Getting Pinned - Skissedilla #226

Hi There!  Its a new week and that means a new sketch is up at Skissedilla for you to play along with.  This week the lovely Nabon created this beauty for us to work with:

Totally gorgeous, right?  I sat and looked at it for a bit wondering what to do.  I'm not necessarily a flower gal, but I'm warming up to them I must say.  I also have some amazing dies in my stash that could surely use a workout so I figured why not play up the flower angle a little since I had the perfect pictures for it.

 This series of photos of my son 'getting pinned' with his flower before the Snowball Dance (the one where the girl asks the guy) seemed very fitting for a flowery type LO.  Not that I went overboard with heaps of flowers but for me having any type of flower cluster be the main embellishment is huge LOL!  I must say though I had a ton of fun playing with my flower dies again and I need to make some time to just sit and create some flowers so I have them available.  Much more practical then doing it LO by LO.

 Here you can see the background texture and lots of the details in general better.  I used acrylic paints and watercolors to create the various blue tones and then went over that with a Ronda Palazzari Designs stencil and some paste.  This same stenciled design is used in the corners of the LO also.  I brought in the pinks and greens by using some glitter glue and my finger and added some confetti bits and gems.  The chipboard piece was dry embossed, coated sparsely with gesso, and then highlighted with some gold, and outlined.

The dies I used are from My Favorite Things, chipboard is ScrapFX, and the leaves are made from a hand carved stamp and some paint.  The lines that are highlighted in black would be negatives when stamped but the paint smooshed a bit so I highlighted. ;) 

To share the back story on these photos before I go - starting at the top is my son and his date.  She was trying so hard to get the flower on him without poking him and to have it look nice - didn't work.  Then I tried to get the flower on him.  I didn't worry so much about poking him, I just wanted the thing on him.  I got it but it wouldn't stand up straight.  Next his date's mom tried - that is the photo with the doodled border around it.  She couldn't get it either!  Finally one of his buddies came over and said I can do this.  I was all thinking in my head - yeah right - but by golly he did it!  No poking of the skin, the flower stood up straight, and looked great.  Who would've thought.  We all had a good laugh over it and then declared the next time the better option would be a magnet attachment - did you know they make those now??!  Totally cool and much easier - ha!

Well thanks for letting me share that little story, ahh the joys of high school right? I do hope you join us at Skissedilla this week.

Take good care!  

 

 

2 Lil' Bums - Skissedilla #217

Hey, Hey!!  Its Wednesday and there is a fantabulous sketch up at Skissedilla for you to get your craft on with.  

 

I always dig the artsy feel of the sketches the talented Nabon.  She blows my mind!!!  Sometimes I think I could just hang them up as is - ha!

My take this week involved some play with: an older photo (ala 2006 from our FL trip) - 4x6 - gasp! (giggles), the Uncharted Waters line by Glitz Design (love), watercolors, Liquitex products - fluid ink & paste, sequins, new goodies from Paper Issues (oh yeah I hit up that 50% off sale!!), some other various texture items for layers, and of course my ScrapFX chippies and a new stencil was put to work to create those spectacular little dots!  This is what the stencil looks like:

Random Dots Stencil

Sorry for the blurry image - not sure what that is all about - but I wanted to show how fun this stencil is.  Perhaps I should have shot the actual stencil.  I love the freedom in this design and the actual stencil itself is really flexible so I was able to manipulate it all over my background to get just the portions I wanted.  Super important since I don't readily use a whole stencil much.

This is my full page reveal.  I had such a good time reminiscing while creating.  Hard to believe the kidlets in this photo are teens now! O.o  Up to this point I'd used some of my Uncharted Waters stash here and there, but this was the first real nautical page I'd created with it.....I can honestly say going in to this I didn't really care for anchors......coming out I am a bit more keen on them.  Don't think I'll be jumping all over them when I see them - just know I can use these papers better now! :D 

The background was super easily put together with my paste, watercolors, and I soo wish you could see the all the misting!!!!  I used my Tsukineko sprays - Goosebumps and Pssts!  to be exact and the texture and shimmer is out of this world!!  These are some of my favorite sprays eva'.  I may have to do a little tag or try again with a shot to help you see the awesomeness of these mists.  They're that good people!!! 

With that, I'll leave you for today and wish you a grand one!  Thanks for the well wishes on drying out - so far so good.  Today its supposed rain again.... the skies tell the tale it probably will.  We've been enjoying our days in the sun though and will get out and enjoy today as well ;)

Take care!!

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!!  

Neon!! + ScrapFX = FUN!!

Hey Friends!  I've been immersed in so many projects - its wonderful!  My table has been messed up and cleaned up numerous times today - so can't keep plowing through a mess - what about you?  Do you clean up after each project? Plow through?  Clean as you go??....gasp! (<---I've tried this one and it doesn't work well for me - I'm a go with the flow, pull everything you own out, kind of girl - yep, that's me!)

One of my favorite projects to work on was for Michelle's Neon Challenge being held on Yvonne Yam's blog.  Michelle has wonderful posts about her love of neon - you should totally check them out - and I have to say I've got a soft spot in my heart for the stuff as well - I loved getting decked out in all my gear when I was a tween - although I wasn't called a tween - we didn't have that label way back then - as my kids would say - for me, its like yesterday because everywhere I go in stores I see it!

Not entirely pleased with my neon selection I ran to the store - scored some terrifically fun neon gel crayons (Crayola) - colored through circle stencil (Crafter's Workshop) to create first layer - these crayons are COOL! - they glided across the cardstock like butter - left cool chunky rings around the edges - stenciled again using black ink to create arrows - this was cumbersome - worth it - but cumbersome!!! -  the black tag is from ScrapFX - more on those in a different post because I REALLY like them!

My daughter is all all over the neon craze right now - I was informed its very fashionable right now - she about dropped her jaw when I said I used to wear stuff that pretty much looked just like what she wants - oh the horror!!!! - Nah, its all good, baby girl says I look cute in ev'rything - she's the sweetest girl in the world!!!

Do you see that title??!!  Oh how it sparkles and shines - photos just don't do it justice - that's a ScrapFX wordlet chippie!!  Keep your eyes peeled on the ScrapFX blog this month because I'll be posting a quick and easy tutorial on how to create this look - there are even tiny confetti star pieces on it!!  Do you spy the other ScrapFX tag I used?? - the circle edge - love!

It felt good to knock out another LO from our Disney trip in 2006 - the album will be done in true freestyle/eclectic fashion - just the way I like it - ready for the full page?

So while I was at the Do More With Less blog checking out the neon challenge, I read post after post - Yvonne has an amazing amount of tips and beautiful projects to share - one tip I used and will be adding to my arsenal was using bubble wrap as a layer - I use it all the time to stamp - why hadn't I thought about layering it???! - Thanks Yvonne!!  Such a happy person I was - this totally toned down my background enough to let the rest of the layers shine! - And of course thanks Michelle for the super fun challenge!

I'll let you all know when my ScrapFX post with the tutorial goes live - in the meantime go leave my fellow teamies love - they are knockin' it outta the park!!!

Today is a Big Day!!!

Hi Friends! I've been waiting for this day to come and now that its here I get to share some more EXCITING news....

Yours truly is now scrappin' with the Skissedilla gals as a DT member!!  The sketches these gals create are amazing I tell ya'..... and now I'll be throwing a few into the mix also!

  Today is the site's birthday ( Broggis' too!! Happy Birthday Broggis!!!) and myself, along with the two other new team members, have our first LOs up with the rest of the sweet, rockin' gals!!

Here's my first reveal:

Skissedilla #155

This page shows pictures of my kiddos first day of school this year - didn't go the whole first day route rather went with sharing a story about how I send a piece of my heart with them everyday - my new girlie Brit put that awesome frame around my LO - so cool, right?? - Thanks Brit!! xo

My journaling card - love those lil' tab stickers (this one is Crate Paper) - bits of Hambly overlays revealing stenciling done with Pan Pastels (<---seriously smitten with these), paint, and ink - texture paste rubbed through mesh tape with my finger - staples and stamping - the puffy sticker frames are K&Co. - changed the color of one by using VersaColor ink and then doodled with a Sharpie (the doodling was already there, just made it pop!)

My sub-title written on the photo - good shot of texture paste (<---I'll do a tutorial on how to do this soon!) - stamped and heat embossed brick - letters painted through a stencil

Lots of lovely layered bits of burlap, doily, tape, paper, button, overlays

So what'cha' think???  Are you so intrigued to see the sketch I made this off of??  I bet you are - so head on over to Skissedilla and leave a Happy Birthday shout out - come back here and let me know what you think of the sketch and I'll enter you to win an original canvas made by moi plus some other goodies!!!!  You can see the canvases here and I'll be adding pictures of my other goodies to give away today!  YAY!!!

March is shaping up to be such an amazing month!  Know what?? Its not over yet - oh yeah, I'll have another announcement on my birthday this week as well as my winners.  Keep your eyes peeled people, its about to get crazy up in here!!!

Have delightful days and be sure to go to Skissedilla!!!

Be You - an Inchie Grid

Evening friends.  I survived the bustling weekend we had and enjoyed myself yesterday watching my kiddos hang out and play with their friends at an indoor waterpark.  As I was watching and chatting with a few other moms it really struck home to me how hard it is to be a tween girl.  Its easy to forget when you're living with and enduring the many glares, rolls of the eyes, sass mouth, etc., etc., etc. LOL. 

 

 Don't mistake me though - on the flip side I love watching and being part of her growing fashion sense, love for lotions and all things girly like that, and being able to have real conversations with her that show me bits and pieces of who my little lady is becoming.  The one piece of advice I consistently give my baby girl is to "be you".  No matter what others are saying, wearing, doing you gotta dig down and find what you know is right and do it.  Be you and others will follow.  Be you and the friends you have are true and will be there no matter what. 

Its funny because it goes just as well for adults, huh?  I have plenty of days that I need to remind myself to stick to my guns and be who I know I am to be.  But enough blabber from me - I seem to be a mushy mess these days, LOL, maybe its the embarking birthday? - on to the project!

 

Sorry this is not the best photo but I"ve edited and edited and still can't get it to not be a bit blurry.  I worked on this piece as a whole adding lots of paint and molding paste to build up the background.  I'm so loving purple these days - who knew?  I added some Hambly transparencies and called it a wrap. 

 I think I'm going to figure out a way to hang this up.  Not sure if I want to go the eyelet and jump ring type of route or maybe mounting it on to a different base and working around that - possible just a frame?  Hhhmmm, what do you think?

This grid was published in SNR magazine and if you haven't checked out the new, hot look over there you totally should!  Plus you could be pubbed by checking out the current calls - BONUS!

Hope you all have had great days and are enjoying your evenings.  See you soon!

Out With the Old......

...... is the motto around my house these days.  I've been a cleaning lunatic and much to my body's dismay - mentally I'm a happy camper.  So imagine my delight when looking for a scrappy break I happened upon my friend Lisa's card challenge at MSW - out with the old; in with the new.  The concept: use old and new product.

stenciled molding paste colored with mist and embossing powder; bumpy textured created with watermark ink and embossing powder; mist splatters made with mica powder mixture

For my old contribution on this card I used my beloved Sassafras.... sigh..... the new stuff: mica powder, colored mesh, stencil.

1. misted molding paste, custom created embossing powder using mica powder for cloud stamp 2. bumpy embossing powder texture in upper left corner of notebook paper, mist splotches made with mica powder mixture 3. additional splatters, mesh, shimmery goodness

 

 

 Short and sweet tonight folks, I'm pooped but have so much more to do tomorrow and need to scoot to bed.  Until next time......