Boys will be Boys

Inspiration piece from The Color Room #50.  I love these colors, but I struggled with this.  Actually, I started out with a bang, had all the paper picked out and went through my stash and pulled out all the blues that match.  Since I have 2 boys, I have A LOT of blue embellishments.  I thought this page would be a piece of cake.  I was mistaken...

After I had everything out, everything came to a stand still.

At any rate, this is what I came up with.

I guess what I don't like about it is that there is embellishments everywhere.  I don't feel that they are laid out in a fashion that accentuates the photos, and that really is the point of scrapbooking.  The page gives me an okay feeling, but I do like the painted arrow and the circles at the top.  The white paint against the dark blue background really pops.

Proud To Be

For those scrapbookers out there, did anyone ever tell you that it is okay to take other scrapbookers ideas to create your own.  This is the one arena where plagiarism is completely okay.  We actually have a term for it.  It's called scraplifting and everyone does it.  For the start of this blog, that's were a lot of my idea have come from.  This works particularily well when you are having a hard time getting started with an idea.  There are many sites out there that will get you started based on colors or based on the number of pictures you have.  Anything works to get the creative juices going.

To get mine going, I used sketch 245 from Scrapbook Challenges.

 Here is the result..

 If you look a bit closer, there really is a bit going on on this page...

Like wire to hold on the letter.

And inking on the linen flowers to dirty them up a bit, not to mention the layering of embellishments.

And brads to hold the chipboard on...

And if you look really close at the chipboard, it has been painted, then roughed up using a sanding block, and then the edges have been singed to give them a weathered / aged look.

*** One warning if you want to try the burnt chipboard...  Chipboard is made of multiple layers of paper.  It is possible for the inner layers of paper to burn without the outer layers doing the same.  Make sure you completely put out the flame.  If it is still smoking, it is still burning!

Hope this helps in getting your creative juices flowing.

Creative Scrappers #147

The inspiration for this page came from Sketch 147 from Creative Scrappers.






My interpretation...

Happy Scrapping!

Scrapbook Convention

This weekend was a great weekend.  I managed a whole day to attend a Creating Keepsakes scrapbook convention.  Does it get any better than that?  I've taken pictures of the layouts even though they are not done.  I still need to add photos and titles and a bit more "stuff".

I signed up for 3 classes out of the many that they offered.  First class was 6 Pages in 60 minutes...  very fast pace, but so worth it.  I've taken this class a couple times and would recommend it to everyone.  It is not for the beginner scrapbooker because of the pace, but if you can speed scrap, it's for you.  They also give you detailed instructions to take with you, so if you don't get everything done, you can finish it as homework.  You think that if you were doing a page every 10 minutes, you would not have much detail on the page, but let me correct that thought.  These pages are well thought out and you would be amazed by what you get.  Oh, and did I mention the freebies?

Love these little pinwheel flowers.  So easy to make...  2 inch circle punch.  Cut them in half, ink the edges and glue 'em down.

This little butterfly is a sticker.  I learned that baby powder of corn starch will neutrilize the glue.  The picture doesn't show it justice, but you can make stickers appear 3-D by bending the edges up.  Neat technique.

The second class I took was Think Ink.  I thought that getting back to the basics of scrapbooking would be ideal.  We seem to forget about that with all the new products that come out on a daily basis.  So, it was nice to do some pages that were really just paper and ink.  They taught some new inking techniques including sponging.  So you sponge the ink instead of the direct ink to paper.  It creates a cloudiness around the edges.  So the process behind it really is quite simple.  Apply ink to sponge and apply in small circles.  The idea is to get more ink on the table than on the paper.  Love the effect of this.

Another cool technique...  take a stamp and place painters tape through the center of it.  Ink like normal.  Remove painter's tape and stamp.  Now you have location in the stamp to journal or put your title.  I used a clear sticker, but the image doesn't show it so clear.

The third class was Elegant to Whimsy.  This class was focused on using black and white paper.  We created just one layout and a card.  I, personally, would not recommend this class to the more advanced scrapbooker.  The pace was a bit slow and the layouts were not all that elaborate.  Kind of frustrating...  In this class, I took away some techniques to adhere transparancies without showing the glue.  In the card below, the transparancy is actually folded over the edge and glued on the back.

Here, the transparancy is held on by the rhinestones.

The only thing missing from this convention was a friend to share it with.  I highly recommend bringing along a friend, but all in all, it was a good time and would tell every scrapper that if you have a chance to go, do so.

First Blog Post

Okay, this is my first time doing this...  that is posting to a blog.  Any blog for that matter, let alone my own.  A dear friend of mine and I have decided to make a "scrapbook resume" of our work.  We've recently wanted to enter a scrap contest and one of the questions was, "Where have you been published?"  Ha!  Nowhere!  Until now.  Look out scrapping world, we have arrived.

This first post was a challenge from Color Combos Galore, challenge # 183.

The way their site works, you use the color combination and the design feature, in this case, butterflies.  Now having 2 boys, I don't typically use butterflies, but nevertheless, here it is.