Mystery in the (Concrete) Jungle

Hi everyone! Sharing with you my latest creation from my scrapbook room. Over at CSI we have a beautiful color scheme and as usual, I have used the amazingly beautiful Blue Fern Studios

products. 

I am entering this piece in the Blue Fern Studios January Sketch Challenge. There will be a lot of competition this month, so I am just hoping for the best. Their method of choosing is by a drawing, so we will see. Here is the sketch, by the amazing Michele Singh, who  creates many of the Blue Fern Studios collections! For this layout, I turned the sketch upside down. 

 Here is Michele's sketch: 

If you are familiar with my scrapbooking journey, you know that development of "my style" has been a long time coming. It has been in the last year, after a lot of fun experimentation that I achieved this goal. I love a classic, romantic look when choosing paper. A lot of fun work on the background paper is a must. Stamping, painting, texturizing and embossing on my backgrounds is the part I enjoy the most.

After the background is complete, I can add the lovely little elements from the collection. In the photo below, it is the sweet little cherub. I always purchase two pieces of paper so I can use one for fussy cutting. I use markers around the edges so no white shows. Then, I create a chipboard piece a little smaller than the piece that has been fussy cut. This gives the little cherub more stability so it doesn't get warped or damaged over the years in a scrapbook. 

The last step is to add the embellishments. I have recently discovered the brand new Blue Fern Studios Imagine Ink embossing powder. All you have to do is dab a little Ranger/Tim Holtz Perfect Medium on the chipboard, then sprinkle the powder onto the chipboard and heat. It's super easy! 

PRODUCTS

Blue Fern Studios paper (Blush

     collection/Cupid's Folly), chipboard,

     Imagine Ink (embossing powder) and stamps

Crafter's Workshop template
Gelatos
Liquitex modeling paste
Petaloo flowers

Prima Color Bloom Spray and mailbox 

     embellishment

Ranger Perfect Medium
Stampendous embossing products
StazOn ink
From my stash:
     sequins

The journaling reads: 

Lee and Allie enjoy the fast pace of "the big city". When they visited Liz in Austin, they boated on Lake Travis and enjoyed the unique music on Sixth Street. One of the most enjoyable activities was to view the area that has been seen by millions... Grafiti Park at Castle Hills. It is a fun place to have your photo taken! The Concrete Jungle is alive and well! 

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to leave a comment. 

Noel

Greetings, scrappy friends! It has been a while since I posted due to minor but much needed surgery. I'm doing fine and am well on my way to being back to my normal activities, and then some!

Over at CSI, we are doing a lovely color scheme with red as it's boldest color, just in time for Valentine's Day.  Be sure to stop by at CSI to see all the lovely creations and to be inspired by the stories and creativity. Also, check out our sponsors and participate to have a chance to win some of the wonderful prizes! 

I can't wait to see what everyone will come up with for this case file! 

I am entering this piece in the Blue Fern Studios January Sketch Challenge. There will be a lot of competition this month, so I am just hoping for the best. Their method of choosing is by a drawing, so we will see. Here is the sketch, by the amazing Michele Singh, who  creates many of the Blue Fern Studios collections! For this layout, I turned the sketch upside down.

 Here is Michele's sketch: 

For this layout, as for most of my work, I stamped the background, painted it, embossed and texturized it. Having done all the background work I embossed the chipboard, fussy cut the lovely flowers in the paper and popped them up for a 3-D effect. Last, I added the flowers, tule and photo.

After getting the background just right, I focused on the other layers. Here, you can see the beautiful chipboard that I embossed.

PRODUCTS

Blue Fern Studios paper (Vintage Christmas/Deck the Halls), chipboard, embossing
    powder and stamps
Crafter's Workshop template
Gelatos
Liquitex modeling paste
Maya Road tule
Prima flowers and Color Bloom Spray
Pro Art gesso
Ranger Perfect Medium
Sizzix die
Stampendous embossing products
StazOn ink
From my stash:
     pearls

The journaling tag was also texturized before adding the story behind the photo. The tag is meant to be pulled out  and read. It says, "When I was a little girl, my paternal grandmother used the same recipes for our Christmas Day meal that I use today. My mother was given them as a young married woman and Mother has passed them along to me. These amazing recipes for the cornbread stuffing, the turkey, giblet gravy and pumpkin pie are all made from scratch and are a huge undertaking, but one that I am honored to carry on. I have only one recipe needing improvement: Giblet Gravy. I hope to improve on the gravy and pass these recipes on to future generations in our family!

Thanks for taking a peek and leaving a comment.......see you soon!

Hugs,
Patty

Brown Eyed Girl

Hello my scrappy friends! This layout was created for the CSI (Color, Stories, Inspiration) Design Team. I enjoy the challenges at CSI and think most any scrapbooker would also like the fun of meeting all the criteria in a creative and fun way. Most importantly, I enjoy saving the stories of my family for future generations, and wish that I could read and pass along more stories from my ancestors. In order to compete and have a chance to win lovely prizes, as seen here, you need to join the group, follow the color "Scheme", include at least three items from the "Evidence" category and one from "Testimony". 

It won't take long to feel at ease each week as you enter the challenge. I will share a little secret with you....a good story almost always increases your chances of being featured! 

For  this layout, here is what I wrote for my description: 

Color Scheme: All five colors used

Evidence: Stripes, music accents, string/fiber

Testimony: Use a song title or lyrics as part of your journaling. I chose Brown Eyed Girl performed and written by Sir Van Morrison. This song is iconic rock and roll from the sixties and because my daughter has brown eyes, I wanted to journal about her eyes. Here is my journaling: 

Brown Eyed Girl

by Van Morrison

Standin' in the sunlight laughing

Hididn' behind a rainbow's wall

Slippin and a slidin'

All along the waterfall

They say, "the eyes are a window to the soul", and I agree. Your eyes reflect the happiness in your soul, Elizabeth. You sparkle and shine in every way, my "Brown Eyed Girl"!

I love using certain techniques to make my layouts interesting. One technique is to use paint splattered on parts of the background paper and another is to texturize the background with modeling paste and a stencil. In addition, I use a stamp to highlight the area around the picture(s), and am a big fan of layering and 3-D work. 

I had this layout almost finished when I received my first shipment just in time to use the brand new Blue Fern Studio Imagine Ink Embossing Powder on the chipboard title! So excited to now have five different colors of this very fine powder! It makes embossing the chipboard title, frame or other elements a breeze! 

In the photo above can be seen quite a bit of the heat embossing I applied to the background with a chunky embossing powder. Below, is a little piece of costume jewelry that I purchased years ago to use in my scrapbooking. It was part of a necklace that had about fifteen little charms on it. I used a few inches of embossing thread to hang it from the chipboard. 

In this photo can be seen three of my most used techniques: fussy cutting, layering and texture on the background paper. 

PRODUCTS:

Blue Fern Studio (Frolic paper collection), 

       chipboard, embossing materials and stamps

Crafter's Workshop template
Gelatos

Liquitex modeling paste

Petaloo flowers
Prima Color Bloom Spray, flowers, template and 
        crystal
Pro Art gesso
Ranger  Perfect Medium, Crackle Accents
Stampendous embossing products
StazOn ink

From my stash: embossing floss and  repurposed

        charm

Last, but never least is my hand written journaling. I almost always adhere a little library pocket to the the back of the layout...close to the top....so it can be easily pulled out and read. 


Back to my scrapbook room for more creative fun! See you next time! 

Moses

Today, I'm sharing a layout that I created for the CSI design team. This little photo of my sister-in-law's dog, Moses, is too cute to not scrapbook, and I can just imagine what he would say to Santa if asked, "This year, have you been naughty or nice?" You can  read the reply from Moses at the very bottom of the post. 

What an honor it is to be on the very talented design team at CSI! When you get through looking around at Color Stories Inspiration, be sure to check out the Blue Fern Studios Blog. These two sites will give you tons of inspiration. I adore the BFS products! 

The first thing I do is create an interesting background for my layouts. Here, you can see where I stamped a brick design to draw the eye to the background. Over the stamping I used modeling paste and a stencil for texture. 

I painted the chipboard piece with gesso and let it dry before adhering it onto the paper. More masking and use of modeling paste in the area behind the word, "Joy".

Now, who could not love a face like that? Moses is almost as cute as our Gracie! I painted the papers to be fanned with gesso to add a little softness. Then, I  popped them up for a 3-D effect. 

For another layer of interest, I sprinkled embossing powder in an area where I wanted to draw attention and heat embossed it. 

One of my favorite techniques is to pop up a pretty element of the paper for a 3-D effect. After all the background work and dimensional elements were finished, I added the embellishments. 

Products:

Blue Fern Studios chipboard, clear

      stamp, Vintage Christmas collection paper

Crafter's Workshop stencil
Liquitex modeling paste

Petaloo flowers

More products: 

Prima flower 
Pro Art Gesso

Recollections flowers and pop dots
Stampendous embossing materials

StazOn Ink

The journaling reads, "Santa, I know that I often have a guilty look on my face. I do get into trouble some days, but I really am nice deep down inside my doggie heart. My person says I am a joy."

Thanks to my blogging and scrapbooking friends for leaving a comment! 

Wonder

Hello blog friends! I hope everyone's almost ready for Christmas! I am done with everything but baking and mailing a few packages and feel so blessed to be through already.

Today, I'm sharing a layout that I created for the CSI design team. It was so much fun to work with these beautiful colors. The photos were taken on our trip to Hawaii last spring. 

For this particular piece I had to get more of a fuchia pink than I had so, I got out my Gelatos and made the paper the perfect color of pink! In this photo you can see the little envelope that I created behind and between the banners. I used it to hold the journaling tag. 

Here, you can see the dainty little die cut leaves tucked behind the photo and the beautiful chipboard. Also there is some stamping and texturizing with the modeling paste. 

You can see the texture added to the background here. It may be a little difficult to see the stamping, but it is there. I used modeling paste and a stencil as part of my background, as well. Then, I added a a tiny bit of embossing to achieve the look I wanted.

For the lovely flowers, I fussy cut the areas I wanted to appear 3-D, glued a little chipboard underneath and used pop dots for a beautiful area of interest. 

Just look at all the layers..... I'm in heaven!

Products:

Blue Fern Studios paper, chipboard and clear                stamp
Frantic Stamper die
Liquitex modeling paste
Prima spray paint, stencil and flowers
Ranger glossy accents
Recollections pop dots
Stampendous embossing materials

From my stash: pearls, paper doilie, beads 

You can easily see the stamping, texturizing and embossing in this photo. To tone down  the green in the leaves, I painted a little gesso on them. 


A heart heart-shaped doily acts as an envelope to hold the journaling tag that reads, "When I see such beauty I am reminded of the WONDER of God's love for us."  

Thanks everyone, for stopping by to take a peek. See you next time! 

Joy

Hello scrappy friends! I've been excited to share with you, this layout that I created for the CSI design team. I always enjoy taking the criteria at CSI (Color, Stories, Inspiration) and using them as a starting point for a new project. This case file in no different!

For every challenge there is a set of criteria to meet over at CSI. In order to compete, you must use all five of the colors, three or more choices from the evidence list and at least one of the choices from the testimony.

This layout is based on a sketch over at the Blue Fern Studios blog. This is the first time for me to compete in one of their monthly challenges, and I couldn't be any more excited!  Here is their sketch:



I adore the papers, chipboard and stamps by Blue Fern Studios and have recently begun to use them almost exclusively. They are always very elegant and have beautiful color schemes and designs. 

My modus operandi is to achieve a lot of texture, and you can see that I achieved my goal here with the lovely embossing behind the title. When using the embossing powder, my goal is to lightly sprinkle the powder on the paper so the result is not a solid surface of enamel, yet an application that allows the paper below to be seen underneath. Another one of my MO's is layering...ooh la la! Fairly thin chipboard can always be found in my stash and I use it underneath pieces that I plan to pop up so they have some stability through the years. 

More layering! For this look, I purchased two 12 X 12" patterned papers that were the same. For me, they had to have a pretty and interesting element to pop up. After fussy cutting around the area to be popped up I used markers to line the vertical edge so that no white would be seen, except in the case of a white flower or anything white. Then, I traced onto the chipboard around every shape to be popped up. Next, I cut out those shapes and glued them to the patterned paper. Pop dots were used between each layer to get the desired 3-D effect. 

The photo is one of my lovely daughter, Elizabeth. She is not always happy....only about 99% of the time, God Bless her. She brings a lot of joy to her friends and family. Just a little side note here....she loves owls, can you tell? 

Techniques used for this layout are stamping, painting, 3-D work, masking, layering, embossing and fussy cutting. 

Products used here are:

Blue Fern Studios paper, chipboard and clear                stamp
Carta Bella stencil
Liquitex modeling paste
Ranger/Tim Holtz crackle paint
Recollections pop dots
Stampendous embossing materials
Tressors Delux lace
From my stash: pearls and milnery flowers

Still more popping up  above and more layering below.

The journaling  below reads:

"Elizabeth, one of the things I love about you the most is that you find joy in each and every day...even in the smallest pleasures and pass it on to everyone around you."

Thanks everyone, for stopping to take a peek! Until next time......