More from the gift album

I have been plugging away at my grandma's Hanukkah gift album.  I have a few more completed pages that I wanted to share.  I still have three more pages to go, but I am well on my way to finishing them.  The first is of a photo of my grandmother's family during a Seder dinner.  My grandfather is at the dinner as well.  This occurred while they were dating so when my grandma was 17 or 18 years old.  I used the September Scarlet Lime kit for this layout.  I used a lot of Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress ink for inking, stamping and distressing on this layout.

The second layout that I have to share is a photo of my grandma as a little girl with her siblings.  The photo was taken when she was probably 2 or 3 years old.  They are either at the beach or at a park on a summer day and they are posed with several puppies.  This layout I did for the ABC (UVW) challenge on scrapbook.com.  The letters were Uneven - you had to use an uneven number of photos, layers of paper, embellishments, etc.  I used 9 layers of paper, 1 photo, I embossed in 3 places and I used Stickles in 5 places  Vanilla - you had to use the color vanilla on the layout.  I used Zing Vanilla embossing powder on the layout.  Warm- the photo had to be of warm weather or sometime when it was warm.

Same Shape in Varying Sizes.

Phew it has been awhile since I blogged.  It has been kind of a crazy couple of weeks and I just didn't have the time or the motivation to do much crafting.  Things thankfully are starting to settle down and I am and getting back into the groove.

This week at Frosted Designs we had a really fun challenge.  You are supposed to use the same shape in varying sizes on a layout, card or other project.  I decided to use to make a layout and I used a scalloped circle in three sizes as the background of my layout.

I used my Bosskut Gazelle to cut the circles.  I just made a circle and then used the scissor edge tool in funtime to add the scallops.  I started with the largest circle first and after each cut I made it a little smaller.  For the papers I used a lot of Basic Grey.  The background paper, the orange circle and all the paper matting the photo are Basic Grey papers.  The brown paper is just cardstock that I inked with white and bronze inks and then added some bling .  For the title I used two different types of Thickers.  The word wedding was originally white.  I used turquoise and tattered leather Glimmer Mist to add some color to it.  Finally the butterflies are Tim Holtz Grungeboard from the Nature collection.  I inked them with broken china distress ink and then I embossed them with pewter Zing Metallic embossing powder and then added some bling. 

Paper Tearing

This week at Frosted Design the challenge is paper tearing.  This is one of my favorite techniques.  It is so versatile and can be used on so many different styles of projects.  Usually I use paper tearing on my more distressed projects, but there is plenty of room for it on brighter and cuter projects as well.  I made two projects this week.  The first is another layout for my grandmother's gift album for Halloween.  This is a photo of her with her sister.  I believe it was taken at my dad's cousin's wedding reception, but I am not 100% sure. 

This layout I wanted a more vintage look so I went pretty heavy on the distressing.  I also used a lot of rub-ons on this layout.  They are layered almost everywhere!  Most of the items on this layout were from the October Mosh Posh kit.  A technique that I tried on this layout and I am really happy with is instead of only inking the background I took black diamond Stickles and put it on the layout in various places and then I rubbed it in with a paper towel.  It gives it a gritty, but sparkly effect.

My second project was to make place cards for my nieces and nephews for Thanksgiving. My nieces and nephews absolutely love when I make things for them.  They get so excited to have things with their own names on them.

 

I got the papers and the chipboard pumpkins from the November Mosh Posh kit.  I stamped and hand cut out the leaves and acorns for the cluster at the top.   

Brown Orange and Teal

I am pretty behind with this post, but awhile back at Frosted Designs we were tasked with making a project in brown, orange and teal ONLY!  I love that color combination so I was really excited to work on this challenge.  Well at least I was until I realized that while I had tons of paper with those colors, I didn't have any with ONLY those colors.  That was when I had a mini panic attack for like a minute.  Once it was over I breathed deeply and realized "Hey I can make my own patterned paper out of cardstock!"  My first project was a layout. 

I found a few different sheets of card stock in my desired colors and got out my stamps and ink pads.  I used stamps on several of the papers and on a few I broke out my Cuttlebug and the embossing folders and embossed a few and then inked the raised portions of the paper.  It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed getting to play around and create my own design.  Once I was done I moved on to a card.

 

Once again I used plain cardstock for all of this and added stamping.  The blue and brown swirly paper actually started as white cardstock.  I saturated it in turquoise Glimmer Mist and then put down a glimmer screen and layered on tattered leather Glimmer Mist.  I really love the effect it gave. 

Sketchy fun!

Over at Frosted Design we try to give you a little bit of inspiration every month in the form of a sketch.  This month Meg, one of the site creators and moderators, came up with this awesome sketch.

She was going for a quilted look on the background which I totally love!  I was really excited about this sketch and I had a lot of fun creating a layout to go with it. 

As usual my layout tend to go in a slightly different direction then when I start them.  I was planning on the blocking of the background, but I wanted to use lacing on this without actually lacing all the blocks together (that would just have taken WAY too much time).  So I got the idea to make the background look like a quilt that was in need of a little repair and that had been haphazardly reconnected in places.  The rest of the layout took on a life of its own after that.  I used Basic Grey Marrakech and lots of Distress ink for this layout.  The alpha stickers are Thickers as is the jouranling spot. 

Altering madness

Recently I have had the chance to participate in a really fun and huge Hanukkah swap at scrapbook.com
(Hopefully my swap buddy doesn't read my blog)  It has been so fun and thinking of 8 gifts to make for my buddy has really pushed me outside of my comfort zone when it comes to scrapping.  Altering has always been something I have wanted to try, but hadn't gotten around to yet.  I had altered a few canvases before, but that was the extent of it.  Plus I had never gotten the chance to use Mod Podge and I was dying to try it out. 

My first use of it was on an altered canvas.  I started out painting the background with Star of David Masks.  Then I added a light layer of silver paint over that to give it a misty look.  Then I used my cuttlebug to make a ton of die cuts.  Archiver's has an awesome set of Hanukkah Quickutz dies.  They are exclusively sold by Archiver's so I felt REALLY lucky that I have one near me to get it  I adhered the die cuts using my ATG adhesive gun and then added several layers of Mod Podge.  I think it turned out really fun and festive.

My next project I was super excited to try, but so afraid to start!  I wanted to create an altered box, because my buddy said that she loves boxes and little storage containers.  I went to Hobby Lobby and found this really pretty wooden box for only $4!  Then I added a few pieces of glittery patterned paper that I found at Archiver's any yet again my Hanukkah die cuts.   First I painted the box white using some house paint we had.  Then I used silver Tim Holtz alcohol ink to add some silver stripes and I inked the metal hinges and hardware with silver to give them a bit of a distressed feel to them. 

My first thought was to use a grid or blocks for the top of the box.  For the stars I cut them out using silver cardstock.  Then I look a pretty swirly decorative stamp (any will do) and stamped over the die cut so it was covered in bits of swirls.  THEN I covered those in crystal and black diamond Stickles. I am really happy with the result.  After all of that I went with an alternating blue and black design on the sides and on the front I added a few bling circles. 

All in all I am very pleased with how this turned out.  My husband even asked me to make one for him. 

Gift Album

For Hanukkah I am making a gift album for my grandmother. I received the scanned images of quite a few photos from the first half of my grandmother's life when her sister passed away. I have been wanting to make her an album so I though now would be the perfect time.

My goal for this album is to have a piece of art. I want the album to be very intricate and very vintage. I don't know most of the dates or the stories behind many of the photos so I am going to give my grandmother journaling cards to write about the photos and then I will adhere those to the backs of the layouts. I don't want to lose the stories behind all these photos.

When I got the September Scarlet Lime kit I immediately got the inspiration to make the album. The kit is full of rich colors, vintage papers and wonderful accents. I ordered the photos and I have started my work. So far I only have two of the nine layouts that I plan to make done.

This first page started with a photo of my grandmother (left), her mother (center), and her sister. I found the photo so striking and stylish that I really wanted to create a layout to match it. I started with the black and red papers and built on it from there. I used a lot of layering with my papers, embellishments and stamps. Finally I pulled out the Stickles to cover the title alphas and the add accents to the layout. I am very happy with how my first layout turned out and I think my grandmother will really like it.

The second page I completed has a photo of my grandmother with her immediate family. This photo was taken when she was around 12 or 13. My original intention for the album was to use the same colors through out the album, but for some reason when doing this page I kept gravitating to the pinks, grays and browns or the Basic Grey infuse line. I hand cut the flowers from on of the patterned papers from that line. For the background I used Tim Holtz masks, Black soot distress inks, and I layered a ton of older rub-ons that I had. Then came the bling. I did this layout for the bling challenge over at Frosted Designs. I added tons of Prima Say It In Crystals bling and a lot of Stickling over the details on the layout. It is hard to see all the glitter in the photo, but in real life this layout really shines.

Scrap Pack

Whenever the challenge is held I like to join the Scrap Pack challenge on scrapbook.com. It is a really fun challenge that really pushes your creativity. You get a pack of items in the mail from the hostess and you have to use all of the items on a layout. The items in the pack are both traditional and non-traditional scrapbooking items. Once you get the pack you can use all the paper, ink, or paint that you want, but you can't add any additional embellishments that you don't make out of paper.

This layout was for the October 2009 Scrap Pack challenge. I am happy to say that this one actually one the challenge this month. I was very excited about that. In October our kit consisted of:

A square of brown felt.
A square of burlap.
A 12 inch piece of green ribbon.
A mini paper bag.
Twelve blue tickets.
A piece of twine.
Four wooden beads (two large and two small).
And three buttons in three sizes.

When I first got the kit I immediately knew that I would use the Periphery line from Basic Grey. They blues, browns and greens in the pack were perfect for that line. I had to put on my thinking cap for the rest.