scrappassion

Soak Up The Sun

is the title of my layout as a Guest Design Team Member for Scrap Our Stash April Bring in the Sun Challenge.

The photo is of Franco and Andrea this past Christmas in Cathedral Cove in Coromandel, New Zealand.

 

DON'T EVER LOSE...

THAT LIGHT IN YOUR EYES.

Love the lyrics of LeAnn Rimes' song and used them for this layout of Andrea for CCG #188.

I am not afraid

of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday and love today!

Love this quote and used it on my canvas that I made during Nathalie Kalbach's workshop in Athens. Loved all the media we worked with and love the result:)

Photo courtesy of Paola Saccarola. I have edited the photo and changed it to b/w.

I participate in The Color Room's color palette #54 with this  since the colors I chose for the canvas are exactly like the one's in the palette even though I made the layout even before the palette was released.

ATHENS IN APRIL

I had a lovely time in Athens with my friends Bruna and Roberto last weekend (from Thursday to Monday).

We met with Lydia from Luxemburg and Nathalie from Germany at the airport where our host's Elina's boyfriend John came to pick us up.

 

Thursday night we went for a walk and for some shopping in Glyfada with another friend Zeffy.

 

Friday we visited Acropoli and the surrounding areas.

 

A group shot inside one of the metro stations. All the stations were amazingly clean and well kept - at least for us who live in Rome!

 

The Propylaea, the gateway to Acropoli

 

Me amongst hundreds of tourists at the entrance. It was a real challenge to manage to take photos without hordes of (other) tourists in them.

 

The temple of Athena Nike (nike=victory). Athena was was worshipped as goddess of victory in war.

 

Parthenon, just a small part. Tried to avoid the above mentioned tourists and the scaffolding but couldn't avoid the cranes in the shot.

 

The Erechteion, the temple on the north side of Acropoli with the famous...

 

Porch of the Maidens (Caryatids)

 

All of the above and much more we learned from our marvelous tour guide Zeffy. Thank you so much!

 

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus where there are still held concerts and other events during the summer.

 

And a lovely poppy in between the ancient stones.

 

The Dionysos theater at the foot of the Acropoli.

 

A view of Plaka, the old historical neighborhood of Athens, seen from Acropoli.

 

After the visit to Acropoli a nice "cappuccino freddo" was in order.

 

After a delicious lunch our next stop was at the Monastiraki flea market where tourist shops, jewelery shops, new and old all blend together in a burst of colors.

Yummy strawberries.

 

The octagonal Tower of the Winds near Roman Agora in Plaka.

 

Colorful wine jugs

After the tour in Plaka we dashed to Syntagma square (or Constitution Square) to see the Changing of the Guards which takes place every hour on the hour.

The Evzones or Evzoni (or Tsoliades as they are commonly called) are an elite ceremonial unit that guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Hellenic Parliament and the Presidential Mansion. These guards wear the blu winter uniform. On the photo above the Evzones who took place after these, wear the traditional uniform with white bell-like sleeves and a white foustanella, a kilt like garment, with 400 pleats commemorating the 400 years of Ottoman occupation. It also has a silver brokade-like waistcoat. This traditional uniform is used on Sundays and on special occasions, so we were quite lucky to see two different uniforms.

After the solemn moment at Syntagma Square we were all ready to go home.

 

We had two lovely mixed media workshops with Nat on Saturday. Will post photos of the finished projects as soon as I finish them:)

Elina's mom kiria Katerina had prepared a succulent dinner for us Saturday night.

 

Me and kiria Katerina Sunday morning

On Sunday we went to Vari for lunch and had two of my favorite things in Greece: lamb chops (paidakia) and...

yogurt with honey!

Here I am with my dear friends Elina and John

 

 I managed to go shopping Monday morning and found some really cute outfits. Such a satisfactory end to a wonderful long weekend in Athens.

Thank you Bruna, Roberto, Nat, Lydia, Zeffy and a special thanks and hugs to Elina, John and kiria Katerina. I love you all!

Leaving for...

the airport in a couple of minutes! I'm going to Athens and I'll be staying with my lovely friend Elina, will have the pleasure of doing two great mixed media workshops with Nathalie Kalbach (and meet some old friends) and will finally have the opportunity to VISIT ATHENS! I  practically know the Elefterios Venizelo's airport by heart from my numerous visits to Crete (have to change planes always in Athens), but I have never really been to Athens. Can't wait!!!

Will be back Monday night.

Imagine

is the title of my layout for The Color Room's palette #52.

I struggled with the colors but then had a great idea and used the tag that I made earlier this afternoon for Grungy Mondays #2 challenge inspiration. 

Here is my layout with Valentina on her graduation day from the university 2 years ago.

Used some Tattered Angels glimmer mist, white paint, machine stitching and at the end I was quite happy how this turned out considering that this is not my fave color combo.

Grungy Mondays #2

Yeah, I'm still on a roll, lol! Two tags out of two. Not bad, huh. I know, it's still early days but I'm confident I'll do good on this one. Linda posted yesterday the Grungy Mondays #2 challenge inspiration.

You can find HERE the video on the technique used by Tim.

And this is my tag:

Hmmm, the colors are slightly off. Too pinkish. Oh well, it's too late and I'm too tired to take another photo and upload it or start fiddling with photoshop.

Anyway I covered a manila tag with a book page (my first TWO attempts did not work out. Either the book page was too thin, the multi medium was not good or the foam stamp with letters sucked, but they just didn't turn out anything acceptable so I changed all those components and used a thicker book page, Claudine Helmuth's Multi Medium and a foam stamp with no letters) and used some foam stamps that Lisa Bearnson gave me ages ago. I used Victorian Velvet and Pumice Stone, a Tattered Angel flourish stamp and Wendy Vecchi's phrase stamp. Machine stitched around the edges, added a bling brad and an old pearl button and was quite happy with my creation.

And after a couple of hours I was even happier since I used it on a layout. If you want to see it, you have to read the next blog post:)

The things you are to me

In this layout I used a verse from Secret Garden's The Things You Are To Me. Love that song BTW.

I created this layout based on the CCG #186 palette which I found truly inspiring. The subject of the layout is my darling hubby and the layout is laden with layers: paint (stamping), gesso, more paint, book page collage, more gesso, more paint (splatters)stitching, misting on corrugated paper, layers of pattern paper, twine and then it was mounted on cardstock and needed some more gesso:) Loved working on this.

some details

Grungy Mondays with Linda and Tim

So here we go again with some cool techniques from the One and Only Tim Holtz!

Last year Linda Ledbetter started a weekly challenge called Compendium of Curiosities based on techniques in Tim's book. It was a huge success. Even I managed to finish 5 challenges of more than 30 challenges she posted during the months. There were so many fans and followers that she decided to start with a new series called Grungy Mondays. Each Monday she will post a challenge based on Tim's techniques and the first one is Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas 2008, day 10.

In between doing layouts for various challenge blogs, participating in Julie Balzer's online workshop It's Sew Easy (will post my first creations soon), I managed to make my first tag. I really hope it won't be the only one!!!

 

For the background I used Peeled Paint DI and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect pearls and distressed it with Mustard Seed and Rusty Hinge. For the heart I used Copper Perfect Pearls and attached a crown on it. Used some Prima flowers and a 7Gypsies large brad (Zanzibar collection). Didn't have Tim's alphabet so I used some other and made the badground for them with another tag and some Wendy Vecchi's background stamps with Sepia Archival Ink.

Loved creating a tag for a change!