First Day!!!

After spending almost an entire month away from my scrap room (instead of retreating most weekends as I'm used to), I took the opportunity to dive HEAD FIRST into the Scraps of Darkness June Kit "Sindi's Summer Day".  During our recent two week "Army Summer Camp Adventure With All My Favorite Friends" I was showing this kit off to one of my pilots.  Bear in mind that this kind soul has ABSOLUTELY no interest in Scrapbooking, but just had the misfortune of being in my office when I checked the new stuff out at the online store.  At any rate, it prompted him to send me this sweet photo of his kiddos getting on the bus for the first day of school!  I thought the colors were great.  Although you can't see it too well in this picture, it's even sweeter than it looks since her big bro is already on the bus giving her the "come on for your first day of school"!  :)

I loved the colors in this kit.  I was inspired to add in some Heidi Swapp mists since so many of her vibrant colors looked great with this kit.  I went to town misting my paper and misting some of the wood arrows and hearts in various colors.  Below you can see some of the random misting, a wood veneer, and a sticker from the kit (green camera).  I used some glittery black and white paper trim from my stash to accent the bold colors found on the papers! 

I had planned to leave the sticks exposed on the yellow hearts that came in the Floral Add On, but I got carried away too creative with my flower cluster.  With the exception of the yellow mesh flower near the middle and some of the small rosebuds (from a previous kit) all of the flowers came from the kit and the floral add on!  Check out some more of those wood hearts with the Heidi Swapp spray!!! 

 



Below you can see some of the final touches I gave this LO.  I'd like to point out that the twine (top of the picture) is the pull-cord to a hidden journaling card that tucks in behind the picture.  I wanted to add this in just in case this baby's sweet Momma wants to add some notes from this day.  I also used one of the stencils from the Creativity Add-On to make the butterfly.  I kind of like how the paint bled around the stencil giving it a little bit of a girly feel.  To top off the girly feel I added a wide row of Prills down the center and the buttons on the butterfly antennae.  Spoiler alert!  Before I mailed Rhue her butterflies, I experimented with this type of butterly for her.  However, I went a little more into detail for that one!  ;)

 

 

So there you have it!  Thanks for looking and thanks to "Hank Thunder"s family for sharing precious pictures of your kids with me!!!

 

 

Love,

mel

 

 

Weekend fun!!!

Good morning!!!  Today I'd like to share a layout that I actually did a few weeks ago.  As most of you know, I am in the National Guard as a full time Soldier.  That being said, when this time of year comes around, my Monday through Friday job becomes almost a Monday through Monday job for several weeks!  It's okay though because I love what I do....however, I am a "little" behind with my blog!  So here we go! 

Several months ago I stole borrowed this picture from my buddy Grant's Facebook page.  The little blond haired girl in the middle and the sweet little boy to the far left hand side are his precious kiddos.  The other sweet faced kids are their cousins.  I loved the picture and knew that it would go perfectly with the Scraps of Elegance kit "Renea's Charm" from several months ago.  I actually held on doing the LO for a bit hoping that Grant would eventually get me a higher quality picture, but alas...I got tired of waiting and went ahead with the LO.

I loved all the papers that came with this kit.  I layered several together and used some of the lightweight paper with the script on it to add a little bit of flavor in a few places.  I took a piece of corrugated cardboard to be the "frame" for the picture.  I took the cardboard and coated it in gesso, then layered some Tim Holtz Distress Paint and Distress Stain in Antique Linen and Vintage Photo. 

 

 

 

While I was "waiting" to complete this LO I had been tucking several flowers and trinkets away to use with this LO.  Below you can see a close up of some of the flowers and buttons I used.  

Below is a close up of the corrugated cardboard.  You can see some of the stain and paint on it.  I love using cardboard because the texture can be so amazing.  For this piece I actually took off both sides of the cardboard leaving only the corrugated piece.  It made the corrugated part a little more flimsy and continued with the soft whimsical feeling I was going for in this LO.  

So there you have it!  Just a little fun on a weekend before the Army temporarily took over for a bit!  Thanks for looking!!!

Love,
Mel

SOD/SOE April Inspiration Board

Take a look at the fantastic mood board from Scraps of Darkness and Scraps of Elegance this month!!!  I loved this mood board, but the month got away from me and I'm still working on most of my projects!  Either way, here is a LO that I made using this board for inspiration!

 

Here is the LO:

I was inspired by the stacked books, the soft feel of the rose picture, and the ways that light was used in several of the pictures.  I wanted to tear some of my paper and make it looked like it was stacked up on the page.  I fussy cut the roman clock stop watch and layered another clock piece (Tim Holtz) along with a flower on top of it.  I took several pieces of cheese cloth and left some white, and colored the others with a soft pink and a strong golden yellow mist.  The mists were "Blush" and "Mustard" from Heidi Swapp.

Above you can see some of the trinkets from the SOD/SOE kit along with some bling that was include din the kit as well.  I used a flower from the kit and I believe the other one was from my stash.

Above you can see a (blurry) picture of some of the layers including the cheesecloth.  Check out that tiny clock hand (sans clock) that I threw in for good measure!

Thanks for looking!  Hopefully I'll get some of my other mood board creations out here pretty quickly!


Love,
mel

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