12 Tags....Day 2

Hello again! Posting twice in one day to get caught up on my tags... Here's the link to Tim's post for today. This one scared me a little at first but in a way ended up being more fun because unlike the first tag, I didn't have a lot of the supplies for this one. Namely, I was short some Kraft resist paper. So I decided to see if I could make my own by doing some clear emboss resist with one of Tim's Christmas stamps. I THINK it would have worked in theory...but it didn't work out in practice, and I'm pretty sure that's because the paper I used wasn't dark enough and so there was not enough contrast once the stain was on. I ended up stamping over it with Coffee Archival. I could have started over, but.... I guess I was just being lazy. =P Here's some photos so you can see what I'm talking about:

One thing that DID turn out well was my faked holly print. I just stamped the holly image from Tim's Holiday Wishes set with Jet Black Archival and made sure it was set before I used the stain. Then I colored it just like in Tim's instructions and I think it looks great. Hopefully it distracts from my wonky sentiment. =P I'm also liking my lovely lady deer's festive red wreath and jingle bell, which were also modifications made due to lack of supplies. =) When all was said and done I actually had a lot of fun coming up with different ways to do things....and now I know how to fake some Kraft resist properly for next time!

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

12 Tags...Day 1

Hello all! I'm a little behind on posting my tags because I finished day 1 after it was already dark (which happens at about 4 in the afternoon now!) and so I couldn't take photos. Like nearly everyone else I was up late at night on Wednesday waiting anxiously for midnight and the first post of Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas. This is one of the few different-time-zones situations where the West Coast doesn't get totally screwed. (Usually things are done Eastern time and we're just left to deal with the odd hour). It was actually midnight my time and I didn't have to be up at 3 AM like some poor folks. Anyway, I was really in quite a state by the time it posted...and it was so gorgeous! And I was super excited because I realized I had most of the needed supplies! Then a could hardly sleep because my mind was swimming with ideas. =) Finally in the morning I got up and had barely finished my coffee before I was in the craft room making this:

As you can see I didn't have the Noel die so I used my Reindeer Flight die instead. The silver glitter I used is actually tinsel glitter (I didn't have any regular glitter in silver) so he looks kind of fuzzy. =) And he is a HE - it's hard to see but I did the awesome trick Tim showed us last year to add antlers to my reindeer. The only other thing I didn't have was the Tattered Banners die (just came in the mail today-a day too late!) but it was easy enough to just cut one out.

Thanks for looking! I hope you're having as much fun as I am following Tim's posts and getting in the holiday spirit!

*~M~*

Wish Upon A Star...

Hello Blogland inhabitants! Some more Christmas crafting to share today. Last night I finally finished a make-your-own-Advent-calendar project I was working on....after working on it since Thanksgiving! I was feeling a little burnt out on "projects" and just wanted to play. So I decided to see if I could put together a piece for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week, where the theme is 'stars'. As it turns out, there is a serious lack of stars in my stash. I had to dig quite a bit before I found a Jenni Bowlin chipboard piece that was a circle with a punched out star in the middle. I thought it might make a cute bit of Christmas decor if I decorated it and had the punched out star hanging from the bottom. Here is the final result:

I went quite grungy with this one. The first thing I did was cover both pieces with some paper from Tim's Seasonal Stash. Then I sanded the edges and inked them with Vintage Photo. To add a little vintage sparkle I painted both pieces with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. After the paint dried I embellished the small star with some Grungeboard numbers (from the Alphabet Soup set) that were colored with Fired Brick Distress ink and then glammed up with some Rock Candy Stickles. The embellishments on the large piece are bits from the Festive Greenery die cut from the Kraft Core-dinations stack (also covered with Rock Candy Stickles) and a word from the Seasonal sticker stash. I needed a short word, because I didn't want to cover up too much of the star, and I thought "wish" was appropriate, what with the star theme. =) The hanging hardware is just some hitch fasteners and a hinge clip and some Peapod twine that's been aged with Antique Linen Distress Stain. Here's some close ups so hopefully you can see some of the sparkle:

I think that's it! Thanks for looking! =)

*~M~*



 

Grungy Monday #28

Oh my, my poor neglected blog! I keep doing crafty projects and then not blogging them, I have been such a bad blogger. I had to have a go at this week's Grungy Monday though, even if I am doing it at the last minute. =) This week the challenge was to do a project inspired by Tim's pumpkin for the Ranger Great Pumpkin Challenge. Tim's gorgeous project involved a lot of foil tape and alcohol inks, so I decided to try and do a tag with some embossed foil tape. Here's my finished project:

I covered a manila tag in Ranger's foil tape, and then embossed with Tim's Snow Flurries embossing folder. My idea was to color the background with blue alcohol inks by just dripping them on and letting them spread through the debossed sections, and then possibly coloring the snowflakes somehow to have them pop out even more. I ended up using the Snow Cap mixative on the snowflakes, but because of the unpredictability of the "dripping" method, the background didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped. I actually almost gave up on the tag, but I'm glad I didn't because after it was all embellished I was pretty happy with the overall look. The Winter Wonder die was cut from Core'dinations Whitewash paper, which was sanded down quite a bit, especially along the edges, to bring out the blue core. I stamped it with the snowflakes from the Reindeer Flight set in Iced Spuce ink, and then a sentiment from the Mini Holidays 3 set in Chipped Sapphire. I LOVE using the Iced Spruce for more subtle background stamping, it's so beautiful. =) The tag was finished off with some Sparkly Fluff and this pom-pom ribbon I got at Michael's along the bottom, and some Idea-ology Baubles and Trimmings dyed with Iced Spruce at the top. Overall it's quite sparkly and "snowy". =)

Along with Grungy Monday, I will also be entering this into two other challenges: the Simon Says Stamp challenge, where the theme is tags, and the Inspiration Emporium challenge, where the theme is tools. I decided to enter it in the second challenge because I used my favorite tool, my Big Shot, twice for this tag, plus I got to use the Tiny Attacher and the Sanding Grip. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*



Some Fall Crafts

Wow, Bloglanders, it's been forever since I've posted. I hit a little bit of a slump for a while where I didn't feel much like crafting, so I haven't had anything to blog. But I just finished up some really inspiring classes this weekend, and also got caught up on my blog reading, which inspired me to get going again. I'm actually going to combine two projects in this post because....well, because I'm too lazy to write two posts, honestly. =P Anyway, the first one is my Grungy Monday entry for this week, hosted as always over on the Studio L3 blog. This week's challenge is to use Tim's Perfect Distress technique, which I have to admit I've never done before. I love Perfect Pearls mists, but every time I try to use the loose powder I just end up making a mess. However, after a refesher from the video, I was ready to give it another go. Here's what I made:

It's not too late for some Halloween crafts, right? =) I made a background just like Tim does in the video but I used TWO colors, Spiced Marmalade and Ripe Persimmon. I also have been dying to break out the Seedless Preserves, because I LOVE purple, so I used it on the edges of the tag, for the "sentiment" stamping, and to color the '31' (made with Grungeboard Minis). All of the stamps are from Tim's Halloween Minis set and the technique was done on the cobwebs, with Black Soot and the "Pearl" Perfect Pearls. Despite my history with Perfect Pearls I have to say it turned out fairly well, although I did make a mental note-to-self to do this technique with a less detailed stamp in future. It got pretty runny in places (places that are now cleverly covered up with those rosettes). Here's some close-ups:

I almost forgot to mention, I will also be entering this in the monthly challenge over at the Inspiration Emporium blog. It's a color challenge this month, and if you get a chance you should head over and give them some love. They have fun challenges each month and a great prize! (And no, I am not being paid to say that. =P )

My second project is a little ATC I did, inspired by the Sunday Stamper challenge over at Hels Sheridan's blog. I've been a long time stalker reader of Hels' blog, and I love her work and her posts are always hilarious, but I have never participated in her challenges before. However I couldn't resist one using fall colors, especially when I have new fall Distress Inks to play with! I was going to make a tag and then found these pre-cut ATCs made of watercolor paper that I forgot I purchased =P so I decided to give those a whirl:

I colored the background with Scattered Straw, Ripe Persimmon, and Spiced Marmalade, edged the whole thing with Scattered Twigs and then sprayed the bejeezus out of it with water and a couple sprays of Biscotti Perfect Pearls mist. The colors moved around on the paper and made the coolest blended background. Will definitely be trying that trick again! =) Here's a couple close-ups...one is a goof where the flash went off but is the only photo that actually shows the Perfect Pearls!

I think that about covers it. Sorry for the horrifically long post, and if you got this far, thanks for sticking it out to the end! Hopefully I will post again soon without another long break.

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*







Feelin' Spooky

Hello all! Today I have a layout to share that was inspired by Shimelle's Sketch of the Week. Ever since I realized that scrapping is so much easier for me with a sketch I have really been enjoying participating in these weekly sketch challenges. I also had a hankering to do some Halloween-type crafting, and when I found this pumpkin photo from last Halloween I just had to scrap it. Here is the finished layout:

All the patterned paper on this layout it from the new DCWV Halloween line, "Ghosts and Goblins"...and I actually used a matstack for this! I just cut the papers and then layered the photo over them so they magically look 12 inches long. Here's proof:

I actually bought this little stack for cardmaking so it was fun to get another use out of it. The solid gray and orange cardstock is from the matching cardstock stack...12x12 this time. =) I really liked the colors in this stack and I feel like they could work well for non-Halloween projects, especially some of the grays. In Shimelle's layout she used a border punch on the solid strip for this sketch, but I did not have an appropriate border punch so I used....wait for it.....decorative scissors! Talk about getting out the old school tools. =) I have a whole collection of decorative scissors I haven't used in ages and I was actually comtemplating getting rid of them, so it was kind of funny to be using them on this layout. Border punches are SOOO much easier, but I think I managed to get a fairly straight border here. The title for this layout is brought to you courtesy of Tim Holtz: the die-cut behind it is from the Hanging Sign die, the "spooky" sticker is from the Seasonal Salvage stickers (popped up on foam dots), and the letters are Alphabet Soup grungeboard letters colored with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink. All the paper pieces were edged with Black Soot ink as well. Here's a couple close-ups of the details:

Thanks for looking! I just got my order that I had been not-so-patiently waiting for from Simon Says Stamp, and I am now the proud owner of some of Tim's new fall dies as well as the new fall Distress Inks! Hopefully I will have some projects using those to share soon. I can't wait to play! =) Yay for fall weather and fall crafting!

*~M~*

Playing with Resist

Hello Bloglanders! Just have another quick card today. This one was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class. This is the first class I have taken from Jennifer and it is really amazing. I will definitely be signing up for her classes in the future. On one of her bonus cards she used a great color combo with Tattered Rose and Antique Linen Distress Ink. I hadn't realized how beautiful these were together and couldn't wait to use this combo on a card of my own. I also just recently purchased this stamp from the Hero Arts for Basic Grey collection and wanted to make a background with it. When I was done I realized it would be a perfect card to enter into the Lily Pad Cards resist challenge, so I will be posting it over there. Here's the card:

I simply stamped the background and then heat embossed with some white embossing powder, then Distress Inked to my heart's content. I think it looks a little like old wallpaper. =) The sentiment was stamped with coffee Archival Ink, then cut out using the Tim Holtz mini label die. I colored some white cardstock with the Tattered Rose ink then punched the butterflies with a Martha Stewart punch. I inked the edges of the butterflies with Vintage Photo to make them pop off the background. Some pearls and ribbon finished off the card. Here's a few close-ups:

Sorry about the dark photos....I was losing daylight. =/

I hope everyone finds something that inspires them this week, like these fantastic colors did for me. =) Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Mother LOAD, Days 12 and 13

Hello blog readers! I've got a couple scrapbook layouts to post today. I have to admit I haven't been doing that great of a job keeping up with the scrapbook marathon. I've been skipping every other day or every third day. But I think I'm okay with that. Considering that I wasn't really doing ANY scrapbooking before I started this class, I think that what I have accomplished has been a great improvement in productivity! =) Here's the first layout:

This is a photo of my parents and I at my pharmacy school graduation party. My mom made me get all decked out in my robes again. I hope it's not presumptuous of me to assume that my parents are feeling pretty proud in this photo. =P The design of this layout was inspired by Shimelle's scrapbook starting point, which is a really cool challenge she started on her blog recently. Oh, and speaking of being proud, there are a couple of embellishments on this layout I'm fairly proud of. The first is the flower medallion in the embellishment cluster. It was made using a resist technique I just learned in Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class. This has only been going on for two days and it's already been really awesome. It's kind of hard to see but here's an attempt at a close up:

Also I'm pretty proud of this silver flourish:

I cut this out of Grungepaper using the Elegant Flourishes Alterations die. I knew I wanted it to be silver, but then discovered to my horror that I don't have any silver paint! I don't how this is possible, but I will be fixing it as soon as I can. For this, however, I had to improvise. I managed to get a pretty awesome metallic effect by first painting with a Jenni Bowlin Weathervane paint dabber and then spraying with Perfect Pearls mist in Perfect Pearl. I feel like the MacGyver of scrapbooking. =)

Here's a quick close-up of my little butterfly:

He was cut out of paper from the Out of Print 6x6 paper pad, to match the large papers from the same collection on the rest of the layout (except for the top left corner, which is from Basic Grey Basics). The large butterflies are embellishments from that collection as well.

On to the second layout:

This one was quite simple. You can't really see it, but I drew a grid first using a green pen, then cut out 6 photos and 6 squares of paper (from Basic Grey's Sweet Threads) and then inserted them into the grid. Fairly quick and simple. I comtemplated more embellishments but decided I liked this clean look. =)

I think that's all for today. As always, thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Lawnscaping Embossing Challenge

Hello everyone! I just have a fairly quick card today to enter into the Lawnscaping Embossing Challenge. I wanted to do some dry embossing for this and I thought my Tim Holtz woodgrain Texture Fade would work nicely with the tree and sentiment from the Critters in the Forest set. Here's my card:

I included the close ups so you can see the inking I did a little bit better. After embossing the cardstock I used some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to make the raised portions stand out a little better. The tree was stamped on Grungepaper, colored with Vintage Photo, Bundled Sage, and Forest Moss inks and then cut out. I got a very nice compliment on this tree....I was showing the finished card to my boyfriend and when I told him how I made the tree he was really surprised. He told me he thought it was a pre-made embellishment. I guess that means it looks pretty good! =) The twine is from The Twinery. (I'm loving this stuff! So fun to play with!)

I think that's all for this card. Check out the Lawnscaping blog if you haven't already, it's very fun. Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Lawnscaping Holiday Blog Hop!

Hello Bloglandians! Welcome to my post for the Lawnscaping Blog Hop. As you can see from the badge, we're getting in the holiday spirit! You should have come here from Melania's blog. If not, head on over to the Lawnscaping blog to get started on the hop.

For my card I wanted to try out the Lawn Fawn Cozy Christmas set. I've been eyeing it forever...it is so stinkin' cute! Even my boyfriend thinks that little smiley fire guy is kinda cute. My personal favorite is the smiley Christmas lights. Christmas lights are probably my favorite thing about Christmas....I love having them all over my house, I love seeing them on other people's houses....and I have a weakness for any product with Christmas lights on it! So I wanted to try and stamp these guys out and make them as sparkly and cheery as possible. Here's what I came up with:

Hopefully these guys look like they're hanging down from some snowy eaves. =) Here's a close-up:

I stamped out the lights on some white cardstock, colored them with just a couple shades of Copics on each light, then added silver Stickles to the screw part of the bulb and Stardust Stickles to the tip of each bulb to make them sparkle. I was insane to ever think fussy cutting these guys would be a good idea, but I did it! And I think it may have been worth it. =) The sentiment was from the same set. That's another thing I love about this set, and many Lawn Fawn sets for that matter....the way you can build different sentiments with all the different words. I used "merry" again on the inside to make a different sentiment, plus I had a couple extra lights which didn't make it onto the front:

I think that's all from me! The next stop on the hop is Patricia's blog. Be sure to stop at everyone's blog and leave some comment love...there are some great prizes to be had!

Have fun, and thanks for looking!

*~M~*



Mother LOAD, Day 7

Hello Bloglanders! Here we are on Day 7 of the Mother LOAD scrapbook marathon and I'm up quite late to write this post. Our prompt today was to do some "retro scrapbooking", ie, do a page using all the trends from the late '90s. I have to admit this sounded pretty fun/hilarious, especially since I was just looking at some pages I did back in 2000/2001 and they had ALL of the things listed in the prompt: matted photos, photos cut into silly shapes, sticker sneezes, decorative edge scissors....hee hee hee.... =) Anyway, I couldn't find any photos I wanted to scrap like this, and then I was wandering Blogland and saw Shimelle's Sketch of the Week post today, and decided to do that instead. =P So here's today's layout:

I guess I better explain about rally caps, in case anyone doesn't know about them: in baseball, when your team is losing, if you turn your baseball cap inside out and wear it that way it's supposed to help your team "rally". It's a very silly fan superstition, and an excuse to wear your hat inside out and look goofy. =) Actually when I was younger my dad taught me that you wore a rally cap by pushing the back of the cap into the front and then sticking it on the side of your head so that the bill stuck straight up, kinda like a mohawk. I kind of  like that way better since it's sillier, but this inside out thing is what they do at Safeco Field, so we were going with the flow. It's also easier to keep on your head this way. =P

Anyway, enough about silly baseball stuff and on to my favorite things on this layout (other than the silly picture). Number one, the rosette. I had this baseball patterned paper that I wanted to use here, but it just wasn't working with anything else so I had to abandon it. Then when I was at a loss as to what to use for a large embellishment on this page, I thought, "I could make a rosette with the baseball paper!" I know, I know, I'm getting a little obsessed with the rosettes. It's so funny because when the die first came out I thought it was silly and that I'd never have any use for rosettes. Ha! Famous last words. =) Here's a close-up:



The other thing that makes me giggle is my tag, covered with hat tags, since the layout is about hats...hee hee hee... I'm such a sucker for silly scrapbooking puns. =P Oh, and number 3, I'm totally in love with the twine. I just got it yesterday in the mail from The Twinery and could not wait to play with it. I was worried about gluing it down, but then I remembered I have this awesome Quickie Glue pen, which worked really well. The twine has kept it's shape and hasn't fallen off the layout. Can't ask for much more than that. =)

Well I better sign off since I obviously get much more silly when I blog late at night. Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Mother LOAD, Days 3 and 4

Hello Bloglanders! Today I have 2 layouts from the Mother LOAD class, one from yesterday and today's. I missed day 2 of the marathon because of work, and I didn't blog day 3 yesterday because it was reeeaally late when I finished it and I just wasn't up to writing a blog post. So without further ado, here is day three's layout:

I don't know how obvious it is in these photos, but the picture is of my cat half inside of a Crate & Barrel shopping bag, hence the title. Speaking of the title, it was printed out and hand cut, and BY GOLLY that is tedious work! No wonder I hardly ever do it. =P But I wanted the font to look as close to the actual Crate & Barrel font as possible, so it was worth it. Everything on this layout is from the Basic Grey Out of Print collection, except for the "curiosity" image, which is a Tim Holtz stamp, and the little cat brads, which are from Eyelet Outlet. I also used Black Soot Distress Ink to ink the edges of the pieces.

Here's layout number 2:

This layout is made up almost entirely of Basic Grey's Sweet Threads collection (yes, I'm a little bit in love with Basic Grey!). The sparkly letter stickers are Thickers, and the "women" letter stickers and the "happy memories" die cut are October Afternoon. I just bought those green Thickers and really wanted to use them so I basically chose all my paper and embellishments around that green color. All the paper pieces were edged with Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. The layout came from a sketch from Twisted Sketches, a website I just discovered today and am pretty excited about following. I've realized I really can't scrap without a sketch. If I try to work without one I end up just staring at the page blankly while my pile of beautiful embellishments sits idle waiting. Working with sketches has really eliminated a lot of scrapping stress for me.

I think that was all I had to say today. 4 days down, 22 more to go! So far, so good! =)

*~M~*

Stamp-tember challenge

Hello Bloglanders! It's STAMP-tember over at Simon Says Stamp! They're having some great sales, but best of all, there is a fun "anything goes" challenge over at the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog. All kinds of fun new Halloween products are coming out right now, so I decided to make a Halloween card for the challenge. I really wanted to play with these new stamps that I got. The set is called Creepy Lane and it's from Inkadinkadoo. I bought the set purely because I fell in love with this window image:

I think this image has so many fun possibilities for coloring or making it look like stained glass. Here I decided to go fairly simple and do a resist technique, so I embossed it with black embossing powder and then colored the tag with Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. Then I edged the tag with some Black Soot. The sentiment is from the same stamp set and is probably my second favorite stamp in the set. I love the font...it's creepy, but sort of cute at the same time. =) The background was stamped with Versamark using the Teeny Tiny Backdrops set from Lawn Fawn. The patterned paper is from DCWV. Ooh, I almost forgot, I colored the ribbon with Dusty Concord Distress Stain. I'd never tried this before and was really impressed with how well it worked. I didn't really think I needed the Distress stains...until now. I love ribbon and it would be so cool to make custom colors like this! Also I was able to age the patterned paper a little by swiping Antique Linen stain over it. It was just the right color to make it look slightly distressed without obscuring the pattern.

I was having so much fun with the Versamark (another new technique for me) that I wanted to make a few more watermarks on the inside with some of the other stamps in this set. Here's a peek:

I also used the cute little moon stamp in the opposite corner. =)

I think that's it! Over at the Lily Pad Cards blog they are having a resist challenge, so I'll be entering this card there too.

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*

Mother LOAD, Day 1

It's Day 1 of the Mother LOAD scrapbooking marathon! (See button on the right.) For nine weeks I've been diligently (ha!) training for a 26 day layout-a-day marathon, and today is the first day of the "run". I was exhausted after work today, but more than that I was determined to not fall behind on the first day so I knew I needed to get a layout done. In typical me fashion I didn't have a plan, so I just meandered through my photo files until I found a photo that inspired me. I found a great one of my cousin on her wedding day, and here's the layout I came up with:

(I apologize for the less than beautiful photos. I was taking these at night and had only an Ott-Lite for lighting.)

The design of this page was inspired by Shimelle's Sketch of the Week, and ironically, it's wedding week over on her blog this week. This is my first time doing a Sketch of the Week despite the fact that I've been a big fan for a while.
This layout kind of cracks me up because all of the pieces are from different companies. The background sheet is Crate Paper (Emma's Shoppe), the patterned piece is DCWV (Linen Closet), the dimensional flower is Studio Calico, the small flower is Basic Grey, the journaling block is Jenni Bowlin, the strip is October Afternoon, the letters are Grungeboard and the ticket is Idea-ology. (I guess Tim Holtz is the winner here, because I used two of his products plus some Antique Linen Distress Ink. =P )
My proudest achievement on this layout is the "lace" in the middle. For one thing, it turned out beautifully, and again, the photos can't really do it justice:

It started out as a lowly strip of white cardstock, and then I punched it on both sides with a Martha Stewart border punch. Then I aged it with some Antique Linen Distress Ink and sprayed it with Biscotti Perfect Pearls mist to give it some shimmer. It turned out exactly how I wanted it to. Also, putting this strip in the center allowed me to make use of this brown patterned paper behind the photo. I was totally in love with this piece of paper, but it was only 8x8. So I had the genius (if I do say so myself =P ) idea of cutting it and putting the lace in between the pieces, and suddenly it was the perfect size! I love it when a plan comes together. =)
I couldn't get a good photo of the letters, but they were just painted pink with some acrylic paint I had lying around, and then "whitewashed" with the new Picket Fence Distress Stain. This is precisely why I bought this product. It muted the paint beautifully so that the letters had the perfect look for this layout. If you like doing anything shabby/vintage, you NEED this stuff.

Thanks for looking! Wish me luck with the rest of LOAD! Ack!

*~M~*

Scrapbooking challenge with Shimelle

Holy cow, Bloglanders, I have completely neglected my blog lately. Life got a little crazy this month. I was assistant stage manager for my community theatre group, Twelfth Night Productions, and the last three weekends we had performances. I'm actually writing this post backstage before our second to last performance. These summer musicals are always fun, but I'm also looking forward to getting back to crafting and blogging. I feel so behind!
Anywho, last weekend Shimelle had a whole online scrapbooking weekend, and of course I missed out on most of it, because I was busy pulling the curtain backstage. =P Today I managed to make a layout based on one of my favorite challenges from the week. I was really inspired by the misting on the background in Shimelle's layout, and I had just gotten some Turquoise Perfect Pearls mist that I couldn't wait to use. I also decided I would scraplift the layout design.  I loved the white space in Shimelle's page, and I wanted to see if I could duplicate it. Here's the layout:

All the paper and embellishments are from the October Afternoon Thrift Shop collection (I'm in LOVE with this) except for the turquoise and white circle piece behind the title (a die cut from the Basic Grey Sweet Threads collection) and the "brother" and "sister" rub-ons, which are Jenni Bowlin. I especially like the thin border piece at the bottom, which is cut from a sheet that is covered with text. When I saw the "We do not remember days, we remeber moments" amongst all the text I knew I needed to cut that part out for the border. I love it. =) The title letters are from various Grungeboard alphabets which I colored with Black Soot Distress Ink and then coated with Glossy Accents.  Of course the rosette is Tim's rosette die.

Here is a close up of the title letters. You can almost see some of the Perfect Pearls mist in the upper left corner there. It was much more subtle than I thought it would be, but in person it looks great. And for all you grammar-philes, I know that "Me and Timm" is not proper grammar. "Timm and I" just sounds too formal to me for a scrapbook page. =P



I think that's it.... it feels so great to do a blog post again! Thanks for looking!

*~M~*