Trick or Treat 08

This is a layout I did of my son and his friends at Halloween. My girls feel like they are too old for Halloween, but I say, "are you ever too old for Halloween"? I know I still dress up for Halloween, anyways......

This layout was extremely easy and fast to do. I used 4 different coordinating papers, ribbon and rub-ons. The skeleton face is a cut out from one of the papers with stickles for the eyes.

Shadow Boxes

These are 8x8 shadow boxes that I did of each of my kids. I think that this is probably the first time I worked with black & white pictures, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Working in b&w is so easy and there's just something about black & white.... The best part is, when your ready for something new, just open up the box and pull out the old and stick in the new. I have these 3 boxes on the shelf in my scrapbook room.

It all begins with a grape

Right now I have 3 books that I am working on. One of them is my 18th anniversary trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley. Yes, I know it was 2 years ago that is why I'm trying to get it done. I went to Scrapfest in Mandeville back in March and most of the layouts I did there were from this trip. I'm still not done, but getting close.

If you haven't realized yet, I love using lots of embellishments and 'stuff' on my layouts. I love clustering!! And this layout has a lot of both. These are pictures of some of the vineyards and vines that were everywhere. I layered 3 different papers, then added my pictures and then the embellishments. I clustered flowers, bling, rub-ons, ribbons, charms, chipboards, tags, fleur-de-lis's, etc..... My title is made out of ghost letters that I painted and then stamped using staz on. And once again as you can see, I left a place for journaling which I do plan to fill in---eventually

Sisters

This layout was my 4th assignment with the Design Team. We were given the Heidi Swapp Resist Chipboard Sheet, Invisibles, and Chipboard shapes. The challenges that I used in my l/o were: curling, folding paper, creating a tone on tone l/o, using lace, using corrugated chipboard, creating a 3 dimensional embellishment, and creating a new look with ribbon.

The pictures I chose were from my niece Sara's wedding. My oldest daughter, Chelsea, was one of the bridesmaids. Their dresses were chocolate brown with an ivory sash and so I used the same 2 colors in my l/o to coordinate with her dress.

My background is actually the resist chipboard. I painted it first with brown acryllic paint and then rubbed the paint off over the 'resistable' area with a damp paper towel. I also rubbed lightly over the non-resistable area to give it a kind of old/vintage look. Lastly I sprayed it with tattered leather glimmer mist to give a little bit of a shine. There are several layers of torn and distressed paper but the top one is curled over and a piece of lace put just behind it at the top and then a pin is stuck through it. There is also a lace flower that i made in the upper right corner. The photo corners are actually large pieces of corrugated chipboard that I tore and inked. My 3 dimensional embellishments are the fleur-de-lis, which has 3 layers and the flourishes on the right and left sides. These I made by cutting the exact flourishes out of one of my papers and layering them on top of each other with a pop dot in between. I didn't put them exactly straight on top of each other but instead moved the top one slightly to the side. I don't know if I really created a 'new look' with ribbon (well, it was new to me) but I did create alot of different looks with ribbon. I wrapped a very small ribbon randomly around the corrugated chipboard and wrapped some ribbon around each painted then heat embossed letter. The ribbon that is at the bottom of the photos is the brown ribbon weaved in and out of another ivory ribbon and then pushed to make a ruffled effect. One other place that I used ribbon was at the upper right and left corners. I tied the ribbon in a knot and had punched holes randomly and then just took the ribbon in and out and then put a knot at the other end. One of my favorite things on this l/o though is the yo-yo, ya-yo, yo-ya, or whaever their called, flowers that I made. I think that's it.

LOVE (Cody's wedding)

This is the layout I did of my nephew Cody's wedding. His wedding triggered a long line of weddings in my family. His was in December, my stepson Nick was in March, my niece Sara in April and my nephew Jay is scheduled in Aug and my niece Mia in September. Wow, 5 weddings in less than a year.

I took a circular green foil paper (from one of the Christmas lines), cut it in half and put a half on each the right and left sides. Placed my pictures then added embellishments. I heat embossed chipboard flourishes with Kaleidoscope then added a lot of bling and flowers. I also weaved 3 different ribbons up the sides through the flourishes and across the top. Her flowers were red roses so I added a few mini roses in the layout. I used their actual invitation and cut it up and used it in 2 different places, this way I didn't have to journal. It said it all.

Flutter Into Spring

This is a great layout for spring or summer. Lisa H. and I did this layout together at one of our design team meetings. She may have already posted it, but....

We were paired up and given a line of paper to use and this is what we came up with. I love this paper, the colors are so vibrant,. It is the Basic Grey Marrakech papers. We tore then distressed and layered the papers on top of each other. Then added flowers----made out of flowers cut out of the same paper and chipboard----bow, grass, and butterflies. The leaves for the flowers were made out of chipboard covered in the different papers. Easy, fast and fun to do.

It's a Cheer Thing

This one's for all you mom's out there with cheerleaders. You get so many pictures over the season---- so I decided to do a layout with a collage of pictures from the season. I used the technique tuesday circles and did a picture collage inside each one. Added some extra circles and dots and covered some chipboard stars and that was it. It was so easy and fast to do.

Jumpin Into Spring

I had been wanting to do a butterfly layout for forever, especially since everywhere you look in scrapbooking, there's a butterfly. I had bought the S.E.I. papers when they first came out and held on to them until I had the perfect pictures, which happened on the first day of spring. The kids were having a good time out by the pool and jumping on the trampoline. They were actually getting along for once! My favorite things about this layout are, ofcourse the pictures, the colors, and the stitching. I also enjoyed cutting and pop-dotting all the flowers and butterflies.

I know what some of you MIGHT be thinking. I showed my layout to some of my friends at Scrapfest and some of them thought it was from Melissa's class. Let me set the record straight----I did not take Melissa's class and did not even go to the Megacrop. I think it's because we used the same line of paper. But if you look closely you can see it's not the same.

Easter EGG-citement

Hey guys,

Sorry so long between postings. So much has been going on. The end of the school year is always a busy time. Then I was away for 2 weeks and while I was gone a lightning storm took out my computer. Anyways, I'm trying to get back on track.

This was our 3rd Design Team l/o. The only items I was given was the swiss polka dot pink paper, the Bazzil flourish edge strip, buzz and bloom flowers, and some tickets.

This layout was easier for me than the last. Since I was only given the pink paper, it was easy to add color and other papers and embellishments.

I tore, inked and distressed the brown paper. There is a clustering of 'stuff' (paper cut-out flowers, rub-ons, tickets, bling, etc..) in the lower left corner and a clustering of flowers on the right side. I tried to make this look like a bouquet of flowers. Clustering was one of our challenges. Making different types of flowers was another. I used lots of flowers on mine. Flowers are one of my favorite things. 2 of my flowers are made by layering a bunch of different types of flowers. One of them is made with the tickets and then on top of it is a flower I made by weaving different strips of cardstock, glueing it to a chipboard and then cutting it out. One of my flowers is made of felt and the last one I made with beads. There is also a string of beads weaved thru the bazzil flourish. Beads were another challenge. Thel leaves on the bouquet were made by alcohol inking a transparency with green, white and gold, then stamping a leaf on it and cutting it out. I painted and decorated the buzz and bloom flowers and placed them them down in the 'grass' (which is actually a ribbon) along with some easter eggs I made and decorated. The word egg is chipboard that I covered with paper and then used glossy accents on. Lastly, a cute bee was placed in the upper right and I stitched a buzz line.