Back to School 2022 - The Grand Finale!

So here we are...almost time for Thanksgiving (my hands-down favorite holiday!!!) and I'm finally getting this last layout from the family's back to school pictures!  Oops...but let's get real...I think I'm actually ahead of the game by getting the last one posted before the end of 2022! 🤣 *pat on the back*

This LO features my gorgeous sister-in-law and two of her beautiful babies on their first day of school...including Gav's first day of kindergarten!  💞  See the LO below:

This LO was made using the Tres Jolie Kit Club September 2022 kit and like some of my other back to school LOs from this year had a bit of a girly steampunk feel to it.  The kit came with some great Tres Jolie chipboard that I altered and then used to create a funky pipe looking backdrop for the photo.  

Below you can see where I cut some of the tags and ephemera from the papers and the kit as well as a few flowers and some gorgeous Beautiful Beads from Renea Bouquets store.  

Below you can see some of the pipe chipboard.  I cut it apart and then pieced it back together, but not before I used a variety of mediums to "decorate" it.  I used plenty of Tim Holtz Foundry Wax to create both a bronzed and silvery finish but needed to make sure it was still girly enough to tie in with the flowers and the "girly steampunk" motif I was going for.  So I used almost too much just a little bit of chunky pink and gold glitter to tone the steampunk down.  The kit came with some great ephemera that could be fussy cut, including the bright yellow butterfly in the picture below.  

Finally, I used more flowers (because...why not?), some more Beautiful Beads, and a Renea Bouquet butterfly to round this LO out!

There you have it!  All of the back to school pictures that I had access to this year have been put into the memory books!  Now it's time for some Thanksgiving and Christmas projects! 💕💕

Thanks for looking!

xoxo,

Mel

 

Back to School - Lily Edition...PLUS a Video Tutorial!!!

Yes, I'm aware that school started quite a bit ago...and that's fine...we can live these beautiful memories all year long!  (Plus I still have one Back to School LO to post after this one!  💗)  Here we are with a sweet little LO of my precious niece on her first day of First Grade!  Plus at the bottom of this post I have posted a step by step video of how I created this!  Here is the LO:

Lily is a special kind of kid.  She loves the color pink, and she loves her fairies and baby dolls, but she also LOVES be a tough little kiddo and play in the dirt, build things (generally out of whatever tools and material she finds around the farm) and use her imagination.  So I wanted to make sure this LO captured her complete spirit and used lots of girly things, but also put some fun trinkets (including a few gears and what nots) to fully show her personality!

Below you can see one of the flower clusters on this LO.  The background paper was a gorgeous mix of yellows and pinks and I knew I had just the flowers to match.  (And now since I used so many flowers I can buy more...right?)  The papers I used for this LO had a bit of a sheen to them and I realized when I was spraying the shimmering white mist that I was able to use a paper towel to wipe some of the color into the paper.  I used the same mist to splatter some spots on the flower clusters.

Below is a closeup of another flower cluster on the opposite side of the photo.  You can also see one of the chipboard gears that I covered in gesso followed by some extreme layers of pink mist, Tim Holtz distress embossing glaze in Speckled Egg and a bit of pink glitter (just for fun).  I also had some metallic gears that I glued down all around the LO and they really worked well with the colors and the chipboard gears.  

In addition to the chipboard gears I also used some chipboard butterflies and used the same array of sprays, embossing glaze, etc.  On the one pictured below I also used some Tim Holtz Foundry Wax for a little bit of extra texture.

Finally, the last flower cluster, a few clock and gear trinkets, and a slight view of the chipboard I put behind the picture.  

This girl has had such a great year in First Grade already and we can't wait to see what she does next!  Thanks for looking and watch the video below for step-by-step info!

xoxo,

Mel

 

Beachy Vibes & Good News!!!

I'm taking a break from my Back to School LOs of all my cute nieces and nephews.  Great news!  I finished my Master's program yesterday so now I will have SO much more free time to craft and make things!  I am SOOOOOO ready for a vacation and one of my girlfriends has suggested a horrible, awful, no-good time trip to Mexico.  In light of that, I went back into my LOs that I haven't blogged about yet and found this great project featuring me at the beach!!!  Anyone who knows me knows that I love the beach...mountains are great too (and pictures from my recent trip to Durango are coming)...but the beach is where I generally locate some of my missing spirit animals!  This picture is a few years old, but when I got this kit in the mail (whenever the heck that was) I knew that I wanted to use the darker tones of the kit and brighten them up with the sunshine and beach!  💗

Here is the final project!

I loved the contrast of the dark background and the white flowers on the paper.  But I also knew I was going to stay with some darker tones and use plenty of teal and some copper-brownish colors as well!  To lighten the overall scheme and make it still feel beachy I picked some more feminine flowers in lighter colors.  Below you can see some of the flower clusters I used on this LO.

I love chipboard and in addition to the deeper teal hues I used to color this chipboard, I used some lighter teal that I really watered down to have a more watercolor look (and who doesn't love water color when it's associated with the ocean!!!)

Below you can see where I added in some deeper hued flowers to contrast with the feminine flowers and then I used some ephemera words for the phrase "Happy Memories" of which most all that I can remember my beach memories being! 

On the chipboard below I stuck with the same light and dark teal hues, but also added in some alcohol ink in Butterscotch and a few other darker brown colors.  I meant to (but forgot 😕😖) to add some sparkly brown glitter (am I the only person who loves their brown glitter or what?) but the overall effect came out just about the way I wanted it to!  😍

There you have it!  The most recent chapter in my education journey is closed and I am SOOOOO ready to see a beach.  (Did I mention it was 31 degrees here this morning??)

Thanks for looking!

xoxoxo,

Mel

 

Back to School 2022 Jacie Edition!

So...here I am...working on finishing up my dual Master's Degree...and in the heart of writing my super long thesis paper...my computer crashed!  So not only was I behind on writing...I got behind on my BTS LO series!  Have no fear...the rough draft of the paper has been submitted, so here is another Back To School LO featuring my sweet niece (and one of my crafting buddies!) Jacie!  Isn't she just precious???  

Here is the LO!

I love clocks and since the parents of this sweet girl are always wanting time to just stand still a little bit more, I figured the clock theme would be more than fitting!  I used a Tres Jolie chipboard clock and started with a coat of white gesso on it.  I also used a brick stencil to make a background and covered the modeling paste in places with white crackle paste and paint for a little more texture!  Jacie's first day of school outfit was gorgeous and I really wanted to channel the natural colors she wore, but also her sparkly personality with plenty of blue tones and TONS of glitter!

The kit I primarily used with this LO came with some metallic flowers, and you can below where I used some of those along with the good 'ole fashioned paper flowers as well!

Below you can see more metal flowers and how I used some Tim Holtz Distress Spray stain in Picket Fence to add some drops of color and give the flowers a little more personality!

There she is, folks!  I hope you enjoyed checking these pictures out just as much as I enjoyed capturing the moment for Jacie!  

xoxo,

Mel

 

Back to School 2022! (Jax Edition!)

It's that time of year again!  The kids are back off to school and #ICYMI...I have pretty much the cutest nieces and nephews around so of course I had to make something special for the parents to remember this day!  Up first is a little something for Jax's parents to gaze at while he's gone for the day...just in case they miss him from being home all summer long!  😂  I used the Tres Jolie Kit Club August scrapbook kit for this and I had a blast making a masculine LO that really captures part of who Jax is also.  And isn't he just one of the cutest kiddos ever? (Yes, I know I'm biased!)

See the LO below...

This kit already had a great masculine feel to it with plenty of metal pieces and metal flowers, but I jazzed it up a little bit with some background texture.  I used white crackle paste and a Tim Holtz stencil that I later splattered with some metallic sprays.  

Even though this is a "masculine" piece, of course I was going to use some regular flowers as well!  I had some metallic teal spray laying around so I splattered that on the flowers to grunge it up a bit, but also to match the blue colors in Jax's back to school shirt! 

Beneath the flowers you can also see some of the chipboard from the kit that I doused with a few coats of gesso, some more metallic spray and some of the Tim Holtz foundry wax.

More flowers splattered with the teal spray and a few of the metal pieces/flowers from the kit.

Finally, I used the border from one of the pieces of paper in the kit and cut the phrases "Carpe Diem" and "Seize the Day Boys" to add some titles to this LO.  I distressed the edges, inked with a little bit of TH Distress Ink and added the phrases to the LO.  I added a few metal pieces from my stash and this LO was absolutely perfect!  Kinda like these great kiddos I have running around here!  💕💕

Thanks for looking and stick around for everyone else's Back to School LOs as they'll be posting here in the next few weeks!  

xoxo,

Mel

 

This Is Our Time

Hi, Everyone!  I took the month of February off to NOT blog while I chipped away at my dual masters degree program, but I'm back with a fun LO using the March Tres Jolie Kit Club scrapbook and mixed media kits.  

Here's the LO:

I love clocks in general, and I LOVED the huge chipboard clock that came with this kit.  I immediately knew that I wanted to use this photo!  This is a picture from the first time my love and I went to the lake together.  We watched a nice sunrise and had a great day exploring one of our amazing lakes we have here in Arkansas! 💖

I also used some fussy cut clocks from an ephemera sheet I had laying around, plus some metal gears and a metal clock from my stash!

Below you can see one of the flower clusters.  I used quite a few flowers from my stash, and after I was done I used some brown and bronze microbeads and prills.  I like to take some ModgePodge and apply the beads and prills with a paintbrush.  Once the adhesive dries you can't even see the adhesive and it just looks like magic!  💖😍

I also used my Cricut and some shiny rose-pink colored vinyl to cut out a title that reads "This Is Our Time".  There was quite a bit of rose and brown tones in the paper, and the mixed media kit I used came with a set of Prima mica powders which I used primarily to color the large chipboard clock.

Below you can see another flower cluster along with some of the great metal pieces I had laying around my craft area!  Isn't the clock so shiny??? 💖

There you have it!  I'm starting two more classes next Monday, but I promise not to be a stranger here!  

xoxoxoxo,

Mel

 

Young Love

So this started out as blog post that was going to include a video tutorial.  However, I'm still getting the lighting right in my new workspace and the video wasn't up to my standards!  Stay tuned, more videos WILL be coming here and to my YouTube channel before you know it!  Either way, here is a photo of me and my love from last Halloween. I titled it "Young Love" even though we're old as dirt getting on up there in years.  Either way, every day I feel like it's still the first day we fell in love, so it keeps us young. (And yes, I know in the grand scheme of things we are still pretty young)

Disclaimer:  Ole boy is NOT a cowboy hat wearing guy by any stretch of the imagination...this was taken on Halloween and there may eventually be a companion LO showing the selfie where I'm wearing the hat too!

Behold...the two of us and one gigantic cowboy hat!

I wanted to experiment with the chipboard and frame the photo with it as much as possible.  I tracked the frame around the back of the photo and cut the extra off on the top and bottom of the picture.  I intended to fill in the gaps on both sides of the circle between the chipboard and the picture, but I liked the space on the left and decided to let it be!

Below you can see a flower cluster and a metal piece that I applied soft gel gloss to and filled with sage microbeads and bronze glitter.  I applied some smaller metal pieces to the flowers and LO.  If you look in the cluster you'll see one of the chipboard keys from Blue Fern Studio that I found stashed away when I moved to my new workspace (there's a lot of that happening these days).  I used some alcohol ink and sparkly pink paint (listed below) on the keys. 

Below are more flowers, more chipboard keys and one of the few "girly" metal charms I used on the LO.  Even though I try to keep some of these a little masculine, I'm never going to NOT use flowers and cute charms! 😉

Check out some of the work on the chipboard frame.  I love layering multiple mediums on my chipboard and this was no different.  Although I did lay down a base layer of white gesso, I was very sparing and did so in a think layer so that more of the light colored sprays would show through heavily on the chipboard.  

There you have it!  Sorry about the video, but we'll get it next time!  Thanks for stopping by to look!

xoxo,

Mel

Partial list of products:

Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Squirts in Maple Syrup Bronze & Canadian Bacon Blush

Lindy's Starburst in Sea Mint Green & Salt Water Taffy

Lindy's Flat Fabio in Aloha Avocado

Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stain in Antique Linen

Finnabair Sparks Acrylic Paint in Butterfly Spells

Lindy's Embossing Powder in Orbit Olive Gold, Hibiscus Rose Orange, & Silence is Golden

Imagine Ink Embossing Powder in Sage

Lindy's Magical Shaker in Oom Pah Pah Pink

 

Christmas Lights and Cold Nights

Happy New Year!  Hopefully everyone had a great end to their year and hopefully starting the New Year with hope and happiness for the future!  I created this layout using inspiration from the Tres Jolie Kit Club January 2022 Mood Board.  Mood boards can help spark a little extra creativity in a project, and this one made me think about some of the things we don't always get to experience in Arkansas...like large amounts of snow.  The icicles, however, now we have plenty of crappy experience joy filled memories of ice.  I'll get off my soap box after this sentence, but we we tend to get more ice than snow down here...and I'm just a little jaded! 😂

Here is the Mood Board: 

And here is the LO:

We took this group selfie when went to see Christmas lights back in late November.  It was pretty chilly that night, so we were all grateful for the hot chocolate and heated indoor area after we drove through the Christmas light trail.  I love the color blue, and I loved all the blues in the Tres Jolie scrapbook kit, and all the blues on the mood board!

The background paper I chose had some gorgeous flowers scrolling across the middle of the page, and I decided to make the paper a little 3D by replicating the page design with flowers from the kit.  Below you can see a bit of a close up of the 3D flower scroll.

I took some chipboard and used everything from mist, to embossing powder and a little bit of glitter to decorate it.  Again, leaning heavily on blue tones and a little bronze to draw the blues out.  I used some pearl bead and some Beautiful Beads from Renea Bouquets shop.  I also tucked a little bit of cheese cloth in behind the chipboard.  It made me think of wispy snow in the winter time (okay okay...dream of wispy snow and hope we get at least one good snowfall again this year!)

Below you can see where I used some more cheesecloth on the other side of the picture, along with some more of the beads and a wooden snowflake from the Renea Bouquet shop.  You can also see a few more of the flowers and if you look close enough you can see where I used some of the blue mists to splatter the flowers and the background of the paper.  The resin bird came with the Tres Jolie kit as well!

Finally, here is some stencil work I did at the top of the page.  I tried something new and stenciled some designs and colored them with the various blue mists I had grabbed from my stash (I used a couple from Lindy's Stamp Gang and a few Tim Holtz along with a few random ones that no longer have labels 🤷)  After the mist and texture paste dried I used the same stencil to add an additional layer of paste, but without the sprays.  I was going for a "fresh snow" look, and I think I did a pretty decent job.  As a finishing touch I added some white feathers because feathers often make me think of the patterns that ice and frost make on windows during the winter time!

I hope you enjoyed reading through this and I really hope y'all are having a fantastic start to 2022!

xoxo,

Mel