onto my pages. I just like the randomness they supply to the page.

I've taken out my splatter stamps once again for this page & have randomly stamped splats & splatters in the background. This stamp set is by Recollections & I found it at my local Michaels. The snowflakes & black flourishes are also stamps--these are by Inkadinkado.

The two large white crochet snowflakes came with the Funtoolas kit.

I once again used a bit of cheese cloth to mat my photos. I am loving the effect cheese cloth gives when tucked behind photos.

The black flourishes were stamped on acrylic. TIP: Stamping your images on acrylic/transparencies gives you much more flexibility on the placement & orientation of your image. For example the flourish is actually the reverse image of the actual stamp. I liked how it looked better reversed. If it wasn't for the transparency--I wouldn't have this option.

I further decorated the black flourish by adding some clear rhinestones & Star Dust Stickles.

A close up of the snowflakes border chipboard. I first painted the snowflakes with metallic blue acrylic ink. I then randomly dabbed a bit of Silver Paint Dabbers on them by Ranger. Finally I randomly spread adhesive & sprinkled a bit of Fairy Dust Glitter by Donna Salazar on them. They're even more shimmery in person!

These dimensional Christmas trees are making their second appearance. I first used these in my 'Magic' layout. I have made a tutorial for these trees & will post it soon. They are actually a stamp that I've altered to give the trees lots of depth/dimension.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit! I'll be back soon.

Enjoy The Journey Canvas

2012-01-03T12:15:00.000-05:00

Good morning fellow scrappers & bloggers & happy 2012! New Year, new fresh outlook to life, new resolutions! I hope everybody had a wonderful, happy & safe New Years.

Today's project is one I've had done for some time now & simply haven't posted. It's an 8x8 canvas based on family.

I used a variety of glimmer mists for the background as well as transparencies, corrugated cardboard, metal embellishments, tiles, glass beads mixed media, embossing & of course stamping.

The hinges is by Tim Holtz & are made out of grunge board. They were first inked with Vintage Photo Distress ink. Next they were dry embossed with Tim Holtz's Dot Matrix & Gridlock embossing folder. Finally they were randomly heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

For the background I used the following Glimmer Mists: Riptide, Blue Skies, Tuscan Sun, Candy Corn & Sunkissed Peach. The metal clock is by Tim Holtz. The transparent Owl is by Tattered Angels. The corrugated cardboard was first painted with metallic ivory acrylic paint & then spritzed with Pralines & Cream Smooch.

The burlap flower was made with Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die. I used my burlap flower technique to make this flower. If interested in a tutorial on how to make burlap flowers, please go here. I used the same concept. Only difference is that this flower has just one layer.

The corner flourish chippie is by Dusty Attic.

The glass vial is by Tim Holtz. I've become a big fan of using these cute little glass vials in my projects. I simply fill them with glass beads that I have in my stash & wrap a bit of hemp or twine around them.

The title & the random script is all made with stamps. I stamped the images onto a transparency & then adhered the transparencies where I wanted on the canvas.

Here you can also see the glass beads mixed media I used to make the large flourish on the canvas. I used a template by Crafters Workship for the large flourish. I spread the transparent glass bead mixture along the template making sure I fully covered the pattern I wanted. Once done I removed the template & let the glass beads dry. This media is transparent so in order to make the flourish stand out a bit more, I painted over the flourish with a bit of white acrylic paint.

A big thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit. Your visit and/or comments are very much appreciated!

My Joy Layout

2011-12-30T08:30:00.002-05:00

Good morning fellow scrappers! Hope all of you had a fabulous Holiday. Now onto the final countdown of 2011. Um, where DID this year go? Can someone let me know!?

Along with the end of 2011 comes my end with Sketchabilities. This will be my final post with them. I had a great time while on this DT. The sketches were a great challenge for me & pushed those creative juices.

I did a Christmas page for this sketch. Tis the season right? I took this very cute candid shot of my hubby & fur baby Toby while doing our annual Christmas card photo shoot. This photo worked just right for this sketch & my overall Christmas theme.

I used one of the December scrapbook kits by a very cute Etsy shop by the name of Funtoolas. This particular kit contained the lovely papers 'Waiting for Santa II' by Pion Design.

Here's the sketch my page is based on. Karan comes up with some very versatile sketches--they can be interpreted in many ways & they kick your creative skills into high gear. :-)

I used a brick mask by Prima for the background. For my inking, I used Aged Mahogany & Chipped Sapphire distress inks.

The snowflakes are actually Christmas tree ornaments that I found at my local Target for $1.00. They come in packs of three, are light, flat & fit perfectly on scrapbook pages. You can also use snowflake dies--I just don't have any--so I ended up using these ornaments instead.

The Santa tag is a cut out from one of the Pion papers. I distressed & inked the edges.

This very elegant metal embellishment came with the Funtoolas kit.

I used a scrap of glassine paper by Tim Holtz to mat my photo. I just wrinkled the glassine several times & then swiped some Walnut Stain distress ink over the wrinkled glassine. I'm loving this glassine paper! My next newfound love is cheese cloth which I've used to mat my photo as well.

The title 'My Joy' is a combination of a transparent label made with my Dymo label maker & some American Craft Thickers that came with the kit. I wanted my titled to be in a certain position on my page. It didn't quite fit on my photo & there was too much of a gap between the photo & my background where even if I adhered my title with pop dots--half my letters would be distorted. The solution? Transparencies! TIP: Adhere your title onto acrylic or transparency. Then simply cut it out. This way you can place your title anywhere--like one large sticker without distorting it. This works great for pages with lots of dimension--and as you can see from my photo--it's really not noticeable at all. The title almost looks like it's floating on it's own. Magic I say!

I did a few random tears into my page. I then punched out small scraps with my Martha Stewart Wildflowers punch around the page deep edge punch. These scraps I tucked behind my tears. I then added one safety pin to each of my tears.

Finally a close up of some of my stamping. I can't have a page without at least one stamp in it! The splatters is a stamp by Recollections and I believe it's called just that 'Splatters'. I bought it at my local Michaels. The script stamp is by Donna Salazar & is called 'All My Love'.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit. I'm always grateful to you. Feel free to hop on over to the Sketchabilities blog to see the other DT's take on this sketch & to play along if you can!

May you all have a wonderful, happy & safe New Year!

I'll be back in 2012...

Christmas Wishes

2011-12-25T14:36:00.003-05:00

From my family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas! It truly is a 'wonderful life'!

Magic Layout

2011-12-19T22:40:00.003-05:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! So Christmas is just days away...another year almost over. Can the time go by any faster!? Sigh...one of the best things though about this time of year are the pictures we get to take. Here's one of my latest Christmas faves. It's a completely candid shot of my husband, Toby & myself. This was taken on our annual amateur photo shoot for our Christmas cards. None of us were ready, we weren't looking at the camera--we were simply being ourselves. I loved it! So very much that I ended up using this as part of our Christmas cards. :-) Of course I also had to scrap it.

I used the lovely papers Waiting For Santa II by Pion Design for this page. I was able to finally get my hands on them via a wonderful Etsy shop I discovered by the name of Funtoolas. Even the name is catchy! Cindy the owner of Funtoolas puts together lovely kits. She had two December kits this month--I was lucky enough to snag the Pion kit. I had heard much about this Swedish company & the papers were perfect for my photo.

I'm submitting this page for the Once Upon A Sketch (OUAS) December 15th challenge. Here's the sketch my layout is based on. I flipped the sketch on it's side for my page. The theme for this challenge was how you spend Christmas Day. For me Christmas Day is spent quietly. It's quality time with family. We celebrate on Christmas Eve which is tradition for Latin American countries. So on Christmas Eve my family has Christmas dinner & on midnight we open up our gifts around the Christmas tree. We go to bed late--and then spend Christmas Day talking, laughing & sharing memories.

A close up of the flourish chippie & my snowy trees. The chippie is part of the Holly Flourish by Dusty Attic. All of the trees is actually a large stamp by Magnolia called Winter Forest. I stamped the image on dark green patterned paper. Cut them out and randomly colored them with a VersaMarker pen. I then heat embossed them with Peeled Paint distress embossing powder. Next I cut each layer of the tree out--added my 'snow' on the layers & then put the trees back together again with foam dots. This gave my trees a 3D effect. I hope to do these trees again in my next Christmas page--I really liked them a lot! I'll capture a couple of screen shots as I make them. This technique can work for any kind of tree stamp or image that has layers that can be cut out.

The silk flowers came with the kit. Aren't they pretty?

The doe is a die cut by Tim Holtz called Reindeer Flight. He die cut a doe from sticky back canvas for one of his 12 tags of Christmas and this is where the inspiration for my doe came from. The doe is die cut from sticky back canvas, then randomly inked with Frayed Burlap distress ink. I then adhered a bit of mini garland I had in my stash & tied a bell on her neck with a bit of twine.

For the corner I adhered four different kinds of coordinating scraps and then curled them upwards. This gives the illusion of having several pages clustered together. I tucked some hollies & flowers in this corner.

I used a bit of cheese cloth & a crumbled piece of glassine paper by Tim Holtz to mat my picture. The glassine was wrinkled several times & then inked with Walnut Stain distress ink. The metal flower embellishment came with the Funtoolas kit.

The large multi-colored snowflake in the corner was done with a Tattered Angels stencil. I spritzed the stencil with a variety of different mists & smooch. Then I 'kissed' the paper to my misted stencil. This created a washed out multi-colored imprint of the snowflake on my paper. I then heat set it before it smeared.

The random script seen throughout my page is a stamp by Donna Salazar titled 'All My Love'.

A close up of my other smaller tree. Did I mention how much I loved these little trees? :-)

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit.

Love Cake Layout

2011-12-15T08:30:00.002-05:00

Good morning fellow scrappers & bloggers! It's time for another sketch over at Sketchabilities!

This is me & my husband on our wedding day. These photos were taken during the cake cutting. Our DJ referred to the cake as our 'love cake'. As I was scrapping this I remembered that specific comment & therefore his comment became the title for this page.

Here's the fabulous sketch by Karan this page is based on. I enjoyed working with circles instead of the usual squares or rectangles--I love it when sketches take me away from what I'm 'comfy' with. It makes me take my creativity one notch higher.

A close up of one of the flourish chippies. These are made by Dusty Attic. The chippies were painted with a deep burnt orange acrylic paint. Once dry I inked them with embossing ink & heat embossed them with Star Dust transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. In person, they give off a very shimmery effect.

The resin window is by Prima. Here you can also see a bit of the hand stitching I did going around the circle. This particular stitching I saw over on Irene Tan's blog--better known as Scrapperlicious. She refers to it as the long stitch technique. In order to get that zig zag pattern the stitches are all done in a very long angle. Next time I do this stitch I'll do a brief tutorial on it for those who are interested.

Here's me & my hubby cutting the cake & posing for the camera at the same time. :-) The colorful circle behind us is by Pink Paislee (Mistables). I inked it with a few distress inks (Stormy Weather, Mustard Seed & Wild Honey) then spritzed it once with Suede glimmer mist.

A close up of the second smaller photo. Both frames for my photos is also by Pink Paislee.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit--it's always very much appreciated!

Don't forget to stop by the Sketchabilities blog & check out the other talented DT's take on this sketch & do play along if you can!

Friends Furever Layout

2011-12-09T23:50:00.003-05:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers & bloggers! Today's page is one I did for Stamp Enjoy. It's also a remake of an older page titled "Just the 2 of Us". I felt my original page was a bit too feminine--so I re-did it while keeping only certain elements but adding more of a 'grungy' masculine theme.

This is my husband & my little fur-pup Toby. These two are 'my boys'--the men in my life! This photo captures the bond & special friendship these two share. Yes, it's true that my husband isn't exactly a 'little boy' anymore. But the friendship they share is the typical 'boy & his beloved dog' that we've all heard about since the Little House & the Prairie days. As usual, Toby seems to be smiling in this picture. How he pulls that off is beyond me...but he somehow manages to smile in the majority of his pics!

As previously mentioned, I tried to keep this on the masculine side; therefore you'll notice a bit of 'grunge' in the style of this page. However, I did manage to include flowers in order to soften it just a bit. They are what I call 'man flowers'. :-)

I used a corrugated 'flute' cardboard by Canvas Corp for the background. I did a lot of embossing/painting on the corrugated cardboard. I also did a bit of stitching & went a little tag crazy in the upper left hand corner! :-)

Here's a close up of one of the two beaded flowers with burlap bottoms. The burlap portion of the flower I made by doing my 'burlap flower' tutorial found here. The beaded flower is an item you can find in my Etsy shop. I have several beaded flowers in a variety of colors. So if interested, please do feel free to stop by. These beaded flowers really do add a nice finishing touch to any project. The metal string circle around the beaded flower is an item I found at my local Michaels in the clearance section. I thought they'd be perfect for masculine themed pages.

A close up of the brick wall & my stamped little guy with his pup. The brick wall is a chippie by Dusty Attic. I used the 'brick texture' technique to give it that rustic brick look. I have a brief tutorial for this on my blog. If interested, you can check it out here.

Here you can see my cluster of tags. I made the folded corner act as a makeshift pocket for my tags.

A close up of the flourish. The flourish was die cut with Tim Holtz's Elegant Flourish die on grunge board. I spread a thin layer of molding paste on the grungeboard & then heat embossed with Enamelz by Shimmerz. Enamelz is a thicker embossing powder than your regular embossing powder--so it adds a really nice effect when combined with other media.

Here's my background. It was first completely painted with an olive acrylic paint. Once dry then I randomly spread a bit of molding paste. Finally I sprinkled a bit of silver Enamelz (Silver Fox) & heat embossed it. This gave me a fabulous background. After looking at it for a bit I realized that this would also look really nice for a Christmas themed paged.

I used a piece of burlap from Canvas Corp to put behind my photo. I also again did a combination of zig-zag stitching & straight stitching. I first used this stitch in my 'Essential Cog' page & really liked the look of it.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit! Enjoy the weekend...

10 Chipboard 10 Ways

2011-12-07T20:52:00.004-05:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today's post is one that I'll be storing under the Tips/Techniques categories on my blog. It's a compilation of just a few different ways that chipboard can be altered to give it a certain texture or effect. These 10 pages are a combination of 10 fave pages of mine & 10 different ways I've altered chipboard.

Chipboard has swiftly become a very popular embellishment for pages/projects because it's very versatile & can be altered in so many ways. It can be painted, misted, inked, embossed (both dry & wet)--you can alter it with a variety of different mixed media and I'm sure there are several more ways that I haven't listed or even tried myself yet. I know there are many other talented scrappers out there that have already altered their chippies in very creative ways. These are just a few that I've personally experimented with.

This post also allowed me to backtrack & take a look at how my usage of chipboard has grown since I first started experimenting with it. So before I get anymore nostalgic...let's begin shall we?

First up my page titled 'Outlaw'. I believe this was the very first time I experimented with altering chipboard.

Technique: Chipboard was first inked with Vintage Photo distress ink, then heat embossed with Vintage Photo distress embossing powder & finally I spread a thin layer of Rock Candy Crackle paint. Result is a cracked, very shiny rustic texture. For bigger cracks, apply a heavier coat of the Rock Candy Crackle paint. A perfect addition for masculine pages without being too feminine!

Second page titled 'Opposites Really Do Attract'. I chose thicker components to alter the chipboard heart this time.

Technique: Inked the chippie in Vintage Photo Distress ink. Covered the chippie with adhesive & then sprinkled Martha Stewart brown leaf glitter on it. This glitter is also known as 'chunky glitter'. Once dry I carefully inked the chipboard (more like dabbed it on in order to not remove the leaf glitter) with embossing ink & then spread clear Ultra Thick Embossing Powder (UTEE) on it. Result is a thick yet very shiny texture. This technique is meant for chippies with wide surfaces...not for thin detailed chippies.

Third page titled 'Heart Breaker'. I took out my acrylic paints for this one.

Technique: Painted the heart entirely with red acrylic paint. Dryed it with my heat gun. Then with a brush I dabbed black acrylic paint. Dryed it with my heat gun. Next I dabbed it again with a bit of ivory acrylic paint. Then guess what? Yep, I dried it again with my heat gun. I'm not very patient! :-) Finally I covered the chipboard with crackle medium by Ranger. Result is a very cool splatter paint effect with a crackle texture. The crackle medium from Ranger results in larger cracks than with the Rock Candy Crackle paint.

Fourth page titled 'Love'. Let's hear it for Perfect Pearls & UTEE making it's second appearance.

Technique: Am focusing on the love birds only. I first painted the birds with teal acrylic paint. Once dry (yes, with a heat gun) I spread a bit of perfect pearls on it with a brush. Then I carefully dabbed some Perfect Medium on them (embossing ink can also be used) & spread some UTEE on them. Result is a very shimmery 'epoxy' texture.

Fifth page titled 'Bird Chaser'. This is a repeat of the above technique--however, the tree branch was altered slightly differently.

Technique: Bird was altered the same way as the birds in the 'Love' layout. As for the tree, it was first inked in Vintage Photo distress ink. Then with my finger I spread a bit of Vintage Photo distress ink followed with some Paprika Stickles. So the texture is a combination of Distress & non Distress Stickles. Finally I decorated the tips of the some of the tree branches with Frosted Lace Stickles.

Sixth page titled 'Priceless'. If you have border chipboard consider taking your crop-a-dile out, punching holes & using them for lacing.

Technique: Punched holes into two border chippies, inserted eyelets into the holes & then used the borders for lacing. By the way, I have a tutorial for the lacing seen on this page here, if anyone is interested.

To give the chipboard that blingy effect, it was first painted with black acrylic paint. Once dry it was inked with embossing powder & then heat embossed with Kaleidoscope Transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. Result is a shimmery, iridescent texture. This technique works especially well when you color your chipboard with dark colors.

Seventh page titled 'Essential Cog'. For this technique Distress Stickles are heavily used along with a bit of inking.

Technique: The light grey gears were painted with grey acrylic paint. Once dry, a very heavy layer of Pewter Distress Stickles was applied. Allow to dry again (you can always speed up any drying time with your heat gun). Finally, the edges of the gears were inked with Black Soot Distress ink.

Seventh B page titled 'Year 4' is another example of the technique used above.

Technique: I gave this one a 7B number since it's just another example of the technique used in the 7th page.

Eighth page titled 'Us'. Take out the mists for this one. Glimmer Mists, Smooch, Shimmerz...they all work.

Technique: The flourish chippies were treated with Cashmere & Pralines & Cream Smooch by Donna Salazar. Once dry, adhesive was lightly spread on them with my finger. Finally I sprinkled a bit of Fairy Dust glitter also by Donna Salazar on them. The result, a multi-colored soft effect with a bit of bling.

Bonus Tip: Take a look at the title 'Us'. The letters are also chipboard. To get the effect of a two-tone color on chipboard, first paint the chipboard with the lightest color. Once dry paint 1/2 of the chipboard with the darker color. Finally apply a heavy coat of coordination Distress Stickles. Where the two colors meet, slightly go over the border of the two colors with the Stickles--this will 'blend' the two colors at the meeting point.

Ninth page titled 'I Am'. Take out your stamps & embossing folders for this one.

Technique: The chippie was first painted with Jasmine Mix'd Media Ink by Donna Salazar. Once dry it was stamped with Faded Jeans distress ink & a French Script stamp by Hero Arts. Next dry emboss your chippie. I used a swirl embossing folder on mine. Finally I covered the chippie with embossing ink & heat embossed it with clear Kaleidoscope embossing powder by Stampendous. Result is an embossed stamped texture full of bling.

Tenth page titled "Girl In The Mirror". Once again Distress Stickles are used...but lightly along with Distress embossing powder.

Technique: Chipboard was first heat embossed with Vintage Photo Distress distress embossing powder. Then with my finger I rubbed off some of the particles to reveal a bit of the chipboard beneath. I then inked it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Finally I spread a light coat of Vintage Photo Distress Stickles.

If your chippie lends itself to it, why not dress it up with a bit of bling such as rhinestones or pearls.

Thanks for stopping by & taking a look. I hope this post inspires you to start experimenting with those chippies!

Girl In The Mirror Layout

2011-11-30T08:30:00.001-05:00

Good morning fellow bloggers! It's reveal day over at Sketchabilities.

For this one, I dug deep into my mom's box of photos that she cherishes so much. Within that little treasure box I found this photo of yours truly when I was approximately 2 years old. Yep, that's me--looking at myself in the mirror. My mom said that this is one of her favorite photos of me. She said that when little I used to look & talk to myself a lot in the mirror. Apparently yet another 'only child' syndrome!? I no longer talk to myself in the mirror...although I'll still have the occasional conversation with one or two of my stuffed teddy bears! :-) Kidding guys...but when little I did actually talk to myself in the mirror & yes, I did apparently have detailed conversations with my stuffed toys. My mom claims it's because I was an only child. I think it's a combination of that and a very active imagination (which I still do have). Who knows? But here I am in one of my 'mirror' moments.

I've used papers from Bo Bunny's Crazy Love collection. Now, I rarely get to scrap 'girly pages'...so this was a real treat for me.

Here's the fabulous sketch provided by Karan. I am loving these multi-photo layouts. For a very long time I had done only 1 photo layouts...so this has polished up my multi-photo/element skills.

I have tucked a small tag within the strips of paper. I plan on adding a bit of journaling to this tag. I just haven't decided exactly what I'm going to say. I liked that I made a little pocket out of the strips of paper used to make up my page.

I used a chipboard called Ornate Frame by Dusty Attic as the makeshift 'mirror' for my stamped image. I used the 'brick wall' texture technique on the frame in order to give it that rustic appearance. I have a brief tutorial for this technique here if anyone is interested. I also applied several rhinestones & gems from my stash to the mirror in order to further decorate it.

Tell me that little girl mirror image stamp isn't the cutest!? I love it! It's made by Stamp Enjoy. Unfortunately Stamp Enjoy has decided to close it's doors & move onto other endeavors. I for one--loved & miss their stamps. I actually have an extra set of this particular stamp. I'll be listing it shortly in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested in it.

I colored the stamped images with Prismacolor markers. I also highlighted my images with Star Dust Stickles--something I tend to do often to stamped images in order to give them a bit more dimension.

I also did some masking here. The stencil I used is by Layers of Color & is called Natural Flourish.

A close up of the frame (you can see the texture on the frame better here) & of my cute little stamp.

Head on over to the Sketchabilities blog to see the other DT's take on this versatile sketch. Please do submit your take on this sketch if you can!

Thanks to all of you who drop by for a visit.

I Am Layout

2011-11-27T16:15:00.001-05:00

Happy Sunday fellow scrappers & bloggers! Today's page is one I did for the Once Upon a Sketch November 15th challenge. I liked the theme for this challenge which was to scrap yourself or any special woman in your life & to focus the journaling on being a woman--what is the best thing about being a woman?

Well my journaling was a combination of who I am & what I represent alongside the concept of being a woman & being darn proud of who I am! Journaling reads as follows:

I am strong, yet nurturing. I am independent & can be head strong--but I'm also sentimental. I am 34 & have embraced the few wrinkles that have already made their presence known in the corner of my eyes--I can't help it--I love to laugh. I am a dreamer--yet I am aware of reality & make the most out of what I'm blessed with. I am a wife. I stand by my husband through the good & the bad. I am a daughter. My everyday goal in life is to make my mom proud--I think so far I have succeeded. I am a co-worker. I share knowledge willingly. I am a friend. I try to share laughs, create memories & be there to comfort when tears are shed. Above all, I am a woman. I love who I am & what I represent...

Here's the sketch my page is based on provided on the OUAS site.

I had a blast making this page. I finally decided to get down & dirty with mixed media. My background is just a huge mixture of different mediums. I also got a little distress-happy. Even when distressing I tend to be 'careful' as to not rip the wrong way (if that makes any sense to anybody). This time I just didn't care...I ripped & tore away. I should've done this sooner!

I misted, stamped & hand stitched on this page. This close up is of the Tim Holtz film strip which I twisted instead of leaving flat to give it some dimension. You can also see some of the hand stitching here. I used a template to create the stitched flourishes.

The stamped floral branches behind the film strip is a stamp by Donna Salazar titled 'Branch'.

A photo of one of the clusters in the bottom corner. I'm becoming fond of small glass bottles & am using them in several of my projects lately. I filled this little bottle with small beads I have in my stash & then tied it with some hemp cord.

I primarily used the papers that came with the October 'Midnight Waltz' Swirlydoos kit which are by Glitz Design (Vintage Blue line). The tiny little spool was an embellie that came with the kit. I wrapped some thread around it & added it to my cluster of bits...

I used a couple of safety pins to keep my tears together. As for the background, let's see if I can remember everything I used on it. First I randomly & heavily spread some molding paste on it. I tried not to cover the entire corrugated cardboard. I still wanted small parts of the cardboard to peek through. Once the molding paste dried. I randomly painted over it with cream acrylic paint. Next I spread a bit of burgundy Stickles & Aged Mahogany Distress Stickles with my fingers. Once those dried I randomly painted the background with some Terra Cotta Spritz by Shimmerz & Holly Berries Smooch by Clearsnap. Phew...I think I'm finally done with that!

I also did some other random stamping on the background. The script stamp seen here is also by Donna Salazar. The birds in flight stamp is by Tim Holtz.

The two large light brown & cream flowers were handmade. I used the Spellbinders Carnation Creations die template by Donna Salazar to create them. I first embossed some light brown Core'dinations cardstock (Black Magic line) I had in my stash--sanded down the embossed design, cut out my flowers, layered them & finally added a brad as the center.

The beaded flower seen in this close up is also handmade. I have these available in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.

A closeup of my journaling. I printed the journaling on vellum. Tore around it & then inked the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.

Finally, this is a closeup of the large chippie flourish by Dusty Attic. The chippie was first painted with Jasmine Mix'd Media ink by Donna Salazar. Once fully dry I stamped over the chippie with Faded Jeans distress ink & a French Script stamp by Hero Arts. Next I dry embossed the chippie with a swirl embossing folder. Finally I covered the chippie with embossing ink & embossed it with clear Kaleidoscope embossing powder by Stampendous.

A big thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit! Tomorrow it's back to work for me after a nice 4 day long weekend. Sigh...

Mom Layout

2011-11-23T16:02:00.010-05:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! I hope everybody had a fabulous Thanksgiving alongside their family & loved ones. I myself, had a quiet Thanksgiving with my family. We ate, drank, laughed & were thankful for our health, for a year that has so far been free of any major crisis & for one another.

This brings me to today's page which is one dedicated to my mom. If there's anything I'm grateful for--it's her. Everything that I am & stand for is due to her guidance throughout my entire life. This photo is me at approximately 3 months old with my mom. It's one of those pictures that I hold dear to my heart & finally got the chance to scrap.

This was another page I made as a GDT for C'est Magnifique with the November kit 'Enchanted Autumn'. Only the stamps (other than the chandelier) & the 'Mom' from the title are not from the kit.

A closeup of the flourish stamping. As you can see I used dots of Stickles to further decorate the borders of my circle. To give more detail to anything on your page--consider going along the edges with dots of Stickles. This adds a subtle yet decorative touch to just about anything.

Here you can see some of the fussy cutting I did with the papers included in the kit. I used a small doily for masking which correlates with the large doily in the center of my page.

The script with butterfly stamp is by Hero Arts & is called French Writing with Butterfly. I stamped the image twice. Once directly onto my background & once on some leftover green patterned paper from the kit. I then cut out just the butterfly from the patterned paper & adhered it over the stamped image on my background. Lift the wings & you have butterflies with a bit of dimension on your project!

I also added a bit of green Stickles to my fussy cutting--this is also a subtle way to further decorate elements on your pages.

This chandelier is a stamp by Bo Bunny & came with the kit.

I used Spiced Marmalade distress ink for the doily masking.

I heavily inked the edges of the large white doily with a combination of Pine Needles distress ink & Stream Adirondack dye ink.

To give the chippies that make up the word 'Mom' some texture--I first embossed the letters with Tim Holtz's Texture Fades Grid Lock embossing folder. I then swiped Vintage Photo distress ink over the embossed design. Finally I covered the letters with Rock Candy distress Stickles.

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a peek.

34 Layout

2011-11-18T23:20:00.003-05:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I did for a fairly new scrapbook kit club called C'est Magnifique. I had the honor & pleasure of being one of thier Guest Designers for the month of November. C'est Magnifique is unique in the sense that it incorporates patterned paper from international manufacturers into their kits. For the November kit titled 'Enchanted Autumn' I was able to work with papers from Sultane a French based company.

This is one of the several pages I created with this kit.

This is me just this past Spring. This photo was taken on Easter of this year. I was wearing my Sunday best & my hubby turned amateur photographer & took several pics of me that day--this being one of them.

Everything seen here came from the kit except for the splatter stamps.

I hand stitched two designs--one scalloped half square & one circle.

As mentioned before, the splatters were all made with stamps. I used white acrylic paint for the stamping since I wanted the splatters to be bold.

The punched trellis behind the photo was made with Martha Stewart's deep edge Trellis punch.

The flowers were all hand made. I used Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die. There was a transparency that came with the kit. This is what I used for the flowers in combination with an embossed Core'dinations card stock that was also part of the kit. I have a tutorial on how I went about making the transparent petals of the flower. If interested, you can find the tutorial here.

For the embossed card stock I lightly smeared Terra Cotta dye ink on the embossed design to make them stand out more. Finally I added one white pearl in the center (also from the kit).

A close up of the title. I first inked the title with Spiced Marmalade distress ink & then added Terra Cotta ink. I then dabbed the letters with some embossing ink & spread a bit of Spiced Marmalade distressing powder on them & heat embossed the numbers.

A close up of the smaller handmade flowers.

I'll soon be posting the other pages I made with the November 'Enchanted Autumn' kit by C'est Magnifique. Try to stop by & get to know them better. They also have an interactive forum that always seems to be buzzing. The owner of C'est Magnifique, Leslie & the DT are all truly a pleasure!

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit!

Lost In New York Layout

2011-11-15T08:30:00.001-05:00

Good morning fellow scrappers & bloggers. It's reveal time over at Sketchabilities! Today's sketch contained multiple pictures. Something that I haven't done in some time. Let's just say that I'm a little rusty! I started, stopped & restarted this page several times until I was finally happy with the end result.

This page is about my husband. He's a country boy born & bred. Whenever I take him into NYC he always & I mean ALWAYS looks lost. Typical tourist look! He's always looking up at the sky scrapers--carrying his little backpack & in Times Square (which is where these pics were taken) he literally bumps into every other person milling around the place. It's as if he loses his gravity & sense of direction in the city! On one of our trips into NYC this past summer, I finally took pics of him as he looked around Times Square in awe for about the 100th time.

Being that it's a page based on my hubby--I leaned more towards a grungy look. When I plan on being grungy/masculine I always go for my Tim Holtz goodies. So about 90% of this page is Tim Holtz.

Here's the fab sketch by Karan. As I already mentioned I especially enjoyed this one since it made me use multiple pics/elements.

A closeup of the masking, distressing, layering & some of the small squares. I stamped an image of New York on two of the four squares & added two brads to further decorate them. For the flourish--I used the negative part of Tim Holtz's flourish mask along with Walnut Stain distress ink.

The title is an embellishment made by me. I created the sign post out of arrows from Tim Holtz's grunge board elements & the post itself I cut out from grunge chipboard & then embossed it with the tree bark embossing folder by Tim Holtz titled Alterations . I then inked the arrows with a couple of distress inks in shades of red, green & brown. Finally I heat embossed the arrows with clear Kaleidoscope embossing powder by Stampendous. I finished up my sign post by adding the title with tiny alpha-letter stickers from my stash.

This is one of the two masked compasses. I used white acrylic paint for the masking. The compass mask itself is also by Tim Holtz.

Finally I used a journaling ticket by Tim Holtz to add a few sentences about my husbands usual behavior in NYC.

A big thanks to all of you who take the time to visit my blog & to comment. Your comments are always very much appreciated!

Please do drop by the Sketchabilities blog to play along & to check out the other talented DT's interpretation of sketch # 59.

Harry Potter Layout

2011-11-07T22:02:00.003-05:00

Calling all Harry Potter fans! :-) I've had this page done about two months ago & simply haven't had the chance to upload it.

I'm a bonafide Harry Potter fan--I call myself a Potterhead. I've read all the books & seen all the movies. Am actually quite upset that the series ended. But what a fabulous ride those years were! So when I heard that the Harry Potter exhibit was going to be in NYC--you know I just HAD to go! So here I am standing outside the exit to the exhibit. They had this large poster with the three main characters & it was the perfect spot to have my photo taken.

As for the exhibit...it was fabulous! I got to pull Mandrakes, sit in Hagrids chair & throw a Quaffle! All you fellow Potterheads out there will know 'exactly' what I'm talking about! **wink wink**

Since this was all about HP--what better line for this page than the Harry Potter collection by Creative Imaginations. This line is filled with HP goodies and when it came time to put my page together it was all about layering, layering & oh yeah...more layering.

Here I am! Quite happy...like a kid in a toy factory! lol I punched the corner of the photo with different hand held circle punches & then inked over the punched holes with Tea Dye distress ink.

The corner stamp is by Stamp Enjoy. I stamped it with embossing ink & then heat embossed it with opaque white embossing powder.

A close up of the partial hand stitching I did in the corners. The photo seen in the frame is actually what the outside to the exhibit looked like. They had the actual flying Ford Anglia seen in the 2nd movie hanging above the entrance to the exhibit! I loved it!

The second essential part to this layout were the HP stickers that came with this collection. The sorting hat, the various bottles of potions, the Nimbus 2000, fire bolt, Hedwig, Harry Potter wanted poster etc...these are all stickers.

My love for this magical world is something that I definitely hope to pass onto my children one day. So it seemed only fit to scrap it at least once. I hope this inspires all of you fellow Potterheads out there to scrap your love for this magical wizard!

Us Layout

2011-10-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

Good morning fellow scrappers! It's reveal day over at Sketchabilities. I decided to go with a 'clear' approach to this fabulous sketch by Karan. So I went with one of Clear Scraps XL shapes as the base for my page. All the papers used were from Bo Bunny's Time Piece collection--a collection I've had in my stash for a while now & I've been really itching to use!

This is me & my husband--a rare cutesy picture that we took. Don't get me wrong--we're actually a very loving couple; we just never have anyone around to take pictures of us. Usually we have to have what I call 'amateur photo sessions' where I setup the tripod somewhere in the house, put the camera on a timer & we snap away! This picture is the result of one of those 'amateur photo sessions'.

Here's the sketch the page is based on. Once again a versatile sketch by Karan that can be interpreted in many creative ways--let your imagination be your guide!

Here's a closeup of some of the trinkets this page has. There's a metal clock by Tim Holtz, a metal key & a clear tiny glass bottle also by Tim Holtz. I filled the glass bottle with a couple of black beads that I had in my stash. The dimensional paper clock is a coordinating embellishment for Bo Bunny's Time Piece collection.

The title was created with a combination of acrylic paints & distress Stickles. TIP: To get the effect of a two-tone color on chipboard first paint the chipboard with the lightest color. Once dry paint 1/2 of the chipboard with the darker color. Finally apply a heavy coat with coordinating distress Stickles. For this page I used Antique Linen & Aged Mahogany Distress Stickles. Where the two colors meet slightly go over the border of the two colors with your Stickles. This will 'blend' the two colors at the meeting point.

For the border I used a combination of molding paste & Aged Mahogany Distress Embossing powder. With a paint brush I dabbed some of the molding paste along the border & then sprinkled the embossing powder & heat embossed. The molding paste in combination with the embossing powder gave a defined border on my page. TIP: When heat embossing on acrylic, make sure you do not put the heat gun too close to the acrylic or else your acrylic will melt.

The flourish chippies are by Dusty Attic. They were treated with Cashmere & Pralines & Cream Smooch by Donna Salazar. Then with my finger I lightly spread some adhesive on them & sprinkled a bit of Pralines & Cream Fairy Dust glitter also by Donna Salazar. Loved the effect the combination of this media gave me.

The clock chippie was also treated with the same combination of media as the flourishes.

A big thanks to all of you who take the time to visit. For more inspiration please visit the Sketchabilities blog to see the other talented DT's take on Sketch #58--and if you have the time--please do play along with us!

Essential Cog Layout

2011-10-15T08:30:00.001-04:00

Good morning fellow scrappers! Today I have my very first Sketchabilities post!

This page is based on non other than my little fur-baby Toby. I sometimes refer to him as our 'essential cog' because he's such a character; his personality is about triple his tiny size. He's become such a part of our family that when I have to take him to the groomer & he's not around for those couple of hours--the house simply doesn't feel 'right'.

These pictures are from the fall of 2008. My husband was in our backyard raking leaves & as you can see in the pics Toby was by his side the whole time as if he was helping him. In the smaller bottom picture you can see how tiny he was back then--yet he never missed a step! He's so tiny that I used one of the gears to frame him so he can stand out in the photo! :-)

I've used papers from Basic Grey's Pyrus collection. This is also a DT project for Stamp Enjoy.

This is the Sketchabilities sketch used. It's a versatile sketch & it leaves room for interpretation--so expand that creative imagination!

A close up of one of the corner stamps by Stamp Enjoy. I stamped it first on a transparency & then cut it out. This way I was able to position the image exactly where I wanted.

You can also see a bit of the hand stitching here. I combined both the zig-zag stitch with the straight stitch.

The gear chippies are by Dusty Attic. I actually cut one of the large gears in half. I placed one half on the upper right hand corner of the picture & the second half in the lower left hand corner.

The black gears where painted with black acrylic paint. They were then inked with embossing ink & heat embossed with Star Dust transparent embossing powder by Stampendous.

The light grey gears were painted with grey acrylic paint. Once dry I applied a heavy coat of Pewter Distress Stickles. Finally I inked all the edges of the gears/cogs with Black Soot Distress ink.

The flourishes were hand stitched. I used a flourish paper piercing template as a guide.

A close-up of the large woven stitch. You can find a tutorial for this woven stitch here. I've done this large stitch diagonally, horizontally & in a circle. It adds a nice touch to any project.

This vintage car is also a stamp by Stamp Enjoy. Once again, I stamped the image on a transparency in order to place it exactly where I wanted.

Be sure to take a peek over at the Sketchabilities blog to see how the other DT's interpreted this fabulous sketch! I'm sure you'll find much inspiration.

Corner Punch Flowers Tutorial

2011-10-12T18:30:00.001-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! While going through a couple of scrapbooking sites I stumbled upon this link on the Fiskars site. It shows how one can make decorative flowers with Fiskars corner punches. I unfortunately don't have many Fiskars corner punches--I do however have a good amount of Martha Stewart corner punches (sorry Fiskars). So I tried to see if there was a way I could leverage the Fiskars tutorial & apply it for Martha Stewart corner punches & here's the end result.

All you need is a bit of free-form cutting to get the petals just right. I don't have all the Martha Stewart corner punches--but so far I've tried with four different ones & the flowers have come out fine! So I'll let you, the reader, experiment with other Martha Stewart corner punches & if you can, do let me know if this tutorial works for you as well.

These flowers are also great for using up scraps & since two of the squares required are 2" x 2" inches you can also use the squares found in the Tim Holtz paper stacks for these flowers. I've actually cut out a few of these squares--which all happen to be exactly 2" x 2" inches in size--for these flowers.

So let's get started!

Step 1: Here's your basic list of supplies. You'll need Martha Stewart corner punches, a pencil or thin paint brush, scissors, cardstock/paper & dimensional foam adhesive.

You'll need two 2" x 2" inch squares & 1 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" inch square

Step 2: Fold all your squares in half both ways. This is to identify the center of the squares & the folds will also serve as guides when you need to cut your petals out

Step 3: Take your corner punch & punch all 4 corners for all your squares like you would normally punch the corners. When done your squares should look like the picture

Step 4: Hand draw a circle in the center of each square. This is to give each layer a center & also to prevent you from completely cutting your petals off. Take your scissors & cut along the folds all the way down to your hand drawn circle

Step 5: This is what your square should look like once done cutting all four sides

Step 6: This is where your free form cutting comes in. The best way to describe this is to pretend that you're cutting a heart out. You already have the top of the heart & you're simply rounding out the bottom. Keep in mind while cutting that you're NOT cutting the petal completely off...you're basically shaping each petal. So as you cut...remember to stop at your hand drawn circle & leave your petals attached

Step 7: Here's a photo of what your squares should look like after you've cut around your petals. You'll have snippets of paper leftover & that will still be attached to your square

Step 8: Next step is to simply snip off the excess paper

Step 9: When done snipping the excess paper, you should be left with four petals. The center does not have to be perfect--it's going to be covered anyway. Your petals don't have to be perfect either. Once you layer your flower any imperfections will be covered

Step 10: Repeat steps 6 through 9 for the rest of your squares

Step 11: This step is optional. If you want you can ink the edges of your petals in order to add more dimension to your flowers

Step 12: Now to shape your flower. Bend all the petals upward at the base as shown in the photo

Step 13: Take your pencil or thin paint brush & use the handle to curl your petals downward

Step 14: Once done curling your petals--your flowers should look similar to my screen shot

Step 15: Now to assemble your flower. Adhere each layer with a foam dimensional adhesive. This will give your flower more dimension. If you do not want this additional dimension you can omit the foam adhesive & just use regular glue. Remember to off set each flower layer

Step 16: When done assembling your flower it should look something like this. Now for the center. You can use anything really. Brads, rhinestones, pearls, stamens etc. I ended up using small mulberry paper flowers that I have laying around my stash for the centers. You're done!

This flower was created with the Martha Stewart (MS) Optic Dot corner punch.

This flower was created with the MS Deco Fan corner punch.

This one used the MS Eyelet Lace corner punch.

Finally, this flower used the MS Loop corner punch. You can see this flower in action on my 'Year 4' layout.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by for a visit & please, do experiment with various Martha Stewart corner punches & let me know the results! Get creative & try mixing & matching them...I haven't had the chance to do that yet but am curious as to the results.

Year 4 Layout

2011-10-11T22:40:00.005-04:00

Hello once again fellow bloggers & scrappers! Today's page displays my most recent favorite picture of my hubby & me. This photo was taken on our recent vacation to Puerto Rico & in celebration of our 4th wedding anniversary. Four years. Has it really already been four years!? It honestly feels like just yesterday that I was taking my vows. Where does time go?

I used papers from Bo Bunny's Gabrielle collection. The entire background is stamped & I added additional stamping to my main page. I also went Distress Stickles happy when adding texture to the brick chippies! Distress Stickles really add amazing texture to just about any chippie.

The design of the page is based on Once Upon A Sketch's October 1st challenge sketch. The requirement for this sketch was to have at least one sentence of journaling noting why the event that was being scrapped was noteworthy. My journaling reads: This picture was taken on our very first day out exploring Puerto Rico & on the eve of our 4th wedding anniversary. A memory captured eternally against the walls of a historic fort that is centuries old.

I used white acrylic paint to stamp the brick wall in the background. With a brush apply the paint to your stamp. Apply a thin layer...do not glob your paint on or else you'll have globs on your page as well! TIP: Remember to clean your stamp as soon as you're done stamping. Once the paint dries it'll be much harder to clean. Stamp used is by Layers of Color (Brick Wall).

Even with a thin layer of acrylic white paint, the wall dried with an amazing raised texture. In person, it's almost like an embossed white brick wall in the background.

I cut out two pages in the same bracket shape & off set them slightly. I tried to bring out the subtle orange hues of this paper line. This is why you see the bright orange splashes throughout the page.

I stitched along the bracket border & added dots of Orange Peel stickles along the edge.

The chain bridge is by Dusty Attic. I painted this with a dark brown acrylic paint & then added Cinnamon Stickles.

The journaling was printed on ivory vellum. I then adhered the vellum to cream colored cardstock & inked the edges. I then stamped some splatters on the journaling with Tea Dye distress ink. The journaling is adhered with pop dots for added dimension.

The loop flower is hand made. I used Martha Stewarts corner Loop punch to make it. I've made a tutorial on how to make these corner punch flowers. If interested, you can find the tutorial here.

In the bottom corner you can catch glimpses of the script stamping. This stamp is from Tim Holtz's Mini Ornate collection.

This butterfly can be found in my Etsy shop. It's one of the new 'fall' butterfly additions to my shop. The splash of bright orange against the dark brown was just right for this page. I adhered the butterfly to the daisy with hot glue...it's a quick way to adhere an embellishment in precisely the right spot.

Finally, a close up of the brick wall also by Dusty Attic. I used two shades of orange for the brick walls. The upper bricks were painted in a bright orange acrylic paint. I then applied a thick layer of Spiced Marmalade Distress Stickles. The bottom bricks were painted with a darker orange/brown acrylic paint. I used Rusty Hinge Distress Stickles for these bricks.

Thanks for stopping by & for taking the time to visit!

Capture The Present Instance Layout

2011-10-05T13:45:00.000-04:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today's page is one I made for Stamp Enjoy. I did some masking, stitching & as usual, a bit of stamping for this one.

The photos are of me & my husband while on a brief weekend getaway to Cape May, NJ. While walking around I found one of those photo booths that take continuous shots--I've always wanted to try these photo booths & make various funny faces as the camera went off--well here's the result of my little adventure! I think I'll be specifically seeking these photo booths out in the future b/c they make for great memories, fabulous candid shots & an excuse to scrap really fun pages.

This is a close up of the Roses stamp by Stamp Enjoy. I added Crystal Stickles to the image to dress it up a bit more.

The title is also a stamp by Stamp Enjoy. As you can see, I have a tendency of dressing up my stamps with either Star Dust or Crystal Stickles. I really like the added dimension the Stickles add to my stamped images.

A close up of the stamped flourish. This stamp is by Prima & is from their Build-A-Swirl stamp line. I used black Staz-On to stamp the image...this gives the image a crisp sharp look. I also further dressed up the swirl with Crystal Stickles.

On this screen shot you can also see the circle stitching & the scalloped circle masking.

A close up of one of the three shimmery flowers. I made these flowers with water color paper. I have a brief tutorial on how I went about making this flower. If interested, please feel free to view the tutorial here.

The bird cage is also a stamp by Stamp Enjoy. For this image I first stamped it onto a transparency with black Staz-On & cut it out. This way I was able to position it exactly where I wanted on my page & the stitching & masking was underneath the stamped image instead of above it.

Finally, a close up of the kissing couple. This is actually not chipboard--these are laser cut wooden images that I ordered from a French company called Scrap Desirs. I did not color in the design at all. I left it it's natural color. To give it that 'epoxy' look. I first inked it with embossing ink & heat embossed it with Kaleidoscope transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. I then embossed it three times more with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE). UTEE is what gave the design a thick epoxy look & the Kaleidoscope embossing powder is what gives the image it's bling.

The 'fence' the kissing couple is standing on is a chippie by Dusty Attic. I painted the chippie with a dark turquoise metallic paint.

TIP: To give any chipboard, cardstock or even flowers an 'epoxy' look--try embossing it with UTEE.

Thanks to all of you who drop by for a visit! I hope this inspired some of you to try UTEE in your next project.

Water Color Paper Flowers Take Two

2011-10-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! I'm back from a one week vacation to the Caribbean. I'm rested & ready to get my life back on track--but do I really want to do that!? No, actually I do not...but I don't have a choice. Sigh...so it's back to work tomorrow. Cue very long sigh...but, before I go back I figured I'd post this small tutorial on a second set of flowers I made prior to me leaving for vacation. These are also made out of water color paper. You can see my first water color paper flowers here.

For these flowers I used the Spellbinders Donna Salazar dies titled Rose Creations. I used the second to large flower for the bottom layer, a medium flower & small flower for the other two layers. You can make these flowers in any size you desire. Just remember to use a different size rose per layer. So let's get started!

Step 1: As mentioned in my first Water Paper Flower tutorial--water paper is excellent for absorbing pigment powders such as Perfect Pearls. Therefore you can color your flowers in a variety of shimmers & colors. I used Perfect Pearls in my first tutorial. For this tutorial I used Magicals by Lindy's Stamp Gang. They are similar to Perfect Pearls but I found them to be just a bit more vibrant. I used Cattail Copper & Tibetan Poppy Teal Magicals for this flower. These come together as part of thier Autumn Leaves Magicals pack.

You'll also need a watercolor pen for coloring in your flowers. You can find this pen at your local Michaels or any arts & crafts store.

Step 2: Take your water color pen--squeeze a few drops of water & then dip the wet brush into the Magicals. The powder will simply stick to the tip of your brush. Then simply mix the powder with the water. If you like a vibrant color use less water. If you like a softer color use more water to dilute the powder

Step 3: Color in your flowers with the first color you choose. Once done coloring dry them with your heat gun. The water color paper will simply absorb the water & color as you heat set them

Step 4: Once dry, apply your second color. Just rinse your brush to clean it before applying the second coat of color. Randomly color in your flowers with the second color. You don't want to completely cover the first color. Once done applying the second color--heat dry the flowers again. As you can see in my picture, the Cattail Copper still peeks out from underneath the Teal Magicals

Step 5: For these flowers I decided to add even more shimmer to them. I inked the edges of the petals with embossing ink. I then sprinkled Kaleidoscope Transparent embossing powder by Stampendous & heat embossed the petals. TIP: Ensure your flowers are completely dry prior to doing this step or else the embossing powder will stick to your entire flower instead of just the petal edges

Step 6: This picture shows how the embossing powder is 'sticking' to only the edges of my petals

Step 7: Now to shape the flower. First bend all the petals upward as shown in the photo

Step 8: With a pencil or tip of a thin paint brush curl your petals downward as shown here.

Step 9: Once again with a pencil or flower shaping tool push down into the center of each flower in order to bring the petals up & form a 'cup' shaped flower. This step can be optional--it's only to add more dimension to the flowers. If you decide to do this step make sure you cup the flowers on something soft like a mouse pad or foam piercing pad. I used the 'In Stitchz' piercing foam pad by Bazzill

Step 10: Finally, insert stamens or sprays into the center of the top two layers of your flower & put your flower together. Remember to offset each layer of your flower. If you don't have stamens or sprays you can use anything for the center such as brads, rhinestones, crystals etc...I chose to use stamens. For the bottom layer I used a 3-D glue dot by Zots. This is once again, in order to give my flower more dimension--this part is optional. You can adhere each layer with plain glue if you like

Thanks to all of you who stop by for a visit. Hope you will give water color paper a try for your next flower experiment.

My Sweet Little Boy Layout

2011-09-21T21:00:00.002-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today's page is one based on my little Toby. He's my very first dog & he never ceases to amaze me. It's like he's a 2 year old little boy trapped in a furry body. You can always tell what he's feeling or trying to convey with his facial expressions. He understands everything you tell him & he even seems to be bilingual since my husband always speaks to him in English & both my mom & I speak to him in Spanish. Regardless, he understands what we're telling him! To me, he's my sweet little boy & always will be.

This is a DT project for Stamp Enjoy. Once again the entire background is stamped/misted or inked.

Here's a close up of one of the 2 large flowers seen on this page. I have a brief tutorial here on how to make these flowers if interested. They're very simple, but add a nice touch.

This page is also for the "Stick With Helmar September Challenge". My friend Natasha gave me the heads up about this site & I went simply to be nosy! :-) However, when I saw this sketch I absolutely LOVED it & found that these pictures of me & Toby that I've been wanting to scrap for a while were just right for this sketch. I was lucky enough to have a bottle of Helmar's 450 Quick Dry adhesive in my stash (sometimes it pays to just buy everything in sight) & decided to give this sketch challenge a try.

I used safety pins as embellies. I have tons of safety pins that I bought ages ago & never figured out how to incorporate them into my pages. Well, this is a very simple way to add a couple to a page. So I used about 8 pins out of my 800...it's a start! :-)

A close up of one of the stamps by Stamp Enjoy. This one is called Petit Rond 1. All of the splashes & splats seen in the background are made with stamps. I used a combination of Vintage Photo distress ink & Anchor's Away Coloringz by Shimmerz for my stamping.

The largest circle was cut out of corrugated cardboard. I spread some Midnight Blue Stickles all over it with my finger.

A close up of the 'Puppy Love' tag.

This large circle is a stamp by Stamp Enjoy. It's called Bordure Rond 3. TIP: I wanted this stamp to be in a very specific spot. So instead of stressing myself out on the exact placement of the stamp--I stamped it onto a transparency with black Staz On & cut the image out. This way I was able to position the image exactly where I wanted.

A close up of the title. The chippie is from A2Z Scraplets. I kept the texture of the title simple. I painted it with navy blue acrylic paint--once dry I inked it with embossing powder & heat embossed it with Kaleidoscope transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. In person the title has an amazing shimmer.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to drop by...

Water Color Paper Flowers

2011-09-18T23:00:00.003-04:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! It's a Sunday evening & I'm clinging to it for dear life. I REALLY don't want to go back to work tomorrow...but what can you do? Just keep playing the lotto & hope that Lady Luck will one day pay me a visit...

I thought I'd share a brief tutorial on how I went about making these flowers. They're made out of water color paper. Water color paper is excellent for creating flowers or any kind of embellishment where you wish to use pigment powders such as Perfect Pearls for applying color & shimmer. For this particular flower I used Mandarin Perfect Pearls with a hint of Copper. Besides any kind of pigment powders & water color paper (I found water color paper at my local Michaels; this should be available in any arts & crafts store) you'll also need a water color pen which can also be found at your local Michaels or arts & crafts store. So let's get started!

Step 1: For the main flower I used Tim Holtz's Tattered Florals die. I used 3 of the long petal flowers cut from water color paper. For the center I used the retro flower punch (I used the smallest punch). You'll need 6 retro flowers

Step 2: Take your water color pen & squeeze a drop of water from it. Once the tip of the pen is wet dip it into the pigment powder. The pigment powder will stick to the wet brush. Mix it up with your water color pen until you get the consistency you want. I tend to go for a thick consistency. Paint your flowers as desired with your water color pen

Step 3: Once done coloring your flowers--heat set them with a heat embossing tool. That's the other good thing about water color paper--it dries quickly

Ste4: Now to shape your flower. Bend all the petals up at the base

Step 5: Next curl each petal down with the end of a pencil or thin paint brush

Step 6: Finally adhere all three layers by off-setting the petals. You'll end up with a little cup in the middle which is where the center flower will go

Step 7: To make the center flower--first ink the edges to define them more. I used Sienna chalk ink pad by Color Box.

Step 8: Take 4 of the 6 flowers & bend the petals upward at the base as shown

Step 9: Take the two remaining flowers & pinch each petal in half. (This picture also made me realize that I'm in bad need of a manicure!)

Step 10: Take one of the pinched flowers, fold it up & pinch the entire flower

Step 11: Roll it back & forth between your fingers to get it as tight as possible. Add drops of glue inside in order to glue it together--you'll end up with a small bud

Step 12: Take the bud & glue it into the center of the second pinched petal flower. Wrap the second flower around the bud & pinch this as well. You'll end up with a thicker bud

Step 13: Take the bud & adhere it to the center of one of the other flowers. Keep layering your flower in this manner & remember to off set the petals of each layer. This is what your flower should look like when done. TIP: These would make cute little flowers by themselves too. Just shape it a bit more by squeezing all the petals up which is what we're doing in the next step

Step 14: Take the entire flower & squeeze all the petals up. Shape it as desired & then adhere to the center of your larger flower

Step 15: Here's your finished flower! I further decorated my flower by adding drops of Gold Stickles to the center bud

Enjoy--and thanks to all who stop by.

Ur Eyes (Say All) Layout

2011-09-14T22:30:00.003-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I had absolutely no design mapped out in my head for--all I knew was that I wanted to scrap these two pictures of my husband. I just grabbed my stamps & stamped away & this was the end result.

This is a DT project for Stamp Enjoy.

My husband has these deep blue eyes. The complete opposite from my dark brown. At times, especially in the morning--they are crystal blue. I took these pics during one of these mornings. I told him to give me one of his 'sexy' poses. Well...this is a sexy as he gets folks! :-)

As mentioned, I did a lot of stamping & misting on this one. Just about the entire background is stamped. I used stamps from Stampin' Up, Tim Holtz & Stamp Enjoy.

In this close up you can see a combination of 3 stamps. Both round stamps are from Stamp Enjoy. They are Petit Rond 1 & Bordure Rond 3. The script stamp is by Tim Holtz.

Another close up of the same two stamps by Stamp Enjoy. The birds in flight stamp is by Tim Holtz. In the corners I punched multiple times with McGill hand punches of various round sizes. I think inked over the punched holes with yellow ink. Finally I filled the holes with Black Diamond Stickles.

A close up of the large chippie. This chipboard is by Dusty Attic. I painted the chippie with yellow acrylic paint. Once dry I dabbed embossing ink on it & then heat embossed it with Star Dust transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. This technique gives the chippie an amazing shimmer that is appreciated better in real life.

The metal flowers are by Prima.

This vintage car stamp is also by Stamp Enjoy called Voiture Ancienne. The stamp of the city skyline is by Tim Holtz.

Finally a close up of the 'bead stitching' I did. Basically these are just very large stitches & I thread multi-colored beads onto every other stitch.

Thanks to all of you who stop by--the visit is always very much appreciated.

Sketchabilities DT

2011-09-13T15:41:00.004-04:00

I'm so very happy to announce that I've been asked to join the Sketchabilities design team! You can read the full announcement here.

I'm very grateful for the chance to work with these versatile sketches & am very much looking forward to working with all the other talented ladies that were given this fabulous opportunity!

Guest Designer For C'est Magnifique Kit Club

2011-09-07T19:04:00.003-04:00

Am pleased to announce that I'll be guest designing for C'est Magnifique Kit Club in the month of December! They're a brand new scrapbooking kit club that primarily offers papers from international countries such as Poland, France, Sweden etc. They recently released thier first kit now in September & let's just say that I'm very much looking forward to December! :-) Not just because thier kits look so very pretty but because this will be my very first time guest designing for a kit club. I am very excited about this opportunity!

Do try & visit thier blog in order to find out more about them.

Mini Owl 'Love' Album

2011-09-02T19:59:00.008-04:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! Today I bring you my first shaped mini album. I'm very happy how it came out! This tiny album measures about 3" inches in height. So when I say it's tiny--I mean it's tiny! :-) I used the Mini Owl Album by Clear Scraps.

I have to admit that I was very much inspired by Irene Tan (Scrapperlicious) when making this album. I took many of her tips & techniques to make this small little treasure. It's funny how something this small can utilize so many different techniques. I'll be highlighting a few of these techniques in this post.

This was also a DT project that I made for Stamp Enjoy.

I made the black & red beaded flower seen on the cover. I have these beaded flowers in a variety of colors available in my small Etsy shop. So if you like them--feel free to stop by.

First technique tip is the black flourish seen on the cover. I used Tim Holtz's Elegant Flourishes die with grunge board. I cut the flourishes in several pieces to use throughout the album.

TIP: To get that 'shimmery' look on chipboard or grunge board I first painted the flourish with black acrylic paint. I then heat embosssed it with Star Dust embossing power by Stampendous. In person this gives of a very shiny look!

The 'Love' stamp is by Stamp Enjoy. All the edges of the album's pages were inked with Tea Dye distress ink. I also randomly applied Silver Stickles along the edges of the pages to further dress them up.

Rub ons were also widely used throughout this mini album as well as flat flowers in order to avoid making the album too bulky.

The album is primarily about family & the love that is shared amongst family. I went online & found several quotes that went along nicely with the theme of my album. I then printed them onto cream colored cardstock, distressed the edges & inked them.

TIP: In this photo you'll notice that the page is see-through. This entire album is clear acrylic. I covered most of the pages with paper but I left a couple of them without paper. Instead I covered these pages with alcohol inks & ran them through my Big Shot in order to dry emboss them. This techniques gives off a completely different look.

I also randomly applied ribbon throughout the pages of the mini album. I punched holes through the acrylic with my Crop-a-Dile & then tied pieces of ribbon through these holes.

The floral stamp seen here is by Stamp Enjoy titled Balisier. TIP: If you don't have enough room for a specific stamp or if you want to place the stamp in a difficult spot try stamping the image on a transparency or acrylic & cut it out. This way you can place the image any where you wish. Just make sure you use glue that dries clear when adhering the transparency. Also to further dress up your images--add a bit of clear Stickles such as Crystal or Star Dust as shown in this screen shot.

Thanks to all of you who stop by. I truly appreciate your visit. I hope to have the time to make more mini albums. These make such wonderful keepsakes that can be passed down to many future generations.

Priceless Layout

2011-08-24T21:15:00.001-04:00

Today's page is one based on my wedding. This is one of my favorite pictures from that special day. The angle the picture was taken was just right in my opinion--it's just one of those photos that always makes me smile.

This is a layout I've done for Stamp Enjoy. I primarily used papers from Kaisercraft's Chapter One collection. I did some stitching, stamping, misting, lacing & distressing on this page. I used Martha Stewart's Wildflowers punch for the border in the upper part of my page.

A closeup of the chipboard border I used for the lacing. This chippie is by Dusty Attic. I first painted the chippie with black acrylic paint. Once dry I inked it with embossing powder & heat embossed it with Kaleidoscope Transparent embossing powder by Stampendous. I found this particular embossing powder at my local Michaels. I absolutely love the effect this particular embossing powder gives as shown in this photo! In person, it adds a wonderful touch to the page.

A closeup of the double lacing. I have a brief tutorial on this lacing found in my blog. If interested, you can find the tutorial for this double lacing here.

A closeup of the stamping. This stamp is by Stamp Enjoy & is called Balisier. I stamped it by using three different shades of inks. The black was primarily to give the flower a 'shadow' effect.

A closeup of the flowers & stick pin. I made the stick pin myself. It was my very first stick pin & I'm really happy how it came out!

This is a closeup of the clear butterfly. I currently have this butterfly available in my Etsy shop. If interested, please feel free to visit my small shop. You can also see a bit of my hand stitching in this closeup.

Finally, a closeup of the other Dusty Attic corner chippie I used & of the acrylic flower. The Dusty Attic chippie was first painted with white acrylic paint & then heat embossed with Star Dust embossing powder by Stampendous--also found in my local Michaels.

The acrylic flower I found in an Etsy shop called FrogFeathers.

You can also see that I further decorated the floral design of the punch by adding rhinestones & Stickles in the center of the flowers.

Thanks to all of you who stop by--I very much appreciate the visit!

Double Lacing Tutorial

2011-08-24T20:30:00.001-04:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today I'll be showing how I went about doing the double lacing seen in my 'Priceless' page. I call it 'double lacing' because it uses two ribbon strands instead of just one.

Besides ribbon, you can also use twine or even tulle to give it a softer look. I got the lacing bug from my scrap buddy Natasha who religiously uses it on her pages. I've taken her love of lacing & have added my own small twists to it--this is one of them.

Both strands can be the same color or different. I find that having strands in different colors looks better--but the choice is yours. You can also mix & match what you use for the lacing such as one strand of ribbon & one strand of twine.

Let's get started...

Step 1: Put both ribbon strands together & pull both ends through the first holes.

Step 2: Take the ribbon that will be your predominant strand; skip one set of eyelets, cross the ends over each other & insert them into the eyelets as shown in the picture.

Step 3: Take your second ribbon; do not skip any set of eyelets, cross the ends over each other & feed the ends into the eyelets directly below.

Step 4: Take the ends of your predominant ribbon (which should now be behind your page) & feed the ends into the eyelets directly above. In the photo this next step is indicated by the red arrows.

Step 5: At this point you're back at the beginning. Take your predominant strands, skip a set of eyelets cross the ends over each other & insert them into the eyelets as shown.

Step 6: Take your second ribbon (which should still be behind your page at this point) & feed the ends out through the eyelets directly below. In the photo this next step is indicated by the red arrows.

Step 7: Criss cross the ends; do not skip any eyelets & feed the ends into the eyelets directly below.

Step 8: Repeat Step 4.

Step 9: Skip one set of eyelets, cross the ends over each other & insert them into the eyelets as shown in the picture.

Keep going until you're done with your lacing. Oh & one more tip before I forget...try to have an even set of holes to have a complete set of double laces.

This is what the back should look like. Ensure your ribbon is not twisted--try to keep them nice & straight.

Hope this tutorial inspires some of you to try some lacing on your next project...

Little Guitar Boy ATC Tag

2011-08-02T22:53:00.005-04:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers. Today's project is an ATC tag that I made for Stamp Enjoy.
I made the stamp by utilizing the same technique used in the faux metal poinsettia seen in my 'The Christmas Money Shot' layout. You can find the tutorial for this faux metal technique here. The only difference is that there's no acrylic involved for this ATC tag.

A close up of the very cute stamp. This little guy is by Stamp Enjoy & is called Liam Guitare. I colored him in with Prismacolor markers & then further decorated him by adding Crystal Stickles on his hat, shirt & pants. The 'Cool' stamp is also by Stamp Enjoy & was stamped on a transparency & adhered with clear glue dots.

Finally, a close up of some of the embellies I used. The buttons are by Websters Pages & the gold metal flower I bought from an Etsy shop called MyWing588.

Thanks to all of you who stop by! Am attempting to enjoy this very hot summer regardless of the humidity (yuck) and the loads of work my job is piling on me--let's just say that I am looking forward to Fall! :-)

Till my next post...

Artist Layout

2011-07-13T22:00:00.001-04:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers & bloggers! Today's post is one based on yours truly. That's me at a very young age doing what I've always loved to do...draw! Gotta love the big ol' bow in my hair & the so very 70's wall paper! :-)

As usual, I did an overload of stamping on this page. The entire background is stamped including the large flourish scroll border you see at the bottom. This is a DT page for Stamp Enjoy. I've also used stamps by Tattered Angels & Stampers Anonymous. Some stitching, misting & Stickles to accentuate my stamped images added the final touches to the background.

The 'artist' sentiment that I stamped directly onto my photo is by Stampers Anonymous. Ensure that any stamping done directly on photos is with permanent inks such as StazOn or else your stamped image will smear.

The red velvet flowers were by Petaloo & the silver ones by Prima. Here you can see a close up of the stamped flourish border & how I dressed up the flourishes with a bit of Diamond Stickles. The flourish stamp is from a set called Architectural Trims by Tattered Angels.

This next screen shot shows a bit of the zig-zag stitching I did & a texture stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Volutes et Ronds. I have to say that I'm in love with this stamp. I've used it in just about all my backgrounds because it adds just the right amount of grungy texture.

Tip: Dress up your stitching with a bit of Stickles. I added two drops of Silver Stickles in between each zig-zag stitch to give the stitching a different look.

Here's a close up of some heavy hole punch distressing that I did to the corner of my photo. Just take hole punches of different sizes & randomly punch away at a corner--then ink it up with some distress inks. I used Tea Dye distress ink on my photo. This technique I got from Irene Tan better known as Scrapperlicious.

This very cute little 'artist' stamp is by Stamp Enjoy titled Abreen Artiste. I colored her with Prismacolor markers & dressed her up with Stickles. I used a bit of light pink chalk to add the pink glow on her cheeks.

This final screen shot shows again the Volutes et Ronds stamp as well as the corner angle stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Naturel. Once again, you can see in this screen shot how I used the Stickles to dress up my stamped images.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by. I hope this page inspires some of you to create your own backgrounds with stamps!

Till my next post...

Dance In The Rain Card

2011-07-07T22:45:00.005-04:00

Happy hot July fellow scrappers! Today's post is actually a card...something I haven't done in a while. I decided to play with a bit of alcohol ink & acrylic in order to give this card a unique 'rainy' look.

The card itself is made from acrylic. I inked it with a bit of Sailboat Blue, Butterscotch & Stream alcohol ink with a concentration on the Stream ink. I wanted that green-blue look to simulate rain. I then ran the acrylic card through my Big Shot in order to emboss it. I used Tim Holtz's Retro Circles embossing folder which to me looked like the perfect background to imitate large drops of rain or water.

The cute little girl stamp is by Stamp Enjoy. I colored her with Prismacolor markers & further decorated her with Crystal Stickles & her umbrella with Black Diamond Stickles. I discovered that adding any kind of clear Stickles to just about any stamped image really adds more texture to the design & makes it 'pop' more.

The fence seen behind my little girl was made with Martha Stewarts Deep Edge Garden Trellis punch.

If you look closely at the flowers & the leaves you'll notice little clear dots that almost look like drops of water. TIP: To simulate drops of water on your projects use Rangers Glossy Accents. Randomly apply small dots on your embellies. When the glossy accents dry they look like drops of water. A great way to simulate rain or drops of water for any water themed project.

The white flowers, leaves & the vine going up the side of the card was actually all part of a Prima Vine. I simply ripped the poor vine apart & arranged them as you see here. :-)

Inside the card is a stamped quote by Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous titled The Storm. The quote was stamped onto a piece of white vellum & adhered with vellum tape.

I hope seeing this card inspires some of you to play with acrylic & alcohol inks. The combination of these two things really does give any project an amazing texture.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by!

Till my next post...

Precious Memories Layout

2011-06-23T20:20:00.001-04:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers & bloggers. Today's page is one I made for Stamp Enjoy as well as for a good friend & co-worker of mine. My friend has two little girls & I've already had the pleasure of scrapping one of them. Check out this little cutie here. I couldn't forget his other little girl in addition to the fact that her dad told me that she got a little pouty because there was no page for her. So here it is! Am hoping she likes it as much as her sister liked her page. :-)

As usual, I couldn't leave my stamps aside for this one even though the paper I used for my background came fairly decorated already. I further added to the background by adding some stamping, misting & Stickles.

A closeup of the misting & stamping. This clear butterfly is a stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Butterfly in the Grass. I stamped it with StazOn black ink onto a piece of acrylic, cut it out & then colored in the wings with purple & Diamond Stickles. Tip: if you're planning on doing this technique, remember to add the glitter on the opposite side of where you stamped. When the glitter dries flip the image back around, adhere & you're done! I also added black Stickles to the body of the butterfly.

The heart seen here is also a stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Heart Foliage.

The red cardstock seen behind the photo was dry embossed. I then sanded down the embossed image.

This rose stamp is a newly released stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Roses. Just like the butterfly stamp--I stamped the rose onto acrylic paper with StazOn black ink, cut it out & decorated it with some Diamond Stickles.

The white border you see going around the picture is actually white acrylic paint that I tapped on with a stipple brush.

A closeup of the other rose stamp found towards the bottom of the page & more misting. By the way, I used Scarlet glimmer mist on this page.

Finally, a closeup of my second butterfly & the fence. The fence is made out of wood. I painted it with crimson red acrylic paint. Once it dried I spread Black Diamond Stickles all over it with my finger in order to give it a 'stone' type texture.

Other stamps used on this page are by Stampers Anonymous & Tattered Angels.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by my blog...I appreciate it!

Here's the list of stamps I used by Stamp Enjoy.

Till my next post...

Love Tag

2011-06-21T23:01:00.005-04:00

Good evening once again fellow scrappers! Summer has officially begun--let the humidity begin. Many of you may cringe when I say that--but here in the East coast--I prefer the Fall/Winter over the summer. UGH!

Today's post is actually a tutorial that I have provided for Stamp Enjoy. They have a collection of tutorials that you can find here. You can find a printable PDF tutorial for this tag here.

I used a couple of stamping techniques on this tag & lots of inking. The primary technique I used was on making the background of the tag. I used the 'resist emboss' technique. With this technique you heat emboss a stamped image--usually with clear embossing powder. Once the image is embossed it will 'resist' any inking done over the image. Here are some more highlights.

This clear butterfly is a stamp by Stamp Enjoy titled Butterfly in the Grass. I stamped on a piece of acrylic, cut out the image & then added some Stickles.

This is a slightly different version of the Glass Flower tutorial that I've shown in the past. You can find a tutorial on Glass Flowers in my blog here.

The 'Love' tag was made by first heavily spritzing it with Smooch spray & then stamping it with a Stamp Enjoy stamp called Love.

Finally the flourishes were made by using the Elegant Flourishes die by Tim Holtz. They were cut from grunge board, inked, heat embossed with distress embossing powder & inked yet again.

For a step-by-step tutorial on how I made this tag--feel free to visit the Stamp Enjoy blog under the 'Tutorial' category.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by--it's always so very much appreciated.

Till my next post...

Reflection Layout

2011-05-25T21:20:00.005-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! I was due for a Toby page & here he is! Admiring himself in the mirror. He does this a lot. Call him vain but he's always checking himself out. I was lucky enough to finally capture him doing this in a perfect angle.

This is a DT page for Stamp Enjoy. It showcases just a few of thier fabulous stamps which I think are excellent for making your own personalized backgrounds.

The majority of the chipboard is by Dusty Attic (except for the glitzy owl). In addition to the stamping; the background was spritzed with Olive Smooch & the edges inked with Burnt Sienna chalk ink.

I based my page on Creative Scrappers sketch # 157 shown here. I just flipped the design...

A closeup of the Dusty Attic brick chipboard. I used the Brick Texture technique on these chippies to give it that rustic look. You can find a brief tutorial on how to achieve this 'brick' look here.

A closeup of additional Dusty Attic chippies. For these, I painted them in white acrylic paint & then heat embossed them with Star Dust clear embossing powder. In real life, these chippies give off a beautiful glimmer!

I added a row of gold eyelets as a border. Am so grateful to my scrap buddy Natasha for making me realize the possibilities of eyelets! Till she came along, I thought they were only good for keeping the laces on my sneaks on tight...who would've thought eyelets could be used for so many other things!

I used Tim Holtz's Scrollwork die for the swirly border.

Here's my owl! This little guy is actually made out of wood. These wooden embellishments are from Scrap Desirs. They're thicker than regular chipboard & add fabulous dimension to your projects. I actually colored the branch with a permanent brown marker & then added clear iridescent glitter. I applied Martha Stewart brown leaf glitter to the owl itself. I used little yellow rhinestones for the owls' eyes & beak.

More Dusty Attic chipboard. This screen shot also shows one of Stamp Enjoy's stamps titled Border Corner 2. Quick Tip: to add more dimension to your stamping, accentuate the design with Stickles or glitter as shown here.

Here's another stamp by Stamp Enjoy. This one is titled Volutes et Ronds. As you can see I accentuated the stamps design by adding Stickles to it.

One more closeup of yet another Stamp Enjoy stamp. This one is called Lantern 1.

Before I wrap this post up--here are the Stamp Enjoy stamps I've used on my page.

Thanks to all of you who stop by. I appreciate you taking the time!

Till my next post...

Be Unique Layout & Announcement

2011-05-16T22:00:00.001-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers & bloggers! I had momentarily lost my scrapping mojo for a bit there--but I blame work. Things have calmed down just enough for me to magically regain my mojo & it has come back with a vengeance!

Today's page is titled 'Be Unique'. This cute little brown eyed girl is actually the daughter of a good friend of mine. Gotta love those chubby cheeks & that fabulous smile!

The message I was giving this little one was to be yourself no matter what--to be a leader not a follower. That's the message I was trying to convey with the butterflies. Notice how all of them are the same except for one & it's the prettiest one out of them all. :-)

I did a lot of inking, misting & stamping on this one. I used a combination of Worn Lipstick & Shabby Shutters distress inks for the background along with Graphite glimmer mist. Pretty much all the stamps you see here are by Stamp Enjoy. Thier stamps are absolutely perfect for creating your own backgrounds.

Here's a closeup of one of Stamp Enjoy's texture stamps called Volutes et Ronds. In this shot you also see a bit of masking & a couple of the butterflies.

Here's a closeup of the lacing. After playing around with 2 strands of different colored ribbon for about 1 hour--I came up with this combination of lacing styles. I hope to soon post a tutorial on this lacing--if I can remember how I went about it! Mind you I was doing this lacing at about 1:30 in the morning...

The very pretty stick pin I bought from Mandy's (Craftysprinkles) Etsy store.

A closeup of the transparent butterfly. The butterfly is an image that was printed on a transparency. I then added a bit of Stickles to the wings & glittered the body. I have a couple of diverse transparent or 'glass' butterflies in my small Etsy shop. These butterflies add a nice & unique touch to pages because of thier clear nature.

A close up of the large flower cluster & the journaling. I tucked a bit of baby's breath (a.k.a gyp) behind the large flower. Baby's breath adds such a delicate touch to girl themed pages.

Finally a closeup of another stamp by Stamp Enjoy. This one is called Cage 1.

Speaking of Stamp Enjoy--I have some fabulous news to share. I've been asked to be part of thier DT & I'm so very happy to have accepted! I've used thier stamps to create my own backgrounds for several of my pages & I love how you can create your own mini 'works of art' by combining thier stamps with inks & mists. I'm looking forward to utilizing thier stamps for many more creations.

Thanks to all of you who stop by & visit--I very much appreciate you taking the time.

Till my next post...

It's No Fairy Tale Layout

2011-04-26T18:20:00.002-04:00

Buenas tardes fellow scrappers! Today's page is a trip down memory lane for yours truly. Yep, that's me in the stroller some many moons ago. This page is actually a letter for my future child(ren). They say scrapbooking can be used to send letters to those that have passed & to those that are yet to come. So with this picture I've taken the opportunity to send a message to my 'to-be-child(ren)' regarding a very important lesson that I've already come to learn. Journaling reads as follows:

I know you don't currently exist & I'm not sure just when you'll arrive. What I do know is that I already have a message or you that I hope to pass onto you when the time comes. You'll refer to this piece of advice quite often in your journey called life.

Unfortunately, life is not a fairy tale. I've discovered that life is more like a storm--you'll find yourself basking in the sun one moment & then be shattered on the rocks the next--but it's what you do in those moments that you're shattered that defines you & makes you stronger. You'll have your ups & your downs--your laughs & your sorrows--& your own mistakes will be your best lessons. Yes, life is no fairy tale--but every second of every minute of every day is so very much worth living.

So I got a bit philosophical or maybe Shakespearean--but I base my advice on my own experience! Before I go on any further--just some tid bits on the supplies used on this page.

Once again I used a sketch from Creative Scrappers to design this page. All papers are from the Bittersweet collection by Basic Grey. I've had these papers just about forever & finally found the right page to use them on.

As usual I stamped the entire background--this seems to have become my 'must' technique on my pages lately. I used a combination of stamps. Here is a closeup of some stamping. The clock & circular texture designs in pink are stamps by Stamp Enjoy. The small script stamp is by Prima.

Other stamps used on this page are by Stampers Anonymous.

On this closeup you can also see the hand stitching I did along the borders of the page.

A closeup of the chipboard flourish. This chippie is by Maxine's Melange. To get the texture you see here, I first painted the chipboard in black acrylic paint. Then I heat embossed it with clear Star Dust embossing powder. In person, this flourish is very 'blingy'!

I added the title along some of the scrolls of the chippie.

A closeup of the flowers. The large dark pink flower is by Prima. The two smaller flowers were handmade by me. I refer them as 'frosted flowers' because the glaze on the vellum give them a frosty look. They were made with hand punches, vellum, inking & some glaze. To see a brief tutorial on how these flowers were made, please go here.

I tucked small white twigs of baby's breath (also known as gyp) underneath the flowers.

Finally a closeup of the lacing. This fabulous lacing technique is by my scrap buddy Natasha. I've been wanting to use her 'twisted lace' technique for a while now & this page gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. If interested in learning this lacing technique, please go to Natasha's post here. She did a great tutorial on this lacing technique. Thank you girl!

Thanks to all of you who stop by--I appreciate your visit so very much! Hope you didn't mind taking this brief trip down memory lane with me.

Till my next post...

Frosted Flower Tutorial

2011-04-26T18:05:00.002-04:00

Hello again fellow scrappers! This brief tutorial is on how to make the frosted flowers seen on my 'It's No Fairy Tale' page. The flower itself has most likely been done by several scrappers--I simply added a bit of glaze to the vellum. The glaze gives the vellum a 'frosty' look which is how these flowers got thier name.

Here's your basic list of supplies: flower punch, vellum, decorative scissors (optional), ink, paint brush, skewer or pencil for curling the petals, Triple Thick Glaze & glue.

Let's get started...

Step 1: Punch out three of the large petals & three of the smaller petals. I used the Retro punch by EK Success. Any flower punch or die will do for this technique.

Step 2: This step is optional. Use the decorative scissors to give the 3 large petals a more decorative design. If your punch or die already has a design on thier petals or if you like your flower with round petals--then you can skip this step.

Step 3: Ink the edges of all your flowers. I used a chalk ink block by S.E.I.

Step 4: Bend the petals of each flower upwards at the base as shown in the photo.

Step 5: For the three large petals only--take your pencil, skewer or paint brush & curl the edges of each petal down.

Step 6: Once you're done shaping your flower--glue each layer down by off-setting the petals.

Step 7: Now for the center. Take two of the flowers & fold thier petals down the middle. Take the remaining flower & curl the tip of it's petal down.

Step 8: Take one of the flowers with the petals folded in the middle--apply some glue to the insides of the petals & pinch the petals together in order to glue them. Insert this one flower inside the second flower with the folded petals & repeat the same step. Finally glue the 2 pinched petals to the center of the last flower. Your center should look like the photo.

Step 9: Now put your flower together as shown in the photo.

Step 10: Next step is the glaze. I use this triple thick glaze that I found at my local Michaels. They have smaller bottles than the one I used as well. I buy the family pack because I use glaze on several of my embellishments. :-) With a small paintbrush start applying the glaze all over your flower. Try not to glob it on--just spread it evenly all over with your brush.

Step 11: With the flower still wet--shape your flower. You'll notice that the vellum will curl once you start to put the glaze on. Try to uncurl the petals & shape your flower to meet your needs.

Step 12: Let the flower completely dry. Once dry, it'll have a frosty look & be very stiff. This is why it's better to shape it when wet. If you move the petals around when dry--they tend to crackle. However, if you like this effect--then shape away!

As you can see from this photo, you can also alter the center. The flower does not have to be entirely made out of vellum. You can make the center out of regular cardstock. The glaze gives the cardstock a nice sheen as well.

I hope some of you found this tutorial helpful. Happy creating!

Till my next post...

Bird Chaser Layout

2011-04-19T19:20:00.001-04:00

Good evening once again fellow bloggers & scrappers. It's time for another Toby page! I saw the idea for this page in last months Creative Keepsakes magazine. I fail to remember by who it was--but the theme of the page dealt with her pup being a 'bird chaser'. That hit home run right away with my very own pup. Toby is a relentless bird chaser himself. Feathered friends? Not his apparently! No bird can invade his territory--he'll run after it like the wind!

Journaling reads as follows: Isn't this puppy cute? He's a little angel right? Well, photo 1 shows Toby's adorable & innocent face. Photo 2 is Toby after I've scolded him for chasing away the many birds that love hanging out in the backyard. It's not his fault really--he can't help himself! Thier endearing wings & that exhilirating chirping calls to him. He only wishes to play with them...is that really such a sin? My sweet little Toby, will you & birds ever be able to live together in harmony?

The design is based on sketch #151 from Creative Scrappers. I flipped it around to work with my photos & embellies. Lately, thier sketches have really been inspiring me...

As always I did some stamping on this page. I used a combination of Inkadinkado (Dots & Flourishes), Clear Art Stamps (Birdies), Tim Holtz (Birds on a Wire), Hero Arts (Old French Writing) & Prima. I also did some masking & stitching. In this screen shot you can see the zig-zag stitching along the border of both sides of the page.

I printed the journaling on plain white vellum. I inked the edges to make it stand out a little bit on the page.

The large tree branch & bird chippie is by Maxines Melange. The chippie went through a few steps to get the final texture I wanted. It was first inked in Vintage Photo distress ink. Then with my finger I spread some Vintage Photo distress stickles & a bit of Paprika stickles on it. Finally I put a bit of Frosted Lace stickles on the tips of some of the tree branches. The bird was painted in white acrylic paint, inked in Rusty Hinge distress ink, coated in copper perfect pearls & then embossed with clear UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel).

Finally this pretty transparent black flower is also a stamp. This is a unique hand crafted petal stamp made by the talented Jessica. She's a fellow Etsy-er & I find her handcrafted stamps just fabulous for making my very own unique flowers. Here's the link to her shop--Green Garden Stamps & her blog: Garden Green Stamps Blog.

I stamped the petal stamp with Staz-On ink on a transparency, cut it out & then with a white gel pen I added white dots along the inside flower design. I then cut the petals in a bit more & bent them upwards for added dimension. I finalized the flower by adding a black Sultan Gem by Prima in the center.

I also tucked a bit of dried copper baby's breath--also known as gyp underneath my flower embellies.

Thanks to all of you who stop by my blog for a visit. I appreciate your time!

Till my next post...

Brick Texture Chipboard Tutorial

2011-04-19T19:00:00.000-04:00

I've gotten a couple of inquiries on how I go about achieving that 'brick' look on the brick wall Dusty Attic chippies that I've used on both my 'Frankie' & 'Brothers' pages.

I got this technique from Mr. Tim Holtz himself. I slightly altered his technique--but it's his idea that I used in order to achieve this particular texture.

Let's get started!

Basic list of supplies: distress ink, coordinating distress embossing powder, coordinating distress stickles, embossing ink & heat tool. This technique should work with all colors--for the brick texture I've been using Vintage Photo. For this example I'm going to use a frame by Dusty Attic instead of a brick wall chippie. I only had one set of brick wall chippies & I've already altered all of it. The steps are exactly the same though...

Step 1: Dip your chipboard into the embossing ink & heat emboss it with the distress embossing powder.

Step 2: Once you're done embossing your chippie--scrape off some of the embossing powder with your finger. This will reveal a bit of the raw chipboard & give the embossed powder a more rough texture.

Step 3: This step is optional. Sometimes I use a file to really rub off a good amount of the embossing powder. In this screen shot you can see in the background how much of the powder I have rubbed off. Be careful not to rub it all off--rub off just enough to give the chipboard a 'rustic' texture.

Step 4: Ink your chipboard with the coordinating distress ink.

Step 5: Once done inking--take the coordinating distress stickles & apply to your chipboard.

Step 6: As you can see from this screen shot--there's no better applicator than my own finger. I do not spread it out evenly...I tend to leave small clusters of distress stickles here & there to give it a natural rustic look.

Step 7: Here's the final outcome--this is the frame once dry.

I hope some of you found this tutorial helpful.

Till my next post...

My Core’dinations Creative Frenzy

2011-04-12T21:00:00.003-04:00

I recently discovered Core'dinations & thier wonderful products. Thier cardstock is unique in the sense that they all have a core color which 'core'dinates' with the surface color--it isn't white like typical cardstock. With this in mind--the possibilities of this cardstock are many! You can sand it, emboss it, tear it, ink it, wrinkle it etc. In addition some of thier cardstock is already embossed--so you just sand away for an instant design.

Here I am highlighting three projects where I've used thier products.

The first one titled 'Frankie' uses the Core'dinations Grid cardstock from the Core Essentials collection. I used it both as the circular background & for the large flower embellishment. For the circle, I distressed the edge, inked it in dark brown ink & then sanded down the embossed grid design.

For the flower, I ran it through a Big Shot to die cut the flower petals & layered the petals together with a red brad. I then slightly bent the petals upwards for a bit more dimension.

My second project is a card I made with the Core'dinations Small Dot cardstock from the Whitewash collection. I inked the edges of the entire card & then sanded down the embossed dotted cardstock to reveal the light brown core color underneath.

A closeup of the embellies decorating the card. I also stamped on the Core'dinations cardstock with a flourish stamp. I used a Martha Stewart punch-around-the-page punch (Cherish) & punched along the top edge of the card--I then hand sewed along the design made by the punch.

Behind all those embellies is a corrugated cardboard that has been inked & misted with bronze Shimmerz.

Finally, this is a layout I made titled 'Brothers'. It's my husband with his two older brothers. On this page I used the Core'dinations Core Impressions from the Graphic 45 Timeless Collection. It was perfect in representing the passage of time & it's impact on the three brothers.

Hope you enjoyed these three projects & check out the Core'dinations site for more products. Thanks to all who stop by.

Till my next post...

Frankie Layout

2011-04-11T22:00:00.004-04:00

Hello once again fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I've been meaning to do for quite some time. It's simply titled 'Frankie'. Frankie happens to be my best friend. Sure, it may seem odd that my best friend happens to be a man--but I guess that's what life had in store for me. Sometimes, you don't pick your friends--they pick you! That's exactly how it was w/me & Frankie. I have journaling on the back of this page--it tells how our friendship began: “Why are you eating lunch in your cube like a dork?” Believe it or not, this one question asked by Frankie on my first day of work, started a friendship that is going onto 12 years now.

Meet Frankie—my best friend. I met him in my first real job out of college back in 2000; good ol’ UPS. We’ve shared more laughs than I can even begin to remember & we’ve had our share of arguments as well. Through the years he’s become my ‘unofficial brother’. He brought me out of my shell at UPS, was there on my wedding day & nobody else has taught me so many useless phrases & terminology as he has!

He’s a great guy with a big heart though he doesn’t like to admit it. He can’t stand mustard or pickles & he can’t mix too many toppings on pizza or hotdogs—he’s a simple ‘meat & potatoes’ guy. He eats his candy bars with a fork & knife & is probably THE neatest guy I’ve ever met!?

He’s the Iceman (a nickname he gave himself), he’s Frank the Tank (his drinking nickname), he’s Frankie G. & don’t you forget it…

But to me, he’s simply Frankie—my brotha’ from another motha’ as he would say—my best friend as I would say…

The small quote in the metal trinket reads: "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out". He's single by the way--so if you knows of anybody that's into George Lopez look-a-likes--give me a shout! :-)

I based my page on Creative Scrappers sketch #150 shown here. As usual, I did a lot of inking & stamping in the background. I used several stamps on the background by two manufacturers--Stamp Enjoy & Stampers Anonymous.

A close-up of the tree chipboard. This chipboard is by Dusty Attic. I inked it in Aged Mahagony distress ink & then spread a combination of distress Stickles & regular Stickles to give it a variety of effects based on the lighting. It has Frosted Lace, Vintage Photo, Paprika & Diamond Stickles.

A close-up of some of the stamping in the background & of the net stitching that makes up the circle. I first saw this net stitching on one of Irene Tan's pages (Scrapperlicous). For this page, I did what I consider half of a net stitch since I only went one way & didn't come back the other way to create a criss cross pattern. To see the full net stitch technique, please feel free to refer to my 'Doe Eyes' page.

I've used some leftover brick chippies from my 'Brothers' page here. This chipboard is also by Dusty Attic. Here, the chipboard has been inked & embossed in Vintage Photo. I further decorated the bricks by adding Vintage Photo Distressed stickles with my finger.

Finally, a close-up of the large flower. The sanded cardstock is by Core'dinations.

Thanks to all who take the time to stop by--I appreciate your stopping by. I also hope this page inspires some of you to scrap your friends along with your family. Sometimes we concentrate so much on family--that we oversee our friends. I believe true friends come in very small numbers--if you're lucky enough to find one, make sure you make the time to pay them a small tribute. It'll be just one more memory to smile about in the years to come.

Till my next post...

New York Layout

2011-03-30T23:25:00.013-04:00

Hello again fellow scrappers! Today's page is one that I've been meaning to scrap for ages--yeah--none of us knows what that's like right? :-) When I saw sketch #149 over at Creative Scrappers; that light bulb just went off! It was perfect to showcase this trip my husband & I took back in 2006 to NYC. He had never been to the top of the Empire State building--meanwhile I had been there about 20 times--so I was the one to take him for the very first time. The picture is us at the very top of the Empire--you can see New York behind us. Gorgeous view! I absolutely LOVE the city--all the small pics you see were all taken by me during different trips into the city or from New Jersey.

Once again I did a lot of stamping. The script you see in the background is part of the paper but everything else was stamped. I take much of my stamping inspiration from Irene also known as Scrapperlicious. I love her stamping--to me she creates works of art with her stamping. I did some stitching & misting. I also finally got to use those fragments by Tim Holtz that I've had in my stash forever. I thought they would showcase my NYC pictures really well.

This is the Creative Scrappers sketch I based this page on.

This flourish is actually not chipboard--it's made out of wood. I found this small company over in France called Scrap Désirs that sells all sorts of very cute wooden embellishments! I found them to be very unique. For this flourish I simply covered it in three colors of fine glitter--dark brown, light & dark turquoise.

A close-up of the large transparent flower. This is actually a different take on the glass flowers I displayed here in my blog not too long ago. If interested in making this flower please go here. The only difference is that I alcohol inked the flower in Butterscotch & a touch of Bronze & then stamped on it with a script stamp with black StazOn ink. Whenever stamping on transparencies--always use permanent ink such as StazOn. Any other ink will smear.

A close up of the Tim Holtz fragments. I also stamped on some of the fragments. The stitched dark brown frame was made with a Martha Stewart punch around the page titled Cherish. This punch begs to be stitched. It takes two seconds before eternity to do--but it's worth it for the effect. I thank my scrap buddy Natasha for being a stitching fanatic! She always stitches around the border whenever she uses this punch & it's so very much worth it!

Finally, a closeup of the stamped city & title. This city stamp is by Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz collection titled Cityscape. I used a combination of Stampers Anonymous stamps (mainly from the Tim Holtz collection) & Stamp Enjoy.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to stop by my blog. I appreciate your visit so very much!

Till my next post...

Brothers Layout

2011-03-22T21:30:00.005-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers & bloggers! Today I bring you a page titled 'Brothers'. This is my husband (far left) along with his two older brothers. Yep, he's the baby--in more ways than one! Shhhh, don't tell him I said that!

This was taken on Thanksgiving 2010. This was truly a monumental event! These three haven't been under the same roof since when they were teenagers...the very next day we got about 24" inches of snow (no kidding) so that's how miraculous it was to have these three together again! Them being together even seemed to disrupt Mother Nature. They all live in different states--which is why it's hard to get them together.

Needless to say my in-laws were ecstatic to have the three brothers together again & I went photo crazy. Luckily they posed for me for not just one but several pictures--this one being my favorite. I plan on giving this page framed to my mother-in-law. I think she deserves it! :-)

This is a very 'manly' page. It had to be! My brothers-in-law would drop kick me if I made anything dainty with thier pictures in it. So I went all out with the grunge look!

I used papers from the February "Things Remembered" Swirlydoos kit & did a whole lot of stamping, masking & inking. I've come to the conclusion that I'm a stamper. I LOVED making my own background on this page & have been stamping on my pages more & more. So I think I finally found my calling. :-)

I also did this page for Creative Scrappers. I based this page on thier Sketch #146. Here's the sketch:

Besides stamping the background I also stamped on the burlap. You can see a little bit of it here in this picture. I did the woven stitch around my title. For a tut on this woven stitch, please go here.

The quote I found on the internet & found it to be just right for this page. It reads: "A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams"

A closeup of some of the stamping, misting & masking I did for my background.

I'm starting to upload small 'stamping tips' here on my blog. For a quick tip on how to make your own shaped stamped collages like this one, feel free to go here.

I also have a tip on how to get that streaked, distressed look you see on my background page--please refer here for that quick tip.

I used a Tim Holtz mask for the clock. I then did a zig-zag stitch all around the border of the clock.

I cut out a circle that was larger than the clock & used that circle as a mask for the inked orange circle going around the clock.
This page wouldn't be complete without a 'man flower'...so here's my version of it. I made this flower from burlap. For a tutorial on how this flower was made--please feel free to go here.

The other two smaller burlap flowers are by Prima. They were white burlap--I misted them with Tuscan Sun glimmer mist.

The brick chipboard is from Dusty Attic. I inked it with Vintage Photo distress ink, then heat embossed it with Vintage Photo embossing powder. I removed some of the bricks out from the 'wall' & adhered them with pop dots in order to make them stand out from the rest of the bricks. For the bricks that are standing out, I then spread some Walnut Ink distress stickles on them.

I hope I did my brothers-in-law justice & made for them a very 'manly' page.

Thanks to all who stop by--I truly appreciate your visit.

Till my next post...

Burlap Flower Tutorial

2011-03-22T20:25:00.002-04:00

Good evening fellow bloggers! Today I bring you a tutorial on how to make burlap flowers for those 'man' pages.

Having primarily men to scrap--I'm constantly trying to come up with masculine flowers for my pages. A hard task since obviously most flowers are geared towards feminine pages. For a while I had this idea of making a burlap flower. However, I wanted it to have dimension--I didn't want it to be flat. It finally dawned on me how I could achieve this look. I modeled these flowers after the Grunge Flowers that Tim Holtz made so very popular. In fact, to get a more detailed step-by-step tut on how to make this kind of flower in general, please refer to his tutorial here.

You can find these burlap flowers in full action on my page titled 'Brothers'.

Here are your basic list of supplies: Big Shot or any other compatible die cut machine, flower die (I used Sizzix Original Die - Flower Layers #5 in my example) although you can use any flower die as long as it has petals, burlap, white puffy paint, distress ink, pencil or thin paint brush for rolling/shaping petals & a heat gun.

So let's get started!

Step 1: This is the main trick in making this type of flower. Take your burlap & glue it onto a piece of cardstock/paper. This makes for another great way to use up those scraps! Try to glue the burlap to scraps that have around the same tone of color as the burlap--in other words anything in the brown/tan family as shown here. Let the glue dry for a few minutes. If you run this through your die cut machine right away, you'll get glue on your die.

Cut out three flowers.
As you can see in the top of this picture I had already made one flower. Since the burlap is adhered to the paper, it'll be sturdy enough for you to shape & in turn will give you a burlap flower with dimension.

Step 2: Now start going through the same steps used in Tim Holtz's Grunge Flower tutorial. I'll present them at a high level.

Snip your petals about 1/2 an inch to make it easier to curl your petals later.

Step 3: Cut the flowers as shown here. Starting from left to right: completely cut out one petal, completely cut out two petals and for the last flower snip one petal all the way to the center of the flower but leave all petals on the flower.

Step 4: This step is optional. I wanted to give my flower more color in order to make it stand out on my page. So I misted it with Suede Glimmer Mist. You can do the same if you want your flower to have more color to it.

Step 5: Here's my flower all misted.

Step 6: I wanted each layer of the flower to stand out. So I decided to highlight the edges of the petal with puffy paint. I like white because you can then ink the white to make it any color you need it to be. You can find puffy paint at any Michaels, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby etc--just about any craft store really. I found mine at Michaels.

Step 7: Here's my flower with the puffy paint added. Let the paint completely dry before proceeding. It takes about 4 hours for the paint to dry according to the instructions on the bottle--but it's worth the wait!

Step 8: Once the puffy paint is dry--you're going to heat it up with your heat tool. As the puffy paint heats up it'll well...puff! That's what gives this particular paint it's name. Do not hold the heat gun too close to the paint or you'll burn it. The paint will puff with the slightest amount of heat.

Step 9: This step is also optional. If you want to give your puffy paint some color...ink it up! White didn't really go with my page--so I inked it up a bit with some Spiced Marmalade distress ink.

Step 10: Glue your flower together by overlapping the petals. I use a hot glue gun to do this--you can use whatever glue you feel glues fast & good!

NOTE: If you're using a glue gun--I found out that you should curl the petals glued together right away instead of letting the glue fully cool off. I curled the petals after the glue completely dried & I had to turn into a gladiator to do so because the glue hardens the petal! You can still shape them--but it's just harder to do so.

Step 11: Curl your petals down by using a pencil or the handle of a thin paint brush.

Step 12: Here I am shaping the center of the flower. The center of the flower consists of the two petals cut out from one of the flowers. I curled one petal down, overlapped them & then curled the other petal in as shown here.

Step 13: What you put in the center of your flower is up to you. You can either put all the petals you cut out from your flowers or you can put stamens like I did. I decided to go with stamens that I had in my stash. If you ever want to insert stamens into the center of a flower--use a wire as shown here. Loop your wire through the middle of your stamens--then run the wire through the center of the flower & pull your stamens through.

Step 14: Layer your flower by off-setting each layer & you're done! Here's my finished flower. NOTE: as you work you may rub off some of the distress ink from the puffy paint. If so, simply ink up your flower at the end again.

As mentioned before...to see a more detailed step-by-step tut on making this flower in general--refer to Tim Holtz's Grunge flowers here.
The neat part about this is that this will work with any type of fabric. So if you have pretty fabric that you want to make flowers from but don't want flat flowers--simply adhere the fabric to a piece of cardsdtock & you're good to go.

Hope you all enjoyed this tutorial & thank you so much for stopping by!

Till my next post...

Swipe Technique For Distressed Background

2011-03-22T20:15:00.000-04:00

Here's another quick stamping tip. Want to get a streaked, distressed look on your page?

Simply take a distress ink pad & just swipe it down your page from top to bottom.

NOTE: Only swipe from top to bottom--not up & down.

Keep swiping from top to bottom until you get the distressed 'streaky' look you desire!

If you're nervous about trying this out on your project--practice on some scrap paper first...after all, practice makes perfect...

Have fun!

Using Masks for Stamping

2011-03-22T20:08:00.006-04:00

Time for a quick stamping tip...if you want to get a collage of stamped images shaped into a particular shape--try paper masks!

This circle collage you can find on my 'Brothers' page.

Here's how I went about creating this circular stamped collage.

With any circle cutter, cut out a circle in the size you need it out of sturdy cardstock as shown here. Keep both the positive & negative cut outs...because you'll be using both.

With the negative piece place it over the area you wish to stamp. Then start stamping. NOTE: Clear stamps work best for these kinds of projects since you can see where you are stamping.

Make sure that wherever you stamp part of the stamp is on your page & part of the stamp is on the mask as show in the picture here. For areas where the stamp goes past the mask--just tuck another piece of scrap paper beneath it in order to protect your project from unwanted stamping.

Make sure you keep your mask in place. If you can't seem to keep your mask in place--just use small pieces of masking tape to help you keep your mask still until you're fully done stamping.

Here's my finished stamped circle collage. As you can see, I combined several stamps into one & even changed up the ink color I used. If you take a look at my mask, you'll see remnants of my stamping.

Finally, to accentuate your circle--take your positive circle cut & place it over your stamped collage. Then either trace around the circle with a colored pen or take your ink tool & start inking around the circle.

For my circle collage I chose to ink around the circle with Spiced Marmalade distress ink.

Us this tip to make stamped collages out of circles, squares, hearts etc...

Hope this helps some of you try out some stamping today on your projects!

Till my next post...

Paper Flower Tutorial

2011-03-16T22:37:00.006-04:00

Good evening fellow scrappers! Today I bring to you a brief & simple tutorial on how to make your own paper flowers. I based these flowers on some Prima ones that I bought at my local scrapbooking store. The packet of 5 flowers cost me $5.00. After staring at them for a few I wondered if I could somehow create my own flowers similar to the ones I bought. This is what I came up with. Mind you, they are not exactly like the Prima ones...after all, I'm not Prima--although I wouldn't mind being them! But I think they're a good replica & these are great for using up any left over scraps! I made these two flowers with left over scraps from my 'Love' page.

To make these flowers it's all about you shaping the petals as much as you can--you'll see what I mean when we go through the steps.

Alright, let's get started...
Here's your basic list of supplies: Decorative scissors (I used the Scallop decorative scissors by Fiskars), stickles, retro flower punch (small), either a pen or a paint brush in order to shape your flowers (not pictured) & a flower die. For my flowers I used Sizzix Flower Layers.

Step 1: Punch/cut out your flowers. I used 4 retro flowers & 3 sizzix flowers (2 large & 1 medium flower). NOTE: I know in my photo I only show 3 retro flower punches but after making the flower I added one more layer to make it 'fluffier'.

Step 2: With your scissors, cut about 3/4" of an inch towards the center of the flower for each petal. This is to make more defined petals for the flower.
Step 3: Take your decorative scissors & trim the edges of your flowers. You do not have to be perfect. In fact, the more imperfect the more realistic your flower will be.

Step 4: Take your pen or paint brush handles (as long as it's a round edge & not too thin) & start shaping your flowers. Just go in a circluar motion while pressing down--you'll start to see the petals of your flowers curl up. NOTE: I used the bottom of my mouse pad as the padding for shaping my flowers. Shape as much as you want--this is what will really give your flowers it's shape.

Step 5: With a thinner handle (I used a thinner paint brush) curl the edges of your petals down.

Step 6: To further shape your flowers pinch the very tips of each petal down with your fingers. Once again, shape, curl & pinch as much as you want. The more you shape the fluffier the flower!

Here are my 3 layers of flowers all pinched, curled & shaped.

Step 7: Layer your flowers. Off-set each layer. NOTE: I added a pop dot beneath my top layer only in order to give this flower more dimension.

Step 8: Now to shape the center flower. Take your thinner brush or pen/pencil & curl the petals up. Only curl 3 of the 4 flowers.

Step 9: Take the remaining retro flower & roll it together between your fingers until you have a small bud as shown in the picture.

Once your bud is shaped--glue it this way. I tend to open it slightly squeeze drops of glue all along the inside petals & then roll it back together again--the petals will stick together since when you roll the flower the inner petals overlap one another.

Excuse my inky pink fingers! Apparently I was inking something pink prior to making this tut. My hands are always inked in different colors it seems...

Step 10: Take one of the 3 curled retro flowers slightly pinch it close as shown in the picture. You will not pinch this one as tightly as the first one. This is only to shape it.

Step 11: Layer your inner flower & glue. Off-set each layer. NOTE: Don't these make cute little flowers just by themselves? Something to think about when you're trying to find that small little flower to fill that one spot on your project!

Step 12: Glue the center flower inside the bigger one & ta-da! You're done.

Step 13: Optional step...take your stickles & add some glitter randomly along the edges of some of your petals.

Here's my flower & the lighter turquoise one next to it is the Prima one. So what do you think? Was my attempt any good?! :-)

I kept shaping & fluffing my flower after the Stickles dried. Remember, the more you shape & pinch together the more dimension your flower will have.

Hope you found this tutorial helpful & thank you to all who stop by!

Till my next post...