Monochromatic Monday 2-28-2011

Hello, all! This is a jam-packed Monochromatic Monday! I am sharing three layouts today. I made a mistake in Week 1 of The Monochrome Challenge at scrapbook.com. The challenge was to use light blue if you lived north of the equator and bright yellow if you lived south of the equator (the twist was Looking Out My Back Door) but when I read the description I just got as far as north and south and since I live in Texas, I thought I had to do a yellow layout. Well, I was extremely mistaken! Lol! So I created a light blue layout to exchange it with the yellow.

Winter's Gift layout. These are photos of my back yard last year when snow fell in February. It was out first year back in Texas and this gave my family a little taste of what we missed about Wisconsin. I used a sketch from Punky Scraps for this page. The papers are My Mind's Eye and I used my Cricut Expression to cut the snowflakes out. I also covered all the white parts with Star Dust Stickles.

Week 3 of the Monochrome Challenge was to use an all neutral palette with a bird twist. My favorite neutrals to use are black and white and I had just the photos I wanted to use of this sweet little cardinal that visited my house every day.

Tweet layout. This is a cardinal that would visit my house every day. Isn't he a beauty? I used the Meadow Lark collection of papers for this and added some fabric and paper roses. The title is made of Thickers and I stamped a flourish design with Staz-On Opaque Cotton White Ink. I used Stickles in Black Diamond to form the circle. This page is also a lift for the Scraplift 101 Challenge; a lift of Create by Craftysprinkles.

The last week of the Monochrome Challenge was to use your birthday colors from Colorstrology; both the month and the day. My colors were Coral Blush (July) and Lilac Marble (08). I wish my colors had been more to my taste but I did my best with these. 

Cake layout. This is me on my first birthday. The photos actually went really well with the papers and colors I chose to use. I used my February Scraps of Darkness kit for this. I was so lucky that the colors I needed were provided for me so coincidentally! I distressed the edges of all the papers with my Distrezz-It-All and used almost an entire package of Prima Symphony Blend flowers, plus some Prima E-line pearl bling, and some beaded trim. I used Lavender Stickles around the page as well and some old puffy sticker alphas I had in my stash. This page is also a lift for the Scraplift 101 Challenge at scrapbook.com; the lift is of Kissed by the Wind by CathyLane.

Saturday Steampunk 2-26-2011

Hello, all! Here I am, ready to share some steampunk-y goodness with you all finally! It seems I've been missing these for some time. If it's not one thing, it's another. So there is a challenge posted at Scraps of Darkness and Scrapbook.com called the DarkLoveStory Challenge. The challenge is to scrap a tragic love story, such as the ones of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony or Romeo and Juliet. Now I normally would have gone the traditional route with the theme but I then I got this idea....One of my favorite movies is one that was released on the Internet, kind of short, but really good, and a musical! This movie is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!

{spoiler alert}

This is a story of Dr. Horrible: he wants to be a super villain and be accepted into the Evil League of Evil. He created trans-matter rays, ice rays and the like but always gets thwarted by his nemesis, Captain Hammer. Captain Hammer is a hero but not the most decent of guys, since he doesn't like the poor and unfortunate all that much. Then comes in Penny, a beautiful do-gooder that Dr. Horrible (as Billy Buddy) meets at the laundromat and falls in love with. He loves her but doesn't have the guts to talk to her until the day that she asks him to sign a petition to save a building to use as a homeless shelter. They become friends after that. One day during one of Dr. Horrible's heists, Penny falls into danger and Captain Hammer saves her life. They begin dating and cause Dr. Horrible complete and utter emotional anguish. After countless failures in evil, the Evil League of Evil sends Dr. Horrible a letter, saying that the only way he'll be accepted now is through murder. The heartbroken Dr. chooses Captain Hammer as his target and during a speech, freezes Captain Hammer and is almost to the point to victory when the freeze ray malfunctions and sets Captain Hammer free. Captain Hammer takes the death ray Dr. Horrible was about to use on him and prepares to kill Dr. Horrible. The death ray explodes sending shrapnel out across the room and killing Penny. Everyone believes Dr. Horrible killed Penny and so he is accepted into the Evil League of Evil and becomes a super villain. Now that Dr. Horrible got what he thought he wanted but lost what he really wanted, the love of his life, will he be happy? I don't think so.

Here is my layout in tribute of this tragic love story:

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog layout. For this page, I used my February Scraps of Darkness kit and an image I got from the Internet that I cut out. The screws are brads that I dipped in bronze UTEE and the large black gears are from the transparency that comes with the Tim Holtz masks. I inked the papers and over the gear masks in the background with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, used some 7 Gypsies Paddington stamps,  and added some Tim Holtz gears.

I hope you enjoyed my telling of the story and I hope you'll find this movie and give it a chance!



March Guest Designer at The (Paper) Trail Makers Blog

Hello, all! I am so happy to say that I am finally over the flu and feel 100% better. I've been working in my scraproom again and boy, does that feel good! I wanted to let you all know that last month I won the opportunity to be the March Guest Designer at The (Paper) Trail Makers Blog, so be on the lookout for my work over there! It's going to be a little more on the sunny side! Lol! I hope you'll stop by and participate in their challenges and take some inspiration from them as well!

We interupt your regularly scheduled programming....

Hello, all. I just wanted to drop by and let you know that the regularly scheduled posts for Mon, Tues, and possibly Wed. will not be posted as I would like. Due to a terrible bought with the flu I am still recuperating and have not scrapped in way too long! I hope to be getting back to my scrap desk very soon and to begin sharing with you all again.

Saturday Steampunk 2-19-2011

Hello, all. I am still fighting this terrible flu so this post will be quick. This is just a sneak peek of a layout I completed for the Scrapbook New and Review Magazine Staffer call. I hate to be a tease but as soon as I know one way or the other about their decision, I'll post the entire thing. Hope all of you are having a wonderful and illness free weekend!

Whatever Wednesday 2-16-11

Hello, all! I've just emerged from a mountain of blankets to post this really quickly. It seems my son gave me the flu and I've been miserable all day. I've got chills, fever, a sore throat, a runny nose, and aches all over. I really wish kids would keep their germs to themselves! lol! So here are the layouts I wanted to share with you today.

Sketchy Thursdays GDT Sketch.

2011 is just tripping along, isn't it, and we're already ready for our March Guest Design Team Challenge!

I'm feeling the whole Valentine's Day vibe around here so I'm going to up the GDT ante.

In addition to using the sketch above, please include on your layout:

♥ Pink & Green or Red & Turquoise (I chose Red & Turquoise)
♥ Hearts (I made a heart banner)
♥ A list about something/someone you love (I listed something I love about each one of my family members)

My Family layout. This is the page I created for the Sketchy Thursdays GDT Call. I also created this for the (Paper) Trailmakers Challenge - Love Letters.

This week's challenge is all about Love Letters. No, you don't have to show us those letters you received!!! What we want you to do is a Recipe Challenge this time. Not actually cooking, ladies!!! You will pick 4 of the ingredients that are spelled with the letters from Love Letters and use those on your projects!!! You can use more than 4 if you would like, but you must use at least 4 to qualify for our drawing at the end of the month for that fabulous stamp set from My Pink Stamper that Sandi introduced to you the other day!! We also want you to tell us which 4 you used. Most of the time it is obvious, but sometimes it is not, so please "spell it out" for us!!!!

You will have until 5 pm EST on Saturday, 19 Feb. to post your project to Mr. Linky. Don't forget, for everything you participate in for February you will get your name in the drawing for the stamp set. And, we just may have some surprises along the way to get your name in an extra time! Sandi started us off with her challenge a few days ago to PM her over on the forum with the answer to a question - you can read about it here!
Lace(can be lace trim or doily or lacy paper)  - Used a doilie heart
Oval shaped item
Vellum
Eyelets - Used eyelets to hold up the banner
Letters - Used Thickers for the title
Edge punch (some call it a border punch!!)
Tag
Trim - Used pom pom trim
Electronic die cutting machine - Used my Cricut for the hearts
Ribbon - Used red and white ribbon
Stamps - Used stamps on the turquoise blocks

 

Thursday Sketch for Pages in Time Blog.

Kissy. layout. This is my son giving a kiss to one of our cats. So sweet. I inked up the edges and inked over the mask with Distress Ink in Black Soot. The paper is Echo Park.



Tea Time Tuesday 2-15-2011 and Scraps of Darkness DT Release

Hello, all! Got a lot of projects to share with you today! Today is the 15th so I'll be showing you what I've been working on for Scraps of Darkness! There are quite a few layouts and a couple of cards, most of which have to do with Valentine's Day in one way or another. Let's get started shall we! First, here is the project I completed for Tea Time Tuesday. I used my February Scraps of Darkness kit for this! As many of you all ready know, The Queen of Hearts/Red Queen is my favorite character from Alice in Wonderland! And when I saw this image I knew I had to scrap it! The artist is Sandra Vargas and I think she did an amazing job with this cartoon version of the queen!

The Red Queen layout. You know the first thing I thought of when I saw this diamond patterned paper in my SOD Feb. kit was that I had to use it for something Alice-inspired! I used black and deep red Bazzill cardstocks along with the diamond paper from the Theresa Collins Noel collection and I distressed the edges with my Zutter Distrezz-It-All. I used my Cricut Expression for the hearts and distressed those as well. I colored the beaded trim (originally white), the black flower (originally peach), and some of the title letters (also originally white) with Stiletto Glimmer Glam and the large rose (originally orange) and the rest of the letters with Be Positive Glimmer Glam. I also stamped some suit symbols and embossed them, the metal frame, and pieces of the background with Ranger Gold Embossing Powder. The diamond mirrors and the small black letters are also from the kit.

Here is a look at the February Scraps of Darkness kit, which was revealed on February 4th. A little early so everyone could get their Valentine's Day projects done in time for the big day!

  

The February Main Kit. This kit had everything for those Darkly Decadent Valentine and Love pages!

The February Patterned Paper Add-On. I LOVE the patterns on these! The colors are so rich and luscious!

The Cardstock Add-on. Great Bazzill papers in coordinating colors!

The Romance Add-On. Amazing embellishments to add some sparkle and bling to your pages!

The Color Add-On. My favorite add-on! I love this because the colors always coordinate perfectly with the kit and I can change anything to a different color if I need or want to!

Here is a wonderful sketch from Suepup aka Charlotte, the new sketch designer at SOD! Gorgeous isn't it?!

My Own Valentine layout. Here is my take on February's SOD sketch. I turned it upside down and left out the circle. I love diamond and damask patterns! Love this paper! Used my We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy tool to stitch the scallops, colored the pleated trim (originally white) with Be Positive Glimmer Glam and the Thickers Merry foam title with Staz-On Jet Black Ink. I also colored the flowers with the Be Positive Glimmer Glam which is quickly becoming my favorite color! Used a bling flourish, metal frame, and ornate trim from the kit and added some Christmas Red Stickles from my stash. The reason I titled it My Own Valentine is because my husband is oversees and I'll be spending this Valentine's Day without him.

Love/Hate Relationship layout. This is my pom, Attila, with my BFF's dog, Charlie. Charlie weighs about 70 lbs more than Attila but yet they still get along well, except when they want the same toy. That's where I got the title from. lol! I distressed the edges of the papers with my Distrezz-It-All, stamped flourishes on the pink paper and added some skull borders on the black. I added foam letters and flowers from my stash. The black and white flowers are from the kit.

My Drama Queen layout. This is my eldest daughter making faces at the camera. She is my very own drama queen and the journaling says something to the effect that although she has caused us all grief she is a caring and loving person and we wouldn't want her any other way. Everything but the title letters and flowers underneath the roses is from the SOD kit. And I used some of my stamps on the pink papers.

My Drama Queen Close-Up. I added a crown to the fairy's head and Magenta Stickles to her wings to make her more queen-like.

Valentine's Day Card 1. I made this card for one of my son's teachers. Lots of border punching and stickles!

Valentine's Day Card 2. I made this card for my son's other teacher. I used a doilie, some cutout hearts, ribbon, and Stickles for this one.

Sweetheart layout. Okay, this one took me hours to make! Why, you ask? The double heart frame for the photo is made up of tiny little hearts that I punched out with one of my border punches (there is a close-up of this below). The stamping and inking I did with Worn Lipstick Distress Ink. Now, why would I take the trouble? Well, one I like the mosaic look to it and two, there is a challenge over at scrapbook.com called the Obnoxious-Obscene-Overload Challenge and the challenge is to use as much of the named embellishment as possible. For February, the embellishment is hearts. So not only did I stamp a ton of hearts on the paper and I don't think that counts toward the final count but I punched out all these tiny hearts to use them on one big embellishment. I sure hope this counts! There are over 625 hearts on there! Yes, I counted! LOL!



Sweetheart Close-Up. Here you can see all the little hearts that make up the larger ones.

Monochromatic Monday 2-14-2011

Hello, all! Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone is spending today with their loved ones and having some fun! I am staying home with a sick son who seems to get an ear infection every other week or so. But he's quiet and keeping himself busy so I came here to post my monochromatic project for this week. Now over at the Monochrome Challenge at scrapbook.com this week's color is a neutral palette with the twist of birds but.....since it's Valentine's Day, I switched this week's color with next week's which is red. This layout is also for the Scraplift 101, Scrap Your Faves, and the Paints & Mists challenges over at scrapbook.com. I lifted Byondbzr's (Rebecca) You Are My Star layout for this.

You Are My Heart layout. A truer title never existed; my son and the rest of my family are my heart, nothing else could take their place. In Rebecca's original she uses corrugated cardboard as her background but it's just not my style so I went with black cardstock. I also went with a stickled heart because I {heart} Stickles! It was a lot of fun to work with paints this way! Might have to do it again one of these days.

You Are My Heart close-up. The twist for week 3's Monochrome Challenge is poetry and the poem that is written here goes like this:

You are in my thoughts and in my heart,

wherever I may go.

On Valentine's Day, I'd like to say

I care more than you know.

Saturday Steampunk 2-12-2011

Hello, all! Boy, has this been a busy month! I've got loads of Valentine's Day and Scraps of Darkness projects to finish up. The 15th is regularly reveal day for SOD and even though the reveal for this month was early, some of the DT decided to reveal their projects on the 15th anyway. So I've been working on that and projects for sharing here next week. What this comes down to though, is that I do not have a Steampunk project to share with you today. I had this really great idea for a steampunk card incorporating the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge for this week (#31) but between projects I am working on, homework, and a very cluttered garage (which I've been meaning to clean for a long while now), I've had no time to work on it. But I do have something steampunky to share with you all; an image that I found on the internet that is perfect for my Steampunk theme here and for Valentine's Day coming up in a couple of days. So here is my Valentine to you all!

You Make My Heart Pump and My Gears Turn!

Such a cool steampunk valentine! The artist's name is R. Sandberg at DeviantArt.

Whatever Wednesday 2-9-2011

Hello, all! I have just been helping my son, who is in Pre-K, to sign the Valentine's day cards for his class. A little frustrasting because he's supposed to be practicing writing his name and he wants to write so big that his name does not fit on the cards! lol! Still it is so sweet that we got to share this for the first time. So on to what I want to share with you all today. It's a Valentine's Day ornament (which because of it's color, will be on my Christmas tree next Christmas!). I used a lit of this and a little bit of that from my Scraps of Darkness kits and my stash to make it. This is what I call A Dark Heart.

A Dark Heart ornament. This is a paper mache heart I bought at the local craft store. I painted with Adirondack Paint in Red Pepper then gave it a coat of Black Soot Distress Crackle Paint. I added some random roses that I covered in red Glimmer Mist and wrapped some Dusty Attic chipboard barbed wire that I misted with Graphite Glimmer Mist. I then hung the red jewel with a jump hoop at the bottom and a ribbon loop and bow at the top.

A Dark Heart Close-up. Here you can see more of the shimmer of the mists and the crackle of the black paint.

Tea Time Tuesday 2-8-2011

Hello, all! I have something really fun to share with you! At least it was really fun to create! Over at The Altered Alice Blog they are running their first monthly challenge since taking over for the Oh! Alice Blog. Here is the challenge in there words:

To reflect all these puzzling changes, the challenge is to make something that features a dress form, OR to make something that changes in form! While it is not required that your project include Alice in Wonderland, we do encourage it. If your project does feature Wonderland you will get two chances in the prize drawing instead of one!


I thought about doing a dress form on my project but I'm not really into the dress form craze that is going on right now and so I began thinking of something that changes form. What better thing than a caterpillar changing into a butterfly?! So I took that idea and used a fabulous sketch over at the Pages In Time Blog and designed this page below. Look carefully because the caterpillar changes into a butterfly in the next picture. Following the photo of the page, I'll show you how I did it.

Sketch for Thursday Sketch at the Pages in Time blog. 

Metamorphosis (caterpillar) layout. Using the beautiful sketch from Thursday Sketches at the Pages in Time Blog, I created a base for my design. This is the caterpillar part.

Metamorphosis (In Between) layout. There is a "wheel" underneath the striped green paper on which both the caterpillar and the butterfly are on and as you turn it, the charachter "changes".

Metamorphosis (butterfly) layout. Here is my version of the butterfly the Disney Caterpillar turned into in the movie. I used many flowers from my stash, The Paper Studios Basics papers, Thickers, and a whole lot of stickles. (Sorry my watermark navigated itself onto the photo, lol).

So this is where I started with this idea. I used a regular little eyelet to fasten my "wheel" to the background.

Here is where I realized that if I kept the wheel where it was, my characters would bever fit. So I moved the circle over some.

This is the green striped paper strip for over the wheel. I added quite a few layers of mounting tape to make sure it was raised enough.

This is me arranging things and testing the wheel mechanism. 

Here you can see that I love using Stickles! Lol! The butterfly wings are stamped and cut out and glued on a different color of caterpillar.

This is a close-up of the face on the flower. I made it with a push mold and modeling clay and painted it with Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze in Northern Lights

Monochromatic Monday 2-7-2011

Hello, all! Time for my first Monochromatic Monday post! I am in a chipper mood today since I got my homework done early for once! lol! And I hope that all of you are in similar moods. So on to my page for today. I created this simple page as a scraplift of Nature Boy by SuperAllyFan for the Scraplift 101 Challenge at scrapbook.com. And this page is for week 1 of the Monochrome Challenge at scrapbook.com as well. The first week of this challenge is to use bright blue if you live north of the equator and bright yellow if you live south of the equator, and it has the twist of "Looking out my back door".

Out in the Sunshine layout. Here is my son playing at the park in the sunshine. As you can tell by the sweat on his face, it was a hot day that day. Pretty simple and straightforward page.

Close-up. You might be able to see that the yellow paper has a monochromatic design on it. This paper is glazed Bazzill's. Love those papers! They have so much dimension and detail.

Saturday Steampunk 2-5-2011

Hello, all! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends despite the awful weather everyone seems to be experiencing. Today is my first Steampunk Saturday and I can tell you I am really nervous about sharing this page with you all. The reason is that it was way out of my comfort zone to create this page because it's pink. That's right, no dark colors here! I don't like pink all that much. I admire it when others use it and sometimes I find items that I like that are pink. Pink flowers are good, and so are piggies, lol! But I don't use it too much in my scrapping, especially not in my steampunk pages. But I wanted to create a page for my steampunk challenge that incorporated love and Valentine's day and all that. The Compendium of Curiosities Challenge (which I have been remiss in participating in lately) for this week is altered metal with paint and I thought, well that would be perfect to do for this layout because the gears I so love to use could be painted to match the page. So here it is with a few close-ups.

A Love Like No Other layout. Here it is! My very first try at a girly steampunk page! Let's start with the patterned background paper: When I saw this Script Polka Dot paper from Echo Park, the first thing I thought of was the the hot air balloon would go perfectly in a steampunk layout! I used MS Punch Around the Paper punches with hearts to keep in the love theme. The title letters are from Echo Park's Be Mine collection as well. A couple of pink polka dot flowers from Prima rounds it out nicely. The photo is of my very spoiled dog cuddling up to my eldest daughter. He's such a clown! I swear he posed for this!

Close-up #1. The heart and the wings are grungeboard painted using a Pearl Adirondack Paint Dabber and a hot pink stamp pad that I had in my stash. I added Star Dust Stickles on top of the pink of the heart.

Close-up #2. Here is a close-up of the 7Gypsies gears that I painted with Pearl Adirondack paint.

Close-up #3. This is a cute little cupid image I found online. He's from a vintage add for mouthwash! Totally cute!

~*~Scraps of Darkness February Release~*~

Hello, all! Here I am to show you the Scraps of Darkness February Release! Melinda over at Scraps of Darkness wanted everyone to be able to use this kit for their Valentine's day projects so she set the release date for earlier in the month. And with the weather being as it has been, I just got my kit in the mail and haven't been able to complete any pages. I will be posting them as I go. This kit is fabulous! It's so full of rich details that you can add to your pages! Scraps of Darkness also has a new sketch artist, Charlotte aka Suepup, and I know you will love her work! SOD also has new challenges to participate in and loads of extras in its Shoppe! I hope you'll go over and check it all out!

So right now, here are the Scraps of Darkness February kit and Charlotte's first sketch for SOD  :

Whatever Wednesday - 2/2/2011

Hello, all! Today I am going to share a page I created for the Thursday Sketch over at Lasting Memories~Pages in Time Blog. I have had the die cut paper I used in this layout since like March of last year! And I finally dug it out to use it! The photo is of my two daughter and I thought about how much they have changed and grown over the years; that's where I came up with the title, Journey Forward. That is all any of us can do. And I want them to know that. There is no use looking to the past because you can only create the future.

Here is the Thursday Sketch for January 27th:

And here is my version of the sketch: