Totally Tulip

Wow! It has been a long time since I shared my craftiness with the world. The past couple of weeks I've gotten back into playing along with the scrapbooksteals.com Mid Week Mojo challenges. And since they were nearing the end of the 10 week series (this series was titled Tulip) I thought I would be a mad scrapper and catch up and post them all at once.

Tulip 1

Tulip 2

Tulip 3

Tulip 4

Tulip 5

Tulip 6

Tulip 7

Tulip 8

Tulip 9

Tulip 10

I used a lot of scraps and last of items on these layouts - if there's something you just have to know what I used or how I did it, then ask away but the product lists for these pages would be HUGE and just not worth listing individually.

This isn't the only thing I've been up to, and I'm hoping to start carving more time for creative play and sharing again. I miss the blogging fun.

Rain on my parade

If there's one thing my youngest loves, it is his boots. He hardly goes anywhere without them! When this pair broke we chose to go buy a replacement right away, even though it was sort of the off season, because he loves rain boots so much. I'm just glad he doesn't think he has to tote toys around everywhere (what if we lost one!)

I've done other layouts about his obsession with the boots, so this one focused more on how we said good-bye to this particular pair and then went and bought another since they were important. And bonus! The new pair look like fire fighter boots. 

A couple of weeks ago I posted this layout where I'd used a Studio Calico pie chart file, the green here is the negative from that cut. 

The rest of the layout was also the scraps and leftover stickers from working with this collection (BG Mon Ami) so much. The larger title sticker is from BG's PB& J. 

ETA: I discovered that one of my favorite challenges is doing a "feet" challenge and I soooo had to link it up to SWAT. Hope that they don't mind that it went live before I made that connection. 

Leftover alphas

Remember a couple of days ago when I said that I'd gotten bitten by a need to use up my alpha stash? Well, here's the second installment. 

I managed to finish off all but the numbers from three alpha sets. Woot Woot! 

You'll notice that I again used my current favorite, BasicGrey Mon Ami. Thankfully, with all those alphas on the background I really didn't use much so I was able to stretch the line just a teeny bit further. Sweet. If I'm remembering correctly, there's another four pages and a couple of cards that I made using the line. 

Anyway, as I said on Monday, using up alphas like this isn't something new to me but I was really inspired to use them up because of a post on Becki Adams' blog last week.  

Right Now

I don't even remember when I did this layout but I super love it, and know it is less than two months old because I haven't had that stitching template for very long. I *think* the page was based on a Scrapbooksteals MWM sketch but yeah...

I also remember that I used Silhouette stencil material to make those hexagons. I'd made a larger stencil for something else and then used the inside pieces as a mask.

Lots of scraps and leftover bits. 

Such a Silly

Mixed media is a major focus at my local scrapbook store and some of the ladies who've gotten into the techniques are wanting ways to incorporate them into their layouts. We've done a few other themes, but this one is using masks to create the title. 

For the background I paintedFaber-Castell gelatoes through a Prima stencil and let it dry. Then I adhered my Hazel & Ruby alphabet masks and placed a The Crafter's Workshop stencil over the letters. I smeared modeling paste over the stencil/masks and let it dry, then dripped a whole bunch of green Studio Calico mist over the title block. I used modeling paste and the same green on the corrugated cardstock on the left side of the page. 

In the bottom right, I built up layers of embellishments to highlight the silly photo of Vance when he was two. 

Young Love

As part of the BasicGrey Fresh Cut class I'm teaching we decided to include a couple of layout samples/instruction sheets for class participants. It gives me a way to highlight a different style using the same paper and makes sure that I put it all to good use. 

I do love me some crumpled and sewn paper, throw in some fussy cutting and I am a happy lady! Probably what I love most about this style of layout is that it looks soooo intense but crumpling and tearing are such fast techniques that I did this layout in under an hour - including that fussy cutting!

Supplies:

BasicGrey FreshCut paper and waterfall packs

Stash buttons and feathers

Sewing machine, thread

Worn Lipstick Distress Ink

WRMK pink/white twine

Take In the Sunshine

Have you been catching a theme since my month hiatus from blogging? I've pretty much been just creating for classes for my LSS, which is super great because I get to play with all the new pretty papers. 

This one features BasicGrey Fresh Cut. The store's had a rash of people asking for layout classes and since most prefer double pages I have been trying really.really.hard to give them what they want! The problem I faced with this BG pack, and another I'm working with right now is that they don't have two of the same anything in the packs so I'm adding some neutrals so that I can pull all the same colors across the page. 

Now, here's the start of some close ups. I'll start with the layouts not side by side. Is it just me or are white background pages really hard to photograph?!

Then the real details: 

I'm in love with the way I managed to splatter on this spread. Mists still scare me a bit but this time I think I got the flick down nicely!

I may be obsessed with my Amy Tangerine stitching templates lately. No surprise there given how much I like stitching on my layouts anyway! Hopefully some of my students will catch the bug and Dala will order even more templates than she has already. Bwahahaha. 

What do you do when a paper pack needs some bling but you don't want rhinestones? You heat emboss wood veneers, naturally. Seriously, that's the most time consuming element in the whole class because the heat gun kept blowing the shapes away so I had to hold them down with a paper piercer and do one at a time.

Supplies:

BasicGrey Fresh Cut

Studio Calico wood veneers

Pigment Ink

Gold Zing! embossing powder

Amy Tangerine stitching templates

Studio Calico mists

Stash embroidery floss

Egg Hunt

Dala and I had a crazy plan a few weeks before National Scrapbook Day, I would create a few easy layouts that we would pre-cut and kit up and have stations in the store for participants to put together in a snap. So I took home a pile of random loose papers that had haunted the store for a while and set to work. Because of the nature of the papers chosen (ones that had multiples that she wanted to clear through) I know brands but not paper names or lines, sorry guys.

And check out my way fun usage of my pony beads/enamel dots. I sort of thought they were perfect with the plasticity of the eggs. 

A little twine looping and curling never hurt either. Though I'd love to figure out an easy way to give directions for that one!

I don't know if this is normal or not, but my students on NSD thought it was unusual to incorporate the transparency into the bottom layers and have photos on top like I've done. What can I say? I like to make them think outside the box. ;)

Supplies:

Jenni Bowlin green, yellow, and birds papers

Fancy Pants transparency

White cardstock, stash

Heidi Swap mistable tags

Faber Castell gelatoes

Blue pigment ink

WRMK twine

Glossy Accents

Pony Beads

Page Maps sketch

Possibilities

I took some time on National Scrapbook Day to make some "for fun" layouts to meet a couple of challenges that were being hosted online. Not often I get to dig into my own stash to create these days and it was kind of nice. 

I used the Studio Calico Challenges NSD 1 (color scheme) and 2 (unused stamp) and Scrapbooksteals MWM Daisy 2 sketch as inspiration for this layout. 

Gold embossed wood veneers, sequins, and stitching, OH MY!

Supplies:

MME All is Bright, Find Your Wings and Fly papers

Crate Paper buttons

MME brad

Echo Park Reflections

Studio Calico Ampersand wood veneers

Teresa Collins sequins

Webster's Pages lace

Amy Tangerine Stitching template

gold embroidery floss, stash

Tim Holtz stamp

Walnut Stain Distress Ink

You Make Me Happy - MWM Rose 5

I was so excited when Melodee asked the ScrapbookSteals design team to use our Silhouette die cutters to create the layout inspiration for this week's Mid Week Mojo - Rose 5.

Here's the sketch that we all used:

And my layout:

I used the Silhouette stencil material to create a textured background for my page. Using embossing paste instead of modeling paste gave me a slightly translucent finish. After the paste was dry I spritzed and splattered two shades of Mister Huey's on the page. 

This was only my second time using the stencil material and I have to say it was pretty cool to make custom backgrounds - and using something that's reusable. I super love that since it has a sticky back that I got cleaner images than I often do.

While those layers were drying I worked on using the off cuts from the stencil to make this banner - I stuck the stencil material directly to some MME Chalk Studio paper and then cut a bunch of triangles. I then sewed all of the tiny triangles into one long strand. I also sewed some large triangles from one of the Chalk Studio embellishment packs into a second strand and then crisscrossed them across the page. 

I used more of the Chalk Studio embellishments to decorate the large cluster on the left side of the page. Mmmm, and shaped enamel dots are yummy.

I didn't like the way my journaling worked out visually so I did a bit of doodling around the edge and then added the banner for depth. Decorating it made all the difference!

Scoring backgrounds - How To'sday post at Scrapbooksteals

For today's "How To'sday" on ScrapbookSteals.com I have a simple technique for adding texture without much mess or adding a lot of thickness to the page. Go grab a tool for scoring (I used the AC Cut It Up), a piece of paper, some sand paper (I used a WRMK Heart Attack) and come back. 

Using your scoring tool, draw a series of vertical and horizontal lines on what will be the back of your paper. I really like making a large symmetrical grid and then go back and add some randomly close score marks to create interest. 

Now flip the paper "right side up" and rub the lines with your sand paper. I darkened the next several photos to help you see the effect created on the paper. The one above was darkened also, it shows what the paper looks like before I was done distressing all the score marks - there's some texture but it isn't very visible. 

  

All done with the sanding!

This one I took really dark so you could see all the places I'd distressed and torn up in the process. 

Then, to heighten that texture I rubbed the page with a Distress Ink pad in Vintage Linen and set to work on my layout. I didn't worry about smudging or over inking, knowing that it would lend itself to creating a more interesting background. 

And below I have a close up of a portion of the layout, you know, just for fun.

All the papers for this project were from Teresa Collins' Memorabilia line. The ribbons are stash. 

Linking this up with the Memory Nest.