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

 

Merry Christmas 2021

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating the holiday with family, friends, or even a few strangers!  So many things have changed in my life in 2021, and I'm looking forward to ringing in the new year soon and making even more great memories! 

A few weeks ago we went to look at Christmas lights and celebrate the holidays.  Lucky for us Santa was there to chat with the kiddos (big and small) and take some pictures!  Even luckier for me, my latest scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie had some great papers and "stuffs" to go right along with the picture!

Voila! Our "silly" photo with Santa and the LO surrounding it!

I started by doing something I normally do, using a stencil and spray stains to make all kinds of texture on the bottom layer so I can cover up all my texture work with with other papers, flowers and the like!  😂  Either way, you can still see some of the texture work!

Below is one of my flower clusters and a cute Christmas butterfly from Renea Bouquets shop. The scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie came with some great papers, but also a great ephemera pack and some rub-ons and stickers that let me make all kinds of great layers on this LO!

Below is another flower cluster, I loved how sparkly all the flowers were!  (I kind of love glitter more than a grown woman should!) The paper pack also came with two sheets of ephemera and if you look under the flower cluster you can see some of the holly berry ephemera that came in the paper pack! 

I loved the stars on the bottom layer of paper I used, but the blue colors, the flowers, and the holly from another paper really pulled me in, so I ripped some corners of the paper off the blue paper and inked the edges in red for a little festive fun!

Speaking of stars...I used the rub-ons page to rub a few blue stars on the LO.  The background paper had the same star pattern, and the contrast between the subdued stars and the bright stars really made a pop!

The flower above is a rub-on from the kit as well.  I topped the LO off with plenty of paint splatter.  I hope everyone had as great of time celebrating as I did making this LO!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

xoxo,

Mel

 

The Best Gals a Girl Could Ask For...

I truly have some of the best girlfriends anyone could ever want!  We've all served in the military together and through thick and thin, good and bad, we've always persevered to maintain our friendships.  I can't believe I only took three pictures of this project, so the post may be a little short, but I can totally supplement with sentiment and heartfelt words!  💓

So the photo was taken about a little over a year ago...Bettye (the pretty girl second from right) had just come back to Arkansas from a five year stint with the Army in Washington, D.C. and we celebrated her return with a brunch hosted by yours truly.  (For what it's worth, I put on a heck of a brunch spread...but that's a whole 'nother blog post!)

So we gathered the ladies, including a little one (a.k.a. future awesome girlfriend to her girlfriends) and had a great time celebrating Bettye.  We've since met up at least once a month just to have some girl time and make memories! (You must know that I have a whole scrapbook dedicated to this...)

Here is the LO:

I really loved all the blues in this kit.  This was (I think) a several years ago scrapbook kit from Tres Jolie Kit Club, but I'm having trouble finding the exact kit on the internet.  What that ACTUALLY means is that it's probably several kits that I married up into one amazing LO!

Below you can see some flower work and some painting/inking/distressing I did on a piece of chipboard.  I added the filmstrip piece on a whim because I love all the amazing photos we take of each other when we all get together.

Below is another shot of some flowers as well as some texture paste and stencil work.  I also used a ton of beads from the Renea Bouquets shop.  I love her Beautiful Beads and the colors of these worked perfectly with the colors in the papers and flowers.  I tucked some lace in behind the flowers because even though we're all military women, we're also pretty feminine too!!!  💓💓💓 

And there you have it!  Another project in the books, posted, and another memory captured forever!

xoxo,

Mel

 

An Oldie But a Goodie!

As I continue to go through the process of moving my into my new craft room (pics to come soon!) and going through all my stuff (including the files I've uploaded and forgotten to blog about!) I keep coming across little gems like this:

This is my sweet cousin's even sweeter baby (he's a lot bigger now! 😂)  I made this a few years back and I absolutely love the way I feel challenged when doing masculine LOs.  I love sweet, soft, and shabby chic...but there's something super fun about making a masculine LO especially when it's time to add the flowers!  

I had to look back on my notes from when I made this...so here goes using notes AND memories to talk about this LO! 😂😂😂

Below you can see some of the layering and spraying/misting I did (plus a few flowers in the flower cluster).  I absolutely LOVE using corrugated cardboard on LOs, especially masculine ones because it just adds an extra type of texture and the grooves are fun to tuck things in...like the copper microbeads I used all over this LO!  I also inked around the edge of one of the flowers and stuck some extra microbeads on there too!

Below you can see a closeup of one of the other flower clusters and even a "masculine" butterfly (😆💓) complete with some more microbeads.  

And...MORE flowers (in case you missed it I answered "YES" in a Tres Jolie Kit Club poll question the other day about whether or not flowers have a place on masculine LOs!)

And finally, some stencil layering and misting coupled with the microbeads.  Even though the picture in the LO had nothing to do with the beach, the shot below makes me think of the ocean in the early morning.  

And there you have it!  Just another LO that I've come across and can FINALLY get around to posting about!  I can't wait to show off my new craft space!  Thanks for looking around!

xoxo,

Mel

 

A Very Over the Top Birthday Card

Anyone who knows me knows I would never can sometimes go a little overboard with my card designs...especially for those I love! 💗 And anyone who knows my good friend Lesley knows that she loves to garden (and loves, loves, loves flowers!)  So it should come as no surprise that this birthday card I made for her is aptly titled "Very Over the Top"...

VOILA!!!

The bicycle was really just to look whimsical...not sure that Lesley has ridden in a bike since 2006...but that's another story for another day! 

Below you can see the inside of the card.  I used some Ranger Distress Crackle paint (that might have been approximately 82 years old...and I don't think is even sold any more!) with a brick stencil and also used some old Blue Fern Studio brick chipboard throughout the card for a vintage, nostalgic look.  

Flowers galore!  Plus a few trinkets along the way!!!

Below you can see a close up of some of the flowers and "bricks", along with a beautiful butterfly from Renea Bouquets shop! 

More flowers, a metal butterfly, and some distressed edges with inking.

Below you can see some of the chipboard painted with Tim Holtz paint and "weathered" with some white paint as well.

Below is yet another Renea Bouquets butterfly tucked in behind flowers on the front of the card.

And finally, a sentiment that has rung true for our more than 20 years of friendship...She is everything a gal could hope for in a friend! 💗💗💗

Thanks for looking around!  And if you're wondering...I still have PLENTY of flowers for the next card that will more than likely be equally over the top!

xoxo,

Mel