Watercolor cards

I love the look of watercolors - so I have set out to see how I can incorporate them into my work more.
I started with this single sheet of watercolor paper, and just inked some watercolor on it.  My tip of the day is when you drop the water into the little circle of dry water color paint, spend some time mixing it up.  It's a dry paint and you are trying to bring it back to life, the more you mix the darker the color will get, the more paint you get in your water.

I added a little salt to the green section, which gives it that speckled look.

After painting my swatches, I walked off and let them dry. For about 2 weeks.  It doesn't take that long to dry, but that's when I found time to get back to this project.  Plus, it made them nice and dry to work with.

On Crop Saturday, I made these 8 cards using this one sheet of paper. After making the cards, my tip would be to have less white space between the color swatches.

 

2018 Week 22

Another visit to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens, the Lego display back in March.  I pulled a pre-done layout from my stash.  I added the title, a little stamping and a few more mats to add more pictures.  The 2X2 sizes are good for pages like this.

 

2018 Week 21

I love the Fresh Air papers!  And I'm finding what I am doing right now works with them, so being the scrapper I am, I'm taking pictures to fit the pages that come with the kit!  Here's my first one - and yes, I was scrapping the weekend away, taking pictures of the crop, while I did this layout!  Pictures were added later, but I knew what went where.

July Bells & Whistles

The July Bells & Whistles workshop will be on July 20, from 6:30-8:30.  Cost is $7.00

This is an aquarium page with lots of fun things for you to do.  The fishy backgrounds are from a mask I made using a fish outline from the You are Here cartridge.  It's inked in glacier and crystal blue (with sponge daubers) then you stamp on top off all the fish, with the mask still in place, in charcoal.  I used a retired stamp set to get the lettering look I wanted in the fish. Then you add some pebble ink using a stamp from the Splash of Color stamp set.  If you only add one stamp set to your collection this year - that's the one I recommend.  I use it all the time, for added detail.

 

We also use the international stamp set This is Paradise.  It's a great ocean set, even if you are not from Down Under.  A little ribbon, and a few retired aqua dots and your page is done.

I will be leaving the charcoal mats as a single sheet of paper, so you can make your mats any size you want.  My sample is cut with 3 - 4"x6" mats and 3 - 4"x4" mats.  If you attend and like the sizes, I'll be happy to do the cutting for you.

2018 Week 20

I'm combing through a pile of really old photos, just random stuff of my girls as young ones.  I had all these of Hurricane learning about new things by tasting them.  The paper pack is Gimme Some Sugar.  The little chef bear is off the Cricut access site, but his papers are from the basics packs, this  year and when we had the textured papers.

The font is from Flower Market, and I inked half of it.  Both paper and ink are Charcoal.

Postcard Pefect Cruising

May is National Scrapbooking month and CTMH has a paper set just for May!
Postcard Perfect papers are good for Hawaii, Florida and beach trips.  This is a cruise layout I did, with Postcard Perfect and You are Here.

Get your own pack before it's gone!  Click here to see all the options.

Dino-mite birthday!

I love cute stamps!  How about this hostess exclusive in the new seasonal catalog?

I tried the water colors and it made the dino look colored by a kid - which is kind of cool.  But I did like the marker coloring better.  I used masking to get all the balloons and the back ground behind the dancing dinos.  I used two different markers for shading on each dino - a green set, a yellow set and a blue set, pictured here.

2018 Week 19

When I saw the CTMH May stamp of the month, this layout came into my head.  I've got some old supplies and some new ones in here, but you can use any stamp set you have that works for you - for your captured in a jar things.

I used regular black ink on the photos.  Don't smash too hard or the stamp slides and you get a smeared jar.  I let the ink dry overnight.  I tested the ink on the edges of some of the photos (stamped on the scraps) so I could test when it was dry and not take a chance on smudging my main pictures.

The blank jar could be used for journaling, but in my case, these are just a bunch of random leftover photos after I had scrapped the events.  I am going to stamp the sentiment "More precious than rubies" from the Inspired Words stamp set - I just haven't gotten it in yet.

June Bells & Whistles

It's graduation season and vacation season and beach season and what am I inspired to create?
A pumpkin patch page!
Go figure.

I had fun creating this one, but it took me several days and several different trys!  I played with my new Cricut Air and the welding technique.
The title has a shadow and it's welded together.  You glue the letter down, then have just two pieces to put on your page.
The pumpkins are several layers: a fern background (welded as your base), a tangerine pumpkin, edged in sunset ink, then stamped with a design in sunset ink, then another detail layer in goldrush.
The pumpkins are from You are Here.  I grabbed the vine behind it off Cricut space, because I was travelling when I built the bottom border and don't have all my cartridges loaded yet.
The wagon is from Flower Market, cut at 4 1/2 ".  It has a little shading and stamping on it as well. The base layer is actually silver foil paper, so the center of the wheels are silver, even though they just look brown here.

If you order a kit from me, but are unable to attend the workshop, many times I will do the stamping for you.  This will not be one of those kits, because the stamps are not specific to the layout.  Just use any swirly, word, or detail stamp in your collection!

The middle section was designed to hold 8 horizontal pictures.  I figured most pumpkin patch pictures are horizontal, but when I went back through mine I found some of both.  Being open, the design allows for almost anything you want to do with your photos. The wagon does cut off some of the picture behind it, so your kit will include a B&T 4"x"6 to go there.
Here are a few samples of  how you can lay your pictures out.  The kit does not include white mats - I printed these pictures at home and that's just how they print out.

 

RSVP for your kit ($7) on Facebook or send me a message!

2018 Week 18

While I do have a few recent photos that I need to get developed, I'm digging into my old album, and scrapping the photos I took before I started scrapping back in 2003.  Here's Hurricane trying to fly off the couch with kite wings - so cute!

This is a CTMH layout that only had spaces for a few photos.  Most of my personally designed pages hold many more photos - but I just had these three and this pre-done page worked just perfectly.

2018 Week 17

 

The last of April was a FETCH weekend. Even with all the activity of hosting the event, I still get to scrap some.  This is my final layout for the 2017 Convention - which is good, because the next one is in 46 days!

For this layout I used some retired paper named Urban.  Not only was this the last of my convention photos, it was the last of this paper pack as well.

 

I used the You are Here cartridge for this layout.  The bottom border is neat, in that it automatically offsets the layers, so you have this cityscape with some depth - just choose two different papers when you go to cut it.  I used fit to length 6" for this, and used two sets on the bottom of each page. 

 

 

 

I also cut some smaller pieces as matching embellishments (the compass and map). 2" (maybe?).

Frame It! Summer 2018

Frame It workshop is this Saturday at Piper & Leaf Strong Station (Hwy 72). Thanks Sherry - for reminding me to post this!  You can pay for the Frame It! workshop here. Frame It - Summer 2018

Layout only $10.00 USD Layout and Frame $25.00 USD Layout only and I'm bringing a friend $20.00 USD Layout & Frame and I'm bringing a friend $50.00 USD

Picture to be added!

2018 Week 16

This week's personal layout has only ONE photo on it - a rarity for me, but it was called for.
Are you putting your scraps in your scrapbooks, as well as your photos?

May Card Workshop

The May card workshop will be on May 10th, from 5:30-7:30PM.  Cost is $5 for 3 cards. 

The perfectly lined are hearts are because it's not stamped - it's paper from the Adventure Fundamentals paper pack.

2018 Week 15

This weekend was cold and rainy. I spent it all indoors - but on Saturday my scrapping mojo just wasn't to be found.  I had better luck on Sunday with this.

These pictures were similar to Christmas photos, with all the different colors.  But I found an old paper pack I felt went well.
This layout started with the photos, trimming them down to
11 - 3"x3"
2 - 4"x4"
1- 4"x6"  (I need to get one more printed, thus the place holder.)
That's a lot of photos!  Most of the time I can't cut my pictures down, but I'm learning to back off the zoom some of the time.
Next I worked with the size papers I had left in this kit.  Just for reference the vertical strips, from left to right are 1", 1/2", 4 1/4", 1/2". 
We've all got tons of ribbon, so I grabbed some and covered where the papers meet.  I love this little ribbon with the gold line down it (and it comes in several colors!).  I put a thin line of liquid glass down on the papers, then laid the ribbon on top, pressing carefully.  Works every time - just make it a THIN line.
The mat for the 3"x3" photos is a 12" x 3 1/2" strip.  One photo hangs off the edge, but I love that look. You could always use more paper if you don't.  The side where both pictures fit is 6 5/8" long.  The other side is just whatever's left.  I alternated which side has the hang-over picture.  So - now you know.  In scrapbooking, you can have a hangover without any alcohol!  The strips start at 1/4" from the bottom, with 1/4" between each one.  I centered the appropriate zip strip in the middle of what was left for space at the top.
The title is 2 1/2" tall, because that's what I had for paper, but that particular cut would work better as a bigger title.  The word getaway is very thin at this size.

2018 Week 14

Week 14 got away from me but for good reason-I was out making memories to scrap!  We went to visit the youngest down in Orlando and went to Universal Studios for the first time. 

Yo ho ho and a Bottle of Rum!

I had a scrap of paper floating on my desk for months with the recipe for the sweet sauce I like to use on bread pudding.  As I was working with the Gimme Some Sugar papers - I thought they would work great for recipe cards.  But as I typed up this recipe, the Rum Sauce just called for some pirate action!  The stamp is from a retired birthday set and the papers are from the retired Jack pack.  Not only do you get to see my cute 6X6 card, you also get my recipe!

2018 Week 12

For my personal scrapping goal, I did two double layouts this week, with some really old CTMH papers, called Aspen.

 

 

 

Most of the time, I'm in high gear - so much to do, so much I want to do, I do it quickly so I can get more done in a hour, in a day.  And then, I look at some of the beautiful antiques and architecture of old.  The details make them so amazing.  But those details take time.

I want to have that level of details in my scrap pages.  Sometimes I can manage it, other times not so much.  On these pages, the pictures went down very easily.  These papers are preprinted with the picture spaces - no paper cutting or arranging.  So I spent some time on the details.

For starters I added some clouds.  These are 3 different stamps from a retired stamp set.  To make them group together properly, I stamped each one on post-it notes and used the masking technique.

You have to cut them out, but only once and it was well worth the effort.
Next I worked on the title.  The You Are Here cartridge made this one easy.  I stamped the clouds behind, then added the layered cut for my title.

My final touch was another combination of stamping, double layered cut, and some liquid glass.

Using the Flourishes stamp set, I stamped the word Hello, and then a couple of other flourishes right on top of the Hello.  Then I covered most of the letters with the camera cut, also from the You Are Here cartridge.

After the camera was attached, a sprinkled a little loose glitter in the middle and made the glass lens with liquid glass.  This was the last touch, so I could let it dry without moving the paper around.
They say with enough repetition, things become habit.  Maybe I can slow myself down enough to get into the habit of this great detail.

April Card Class

I had a request for sympathy cards, so this class will make a few.  How many sympathy cards you need can vary depending on your age.  For my younger card makers, you can switch out stamps and turn these into thank you cards.  I have 12 kits available, but only 10 of the bonus cards.  Class is April 12, 5:30-7:30, cost is $5.00.

 

This is the bonus card - very simple but elegant.