Grace x 2

You know you are addicted to scrapping when you go to drive 17 km in search of a wifi connection to post for a challenge. Yes, sad but true.  The worst part... said wifi I drove in search of was actually not working this weekend, so all was in vain (I missed the KK Colour Challenge 26 deadline... sigh). I am now posting that I am home from vacation.

This selfie photo layout was inspired by the Colour Challenge 26 at Kreative Koncepts and the July sketch challenge over at Once Upon a Sketch.  I really played with this one, using oodles of techniques and media.

Supplies: cardstock (Canadian Scrapbooker Super Stock), Gesso (Golden), Glimmer Mists (Tattered Angels), Tim Holtz Distress ink, stickles, & Archival ink (Ranger), whipped spackle, gelatos, and PITT Artist Stamper's Big Brush (Faber-Castell), stencils (Tim Holtz and Prima), stamps (KaiserCraft and MME), patterned paper (Crate Paper), flowers (Prima, Petaloo, Recollections, and Michaels), letter stickers (Recollections and Prima), pen (CTMH), trim (Webster's Pages), vellum and sequins (miscellaneous)

Cluster detail photos:

The wonderful selfie photo was taken using an ipad with stunning results and resolution. With it's touches of green and the flowers in the grass that she is laying down upon, it was an ideal fit photo for the colour challenge.  The sketch and theme worked beautifully to show it off.

Journal Theme: Numbers

             

On the upside of being away... lots of creative time!  I made several projects which I will share over the next weeks.

Have you ever found yourself going out of your way or doing something nutty for "scrap" sake? Please share your stories, I would love to know that I am not alone.:)

TTFN,

Happy Spring Handprint Shamrock Canvas Plus a Card

Loving the green on this 28"x 22" canvas as it brings cheer to my living room, especially given the very whiteness that still abounds outdoors.

Supplies: canvas (Artist's Loft, acrylic paints (Artist's Loft and Liquitex), pen (uniball)

If you can believe it, the shamrocks were made with my daughter's and my hands.  I wanted to make a canvas for St. Patrick's Day decor and I came up with the idea to make them that way.  It was very quick and easy to do.  After the hand, with fingers close together, is generously painted up like a stamp, the fingers are pointed towards the centre and the heel of the palm gets swept slightly from side to side.  Once dry, I outlined it with a Uniball black pen.  This is what it looked like initially.

After it was hung for a bit over my white mantle wall, I decided to add to it last weekend.  I mixed up a lighter, brighter shade of green and gave it a background using both a brush and paper towel.  This is were I have stopped for now.  I have an idea to possibly add more to it but I will have to wait a bit to see if the idea still grows on me because I am liking what it looks like right now.

In creating the background, I used pieces of paper towel.  When I was done, instead of disposing of them because I loved the colour of them, I wet them further to distribute the colour and let them dry.  I figured I would use them for a future project and so I did.

I made this mixed media card and gave it to my mother-in-law as a cheery touch of spring for her house.

Supplies: cardstock card base (Recollections), paer towel (President's Choice Max), cardstock (Canadian Scrapbooker Super Stock), acrylic paint (Artist's Loft and Liquitex), diamond stamp (Limited Edition), heart stamp (Inkadinkado), alphabet stamps (Studio Calico), "happy" stamp, green ink and marker, and Liquid Glass (CTMH), black inks (Ranger and Tsukinenko), gesso, molding paste and gel medium (Golden), stencil (The Crafter's Workshop), Silhouette Quatrefoil cut file (Jennifer Wambach), gelatos (Faber- Castell), Modge-Podge and black paint (Plaid), marker (Sharpie), Stardust Gelly Roll pen (Sakura), Black Glitter Glue (Hampton Arts), diamond Stickles (Ranger), flowers (Petaloo), sequins (Dollarama)

I stamped the dried paper towel and then tore it into pieces which I adhered onto a card base.  I used a glitter pen to add colour to the swirls in the diamond stamped images and covered with some watered down gesso.  Then using a clear gel medium, I stenciled a script font in three spots.
While it was drying, I stamped using green ink with a heart stamp four times on a scrap piece of leftover paper towel.  Then I added liquid glass to the stamped hearts for depth and shine.  Once dry, I cut the hearts out leaving a border to allow for a larger shamrock.

Back to my now dry card base, using gelatos in green hues, I added a bit more variety of greens, especially around the script font to allow it to show some detail.  Then I sealed the whole background with Modge Podge. Once dry, I splattered some watered down black acrylic paint on it.

Next, I assembled my cluster with a leftover Silhouette cut cardstock piece as a base that had modeling paste on it from when I used it as a background stencil on my Lexi layout. Then, I glued down the hearts to form a clover and added a stem.  A few Petaloo Flowers and a touch of gelatos.

Finishing up, I stamped "Oh Happy Day" and added black glitter glue.  Lastly, some bling... gold sequins, touch ups of the glitter pen filled areas, gold glitter glue to the flower centres and black edging.

With the addition of the bling and with all the green, I am entering it in the Off the Rails Scrapbooking's Green and Bling card challenge.

TTFN,

Crop and Create fun

I had a scraptastic scrappy weekend a few weeks ago after a new job assignment imposed break from creating. Spent two days at Scrapbook and Cards Today's Crop & Create Markham.  Loved, loved, loved it!

Loved catching up with familiar faces and friends.  Of course there is great shopping from The Memory Keeper and The Scrapping Turtle and Catherine ensures that there are plenty of other scrap goodies to buy at the registration table from the various workshop instructors.

I had fun and lots of laughs cropping with Lisa and Stacey, who I had met last year, and made many new friends this year as our table was larger.

I took Vicki Boutin's Shadow Box Techniques class and created a funky shadowbox for my sister-in-law's birthday. Her b-day is in April, so I can't show it here until then.

I can, however, show you the cards that I made with the left over Pink Paislee Heritage patterned paper scraps.

Inspired by some of the elements on the shadow box, I created this:

The bordered punch trim is actually washi tape.  That took a bit of time to figure out a technique to make it work so it looked like fabric trim.

It was adhered to the end of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, border punched and then inked in sections as I slowly removed it from the paper.  Then using two pointed instruments, I styled it do add dimension.  Lastly, I cue-tipped some corn starch onto the back of the raised segments so that they would not stick down in future if pressed upon.

The butterflies were stamped using one of my favourite Magenta stamps on vellum packaging liner and fussy cut.


Next up was this beauty:

The flower inspiration for this one came from Sheila's Petaloo Flower Sale Bin. When I saw these babies, an idea formed and I was off.  With the flowers and a specific card worthy friend in need of a pick-you-up in mind, this card came together really easily and quickly.

Lots of textures and dimension on this one.

Once that well of creativeness was sprung, I was raring to go and created two other layouts which I will share at another time.


TTFN,