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in Mykonos.
This is the layout I made for Kraft It Up! June challenge. We had to create a layout using a timeline with at least 3 photos and naturally on kraft paper.
This is Andrea who was doing flips and somersaults in the pool at Kouros Hotel in Mykonos in 2009. He wasn't aware that making splashing and jumping into to pool in a 5 star hotel is not really appropriate but Elena and John were gracious enough not to say anything. Andrea had the time of his life!!!! And he wants to go back!!!
I just finished this layout for OUAS (Once Upon A... Sketch) challenge blog where the sketch was this
When did my lil boy become a teenager?
The photos were taken in April. I swear in January Andrea was still shorter than me. It's almost as if he changed overnight. Incredible...
I started the layout using stencils and modeling paste on blue cardstock to give it some texture and roughness and then I painted strokes of red acrylic paint. I made the bracket and put some twine around it and a couple of eyelets for a masculine touch.
I added the washer and a piece of a measuring tape.
The clock is Tim Holtz's stamp. I used Distress Ink Black Soot and put clear embossing powder on it (it doesn't show in the pictures, not even in the closeup). The measuring tape and the clock of course show the time and the growth.
I mounted the photos on a piece of Fancy Pants pink paper with flowers to show that Andrea also has a softer and more affectionate side to him. It's not all Mom-you-don't-get-it. LOL.
I stitched around the various papers and across the title. Finally I added my printed journaling
is the title for my layout for TCR#64. The colors in Her Room were very girly, summery, lollipoppish :) I know, I just made up that word.
Bright Red, Baby Blue, Lolli Pink, Buttercup Yellow. As soon as I saw the colors I knew which photo I wanted to use. It's a photo from 1988 of my girls. Can't help it, I start smiling as soon as I look at it.
I whitewashed the background paper (Basic Grey Sugared collection), spritzed some yellow Glimmer mist and some water and let it run. I stamped some red circles onto the background before stitching the various pieces of paper and embellies and the photo. Some splashes of red paint and voilà.
Some closeups
Hey, I'm on a roll now... Ok. scratch that. Got a little euphoric because I made another card, this time with this beautiful technique of Tim's.
So Grundy Mondays #8 was all about faux water colors. The link will take you to Linda's blog and you can see the wonderful art all Tim's "followers" have submitted. I spend hours looking everyone's pieces.
My project is about month late, lol, but no worries: I have yet #6,7,9,10 and 11 to do and they are ALL late! But since I love Tim and his fab techniques, I'll be doing them all... some time.
I used watercolor paper/cardstock which, and I quote the Master : " is designed for water and ink. the little pits in the paper work as ink wells and allow colors to pool up creating great effects"
Who am I to question this? :) And I love what I came up with. I did do some practicing first with a couple of different stamps and colors - my Adirondack Dye Ink supply is quite limited, I have only 3 pads, so I went ahead and used also some Distress Inks (worked nicely).
The quote is Tim's too, the butterfly stamp is a clear stamp from Chatterbox if I remember correctly. I slightly colored the edges with Distress Ink and mounted the piece on DCWV plum cardstock of which I then distressed/sanded the edges. Luv this!
Yeah, I know, I'm falling behind but I'm not stressing.
You can find the details on this week's challenge here on Linda's blog and the technique here.
Tim Holtz is the fab guy who has brought so much inspiration to all of us.
Here's my project for Grungy Mondays #12
I made a card with the fun lil pocket. I have to say I struggled a lot with this resist technique. After trying it twice with not so brilliant results (read: awful!), I used Distress Stain instead of the dabber. Well, at least I tried. I used Nathalie Kalbach's wonderful pp, Tim's Tattered Flower alteration die to make the flower with the same technique than this one.
I also used Studio 490 background stamps, Ranger's embossing powder, Versamark embossing pad, Tim's Ideology pieces, Distress Inks, Archival inks (black and coffee), an old metal button of which I cut out the shank and machine stitching all around.
I used metal and my project is perfect also for this week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show Some ...METAL
is the title of my layout for CCG#197. Loved the color combo and just happened to have the right photo. Andrea took this a couple of weeks ago (I've used it closely cropped in another layout) and my top with red and pink matched the colors of the combo perfectly.
The Designer's challenge was to focus on technique. We were to enhance the photo adding a digital frame or text. I added a text (House of 3) which is also the title of my layout.
I masked and misted, used a selfmade foam stamp (heart). Just recently I saw somebody use one similar, I think it might be Donna Downey's but I'm not sure, and since I didn't have time to place an order and wait for it to arrive, I made my own. I glued book pages and gessoed them with a hint of a cream acrylic (the gesso was too white). I stamped with acrylics the tiny dots, sanded and stitched the edges of the pp and the border strip, glued the twine and flicked some Studio Calico mist. I also used Distress Stain on Tim's tissue tape.
Due to some personal and not so personal events that have touched my life lately, I'm really cherishing every minute of my life with my loved ones and trying to live to the fullest every day without too many regrets.
Another happy note: I was featured at OUAS for June 1st challenge. What an honor!
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 :)
This week's color combo at CCG #196 was delicious, beachy and also romantic.
I had all these beach photos in mind and actually wanted to use one of me and Hubs, but I just kept hearing Alice Cooper's "School's Out For Summer" in my head over and over again! So I caved in.
Fortunately I had taken a photo of Andrea the last day of school but his T-shirt was purple! Well, I converted it to black and white and started working on the layout.
Isn't it always so that when you are in a hurry, the problems start piling up?
I had gessoed the white background paper very lightly but with some nice puffy strokes of gesso. When I went to mist the brick mask I encountered some problems: those of you who are familiar with Glimmer mist and gesso, know that the mist tends to pool and not really soak into the paper if it's been primed. I had forgotten about this so my brick wall turned out very odd looking :(
I saved the situation adding some gauze and paint. I used the paint very generously covering two sides of my photo with it (inspired by Solange).
BTW before I went to "construct" the brick wall, I had already used Distress Stains on the number mask (which is an old KI Memories lace paper).
The rest of the layout came together without other major problems:)
I stitched around the layout and on top of the word "summer", made some stitching in the corners - they're supposed to resemble the tic-tac-toe grid (artistic freedom in use here), and the numbers of course refer to math, and the brick wall to the school building.
I also used my EK Success border punch which gives a look that a page has been torn from a notebook.
Andrea really does NOT look happy, but it's because at 13 going on 18 you just have to look so COOL!
Finished the layout with black paint splatters (I use a thin flexible plastic wire which I just dip directly in the paint bottle and then "knock" on it with my finger - this tip is from Lindy who uses a thin twig I believe).
Without further ado (well, about time!) here's the layout:
And here are some closeup shots mostly of the texture.
I dedicate this layout to my lil' one.
This week the color palette #62 at TCR was a whitewashed orange. I love orange so I loved working on this.
I used stamping, misting, masking and a lot of hand stitching which I performed last night while watching this season's last episode of Grey's Anatomy.
The June 5th challenge at Bird Is The Word is "amazing" so I got two birds with one layout so to speak.
Here are a couple of closeups
I almost forgot to tell you that I got an Honorable mention at WW1 for the month of May with my other orange layout.
I wrote about this blog Scrap for Help last week. They have tips, tutorials and step by steps there and they also have a monthly challenge. You can read about the June challenge here.
Practically the requirements were to scrap about
1. love/sentiment (in Brazil Valentine's Day is June 12)
2. use bubble wrap
3. use flags/banners/pennants
This is my page for the challenge. I used a photo taken by Andrea a week ago at the Strawberry Fair. I edited it and cropped it closely and thought it was perfect for this challenge as well as the quote that I used as my journaling.
Scrap for Help is a blog where the use of recycled materials is encouraged. Can you guess what my background is made of?
It's a paper towel I had been using to wipe my craft mat and blot the excess mist and ink from my layouts during these past weeks.
Here's a photo of the paper towel (this is another one, but you get the idea. I had already glued the one that I used to the kraft paper).
I used Mod Podge to glue it on the kraft paper
and after it had dried I stamped on it with bubble wrap and white acrylic paint and machine stitched a crooked square on it.
I just love how it turned out. The colors (too yellow on the photo above - used a wrong WB setting) are perfect for my photo.
Here are some closeups of the finished layout.
I used some scraps from a previous layouts and made the acrylic heart from a packaging
I made the banner and distressed the borders with a sanding paper and put some stickles, but it's really hard to see.
Just a closeup of the texture
The quote is printed on cardstock which I cut into strips, inked the edges and attached with foam squares to give dimension.
As always your comments are VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
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