Shea's Godparents

While I have been scrapping much more lately I realized that not one of those pages had been for my parent's scrapbook. I am really hoping that I can get it done soon as I hope that when all is said and done it won't have taken me a year to complete this book. I am feeling really bad that it's taken me this long as it is. So with that in mind I am going to try to just create their pages until it is finished. Let's see how it goes.

I  created this page for the Scraps of Darkness February Sketch Challenge. Sketches as always are by the uber-talented Suepups! Here is my page 'Shea's Godparents'.

This is my niece Shea at her baptism with her godparents, my uncle Jimmy and her aunt ... I have no idea actually. Huh.

So I swore that I would start using my cricut much more and boy have I been sticking to that promise. I have definitely fallen in love with the machine all over again. Mainly because of using my gypsy at work enables me to really think about the page before I actually sit down and do it. So before I didn't want to waste the time going through my image library now I don't have to :)

I actually created the circle by using the welding tool which I had never completely appreciated before. I love how it came out. I added some flock to it so it could distress it a bit.

I used the Scraps of Darkness February Kit for this. Which is awesome!

Relaxing on Our Travels and Other Projects

It's a long post today guys. Mostly cause I was too lazy to make multiple posts but also because I uploaded all these photos at the same time.

So it is time for the Recipe Challenge over at Punky Scraps and it is all about shapes!! Come and see what the other fabulous DT members came up with.
This month's recipe:

Michelle - hexagons

Cheryl C – white paint

Kim - make a grid

Sara - use small photos

Nat - NO PINK

Mandy - use three circles

Elin -use three squares

maxell - use something transparent

Here is what I came up with:

 These are pictures from our boat tour of St.Augustine. I used the January Scraps of Darkness kit to make this layout. This page came together really quickly for me. I also credit my boyfriend for it as he made me drop the embellishments and spend time with him. So I didn't end up over-embellishing like I know I was going to. Looking at this page really makes me want to go to the beach, which actually I might be able to soon. Yay Florida!!

Before the paint dried I sprinkled embossing powder and heated it to add sparkle and texture. I am loving embossing powder lately.

Here are some closeups of my beachy embellishments:

Now here is a look at what my boyfriend gave me for Valentine's Day. It is the greatest Vday gift I have ever received and I love him so so so much more for it:

He made it all by himself!!! Isn't it amazing for a first page ever? He started it a week before and did it secretly during the time when he gets home from work and before I do. He stole pieces from my stash little by little as well so as not to tip me off. Though I was definitely looking for some of it during that time and thought I was going crazy. I might be insanely possessive with my crafty items. ;-) He was so scared that I would think it was dumb but I love it more than any page I have ever made if that makes sense. I have it displayed proudly in my cubicle at work. I love him <3<3<3

Lastly here are most of the Valentine's Day Card Designs that I sold this last week. I took the pictures last minute which is why the quality isn't great.

Card #1

Card #2 in two different color schemes

Card #3

Card #4

Card #5 (my favorite)

Sadly I didn't get a picture of my most popular card design because I am a slacker. I might make another though to have as a sample design.

Well I hope you guys enjoyed this monster post!!

Explore

I am really back into scrapping and it feels great!! I am just all anxious to receive my next kit from Scraps of Darkness (though I am pretty sure it is because there is a lot of black in it and I might be going through a pink and red overload at the moment due to my Valentine's Day cards).

I am actually participating in a challenge this month too!! Woo! It is the January Sketch Challenge over at SOD and Charlotte created another fantastic sketch for us to be inspired by. Here is what I came up with called 'Explore'

I really loved that trip that we took. I took this picture from Hemingway's house actually. I did lots of misting and stuff with this page.

I used one of my favorite techniques of painting with gesso and then misting over it. I also mist the tulle and then used a heat tool to distress it in places.

Here is a closeup of Mandy's awesome pin that was included in the romance add-on

For the title I painted the chipboard with soft gel and then I covered it with embossing powder which I then heated. I really love how it turned out.

I hope you guys like it! I am going to be really sad when I finish these photos ... I guess I will just have to take another vacation! Now I am off to go make 8 cards and then I will be able to take a little break for a while!!

Boo! and It's A Beautiful Day

It's time for the sketch challenge over at Punky Scraps!! I used my January Scraps of Darkness kit for this sketch and the pic is of my boyfriend and me being silly before we went on the St. Augustine Lighthouse ghost tour. To play along with this fantastically fun sketch and be inspired by the amazing talent on the DT head on over to Punky Scraps!

I titled this 'Boo!' as a playful way to document the start of our Ghost Tour (Which was incredibly disappointing and we had the bad luck to be in a group with 12 tweeny girls ... lots of screeching. However we did find out that apparently my boyfriend is afraid of heights so that's something I guess)

This is an envelope tag which I took apart so I could use the whole design. Also I have never really been able to use envelopes on pages well ... I think it's cause I don't journal a lot.

The background is a result of a lot of trial and error. I first put the page together without any paints or mists and it looked very nice, but of course I must always have some paint or mist on a page because I am obsessed with them. So I tried to do a certain effect but I messed it up and it became a huge mess. At that point I thought it could hurt to just keep adding until it looked decent or the paper disintegrated. Seriously I am pretty sure that paper was close to falling apart when I finally achieved a look I liked.

I love these flowers :-)




This is a page I did a few weeks ago using my December Scraps of Darkness kit that I realized I never posted. I really love certain elements of this page, I am just not sure that they all work together. Ah well. I've titled it 'It's A Beautiful Day'.

 

On a side note I have finally started selling handmade cards! It is so cool to get paid for crafting ... however it might have burnt me out just slightly because I decided to sell Valentine's Day cards and I got a bigger response than I anticipated and it is just around the corner. So its been pink and hearts non-stop for a few days. I really think I should put them on Etsy and see what I could do there. I've heard mixed things about Etsy, let me ask is it worth it?

You Adore Me!

After my brief spurt of creativity in late December I lost my mojo yet AGAIN. I basically did nothing creative in January which was really sad. I think I was in a cycle where I was depressed about not creating and then not being able to create because I was so depressed. Ugh. Thankfully I had to kick myself in the rear to create my DT pages this month for Punky Scraps.

I loved Challenge 40 so much!! Go on over to Punky Scraps and join in!! Here is the page I created:

I doodled the entire background. Yes it was incredibly time-consuming. So I decided to do it at work! Thankfully my manager never comes around my cubicle. I did use up two pens though creating this. I think it was worth it.

When I finished it I brought it home to show it to my BF and he thought I had bought the page like that, which I took as a compliment. I misted it with a million (or 8) different colors. Basically until I got a look I loved. I really dig the 80s look to it.

Hope you like it and I hope to see you at Punky Scraps! Enter any of our 3 challenges this month and you could win a fabulous prize! The more challenges you complete the better your chances!!!

Love and Best Friends

I have two pages to share with you before I go and celebrate Christmas at my parent's house. I am so excited to see everyone but I am very sad that I won't be able to do any scrapping this weekend whatsoever. Especially since I will be working 10 hour days for the next two weeks. Anyways here are two pages that I have created with the Scraps of Darkness Winter's Eve kit.

The first is titled 'Love' (I SO blanked on a title) and is my take on the December's sketch challenge for SOD.

I absolutely love this picture and I am the one who actually took it which is surprising because I usually hate my own shots. I think my boyfriend is the one who takes amazing pics.

Close up of Dusty Attic chipboard circle and flowers. I painted the circle with gesso and then a pearly white acrylic paint.

I distressed the paper behind the photo using Mandy's technique which I saw in one of her videos. So much easier than what I was doing so thanks for that Mandy!! I also framed the paper with stickles and liquid pearls because I love my glam.

Close up of the big flowers.

Close up of title and gem border.

Here's the second page I have to share titled 'Best Friends'

My boyfriend truly is my best friend. He is the one person that I tell EVERYTHING to and that when anything (and I mean anything) happens in my life I want to immediately tell him. He can irritate and hurt me like no one else while he also makes me happier than anyone else. <3

I used a blue aquarelle pencil from Faber Castell to add color to the flourish design thingy.

My distressed layers.

So yeah this page is pretty simple compared to others however it was a bit time consuming because I thought it would look cool if I dotted every point with either stickles or liquid pearls. I actually love the finished product.

So there are my pages .. I hope you guys like them. Merry Christmas to you all!! I hope you all have a fun and family filled weekend!

Enchanted

Either I am either finally getting used to my work schedule or the fact that there was nothing to watch on TV led me to actually scrapping last night. I know I was shocked that first I was able to squeeze out enough glue for an entire page (please Santa I really want adhesive this year!!) and second I actually had the energy and creativity to see the page through. Also I totally love it. I truly believe it might be my favorite page ever. Of course this is always changing, but at this moment this page is my favorite. So now I give you 'Enchanted' (yes I was so creative with the title ... it didn't already come on the paper at all ;-) ):

This is my absolute favorite picture of my anniversary vacation with my boyfriend. I am really sad these pics are dwindling down. I think that means we need to go on another vacation :-D. I used the amazingly gorgeous Winter's Eve kit from Scraps of Darkness which features the amazingly gorgeous Enchanted line from Bo Bunny. Bo Bunny is also the inspiration of this page. I created it for their Layout Challenge Friday which was to be inspired by circles. Besides the photo and the photo mat everything is basically circles or circle-ish.

This is a chippie from Dusty Attic (I have finally used a chandelier!!) I spritzed it with Mister Huey's and then used glossy accents.

Embellishment cluster. The Doily flower used to be white.

Embellishment cluster #2. I tried to use mostly Bo Bunny products. Luckily this kit was full of them and so is my stash. The red gems by the title are also Bo Bunny, I forgot I had them and I thought something was missing I look over to my left and I swear they popped out at me. LOL

This might sound weird but I swear this quote is my favorite thing, not only about this page but about the whole kit in general. I love it. I also feel like it encompasses what I was feeling when this picture was taken.

I hope you enjoyed it! I also hope that this trend continues and I will start creating a lot more. I know nothing will get done this weekend because of Christmas but that's fine because I will be with my family this Christmas and I cannot wait. Merry Christmas!!