scrappassion

CSI #8 + OUAS

The CSI #8 color scheme is fantastic. I love yellow, it's my happy color so I went to town with the scheme:

The March 1 challenge at OUAS is All About Me

 

Journalling Criteria/Theme:

All About Me!

The focus of your journalling and the theme of your layout has to be based on YOU and something/s that you are really good at. Don't be shy! We are all good at something as small or as big as it might be.

And this is Nadia's sketch 

I was happy to combine these two challenges.

Here's my layout

 

And here are some detail shots

Note: my camera lens is not dirty, it's the diecut that is how would I say, a little worn...

One of the requirements for CSI was to use liquid mediums. I used acrylic paint, glimmer mist and ink on the background but wanted to use also Glossy accents. I covered this cut-out (Teresa Collins, I believe) with Glossy accents and after a couple of hours I went to admire it. Not only did I look at it but I picked it up. Bad mistake, missy! I dropped it FACE DOWN and as you can see,  it wasn't completely dry and thus I got this aged, worn look on my diecut. 

 

We also had to add something that sparkles or shines. Other than the glimmer mist which is really shiny and glimmery I added some sparkly brads. Brads!? Oh yes, I had forgotten all about those lil buggers. I added quite a few of those and love the effect!

 

Another sparkling element on my page is the chipboard ampersand. Have no recollection whatsoever about the company. I've had it for ages. I've said it many times before that I try to use my old stash in every layout and this time I used brads, the ampersand, the circle stickers (from Lisa Bearnson) and the above mentioned diecut. Go me!

I also splashed around black watered down acrylic paint. I put the layout on the ground and let the paint drop from far above, ca 1,5 mt. Finally I got big splashes :)

And the stitching is a must on my layouts.

The journaling is about me and my camera and about what I'm good at:

"My first DSLR camera was a Nikon D40. It served me well for 2 years while I was happily clicking away, always rigorously "on automatic". I actually thought I took discreetly good pictures. That changed when I enrolled in Karen Russell's online Photographers' Workshop in March 2009. Nine weeks later I was exhausted but had learned to take good pictures. ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation and white balance were no longer foreign words or strange concepts to me. Since then I have upgraded to D90 - the one in the picture - and last Christmas I indulged myself with a D7000. Heaven!"

When it all comes together

Don't you just love it? I had this photo of me and Andrea taken by Hubs 2 weeks ago and I was waiting for the right moment to scrap it.

And it came today with TCR #63 color palette which is gorgeous.

Here's the layout which I'm also submitting for the challenge blog BITW where the word to use in the title or journaling was LIFE/LIVING/LIVE.  (for May 22nd challenge). I also followed quite closely Nadia Cannizzo's sketch which was provided for inspiration.

The grey background paper is Little Yellow Bicycle's Halloween paper from a few years back. I just cut the orange border away and brushed some white paint on a couple of spots.

I misted a big paper doily but alas! it was so thin that it took too much color and ended up being too purplish/pinkish as opposed to dark red. So I used the paper towel that I had used to take off the excess mist from the doily.

I love the rose. I colored some book paper with 2-3 different shades of Distress Inks, glued with Glossy Accents the whole page to a clear packaging (Tim's or Heidi's, I don't know , I have practically saved them all and have used them for clear pages and various accents and embellies during the years) and ran it through my Cuttlebug using Tim Holtz's  Tattered Flowers die. I heated each layer for awhile with the heatgun until I could manipulate it. I used a wooden skewer to curl the petals a little bit, put 4 layers together and fastened them with an old MM brad. Remember always to color the backside too, since with dimensional embellies you're bound to see some of the backside.

The leaves are made out of grungepaper. I used Studio 490 (Wendy Vecchi's wonderful stamps) stamp. Well, actually I had stamped months ago some leaves after which I had lent the stamp to my friend and she still has it so I used the proto type to cut out my leaves for the rose. None of the Distress Inks had the right color so I mixed some acrylic paints to obtain the yellow I wanted and painted the leaves and  did also some stamping on the background with that yellow mix which looks a tad too creamy on screen. It's more yellow IRL.

Here's a closeup of the rose.

 

Here are some more detailed shots of the layout.

I just love that even though Andrea is this COOL 13-yr old, he's not afraid to show his affection and love and even sit on my lap every now and then :)

Grandma is...

the queen of MY heart. Made my layout using TCR#59 palette.

Loooooved the muted colors  but had some difficulties in finding just the right hues.

Andrea's only living grandma is Grandma Jo. She's 90 years old and lives in the States! Fortunately Andrea will spend 5 weeks this summer in Indiana and will get to bond with his own Queen of hearts:)

I whitewashed the Prima patterned paper first with yellow-ish paint, added some Distress crackle paint but didn't like the outcome so gessoed mostly over it.

Mixed Ranger's Copper Dabber with white paint and got just the right salmon hue I was after and bubble wrap painted here and there. Used some Bundled Sage Distress Ink to get some of the green sage color on the paper. Foam stamped half circles with Bundled Sage on the left side of the paper and on the right upper corner. They are really subtle and got mostly covered but they are there ;)

Both machine stitched and hand stitched, stamped with a roller script stamp in Black Archival ink. 

 

Here are some detailed shots of the page:

Hand stitching on the strips of paper, the photo and the strips are distressed with white acrylic paint. 

 

Handcut the banner and distressed the edges with Bundled Sage Distress Ink. You can see a closeup of the script stamp and the bubble wrap painting.

 

A closeup of the heart. First I put layers of Distress Inks Worn Lipstick and Wild Honey on a book paper. I then die cut a heart out of a transparent acrylic sheet using Mr Tim's Alterations Heart Wings die. Stapled the book paper behind the acrylic heart. The technique I've done here and here Why re-invent the wheel ... Only I had still Heidi Swapp's transparent hearts back then but now I can make my own. You really do not need the Alteration die to cut yourself a heart, but it's easier and gentler on my poor arthritis-ridden thumb.

 

CHEAP TOOLS AND TIPS

So many of my friends at The Color Room praised my stencil/misting on this layout

that I decided to do a little post about my stencils or better yet about the things I use as my background stencils or for stamping/misting/painting.

I do own a bunch of Crafter's Workshop stencils (and others too) which I use although now there are so many cool new ones that it's a blessing I don't have easy access to those: otherwise I'd buy them all, especially the geometrical ones (I own a lot of 12" x 12" swirly stencils, anybody wants to trade?)

Anyway I took pictures of my new "stencils" that I use almost in all my layouts and some examples on their use.

Here goes:

 gauze

   
 one layer of glimmer mist                     two layers of glimmer mist

 

medium bubble wrap

   
  acrylic paint                                                                glimmer mist

 

     
big bubble wrap                                                acrylic paint

 

non slip mat (one of my faves)

glimmer mist                                                same mat, same glimmer mist, flipped over (negative side)

 

punchinella (the base for sequins= sequin waste)

studio calico mist                                        same mist, flipped the punchinella over = negative side

 

dish drying mat (used in the above mentioned layout)

glimmer mist                                                flipped over = negative side

the image will be a little bit different if you start misting from the other side (don't have an example here, sorry)

 

corrugated cardboard

ink                                                                     re-inked and turned 90°

you can also stamp holding the cardboard piece at 45° angle to obtain the "diamond" shape

 

 

a plain plastic bag                                      scrunch it in your hand

 

 
paint it with 2-3 strokes of fairly dry paint        and dab it on your background paper

  
you can add more paint                             and re-dab it on the paper

 

 

 

and some real examples where I have used these stencils in my layouts 

the dish drying mat

 

non slip mat

 

punchinella

 

bubble wrap and corrugated cardboard

 

plastic bag

 

Hope you enjoyed this!

 

 

 

 

"If ever...

there is

tomorrow when we're

not  together... there is

something you must

always remember, you

are braver than you

believe, stronger than

you seem, and

smarter than you

think, but the most

important thing is,

even if we're apart, I'll

always be with you."                                                                                                                                 - Winnie the Pooh - 

 

I originally thought it perfect from Valentina to Andrea but to think of it, it fits also the other way around. 

I painted with acrylics, stamped, stitched and misted with Tattered Angels mists and masks. I also used a self-made mask with different sizes of holes punched on a cardboard.

I made this layout for The Color Room challenge #48 using Creative Scrappers' sketch #145.

   

You nailed it, kids

Kristina and Matteo went as Chucky and His bride to their Halloween party last year. I think they nailed their costumes. Everything was perfect from the makeup to the clothes.

I made a layout of them and used Sketchalicious sketch LO #14

 

I played with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists and Tim Holtz's mask and Prima's brick wall stamp. I also used Tim's Tattered Floral die and made a flower out of a metal sheet which I then embossed with Cuttlebug swiss dot embossing folder, sanded it, dabbed with Ranger's black dabber, wiped it off, curled the petals and added a decorative brad (so old that can't remember the brand, maybe MM?). Other Tim goodies are the grungeboard skull also painted with black dabber, the film strip and adage tickets punched with my Big Bite and placed strategically one on top of each other so that the ticket below which actually reads "story"  c-o-u-l-d  read "gory" which is more approriate for this layout.                      The measuring thingy under the photo is from an old notebook and then I added some pins and MM paper twine. The patterned paper underneath is from Rusty Pickle's best collection ever "Pop Star". 

Photo courtesy of Alessandro Saponi.

Here are some detailed shots:

Playing with paints and gesso...

and inks and mists and this is the result:

 

 

It's based on Creative Scrappers' sketch #143

I started out with painting with acrylics on the canvas, then I used Heidi Swapp's mask with Glimmer mist Graphite, then I attached the photo, sewed the ribbon under the photo, mounted the canvas on a light blue cardstock, stamped a bit around the edges and under the title with Studio 490 stamps (LOVE THEM!),added some gesso for more texture, sewed some more, stamped the circles on coordinating cardstock and mounted them with foam squares. For the title I used some old letter stickers (as you can see, I didn't have any upper or lowercase "e"s left so I used the number 3 upside down) and WeR Memory Keepers chipboard letters which I also painted with Jenni Bowlin's acrylic dabber (Soap Powder).

Here are a couple of detailed shots of the texture:

the splatter is obtained blowing with a straw on the little puddle of glimmer mist that I shook on the layout from the mask

 

All the stamped circles but one are attached with foam dots to give more depth and variation

 

Birthday [Blog] Bash

Welcome to Rebekah's Birthday Blog Bash. First of all Happy Birthday! Rebekah is celebrating her birthday with a blog hop that lasts the whole weekend. It started last night but you can easily come and play along. There are a lot of goodies and nice prices to be won.

I will start the Saturday hopping with this layout for which I have added step by step instructions for you to follow.

 

I have used a technique with Distress Inks and water to create the nice almost water colored look on my background strips. Here is how: 

Step 1

Swipe on your craft sheet Ranger's Distress Ink Dusty Concord and Spiced Marmalade close together but not overlapping them in order to avoid contamination of your ink pads.

Step 2

Mist the inks with water (I used a Mini mister)

Step 3

Place a white cardstock (I used a plain A4 size smooth not textured cardstock) on the misted inks and swipe your hand on the back of the cardstock. Do not swipe the cardstock over the inks, the colors will get all muddy.

Dry the inks with a heating tool.

Step 4

Repeat the procedure. This time you'll see droplets on the cardstock. Dry with the heat tool and you can also blot some of them with a paper towel.

Step 5

You can repeat the procedure until you are satisfied with your background. I did it 4 times.

Step 6

Trim three strips out of your cardstock. (roughly 5cm x 25-27cm). You can trim further if you want.

Step 7

Ink the edges of the strips with Dusty Concord using an ink blending tool. I blended Spiced Marmalade and Dusty Concord on the strips to cover up most of the white spaces.

Step 8

Place the strips and the photo on white cardstock.

Step 9

Place a transparency frame on your photo. I used one of Hambly  Screen Prints. You could also use a digital brush on your photo prior to printing it.

Step 10

Add journaling written on the computer and printed out on a ledger paper. Cut it in a circle and distress the edges with Distress Ink Walnut Stain. The journaling circle is mounted on foam pads.

Step 11

Add the title (American Crafts Thickers) and buttons. Finally sew around the whole layout with orange thread or alternatively doodle around the layout.

And voilà:

   

A BONUS

From the rest of the already painted A4 paper I made a card:

Step 1

Cut to size and distress the borders with Dusty Concord and add some Spiced Marmalade at the center.

Step 2

Stamp with Archival Ink Coffee (Archival Ink is a permanent ink which will not blend or bleed with Distress Inks which are water based inks) the image on the right side. I used a Technique Tuesday stamp.

Step 3

On the left side of the card stamp a quote with Black Archival Ink. I used Tim Holtz's stamp for this.

Mount to the front of a card.

And here's the finished card:

 
 

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial. 

And the Blog Hop continues. Your next stop is at Sandra Van der Geest's blog: