Published!!

I am so excited to be able to share with you all that I have been published!  Life.Paper.Scrapbook picked up my "Always Thinking" layout for their June-August issue which was released today.  Being featured among some of the most amazing artists in the scrapbooking world is such an honor!  You can check out the June-August issue here.  And because I'm lame like that, here's a screenshot of the page that features my layout.  ;-)  Happy Friday everyone!!

Tie-Dyed Scrapbooking

I love tie-dye.  I love that it reminds me of 3-day festival concerts of my younger years; of good music and good friends and of my youth...and of my daughter, for whom I have tie-dyed socks, onesies, dresses, sweats, sweatshirts, t-shirts...yeah.  I think you get the idea.  So when I saw Jasmine Shea's tutorial on how to tie-dye a scrapbook layout I was smitten.  Literally had to try it right away.  And, as luck would have it, the mists I have in my stash match up nicely with the Scrap Friends color challenge this month.  This layout was such fun to put together - I definitely think I will be incorporating this technique into future layouts.   So here's my first go at a tie-dyed layout.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

This is a photo of my munchkin a couple of years ago.  She was looking up at the sky and I've had an idea for a layout with a "keep on the sunny side of life" type theme ever since I took the photo.  I loaded on some black chalk on the right side to give that side of the page a shadowy look to fit the quote.  I darkened the clouds on that side with some chalk and ink, and left the ones on the left bright and colorful.  And I inked the wooden "memo" embellie white to brighten it up.

I didn't know it when I started, but when I took the rubberbands off the tie-dyed paper, it seemed like the upper left hand corner was just begging to be changed into a sun.  So I tore some painters tape and made a mask for the rays, and then added some liquid pearls for shimmer.

I remembered hearing this quote in the past and loved it but didn't know its origin.  Quotegarden.com to the rescue. :)

I had some hand made chevron arrows leftover from a recent layout, so I used them to draw the eye in to the photo. Added some buttons and voila.  Finished.

AAG June 15th Reveal - Bold Colors and Patterns

Happy Saturday! It's time for the mid-month challenge at AAG!  This time, we are challenging you to use bright colors and bold patterns!  Here is my take on the challenge.  I scrapped an 8x11 page this time, as I want to put together a "notebook" style album of snapshots taken through the years.  The color inspiration comes from Scrapfriends' May Yummy Palette challenge.  Come join us and play along!

3 Kisses

Seriously.  Does a color scheme get any more gorgeous than this?  This week's CSI case file is just so pleasing to the eye that no matter what you create from it, it's pretty much guaranteed to be gorgeous.  These are some of my favorite colors right now - from fashion to decor - so I couldn't wait to get going on this layout.  Thanks for stopping by!

For the chevron, I used my Heidi Swapp chevron mask and brushed on molding paste, misted with mint green  Color Shine.  It was a bit deeper than the seafoam green I was going for, so I went over it with some quick dry white fluid chalk ink.

I wanted to add some sort of pattern to the chevron to mix it up a bit so I took a random background polka dot stamp I had and impressed some dots into the molding paste.

Well, lookie there.  The doilies made another appearance (contrary to my declaration of never using them again.  Hey - they make a great paint palette.  hee hee.  (And you will note I actually used them as a real embellishment in the upper left corner of the layout...I'll eat my words...they're not as bad as I thought.  Still don't see my self using them all that frequently though.  This was a momentary lapse in reason. ;-)  Anywhoooooo!  For my title took some Thickers and painted them pink to match the flowers.

I layered stamp and masking in the background using the random polka dot background stamp, with varying pressure and amounts of ink, and then overlapped the polka dots with some Kraft colored chevron masking.

The camera and smile were the ends of a journaling card that I cut.  Saved the middle journaling piece for later use.  Then I added some gold liquid pearls for detail.

This is my favorite part of the layout.  Love the way the colors all blend together in this quadrant.  I added some extra glitter to the white flowers, and twisted a silver piece of twine to pull it together.

Ran a peach piece of something or another with pearls running through it.  I think it looks really pretty...or you could look at it and see a garter.  Let's not go there.  It's pretty.  Shush.

Materials used:

Mint green background paper (not sure of brand - got in my Citrus Twist kit)
Studio Calico Sundrifter collection 6" paper pad
Heidi Swapp chevron mask
Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Mint Green
White Thickers
Color Smart gloss acrylic paint in pink blast
Studio Calico journaling card
Wilton 4" doily
K& Company Brenda Walton wood art
Martha Stewart course crystal glitter
Recollections flowers
Recollections fabric with pearls
Recollections adhesive faux pearls
Ranger Liquid Pearls in gold
Random silver twine
Black ink ball point pen

Have a great week everyone!

CSI Case File #74 - My Favorite Three...

Had a lot of fun with this week's case file over at CSI!  Great colors, great inspiration and best of all I got to scrap a very recent favorite photo of mine.  Here's the challenge:

And here's my take on it.  Introducing...my favorite three!  (Well, 2 actually...since the third one is me.  lol)  The journaling reads: They know me. They get me. They hear me...and they'd be the first people I'd call to help me bury a body. ;-)  Hehehe

Doilies aren't just for tables...who knew. ;-)

It's time for the June 1st challenge at About a Girl!  The first challenge this month is to create a layout using doilies.  I will be the first to admit...I'm not comfortable scrapping vintage, and I've never used a doily on a layout before in my life.  BUT I have to admit that the doilies worked to pull the colors from my daughter's blankie into this layout.  All in all, a scrappy success.  Stop over and visit us at AAG, check out my fellow Design Team members' take on this challenge, and play along!   Happy scrapping!