CSI #133 - Gone Cray Cray!

CSI's case file is coming out a day early this week and I'm excited to share this funny layout highlighting the craziness of my friends.  We have "moms' night in" get togethers every now and then, and they're always guaranteed to be filled with belly laughs, bloopers and general craziness.  Oh, and wine.  Lots of wine. So here we are in all of our glory, trying to use a self-timer on the camera to get a group photo of us.  We are so mature, aren't we?  Hehe.

And here is the lovely case file I worked with.  I love these colors together - not only on paper, but in fabrics and clothing and furniture, etc.  Pink and orange is such a great combination!  CLICK HERE to see the rest of the design team inspiration.

 For my evidence, I have a layer of stamped polka dots under there (I know, hard to tell because the whole background has gone cray cray lol), paint and a flair pin.

I started out with black cardstock, and layered a large piece of patterned paper over it, secured with two teal colored brads.  The patterned paper was brushed with diluted gesso, with the center covered with white acrylic paint.  Layered over that is orange and pink gelatos, stamped black polka dots, and then a modeling paste chevron mask, outlined with pen.   I used some black Indian ink add some drops of black here and there.

Once the background layers were dry, I ripped some strips of hot pink washi tape and layered them over the background.  Then I grabbed a bunch of scrap paper in hot pink and various shades of gray and layered those, mixing in some more washi tape in black and white.  Once that was all in place, I wadded up a bunch of string and threw that under there as well.

Some Heidi Swapp vellum was added, as well as a couple of wooden stars and a wooden word bubble.  The title letters are American Craft Thickers.  I love these because they have a great doodled look, and can be used as is, or colored to match your palette.

Finally, I framed in the layout with a couple of paper straws left over from the Little Lady's 4th birthday party.  Glad I had kept a few of these around!

I used the inspiration word "simple" for my journaling, because I liked that this layout was anything  but.  There is never a dull moment with these girls, and our "simple" little evenings in always get crazy and are guaranteed to be a blast.  I woke up the morning after this night with a sore face from laughing so hard...love these girls!

I hope the wheels are spinning and you are thinking about what you can do with this awesome case file...let's see your creations in the gallery this week!  Have a great day!



xoxo,

Shawna

CSI #123 Smile...

Yep, it's that time again!  Happy Friday everyone and welcome to the weekend!  We've had one heck of a week around here.  The little lady came down with a case of contagious kid germs (lol), our cat had to have his tail surgically amputated due to a nasty infection(seriously!), and our dog...well, it's just another day for him.  No tail amputation in his future.  LOL!   Needless to say I'm feeling very TGIF-y. Anywhoooo...CSI is back with another fabulous case file with such a striking color scheme and great scene for inspiration.  Here's the case fule:

And here is how I cracked the case. CLICK HERE to see how the rest of the talented design team solved the case.

For evidence, I chose a mixed media background, wings (butterflies), rub-ons, and mistable elements.

I absolutely loved these colors and had mists in each of the 5 main colors, so I used them in layers over watercolor paper, and used black mist, modeling paste and masks to add some texture and dimension. I also had some great wood stamp butterflies that I scattered around in the back.

The Tim Holtz stamp was perfect for this layout, because this photo was taken at a "Super Mom" photo shoot that I was nominated for and won (yay!).  For an entire evening I had no other agenda than to sip some wine, share some laughs, and have some photos taken of me doing something other than being a mom.  Alexis Emm Photograffi is a super talented photographer and I was so lucky to have the opportunity to be photographed by her! CLICK HERE to see more of Alexis Emm's fabulous work.

For my journaling, I wrote a fairy tale and added it digitally to my photo before I printed it.  For those of you old folks out there who can't see the writing clearly (I say this with love, I swear, because I'm squinting to see it myself LOL!) it says:

"Once upon a time there was a girl, who met a boy, married a boy, and started a family...years went by and the girl worked very hard to balance home, family and career...sometimes she felt like she was 80 years old; sometimes she felt like she was just a "mom"...but on days like today she felt like so much more...she felt young, strong and fun.  She was a mom, she was a wife, but she was (and is) still she...even after all these years."

...and I should have added..."and they all lived happily ever after. The End." hehe ;-)

The white ruffle is from The Paper Company, a Hobby Lobby brand, and the lace doily looking sticker is Recollections, the Michael's brand.

Layered up some more Heidi Swapp in the sparkly pink button and the fun flair button.  The corkboard butterfly is from Studio Calico.

I've had these great Heidi Swapp rub on circles for quite some time and they were perfect to add a little detail around the scribbed circles I drew behind the photo.

Heidi Swapp makes an appearance again with the "smile" title word. LOL She totally monopolizes this layout. ;-) I can't recall the manufacturer of the Take Note journaling pocket but it is the cutest!

I hope you've enjoyed the closeups!  I really appreciate the visits, comments and support.  Enjoy your weekend!

xoxo,

Shawna

Feeling Sketchy??

There's a great new sketch up at Sketchabilities today, featuring the first reveal of the new design team (and some returning, including me) design team!  CLICK HERE and come check the reveal out!  Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it.

I had so much fun playing with the background.  I had some gray corrugated cardstock left from the Collecting Moments kit from The Memory Nest  (CLICK HERE for more info on the kit and how you can get it 40% off!) and it was perfect for layering color and texture on.  I started with some mists, then layered gelatos, hand painted acrylic rectangles, and modeling paste over that.

I painted a wooden arrow white to point to my hairclip-that-wasn't-marketed-to-be-a hairclip.  This rhinestone and resin clip is perfect on a scrapbook page, but it's also perfect in my hair.  ;-)

I painted some wooden frames black to layer over the hand-drawn rectangles for dimension and then layered some Basic Gray frames over that.  I'm loving layered shapes.  You will be seeing more of this in my upcoming layouts!

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo,

Shawna

CY#6 - My Girl...with a Sketch!

Happy Hump Day!  Time to reveal the latest challenge over at Challenge YOUrself!  Since this is the honorary month of motherhood, we are celebrating motherhood by challenging YOU to scrap a photo of yourself with one of your "girls"...your daughter, your mom, your grandma, etc. etc.  And we have a great sketch for you to work with too!

This month we have a great prize for you.  All you have to do is play along and link your creation to be entered to win this Bo Bunny Baby Bump ephemera pack.

So.  Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it.  CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the design team came up with!

I'm currently teaching myself watercolors, so I've been playing with them quite a bit lately.  For this layout, I used them over a Tim Holtz stencil to get this effect behind the photos.

Here's a photo of the 2 watercolors I used, and a shot of the Tattered Angels mist and paint I used to make the swirly design on the photo frames (they were white Recollections frames).

And some close ups of the page details.  I had a blast making this one.  I'm loving watercolors!

So there you have it!  Remember, at Challenge YOUrself, you have a whole month to come up with your creation and submit it for us to oooh and ahhhh over...and you might just win a prize!  ;-)

Enjoy your day!

xoxo,

Shawna

Sketchabilities #114

Loving this new sketch from Sketchabilities...I'm really trying to get more than one photo onto my pages lately (I've got a whole lotta photos to scrap!) so it was nice to squeeze 3 onto one page for a change!

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take on it.  CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the Design Team came up with and get inspired to create your own take on the sketch!

I love these winter photos of our little diva at the park.  When she's in front of the camera, she owns it, that's for sure.  On this day, Ashley Jansson Photography wanted to try out a new lens and Miss Ireland was happy to be her muse, despite the frigid temps.  The whole shoot took less than 15 minutes.  When you're as cute as this kid, there's not much need for re-takes.  I'm modest when it comes to my daughter, really I am.  hehehe :)  CLICK HERE to see more of Ashley's awesome photography.

Here are some close-ups.  I was so happy to finally be able to use the silver Heidi Swapp stickers I've had in my stash for awhile now.  I never could quite find the right layout for them.

I fussy cut these cute little birds from Teresa Collins cardstock and love their little crowns!

The butterfly was stamped onto vellum, fussy cut, and covered with Mod Podge liquid magic.  You can also see here in the 2nd photo the glass bead medium that I added over the modeling paste to give it some shimmer.  I am loving that stuff! 

Here's another butterfly that I adhered to a flat round plastic circle and then covered with the Mod Podge stuff again.  I love how it can turn flat paper images into pretty dimensional embellies!

Couple of tags that I inked (and covered one with Teresa Collins paper), adding a jeweled button to the other one.

So there you have it!  I hope that you will come over to Sketchabilties and give this sketch a try.  Be sure to link up your creations! Enjoy the rest of your day!


xoxo,

Shawna

CSI #120 Live...

We have a magical case file at CSI this week!  Fun colors, fun evidence prompts, and great journaling inspiration!

Here's the file.

And here's my take on it.   CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the talented design team came up with.

For my evidence, I chose a mixed media background, gesso and wet medium (gelatos, Heidi Swapp mist in chartreuse, and Mod Podge magic medium in clear).  Then I chose the inspiration prompt to write a haiku...I used that prompt liberally, as the sentiment is more than 3 lines, but it's still where I pulled inspiration from. ;-)

I handcut part of a photo of my daughter kissing a hummingbird that we use as garden decor and popped it up to give it dimension.  Then I made some clouds using modeling paste and the remnants of a sheet of chipboard clouds as a stencil.  I put some directly on the background, and some others on paper, which I then handcut.  The sun and moon are a great little stamp I've had forever, colored with a yellow marker and then glazed with the Mod Podge.

My mom grabbed the flower stamp for my sister's shower (we gave the guests little packets of wildflowers) and I loved it here with the sentiment about growing and laying down roots and memories.  I colored a few of them with gelato.

And there you have it!  I hope you will play along with us.  

Have a great weekend!!

xoxo,

Shawna

Butterfly Kisses...

As promised, it's time for another fabulous case file reveal over at CSI!  The colors were a bit of a challenge for me, but I ultimately ended up with one of my favorite layouts ever!  CLICK HERE to see the rest of the design team's awesome creations and to play along with us!

Here is my layout.  For evidence, I chose circles, metal, ransom style lettering, flowers and butterflies.  Lots and lots of butterflies. :)

I'm still learning about mixed media and it's still blowing my mind.  The imprecise nature of it is so freeing.  While scouring Pinterest for inspiration I came across this tutorial by Ayeeda over at Zeuss and Zoe.  It never ceases to amaze me the way the artists who post these tutorials make everything looks so effortless.  Here's the  video if you are interested in watching!

I thought the use of the tissue weight kraft paper was genius, and I recreated it using a leftover paper bag which I crumpled up and layered with mists and glass bead gel under the photo. For my metal, I took two little plaque like metal embellishments and tucked them under the photo so only the ornate edge detail was exposed.

For my journaling, which I added digitally, I chose a poem I found online (author unknown).

Flutter by,

Butterfly, 

Floating flower

in the sky.

Kiss me with your

Petal wings - 

Whisper secrets,

Tell of Spring.

Then on the back of the layout I told the story of this photo, as follows:

I love that Heather captured this moment between you two girls.  Sitting on the trampoline, in your dress up clothes and with crazy static hair, you decided to show Addison what a butterfly kiss is...such a sweet tender moment captured...but a little bit of humor too, as your conversation went like this:

Ireland: "This is a butterfly kiss, Addi!"

Addison: "That's not a butterfly kiss, that's a kiss from China!"

You girls crack me up.  Leave it to the both of you to turn a sweet tender moment into one of giggles.  - Summer 2013

The blue butterfly was fussy cut from some Heidi Swapp paper and covered with antique tinted All Night Media liquid embossing medium.  I stamped a butterfly off center underneath the blue one, and popped the blue embossed butterfly on top of it.

Lots of fabric trim on here, with ribbon and some doily scraps I had laying around.  For the clock, I fussy cut some more elements from Heidi Swapp paper and repeated what I did with the butterfly using the All Night Media liquid embossing medium.  The swabs of white are modeling paste, misted with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in teal, and then layered with glass bead gel.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting me!  I hope you have found some inspiration and that I will see your layouts in the CSI gallery this week.  In the meantime, enjoy the weekend!

xoxo,

Shawna