Its a Girl!!

No I haven't been hiding any secrets from y'all.  There aren't any bundles of joy blessing this household....we're too far on the side of teendom to be starting anew - ha!  I still have oodles of fun creating for those friends and family members just starting out though - and who am I kidding??  Its just plain fun to play with baby themed stuff sometimes in general, right?! ;) 

To deck out this stork I used some fluid acrylics on the body and then roughed it up a bit with my finger while the paint was still wet to give it a bit of texture making it look perhaps a little fuzzy. The rest of the body was colored with some gel pens - easy peasy.

Like this cutie lil' stork from ScrapFX.  This month's releases were all about the itty bits - you know bundles of joy.  Perfect timing for me since a GF just had a cutie puh-tootie girlie.  Oh my is she ever adorable.  Gave me a bit of baby fever when I went to visit and then I came back to my senses LOL.  Its always good to know you can visit whenever you want and give the baby back at the end of the day!! Just sayin'. 

Normally I'm not one to leave my chippies naked - I just don't do that look well, but since there were so many colors/patterns going on in the card itself the sentiments really didn't need to be altered up - so bare chippies it was.  I did outline the word girl with a white gel pen because it seemed like it was the thing to do.

I set about making her a card.  I'm all about ramping up my skills these days and went with a side step card.  I know for some this type of card is old school - for me this was the first one I'd ever done!!  I'm totally hooked and can't wait to make more.  What types of cards have you made?  Do you any ideas for me to try?  I'll share directions on how I did this soon - I have to figure out the best way how.

And since this is a post about girlie things I figure I'll leave you with a sneaky peek of my upcoming ScrapFX project which happens to be of a girl:

Here I've had a ton of fun putting some of the new mini chippies from ScrapFX to use along with some large butterfly wings to create a whimsical artdoll!!  Oh yeah - cannot wait to share next Wednesday!

I'm quite smitten with this lil' sweetie and can't wait to show you all of her - she might look a little a different by next week but this is her so far.   

Alrighty sweetie peeps, that is all for today.  Make it a beautiful day no matter what you face!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!  Yes I know this is coming a day late, but for some reason my blog doesn't like when I schedule posts.  I should know this by now.  The posts either go live late or don't go live at all.  When I try to manually pub them well that is a whole different beast, haha!  Such is life but I've important and beautiful things to share so on we go...

This card is also part of the first ever ScrapFX challenge!!  To check out the details and see how you can win the chance to be featured on the ScrapFX blog see the group post here.  You'll be inspired by plenty of card creations to get your mojo flowing!!

This is the Father's Day card I created for my best friend - my hubs.  He is truly all I could ever ask for and more in a dad for my children.  He has been there through and through and ever will be.  He is a man who knows and loves the Lord, is kind, gentle, compassionate, tough when needed, hard-working, and so much more.  I'm blessed to have him in my life on the daily and so are our teens.

On this day I also wish three other amazing men in my life a Happy Father's Day, yes I said three.  I have quite the unique life story:

This man gave me life.  What a blessing and gift to be here on this Earth instead of other options that could have been chosen.  It took me a long time to find him and he has embraced me with all his heart. I am his daughter.

This man raised me up from the time I was hours old to the time I was a grown woman.  I was his adoptive daughter but never did I feel different than his own - he embraced me with all his heart. I am his daughter.

This man is my biological mom's husband.  From the time he met me he welcomed me in to his family with loving, open arms and treated me like his own - he embraced me with all his heart.  I am his daughter.

I sit and look at these pictures and think how blessed am I?  I feel so grateful knowing that each one of these men has touched my life in someway.  Some people never get the chance to have a father in their lives and I've been given the gift of three. I may not get to connect with them all the way I'd like to but again they've all touched my life, made memories in it that I will cherish forever.  For that I thank each of them.  

No matter how much time passes, I'll always know they love me and I'll always love them!

Thanks for letting me share a piece of my story along with some craft creations today.  I hope your Monday is marvelous one!!  

Quickie Tutorial: Stencil Embossing

Hey Sweetie Peeps!  Its been a long time since I've shared a tutorial with you and so today I shall give a quickie one on stenciling embossing.  This has been a popular technique I've used on cards I've shared and you'll be so surprised at how easy peasy this truly is. 

This card was created using an MSW card sketch.  I rotated the sketch and changed it up a bit to suit the vision I had in my head.  I really love using sketches for springboards in this way!

The cloud background on this card shows off the technique I'll be sharing today using some Crafter's Workshop stencils. Do you notice how the clouds seem puffy??  Pretty neat, right?  Let me show you how to do it.

 Since this tutorial is really so quick and simple I decided to go the collage route for the tutorial, follow along with the directions clockwise starting in the upper left hand corner.

Step One: Choose you patterned paper/cardstock and stencil you want to use.  Place the side of paper you desire to be embossed pattern down on top of stencil.

Step Two: Create you embossing sandwich. I use the Cuttlebug so my sandwich is A plate, B plate, stencil, paper, C plate.  Run this sandwich through the Cuttlebug.

Step Three: Gently peel away your paper from the stencil.  Notice I said peel.  Yes your paper may be stuck slightly to the stencil.  

Step Four: Stand back and marvel at your embossed piece of paper and prepare it to use on a project.  From here you can use inks, chalks, pens, and other soft dry mediums to highlight your embossed images.  I don't necessarily suggest wet mediums to highlight - they will take away a bit of the embossing and therefore defeat the technique.  But you can do what you like ultimately. ;)

This is what the cloud background looked like when it was completed with this technique:

Now it may take you a couple tries to get the embossing to work - just be patient and keep trying.  It'll happen. It took me a quite a few tries to get my alignment right and everything set before I actually had something work out the way I wanted it to.  At least you have the benefit of knowing which way the paper needs to be on the stencil - ha! ;)

 And here is another card I used the technique on, in fact it was the first one I ever tried this technique on:

You can see the original post for this card here.

Hope you like this technique and try it out!  If you do please share a link, I'd love to pop on by and see what you create using your embossed pieces. 

Have beautiful days!!

Project Life - Some Fav Recent Inserts

Its Sunday, hope you're enjoying it!  In my neck of the woods today is always a day filled with softball (baby girl played a bit today!!!), watching the hubs work with his clients here training dogs (if our softball games aren't out of state/town), and doing some Project Life work in the evening once home.  I've also now added in running my boy to his newly acquired job - Phew!!  This lil' mama is tired - ha!

This is my intro to the month of May insert - I used a new product from ScrapFX - a Kraft base!!  These things are awesome and I feel so spoiled because they are like a mixed media artist's dream come true!!!  It stood up to all my goops and didn't even warp - I was in awe I tell ya'!

Not too tired however to push around a few bits of paper, some paints, and whatever else may be laying around my space to create some cards and inserts though!

This photo is an example of one of those that sadly isn't fully scrap worthy but I love it to pieces!!  I have another insert that has a lot of journaling on it to go with this one.  I used lots of mini ScrapFX chippies on this insert along with another Kraft base.

This is still what thrills me the most about PL -  I have energy for it because an insert or two doesn't seem as daunting as a LO may when I want to get creative on a Sunday evening as things wind down.

This is a photo I took based on a prompt from a photo a day post - can't remember which one as I follow along with two - however the point being is I wouldn't have taken this shot at all had it not been for these prompts.  This is why I try to participate in them.  I don't think I've ever completed a full month but the shots I do get are always ones I'm really happy with.

It also really helps me clean up my space from a hopefully productive week of creating and I'm making some major dents in my stash.  6x6 pads are diminishing, scrap bags are quickly disappearing, and embellishments/stickers are going away.

This is one half of a Prom spread I did and there will be more Prom pages to come.  I had so many fun and terrific shots from this day its hard to pick and choose.  I went with all the same colors and papers to make it easy and also decided to print some of my fav photos the size of the pockets and work straight on them.  This was something I really liked doing and will surely do again - made it all come together lickety split plus really highlights the photos.

So what nuggets of knowledge do I have to share with you this post?

• My PL album is readily grabbed/looked at by my teens - they totally love seeing themselves, our pets, homestead, life represented and my thoughts on it - this makes it worth it and they don't care if a day....or two, or three is missing!! ;)
• Taking the time to make artful inserts is so worth it for mind and soul - not to mention the uniqueness it gives to the album and future ideas I've gotten for other creative endeavors
• Printing out photos the size of inserts and working on them as a base rocks!!  Quick and easy.
• I love using the photo a day prompts put out there by websites and some IG peeps to help me get shots during the month. I journal heavily when I post my photos - its easy to then take these photos/journaling straight to the PL album
• Don't worry if everything matches at all times - for my prom pages (there is another spread to come soon) I matched everything because I wanted a flow, but my daily life stuff is really all over the place and each insert is different, just like each day.  

So yeah PL in my world is going pretty doggone good with a no pressure attitude and monthly schedule.  I'm still happy as a clam I dove in - have you taken the plunge??  Did you join me in the craziness called Project Life?  If you did, or already do let me know so I can hop on by - I'd love to be inspired by what you do!

I'm off for now to go hang with the fam, watch movies,  and make inserts!!
Take care sweetie peeps!  Its going to be a good night around here - no alarms going off in the morning - woot!

Layin' Low - ScrapFX Style and IRL

Hey Sweetie Peeps!  Happy June to ya' - a few days late but hey as my title says I've been layin' a bit low.  If you recall from this post, my baby girl received a concussion.  I knew she'd need TLC to the max and I gave it - no doubt.  I mean who could resist this crazy cute lil' lady below!!

 

Okay so I know this is a very crazy picture to post but my silly lil' lady has wanted this to go up somewhere, so her wish is my command.  This is her before the concussion took her out.  Acting like her goofy self - something I totally love.

What I didn't expect and know were all the symptoms and just how sensitive one can be after concussions happen.  One little bump in the hallway combined with over heating and we found out it wasn't a good mix - she was in really rough shape, needing care to the extreme. I share this because I had known concussions were serious business people - but not this serious and I really want you all to be aware.  So in short what I've learned:

• its no longer like when we were kids - you don't just get up and brush it off - take serious falls well seriously!
• concussions come with a ton of symptoms I would have never imagined and take a long time to recover fully from - get the info from your docs and follow it
• be your child's advocate and ensure people respect their limitations - my hubs had a hard time dealing with this being as serious as it was - see point one
• re-injury can occur from the slightest impact 
• once rechecked there is still a decently long time frame where everything needs to be done in moderation and your child needs to be monitored

I'm happy to say she is doing much better, is slowing easing back to things, and is looking forward to the end of the year - as am I.  I was afraid I'd have to bust out with the bubble wrap to protect her - ha! and goodness knows I love to use that on projects so I'm glad its staying tucked in my craft space.

These Hash Corner Chippies from ScrapFX rock my world peeps!  They fit around a 4x4 photo perfectly - ahh!  What a funky fresh frame, right? 

Now here's the other way I've been layin' low!  On a scrap page for ScrapFX - see the little flag being pulled by the plane??  Totally had a blast going crazy with the texture and neon.  I'm so glad this is back on trend - this was surely something I loved growing up!!!  I rocked it with then best of them ;)

This is another cool little frame piece from ScrapFX that wasn't intended to be a frame but with a few snips here and there became one and gave me a few little leftover pieces to have for later - bonus!

It was also super fun to scrap about city life.  I think most of you that visit me know me best for being a country gal but I was born and raised a city slicker and a piece of my heart will forever be there.  I miss it so much sometimes yet wouldn't trade what I have now in a million years to go back.  Crazy right? 

Tons of texture created on the background from pastes, embossing powders, inks, and ScrapFX stencils.

 The final culmination - I used a lot of techniques on this page and will be breaking them down here with some steps x steps for you soon.  My design was based around my title which is one of the techniques I'll share.  Because of the box shape I needed to cut I went with a more gridded type design overall - perhaps creating a city skyline effect??  At least in my mind this is how I like to look at it - LOL. To read more about this page and see the other projects I created you can to the ScrapFX blog here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and reading through my little public service announcement.  I appreciate your visits so much and look forward to getting back in action. Hooray for healing paths!!!

Take good care friends!