Punky Scraps Challenge 17 and SOD Sketch

Hey! I have two LOs to share right now. The first is my challenge entry for the Punky Scraps Challenge 17 which was to use the word laugh to inspire the project. This is titled 'Laugh Together' and features my BF with one of his closest guy friend. It's sad that we don't live in the same city anymore because we have really gotten out of touch. I hope that this is not always the case.

What I love the most about this page is that 1) it proved that I could still do guy pages (It had been a while and I was getting worried) 2) I used an old collection (which completely justifies my purchase I believe ... my BF on the other does not believe this) and 3) it seriously took me less than 30 minutes! That was awesome and I don't hate the end result which is even more awesome.

I also have my page for the Scraps of Darkness May Sketch Challenge. I love the BG paper so much that I almost did not scrap with it. In fact I was crazy hesitant to even add anything to it but the photo. However I got over it. It is titled 'Soaked' and it features a pic of my BF and I at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We are literally soaked in this pic as it was taken right after we got off of the rapids ride that actually stopped for a few minutes while we were under some sort of waterfall. My BF's sister though had gotten it much worse than us. Fun fact is that this photo was taken in Asia and I used these Asian inspired papers to scrap it!

So I love to add dimension to my pages but only within a limit. I loved the little fan that came with my kit but I thought it made the page way too bulky to fit into my album comfortably. So I cut it! I kept the fan part but got rid of the wood that connected it all together. I then hid it behind the flower so you can't really tell. Except now you know because I told you. I had these flowers in my stash (I literally though I would never use the flower vine so I was super happy ... except I still have one more) I just brightened up their color with some mists. I also misted the fan with the mists from the color add on and I stamped it with the prima stamps in the kit. I added the gemstones because I thought it needed a little something extra.

I have recently discovered that I love love love raw chipboard. You can make it fit any color scheme and if you don't like how it turned out you can just paint over it again and again! How awesome is that? I misted the swan with three of the mists from the color add on and then I outlined it with liquid pearls. The letters are also from the kit and spritzed with the turquoise mist from the kit. I then added the dots of stickles.

I have been really into punches lately. Which is a good thing because they were just going to waste in my stash. Better late than never to join the punch love I guess. I added the prima pearls and gems because the punch I used seemed to go perfectly with them. I also outlined the photo with stickles to break up all the black.

There it is~ I have had a good amount of productive days, however I didn't scrap today so maybe my productivity is slowing down, which would be sad. I hope you enjoyed these pages!!

A Mother with her Daughters TCR #59

My latest page uses the color palette #59 from The Color Room that can be found here. It is titled 'A Mother with her Daughters' and features my grandmother with her two daughters. This is another page for my parent's scrapbook album of their trip to California. I think (I could be COMPLETELY mistaken) that they are posing in front of Alcatraz prison. I apparently didn't listen well enough when they spoke about their trip. =/

This is the first LO I have created using Bo Bunny's Gabrielle line. I love these papers ... I wish I had more actually. I also used a heat tool for the first time ever. Though I am jumpy about using it now because I set off the carbon monoxide alarm. So either my house has a very poor ventilation system (very possible) or I bought a horrible heat tool (also very possible). I have had so much fun with my gesso and mists lately. The possibilities seem endless. Here are some closeups:

I pretty much used only elements from the Gabrielle line which is odd for me but shows how awesome this collection is. Hopefully I will get back to scrapping my own pics again as I am getting more and more behind. For some reason I am finding it difficult to be inspired by my pics. I hope I get some of it back. I think I will just power through it tomorrow. Thanks for looking!!

Little Shop of Sketches! Design Team Call

So I saw this design team call on Mieke's Facebook page and I was curious so I checked it out. I became completely inspired by the sketch and decided to try out. Who knows right? In any case I found a fabulous new sketch site so its pretty much a win win. You can check out the call and see the sketch here. There are some amazing sketches on that site also.

So here is my take on it

It is titled 'Chinatown' and it is one of the pages for my parent's California scrapbook. I made this page with the May Scraps of Darkness kit which went together so fantastically with this picture. So in this page I employed lots and lots of inking, misting, distressing, and fussy cutting. Is it weird that I do fussy cutting better with a small pair of scissors than with a swivel x-acto knife? I gave the page dimension with using pop ups.

I used one of the stamps from the kit to create a border for my circles and then I put a dot of stickles in the center.

The chipboard swan was literally misted over and painted about 20 times. I am pretty happy with the end result but not ecstatic.

Well thanks for looking!!

Fan Flowers with a Twist Tutorial

This a tutorial for the flowers that are on my '4 Generations' LO. I was inspired by some Prima flowers that can be seen here, but I did not have any at my local craft stores and I was too impatient to wait for them from Scrapbook.com. So I tried to make my own and I really like how they came out.

To start with you will need

1. A thin strip of white cardstock. I use 12in long strips. (You could use a piece of patterned paper but I like to create the color with mists which is why I use white cardstock)
2. Sissors
3. Glue dots (regular size)
4. Mists
5. A flower center

Step 1

Fold the paper strip into an accordion shape. Basically start to make a regular fan flower.

Step 2

Instead of gluing the ends of the strip together, place a glue dot on either side to hold the flower shape. I like to put a piece of the glue dot paper on top so I can hold the flower while I am cutting

Step 3

Cut the paper into tiny strips. Make sure you do not cut all the way to the center.

It should look like this when you are finished cutting.

Step 4

Mist flower with selected colors until you are happy with how it looks.

Step 5

Take off glue dot paper cover and put on the flower center. There you have your finished flower!


I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial!

4 Generations

I was asked by my father to make them a scrapbook album of their trip to California for my niece's baptism. This is the 1st page that I have made so far. It is called '4 Generations' and features a photo of my older sister, mom, my baby niece, and my grandmother.

This was made with the May Scraps of Darkness kit which I love so so much! I made the flowers myself. Honestly this page came about very quickly. I think because it has been floating in my head for so long. I have to honestly say that I have not had a page come together so easily in a while. Here are some closeups

This was my first time using gesso as well. I have now decided that I love it. I also created this for the ARTastic Challenge for May which can be found here. I worked #s 1 and 3 into my page for extra points.

I will have the tutorial for the flowers up in a little bit! TFL!!

Always be happy and I Live in a Fantasy World

So I finally got some inspiration and motivation after being in the lazy state that my vacation brought on. I even cleaned my house today! I know I am shocked as well ;) ... ok I didn't clean my bedroom or the scraproom so maybe I didn't clean the WHOLE house but no one needs to know that. The parts that people will see are clean and I think that's all that matters =D Plus I think my BF should clean those two rooms because ... just because.

Anyways on to the first LO I have to share with you. The title is 'Always Be Happy' and it is the first page that I have created with Scraps of Darkness May's Kit. The photo is my BF and I at the Magic Kingdom.

I fussy cut like crazy on this page! It took FOREVER, however I really do love how it turned out. I slightly altered the color of the prima flowers by spritzing them with one of the mists in the color add on to match the colors of the page better.

I won the March contest over on SOD and part of my prize were these fab chipboard butterflies that I had so much fun decorating. I have recently realized just how awesome chipboard is.

This is a closeup of the other butterfly plus some of the flowers. A fun fact is that the big flower is covering up a gap in the punched border around the pic. For some reason I cannot use this around the page punch without at least on gaping hole. It's very frustrating but at least I was able to hide it this time =D

The title was originally only going to be 'be happy' but after seeing how tiny the rubon was on the page I added the 'always'. I think it was a fortunate occurrence. I like this title much more.

The next LO is my entry to the bi-monthly Skeletons in the Closet challenge over at Scraps of Darkness. Anyone can play as you do not have to use a SOD kit. The challenge is to be inspired by the song 'Iris' by the Goo Goo Dolls. You are also not allowed to use any pictures, just clip art or illustrations. That was a huge challenge for me. I decided to make it even more difficult by insisting that I draw everything myself instead of finding clip art that would fit. Mind you I am not the greatest artist ... not even a good one, but I do have fun trying to draw, and I thought it would make the page more personal if I drew everything.

The page is titled 'I live in a Fantasy World'. I took inspiration from these two lines from the song "And I don't want the world to see me
Cuz I don't think that they'd understand"
Basically what this page means is that I frequently hide from reality by focusing on fantasy whenever real life can get to be too much for me. I will get way too involved in a tv show, movie, book, scrapbooking, etc. Honestly I think my BF is the only who can get me to face reality, though he does allow me to hide a little bit. He really is my perfect partner <3
Here are close ups of the drawings

BTW I had an entirely different concept for this page but I HATED how it turned out. So I ripped off the paper on the background and added more paints and mists and basically just kept adding and covering until I was satisfied. This has just made me even more convinced that canvas is awesome as I wouldn't have been able to do that with paper. The distressed circle around anime me is actually pieces of the paper I ripped off the background.

You can see some of the textures better in this closeup. Honestly I do not know how I feel about this page as sometimes I hate it and other times I love it. Its so weird that every  time I look at it I have a completely different reaction to it.


Thanks for looking!

May Round Robin and Punky Scraps Challenge 15

It is finally Monday so I can now show you my entry for the May Round Robin Challenge over at sb.com and for Punky Scraps Challenge 15.

I had to lift CathyLane's LO Sands of Time which you can find here. I have to admit I was really intimidated to be following that but I really like how it turned out. I was at a complete loss as to what to do when I saw challenge 15 over at Punky Scraps which was to follow a recipe. It was that you could not use cardstock, and you had to include paint, stitching, twine and a stamp. I had a lot of fun with this page. The journaling reads 'Since moving to Orlando, whenever my family visits they want to go to Disney World because it is basically right outside my window.'
Here are some close-ups:

Thanks for looking!

Punky Scraps Challenge 16

So this is my entry for Punky Scraps Challenge 16. I have already done an entry for challenge 15 but I cannot post it until Monday because it is also my Round Robin entry over at scrapbook.com. This page is titled 'Medieval Times' and it features photos of our time at (insert shock here) Medieval Times. =D I really struggled with this page. Especially with the photos. I was going to give up scrapping them until I saw the sketch over at Punky Scraps. I am not really sure how I feel about the finished product, though I am not sure is if it is because I had such a hard time with it or if it is because I just do not like the page. If that makes any sense. Well here it is

I cannot wait until I can post challenge 15. I love how that LO turned out!