Journey Through the Past...

I was browsing YouTube the other day just watching

mixed videos. 

Hopping from one to the next when I stumbled on to an oldie but goodie

by Tim Holtz

(video is here).

A 3 x3 album made with 1 sheet of paper, yes you read that right…1 sheet of paper.

I have made these 3 x 3 albums before but never with the addition of the pockets.

A new twist on an old favorite and I had to play.

I used a piece of 7 Gypsies map paper from my stash.

I felt the old time vintage look of it would go perfect with the theme.

Pulled out some collage sheets with vintage images and went to work.

The initial album goes together really quick.

A few folds, some cuts and add some tape to hold the edges...

Voila!

a 3x3 album.

The fun part became the adding of images and embellishments.

Lots of collage images...

Little bit of stamping...

Pulling out Rub Ons that have sat in my stash forever...

Metal doodads...

Foreign stamps...

and remember I said it had pockets.

Well those pockets need something to go in them, 

so I made 3 tags to go along with the vintage theme.

These albums are so much fun to create.

Off to think of another theme.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Documented Life Project Week 21

Continuing to work in my 

Documented Life planner.

I am a couple prompts behind and working out of order,

but the good thing about this project is 

IT IS OK!

Anyway today I am sharing week 21

May 17, 2014 - Week 21 Challenge - Add embroidery or embroidery floss to your page - no floss? use thread.

My page is fairly simple.

Today (May 26,2014) Maya Angelou passed away.

To me she was one of the most inspirational people around,

so much so my middle daughter is named after her.

I used a clean up sheet of paper as my base.

Cut a tag from patterned paper and sewed it to the background with embroidery floss.

The girl came in one of the several Happy Mail envelops that I have been lucky enough to have received.

I added a favorite quote by Dr. Angelou, some stamping

and was done.

This is my tribute to her.

The world has lost a very special voice today.

Mojo Monday and Flying Unicorn….

Every Monday they release a new sketch on the

Flying Unicorn forum and call it 

MOJO MONDAY.

The sketch challenge lasts one week and is open to everyone.

Every week I have full intention of completing the sketch then time gets away and a new one is posted.

Well today I completed this week's sketch…

it only took me 6 days.

Here is the awesome sketch created by Alda...

And here is my interpretation of it.

I wound up using one of the mixed media kits from the Flying Unicorn store.

I love how totally versatile they are.

The chipboard is Blue Fern.

Dylusions mist in Crushed Grape.

The rub ons are from Tim Holtz.

There is sewing pattern tissue paper and cheesecloth layered in with the traditional papers

from FabScraps.

Little more drippings (they make me happy)

The flowers are Kaisercraft and the bling is Prima.

That's it for today.

<\Make sure to head over to the forum and see the other takes on the sketch.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Sharing some mixed media pieces today….

Today I'm sharing some pieces I did up.

I needed to work on a card for a friend and wound up

working on a canvas at the same time

to send off to another friend.

The first piece is a 5x7 Mixed Media Canvas.

I'm still inspired by Stephanie Ackerman's class last week

so you'll see her style definitely influencing me today.

Layers and layers of paper, acrylic paint and stamping 

helped create it.

Onto to the card which started the whole play day.

On a 4x9.5" base I layered papers as I had on the canvas piece.

Adding acrylic paint and tissue paper layers...

Before cutting houses out of old book text and lining them up across the card.

More acrylic paint to color them.

The heart was cut from a scrap of painted paper.

The words come from a Tim Holtz sticker book

(love creating sentences with them).

Some stamping and Washii tape helped finish 

up the card.

Off to pop everything into the mail and send them on their way.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge 8 !!!

It's time for another challenge at

Craft Hoarders Anonymous!

                                            Challenge #8 Show us Some Metal or Glass

Do you hoard gears, pins, brads, eyelets, frames, and other metal do-dads? Do you have a thing for tiny light bulbs and glass vials? Do junk drawers make you giddy? Do you hang out in office supply stores so you can score funky paperclips? Do bottle caps make you swoon? Dig through your hoard to find something metal or glass (or both) and make a project to share!

This is what I created for the challenge.

I took World Win Cardstock And using Stencil Girl & Crafter's Workshop stencils

with acrylic paint created my own background

Supplies:

Cardstock: World Win Papers

Stencils: Stencil Girl Stencils, Crafter's Workshop

Acrylic Paint: Golden Fluid Acrylic, Liquitex

Stamp: Sin CIty Stamps

Ribbon: Really Reasonable Ribbon

Chipboard, Metal Tape, Embossing Folder

The butterflies are created using SinCity stamps on more World Win Cardstock,

fussy cutting them and then sewing them to a piece

of Really Reasonable Ribbon.

For my metal I covered chipboard with metal tape

and ran it through an embossing folder for some texture

Closeup of the background.

I wrote words of wisdom to my daughter on it as a final touch.

We have 2 challenge sponsors this month with 2 prizes.

A set of 2 Ribbon packs from

Really Reasonable Ribbon.

The second prize is from Sin City Stamps.

Sin City Stamps, owned and operated by Donna Harrison in Las Vegas Nevada, manufactures deep etched red rubber stamps, laser cut stencils, masks, chipboard pieces, page layouts, die cuts and chipboard books.

Make sure to stop by each Design Team member's blog

and see how they used their stamps this week.

                                       Amber Milone

                                       Christy Butters---you are here!
                                       Debbie Seyer
                                       Donna Idlet
                               Ginny Nemchak

                                       Glenda Brooks
                                       Gloria Stengel 
                                       Jan Marie Ennenga
                                       Karen Zueger

                                       Kathy Clement

                                       Pam Bray

                                       Tammi Bennett

    And for even more fun check out the Design Team of Sin City Stamps who are joining us this month.

                                        Sin City Stamps Blog
                                         Barbara Rankin
                                         Karen Lackey
                                         Lisa Mita
                                         Peggy Oliver
                                         Robin Redd

Sin CIty is also offering a special this month,

use the above code and save on your next order.

Hurry though,

May is flying by.

Stop by and link your creation for a chance to win.

Craft Hoarders Anonymous.

The challenge closes in 2 weeks.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Documented Life Week 19….Acts of Kindness

Sharing my creation for week 19 in

The Documented Life Project.

The week's challenge was to create a page for 

Random Acts of Kindness.

My inspiration was more a quote than an actual act. 

I have always felt that you should be kind to others if you want kindness in return.

My front flap is a large tag I made while attending

a class taught by Stephanie Ackerman last night.

(lots of collaging and painting with our fingers---FUN!)

Opening the flap I have my quote.

The large heart here is the negative from the paper that I cut the heart on the tag from.

The pages were done with the same collaging, layering, painting techniques as the tag.

Closeup of my front heart.

The words are Tim Holtz stickers

Little bit of the paper and paint layers

(with some stamping and Washii tape thrown in for good measure)

The inside heart...

Make sure you stop by and check out what everyone else has done for the challenge on both the Facebook and Flickr pages.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Documented Life Week 18 and Words of Wisdom

Life has been crazy busy lately and my 

pages for 

The Documented Life project

had fallen by the wayside.

Today though I finally finished up week 18

To showcase a favorite quote.

I have tons of "favorite" quotes but stumbled upon this was as I was working on my pages background…

For me it was perfect.

This is the flap closed. 

The background is done with Golden Fluid Acrylics,

Stencil Girl stencils, Pitt Pens and some random stamping.

This is the flap once it's open.

My quote comes from Toni Morrison.

Perfect as a mom of 3 watching them get older and older, yet always reminding them they are my babies forever and ever.

some closeups... 

All the words were outlined with a charcoal pencil and smudged.

Make sure to stop by the Facebook & Flickr site to see what others have done.

Now just 2 more weeks to catch up on.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Blue Fern Studios May sketch

One of my favorite sources of chipboard is

Blue Fern Studios.

The choices are amazing and work really well

with what I like to create,

both on layouts and mixed media pieces.

Every month they also offer a new sketch challenge on their blog.

When I saw this month's sketch I KNEW I had

to play along

This is the layout I created.

My chipboard is from Blue Fern

(a 12x12 piece which I cut up)

and everything else comes from the February Swirlydoos kit.

The background paper is from Maja Design.

Modeling Paste scraped through a Crafter's Workshop Stencil.

(because my stencil had some mist on it from a previous project the paste picked up a bit of the color which kind of added to the background).

Lots and lots of flowers…it's Spring right?

Diecuts are from Kaisercraft.

Some background stamping with a Prima stamp.

The chipboard was covered with a layer of

Gesso then dry brushed with Grey acrylic paint. 

I wan't worried about completely covering in, more in some spots, less in others,

and it's all good.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge 7!

It's time for another challenge at

Craft Hoarders Anonymous!

                                          Challenge #7 Ribbon, Lace, and Twine, Oh My!

Show us your fiber side! Use ribbon, lace or twine on your project. Dig into your hoard and share how creative you can be with fibers! You may use ribbon, lace, twine, embroidery floss, string, yarn, fabric, etc. As long as you have something in the "ribbon" family on your project, you are good to go!

This is what I created using my 

packet of yellow & grey coordinating ribbons

from the April club assortment from

Really Reasonable Ribbon.

I used the ribbon instead of paper creating a matte for my

photo and sewing the strips onto my paper.

                              

The background is created

by stamping with Pan Pastels,

dripping Golden Fluid Acrylic paint and finally

scraping Modeling Paste through a Crafter's Workshop stencil

then coloring it with Pan Pastels once dry.

                               
                                                 Here you can see some of my ribbon strips,
                          as well as chipboard from Blue Fern Studios painted with fluid acrylic paint.

                             
                                                               More of my ribbon strips.
                                 I stamped the sentiment (Sin City Stamps) onto a leftover piece
                                                     of the ribbon then adhered it to my photo.
                             

Supplies:

Ribbon: Really Reasonable Ribbon

Acrylic Paint: Golden

Pan Pastels

Modeling Paste: Liquitex

Flowers: Recollection

Chipboard: Blue Fern Studios

Stencil: Crafter's Workshop

Ink: Ranger

Stamps: Kaisercraft, Sin City, & Fontwerks

This month we are lucky enough to have 2 challenge sponsors!

Really Reasonable Ribbon  

 has been meeting the ribbon needs of crafters, wedding planners, rubberstampers, scrapbookers and the artistic community for over 10 years.  We offer great wholesale pricing on full spools of many of our styles, and really reasonable discount retail pricing on ribbon by the yard.

Our large selection of ribbon styles includes a variety of colors and widths in grosgrain, organza, seam binding, gingham, satin, ric rac, twill tape, velvet, bakers twine, jute and much more including a large variety of mulberry flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts.

We offer convenient online shopping, FAST shipping and GREAT ribbon prices.

You can also visit our blog www.reasonableribbon.blogspot.com for daily posts with creative projects featuring ribbon along with two fun challenges on the 1^st and the 15^th of each month.

is offering 2 of their ribbon packets

and 

Sin City Stamps

Sin City Stamps, owned and operated by Donna Harrison in Las Vegas Nevada, manufactures deep etched red rubber stamps, laser cut stencils, masks, chipboard pieces, page layouts, die cuts and chipboard books.

Make sure to stop by each Design Team member's blog

and see how they used their stamps this week.

                                         Donna Idlet - http://myblogidlet.blogspot.com/

                                         Glenda Brooks - http://glendabrooks.blogspot.com

                                         Gloria Stengel - http://gloriascraps.blogspot.com/

                                         Karen Zueger - http://lostcoastscrapper.blogspot.com

                                         Pam Bray - http://www.pammejoscrapbookflair.com/

                                         Tammi Bennett - http://www.tjsmemoriesblog.blogspot.com/

                                         Amber Milone - http://pinkchicpaperdesign.blogspot.com/

              you are here-----Christy Butters - http://creatingwiththegirls.blogspot.com/

                                         Debbie Seyer - http://www.debbieseyer.com/

                                         Ginny Nemchak - http://pollyspaper.wordpress.com/

                                         Jan Marie Ennenga - http://re-creations4him.blogspot.com/

                                         Kathy Clement - http://www.kathybydesign.com/kathy-by-design-news/


                                           and for even more fun make sure to check out the
                                   Design Team at Sin City as they join up with us for a blog hop.

                                          Barbara Rankin

                                          Karen Lackey

                                          Linda Hess

                                          Lisa Mita

                                          Peggy Oliver

                                          Robin Redd

Sin CIty is also offering a special this month,

use the above code and save on your next order.

Hurry though,

May is flying by.

May 1--- Time for another challenge at Scrapping Everyday Miracles!

It's May

and for many of us that means that Spring is finally here.

Time for warmer weather, rainbow colors in the garden, windows open,

flip flops and aacchooo!

It also means it's time for another challenge at 

Scrapping Everyday Miracles.

As always there are 3 was to play.

Theme

Layout Sketch 

&

Card Sketch

I went with the theme…

The Theme Challenge

May's theme:  Renew - New - Rebirth

Scripture Inspiration: 

2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

This is what I started with.

Old paper which had been laying on my work desk.

I used it to clean up extra paint, stencils, inked stamps etc.

What many would call trash,

I used the Bible Verse as inspiration and made it new.

I added some chipboard colored with Gelatos.

Prima flowers and a few gem brads

(seriously was cleaning out and using up to make new here).

In the end I have created a new page in my art journal using the leftovers from before.

Make sure you head over to the 

Scrapping Everyday Miracles blog

to see what everyone has created and to link up your take on this month's

challenge.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.