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My scrappy friend, Scarlett, is going to be teaching some classes at Scrapbook News & Reviews. If you've ever wanted to learn about working with chipboard, using mixed media on cards or layouts, or making a layout on canvas, you may want to check out the information on her blog. AND she's giving away a class - so there's another reason to check it out! :-)
Can you tell which class gets my interest??
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Some of you will know this, and many of you may not. A number of years ago, hubby had the opportunity to buy into a new restaurant franchise and he/we opened this restaurant in the north end of Waterloo. The franchisor wasn't doing much to grow the brand or support our efforts and after a few years and a big buyout, we broke the franchise agreement and branded ourselves, now running an independent restaurant in a large location. The area became more developed and more restaurants popped up, and we struggled to hold onto our piece of the dining out pie. We struggled to pay bills - both our own personal bills and those of the restaurant. Eventually, we were forced to close the restaurant or risk losing everything. It is by the grace of God that we still have our home. We have a very supportive church family that helped us through that time, friends and family would show up with food, or with clothes for Sarah, and sometimes the surprises came from strangers used by God. We were humbled and blessed beyond measure and there will be a time when I put this all on a scrapbook page, but not today. TODAY, there is someone else who is in a similar position, and today I have the chance to be the stranger who makes a difference. We are still climbing our way out the debt hole we dug during those restaurant days, but we are comfortable and we can help someone. TODAY, we do that.
There is a family, the mom is a scrapbooker and you may have seen her work around the blogosphere and in magazines. The dad is working, now, but was out of work for long enough that they are in a financial pickle, and risk losing their home. Home to 5 little ones. I urge you to join me in giving. I've been there, I know the stress she's feeling. I tear up at the thought of it. Every little bit will make a difference. I trust you will be blessed in giving, and I KNOW they will be blessed in receiving. It's easy to give, just go here.
May you be blessed and be a blessing today.
Thanks for popping by.
- Ann
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Over at Practical Scrappers, we're posting layouts with a pool or water theme, which gave me a perfect excuse to scrap another Cuba layout!
This is a new line from Little Yellow Bicycle called, appropriately, Splash. It's a bright summery line that works for beaches, pools, and tropical holidays.
I started with a sheet of white cardstock, as I often due, and applied Mr. Huey's mist through a chevron template, repeating this 3 times to create a background. I must say, I love how easily Mr. Huey's spritzes compared to some of the other mists in my stash! This is not a paid endorsement - LOL!
I don't know if I'm just itching to play outside this summer or what, but this is the second or third sun-themed layout I've created in the last while. This time, my sun is created from a beachball sticker that matches the Splash line. It was a perfect circle, so I flipped it over, sticky side up, and started to stick the sequins to it. I wasn't sure this was going to be sticky enough over the long term, so I decided to run a circle of 3-in-1 first and then adhere the sequins, starting from the outside and working my way in. The sun's rays were made by cutting a long text-based border strip into varying lengths and placing them so they radiate from the sun.
I added a bit of texture medium to layout. If you haven't worked with texture medium, it does exactly what the name suggests, adds texture. It has the consistency of the putty or spackle you use to for filling small holes or cracks in a wall.
In this shot, you can see more texture medium. While it was still moist, I pressed a circle template into, to create an interesting, bubbly texture, and I turned the template over, pressing the bits of medium on the template back onto the layout, which created the very light circles. You can also see that I stapled my photo onto a piece of white corrugated paper that I misted with the same Mr. Huey's. Then I created a small confetti burst alongside the photo using buttons, dewdrops, Stickles and stickers.
This layout made me happy while I created it, and makes me happy when I look at it. :-)
What have you created lately that makes you happy? Let me see it by leaving a link in your comments.
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Welcome to our second Inspiration Elevator challenge. You may recall from last month`s challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level; to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. This month`s challenge was issued by the very talented Laura Whitaker. Here`s a sampling of what Laura asked us to do:
"For my challenge I wanted to get back to the root of scrapbooking a little bit, back to the preserving of memories; to encourage you to look at your photos a little more closely. We all have cute photos of the sweet-faced children and beautiful family members, in our lives, that we can scrapbook. But I want to challenge you to choose a photo that tells a story or evokes an emotion, something a little different than our children playing or family members posing. We all have heard that a picture speaks a thousand words. Choose a photo that was taken from behind the subject, preferably one in which you cannot see their face. Maybe you have chosen not to scrap a particular photo in past because you couldn’t see the subject’s face very well, this is the perfect time to use that photo. Then the story will be the focus and not the face. Then tell the story that goes with the photo via your journaling. This way when our families look back at this page years from now, they will truly be reminded of the moment."
What an incredible challenge!
I was flipflopping between 2 photos for most of the week, and then decided this photo would work well with some Echo Park Hello Summer scraps that I have sitting around. There is something about Echo Park that gets me fussy cutting, using foam adhesive and creating happy scenes. This photo was taken by my father-in-law after he and his friend joined us at a rooftop patio for a celebratory birthday dinner for me. As we headed back to our cars, Norm snapped this photo.
My "sun" is fussy cut from a flowery paper, but I loved the colour and thought it would work just fine for a sun. I added about 3 layers of Crystal Effects to add some shiny gloss and dimension. That strip of banners was also fussy cut. I liked the pre-printed sentiment, "There is sunshine in my heart today" between the pennants, and it fits with the theme of my page. I added stickles to the dots on the rounded banners, actually custom blending the orange one since I didn't have an orange stickles.
I did some doodling on this layout - all the whimsical stickers that make up this scene, just seemed to scream doodle on me, so I did.
This is my favourite part of my layout (next to the photo subject!). I had visited May Flaum's blog and she was talking about a trend called confetti burst. Well, I searched my stash and my daughter's and couldn't find any confetti per se - you know the shiny metallic stuff that you get at party stores and sprinkle at place settings. That stuff, and sequins and beads are all a part of what she includes in her confetti bursts. I loved the look and if I think back, I think I've done things like this before on some of my layouts. Anyway, for my non-confetti confetti burst, I searched for small buttons, and these 3 acrylic hearts to use as my larger elements. I punched out stars from the EP paper to add in, along with dots of stickles. I added doodling around the hearts which just makes them pop right off the page.
I guess I should tell you what my journaling says, since the journaling was a big part of this month's challenge, right?
One day Sarah asked me if we had wanted other kids. I told her we tried to have other children but no pregnancy lasted more than 2 months. But this is OK. I am content if this is what God planned for us. I love being a family of three!
My fellow group of artists have been working all month to create gorgeous and inspiring designs. Here's the list of my IE friends and I hope you`ll pop by and see what they have created and perhaps take a moment to say a word or two.
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Thank you so much for all your lovely comments during the Father's Day blog hop for Two Scrapbook Friends. I was deeply touched by your kindness.
To determine the winner of my draw, I wrote all the names of the commenters down and numbered them and then had my sweet daughter pick a number between 1 and 33. My own homemade random number generator! She chose the number 21, which on my sheet lined up with Judy Beeksma, so Judy, you are the winner of my draw! Congratulations!
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Hello and welcome! If you are here for the Two Scrapbook Friends Father's Day Blog Hop, please scroll down one post.
Today, I am sharing a layout I made using some fabulous products from The Robin's Nest.
I fell in love with the dewdrops created by The Robin's Nest a long time ago and they make it out of my stash and onto my pages with some regularity.
Because The Robin's Nest generously donated patterned paper packets to the crop I co-organize, our guests were recipients of a variety of papers. My daughter was a guest, so I fingered through her stash to find some papers to play with. Why was it important to find patterned papers from The Robin's Nest? Well, they are currently conducting a DT call, and I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring. I think with my willingness to try new things with products and techniques and my ability to explain my process as I go to my readers, that I have something to offer. So this layout was created especially for their call. You can read about the DT call on their blog.
We had given Sarah a rose after her performance in the dance recital last weekend and she had displayed it in one of my Delft kegs for the week. I kind of like the juxtaposition of the delicate rose and the solid vase. When I found these blue papers in the collection, I knew what I would create for this call.
In this shot, above, you can see the handmade banner I created by cutting and punching The Netherlands paper. Each piece is popped up on foam adhesive for more dimension, and stung together with embroidery floss. The Delft tile pattern occupies about 2/3 of the page on The Netherlands Paper, and the other third is a solid periwinkle blue. I sliced that blue off and used it to fashion this paper rose.
To make the rose, I used a die and my Cuttlebug to cut out 4 identical 5-petalled flowers. Next, I applied some ink to the petal edges for visual dimension.
I left 1 flower intact, made a slice in between 2 petals on a 2nd flower. Then I cut 1 petal off a 3rd flower, and 2 petals off the 4th flower. Do not discard the petals that have been trimmed off. Next, I started creating each layer of the flower, by folding the petal on the left over the petal on the right and adhering it using the Beacon's 3 in 1 glue (a hot glue gun would work too). So in the flower that I'm holding in the photo, where the petal had been trimmed out, I took that left petal and curved it over, closing the gap, and adhered it to the top of the petal on the right. Then I repeated that step for each of the other cut out blooms.
When I got to the blooms that are only one petal and 2 petals wide (the ones trimmed from the other flowers), I used my bamboo skewer to fold the edges over and then adhered it. I also use the skewer to gently curve the petals of my blooms, including the remaining flat intact 5 petal flower. Then, using the 3 in 1 adhesive, I simply layer the flower together, starting from the bottom (largest) blooms and working my way up. Now, because this bloom is going on a scrapbook page that needs to go into a page protector, I need to lose a bit of dimension. For an altered project or canvas, or even a card that isn't going into the mail, this flower would be fine, but it is a little too bulky for a scrapbook page, so I just use the scissors and trim the "cone" of the blooms off, as I'm nestling and building the layers.
This shot shows how I've been trimming down the "cones" that form as the flower is formed, after the petals have been adhered over each other. Those tubes created from rolling the single and double petals get layered inside each other to form the tight center of the rose. Then I added a little more ink and some stickles to finish the bloom.
The rose is nestled on a stitched-on pennant cut from the tile paper, and I added a dew drops flourish that leads the eye toward the doily and into the focal point, the photo and journaling.
One more shot to show the stitching used around the photo and over the doily - random circles, and some crazy zigzags in the upper right, where a delicate pink rose is added, for colour and that fun juxtaposition.
Typical of my layouts, this page features a long, multi-font title - this one says, "A rose is a rose is a rose", a quote I found online. It kind of says the same thing as the one about a rose by any other name is still a rose.
For the journaling, I painted lightly with gesso directly onto the photo and then handwrote the text, explaining how fun it was to see the Delft used to hold her rose.
I'd love your support as I try out for this exciting opportunity with The Robin's Nest, so if you have time, kindly leave a comment letting them know I'd be a great choice! Thanks!
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Welcome to the Two Scrapbook Friends Father's Day Blog Hop! You should have started the hop at the Two Scrapbook Friends Blog and arrived here from Sharlene's blog. If you comment on each blog, you will qualify to be in a draw for a special prize from Two Scrapbook Friends! Also, you will find a RED HIGHLIGHTED word on each blog which will make a phrase at the end of the Blog Hop! Once you have completed the hop to all our designers' blogs, please leave a comment on the Two Scrapbook Friends blog. Then be sure to email the completed phrase to them for a second chance to win! So remember, in order to be entered to win:
1. Leave a comment on all the blogs as you go and then come back to the Two Scrapbook Friends blog and leave a final comment there.
2. To have a second chance to win, keep track of the HIGHLIGHTED WORDS from each blog and email the phrase to 2friends@execulink.com. Put "Blog Contest" in your subject line.
3. Check back at the Two Scrapbook Friends blog on June 12th to see if you are the winner. (Winners will not be contacted personally.) Here is the list of blogs you will visit on this inspiring journey:
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This month, Lucy asked us to go into the sketch archives and choose one to use for our monthly reveal. I chose this sketch.
Here is what I created with it:
I started with a plain white cardstock, which seems to be my starting point lately, and added colour by stamping these great open line flowers with VersaMark ink and then applying chalk over them.
Next, I layered on these B-side papers from a great botanical collection from SEI called Field Notes. These colours seemed to work well with the colours in my photo.
Here's a shot of the left side cluster and title work. My Silhouette got its initiation on this layout. I cut out the cakes with it. This cake is supposed to be a template for a shaped card, but I just shrunk it down and cut it on the fold line to create 2 cakes. To create the frosting, I painted the layered pieces with gesso tinted with Pearl Ex. If you read my last post, you know that was a technique I wanted to try, so I made a point of doing it. The Pearl Ex created some beautiful tints - I created pink, blue and green and used them for the cakes and as backdrops for the clusters.
This is the same section of the layout, just another shot to try to give you an idea of the dimension on this layout. Lots of foam adhesive on many layers gives this layout a lot of dimension. I recycled some Prima packaging to recreate the circle element that is present on the sketch. Well, for me, it was half circles - 2 of them. I like how they pulled the journaling in, too.
Here's the right cluster. Don't you love the zipper trim? I wish I could say I thought of using zipper trim this way, but I saw it somewhere on the blogosphere and stored that idea away.
So, I have another Disney layout complete, and I tried 3 new things on this layout. Not bad, eh? If you'd like to see the sketches the rest of the My Sketch World team chose, and what they did with it, pop by the My Sketch World blog.
I'll be back again soon and I think it might involve a giveaway...
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