A Canvas for Katie and Kyle

A few weekends ago (on my anniversary weekend, no less!) I had the absolute pleasure of attending a wedding for my sweet cousin (Kyle) and his even sweeter bride (Katie).  These two are so amazingly in love with each other and two of the most wonderfully spirited, God-loving people you could ever think of meeting!  Although I also I went in on a more traditional gift for the two, I wanted to make something from my heart.  At some point when YouTube decides to cooperate with me, I'll post a start to finish tutorial of how I made this canvas, but I didn't want to hold off on posting it to the blog any longer!  :)  I started with a blank canvas and several Scraps of Darkness and Scraps of Elegance kits.  I'm pretty sure there are pieces from the Renea's Charm and Lisa's Love Letters SOE kits as well as a little bit of Karen's Valentine SOD kit and plenty of things from my stash!  :)  I cannot even begin to tell you how much fun I had making this project! 

I started with my blank canvas and used a Tim Holtz lace doily stencil to make the background on my canvas.  I gave it some color and sparkle with gelatoes, watered the color down a little bit and hit with some Heidi Swapp Color Shine mist in white in a few places.  I took the chipboard scrolling heart (Blue Fern Studios) from one of the kits, covered it in gesso, and used no shortage of inks, paint, glitter, embossing powder, and spray mists until I finally got the exact look I was going for.  I layered several romantic feeling papers from the kits (distressing and inking as I went) and added them to the canvas.  I used one of my favorite bible verses about love, printed it on plain cardstock, and colored the paper to match the rest of my theme. 

 

Below you can see some of the flower clusters that I used, as well as one of Renea's sweet butterflies in the lower left hand corner.  I used several flowers from the kits as well as PLENTY from my stash (I love flowers).  I used some of the key trinkets from the Renea's charm kit in a few places across the canvas (love those key charms).

 



And, below again you can see more of the flower clusters along with some metal pieces, a few resin pieces from Prima, and one of the fantastic vine hearts from the Renea's Charm kit.  Check out some of that texture on the chipboard too!!!  :)  Lots of flower layering on this project, I was literally grabbing flowers from all over my scrap room while my husband looked on with a bewildered look on his face!!! 

 

 

So there you have it!!!  Again, I can't even express how much I loved making this!  Thank you for looking, and Best Wishes for the happiest in life and love to Katie and Kyle!  :)

 

love,

mel

 

 



BFS March Sketch!!!

Good afternoon!!!  Today I wanted to share my take on the Blue Fern Studios March Sketch!  BFS does such a great job putting out inspiring sketches each month and I truly love using them to foster a little creativity!  :)  Here is the sketch: 

I took a little bit of creative license with the frame because I knew I wanted to use the chipboard (from BFS, of course!) below as an eye catcher in this LO.  I also used the Scraps of Elegance February kit "Lisa's Love Letters" and a few pieces of the March kit "Anna's Daydream". 

 

This LO is a continuation in a series that I'm doing about a friend of mine.  The picture might look a little familiar (since I've already blogged about it) but I planned ahead to use it about 4 or so times. 

 

I started with some pink modeling creme from Viva to add some texture to my background.  After that I pawed through my hoard stash of ribbon until I found the pink floral ribbon to the left of the picture.  I love this ribbon because it's just delicate enough to capture the mood of this LO.   

 



 

I layered some papers from the kit that I cut into various shapes, distressed, and inked the edges of.  Then I layered on my ribbon, flowers, some cheese cloth, and a few Tim Holtz trinkets that I had laying around my scrap room. 

 

Below you can see the chipboard piece a little more close up.  I began by painting it with gesso then using some seafoam powdered pigment to make a paint as well as some Heidi Swapp color shine mist (Seafoam).  After that I stamped randomly across the chipboard and used clear embossing powder and some Lindy's Stamp Gang embossing powder (Cleopatra's Copper).  After all of that dried, I used some Heidi Swapp Color Shine Mist (white) and hit the chipboard with my heat gun one last time to get a few extra "bubbles".

 

 

Below you can see the flowers a little more closely.  I used some resin flowers that I had laying around.  You can also see the ribbon and how simply gorgeous it is!  :)

 

 

Thank you so much for looking!!!  I hope you enjoy this LO.  This kit was amazing and I'm always sooooo stunned when my kits come in the mail.  Just when I think they can't get any better, they do and then I am inspired to create!  :)

 

Love,

Mel

A project begins...

Hi, everyone!!!  Sorry it's been a bit since my last blog post!  March has been super busy and crazy and I've had a little trouble with the blog again!  I wanted to share this LO.  It's going be the start of a pretty long series honoring a friend who recently passed away.  The picture in this LO is one that I plan to use four times on different LOs so that they can be shared among A's closest friends as need be.  I was working the March Kit from Scraps of Elegance "Anna's Daydream". 

I used one of the beautiful papers from the kit as a background as well as the gorgeous daisy stencil and some various Lindy's Stamp Gang mists to create a more layered background.  I then took modeling paste and tinted it with some copperish metallic paint and some pink powdered paint pigment to create the texture in the two corners. 

I layered and distressed some papers from the kit along with some lace and a little bronze key from a previous kit.  I used some Tim Holtz and Prima ebellishments from my stash to add a little extra sweetness to the LO.

Below you can see some flower layering work . I used on of the bronze embellishments from the kit and layered a flower from the kit Floral Add On (I colored it with a couple different shades of Lindy's Mists) and added a flower from my stash on top.  The little pink flower with the blue splotches was also from the Floral Add On, but I wanted to mute the bright pink a little bit so I used some of the blue colored modeling pasteon the center and some of the petals (making sure not to cover all of the center, of course).

 

I hope you enjoy this LO.  There will certainly be more and more to come!!

 

Love,

Mel

Picture This Design Team Call!!!

Good morning, beauties!!!!  I wanted to blog today about one of my many sources of inspiration.  The ladies at Picture This! have posted a Design Team Call!  Click on the previous link to be taken to their DT Call blog.  My favorite part about this particular blog is that they just give you the guidelines and you create based off of your interpretation of the guidelines.  I have decided to give this DT Call a try as well.  Here is the entry I will be sending in for the Picture This Design Team Call:

 

 

The requirements for this LO were "1 photo + corners + splatter".  I'd had this picture of Kara and I sitting around for a little bit.  When I originally printed them, I printed two so that I could make a LO for each of us!  When I saw this "1 photo + corners + splatter" I knew I wanted to use this picture.  I chose some paper from the Scraps of Elegance "Lisa's Love Letters" kit and went to town!

 



Above you can see some of the splatter I used.  I went with black and white paint because I loved the already overall feel of classy and "timelessness" that came with the paper and I wanted to keep my additional background colors as simple as possible. 

Below you can see my take on "corners" for this challenge.  I used flowers to create a cluster in opposite corners of my page.  It kind of gave me a linear feel from corner to corner when I finished it!  :)

 

I used some teal/turquoise tags and labels from my stash to go with the background paper and also some papers from the kit make a few layers.  The paper inside the frame was leftover from scraps from a previous LO I had made with this kit.  I used some Lindy's Stamp Gang embossing powder in "Cleopatra's Copper" to add some color and give the resin frame a little more texture.  You can also see where some of my splatter got a little "out of the lines"!  :)

Below is a picture of some of the layering and texturing I did on this LO.  I had fussy cut the antique swirly paper in the background a looooonnnnnggggg (maybe last spring???) time ago and it had been sitting on my work desk since then.  I painted some crackle paint on it and hit it up with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen to age it further.  I used some modeling creme that came in the SOE kit, along with the stencil included in the kit to make add some texture.  A few buttons and brads from my hoard and "voila!"....all done!  :)

 

Thanks for stopping by to look at my take on 1 photo, corners, and splatter today...but what are you waiting for????  Get out there and create your layout for this DT Call!!!

 

 

love,

mel

Stealing Babies!!!

Okay, so despite what the title of the post suggests, I didn't steal the whole baby...and really not even the picture.  It was sent to me by this little cutie pie's parents.  (No children were harmed and no laws were broken in the making of this project)!!!


The bulk of the materials for this project came from the Scraps of Elegance "Lisa's Love Letters".  It's been a few blog posts since I talked about how much I love the papers from Blue Fern Studios...but I FLIPPING LOVE THEM!  They're so heavy and have absolutely gorgeous designs.  Also included in this kit were some great papers from the Prima "Epiphany" collection (one of my favorite collections, even though I say that every time I discover a new collection from Prima).  I had a few scraps leftover from my previous project, I started with those to match them up. 

I knew I wanted to use an actual frame piece rather than layering the photo onto paper, but I didn't have any frames that I thought matched the look I was going for.  Never fear...way back in my hoard stash I had this super thin super cheap paper frame that perfectly matched the size of picture I had printed.  Since I knew I was going to use a lot of medium to color it, I wanted to "toughen" the thin frame up.  So I experimented by covering the backside of the frame with gel medium.  Once it had dried, the frame felt sturdy enough for what I wanted to do with it.  After some mist, paint, distress stain, and a quick white wash with watered down gesso, I used a Heidi Swapp stamp and covered with another coat of the gesso white wash.  The finishing touch was to tie some Fiber in knots around the corners of the frame.  You can see a close up below.  The awesome butterfly was from a previous SOE kit, but as always from the super talented Renea. 

 

 

Here is another close up of another corner of the frame, along with a little texture work on the background, some lace, and some of my paper layers.

Finally, for my flower clusters/close ups.  The jeweled flower came from "bling" hoard drawers, but most of the actual flowers came in the kit.  I also used one of Renea's butterflies that was included in this kit.  The little silver key can be found at her Etsy shop as well.  The "LOVE" resin piece is from Prima.  The vine heart is from the previous SOE kit, "Renea's Charm".  :)

 



 

 

 So there you have it!!!  Thanks for letting me "borrow" your kid for the day, Jacob and Loni!!! 

 

Love,

mel

Happy Birthday, Susan!!!

So, I'm hoping that girl, Susan, doesn't see this blog post before I get to give her the gift.  I used the Blue Fern Studios February sketch (pictured below) for a variety of projects this month.  Hopefully I can get them all blogged and submitted before the 28th!  :) 

 

For this project, I took a circle canvas included in the Creativity add on from the Scraps of Elegance February kit, Lisa's Love Letters.  I saw a tutorial by Lizzy Wurman where she covered a canvas in some Tim Holtz tissue paper.  Interestingly enough, I had already started covering this canvas with almost the exact same tissue paper when I saw the video.  (Good thinking, Lizzie!)  I loved this picture of Susan, her husband, and their sweet little boy.  I knew I wanted to use some of the soft colored papers from Blue Fern Studios from the kit, but I also wanted to include some blue (to remind everyone that the sweet little kiddo is a boy) so I used some blue embossing powder on a piece of Blue Fern Studios chipboard then randomly swabbed some gesso over it for a more distressed look.  I layered several pieces of paper behind the Prima frame (which I also added some pink paint to) before adding my picture and the frame!

 

After I covered the canvas, I used a variety of spray mists and paints, but couldn't get the rose pink color I was going for, so I toned the color down with a layer of gesso.  Then I used a Tim Holtz stencil with a doily pattern and covered the canvas randomly with the pinkish modeling paste that came in the creativity kit as well. 

In the picture below you can see where I used some of the gelatoes from the kit to add some additional color to the canvas:  

Below are some close ups of the flowers, chipboard, and a piece of Prima "Epiphany" paper that I fussy cut the butterflies and dragonflies from:



 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!  (And if you know Susan, don't tell her about this post until I give her the gift)!!!

 

Love,

Mel

L-O-V-E

Okay, so this is a little late for Valentine's Day!  I took some time off for my annual "Girls Valentine's Day" (which took me out of state this year) so I am a little behind.  I made this LO prior to leaving and showed it to my husband...he "loved" it just like he "loves" all of my other "pretties"!  ;)

I made this LO using the fabulous "Karen's Valentine" kit from Scraps of Darkness.  As always, you can find their amazing blog here.  This group is such a source of inspiration for me...not to mention the fabulous kits they come up with!!!  Below I used one of my favorite stencils from Teresa Collins but used only the "love" portion of the stencil.  (Again, having trouble uploading certain photos...but this particular stencil is the 8x10 stencil pack titled "Dream").  I used modeling paste through the stencil and applied several red and pink mists to the paste before removing the stencil.  I love the places where the mist "ran" a little! 

Last week I posed the question on the SOD/SOE Facebook page seeing how other people used microbeads.  I did this because it seems that every time I try to use them they get everywhere...except for on my project.  However, this SOD kit came with black modeling paste and black microbeads, so I used the two together.  And while I still managed to get quite a few microbeads all over my scraproom, many of them stayed with the project!!!

 

Below you can see some of the finishing elements of the LO.  I used some of the black roses that came in the kit along with a few red ones from my stash.  The black resin piece and the compass both hail from Prima.  You can also see a little bit of red paint splatter that i used for extra effect.  For the awesome Blue Fern Studios chipboard heart with wings, I added red embossing powder to the heart and Tim Holtz Rock Candy glitter to the wings.  

 

 

So there you have my lovely Valentine about the man who stole my heart!!! 

 

Thanks for looking around!!!

 

Love,

mel