Christmas to me...

What does Christmas mean to you? To me, the most important thing is that it's a celebration of Christ's first coming which is made even more special knowing that He's coming back again. But then there are the human traditions that we have here in America which we use as a means of showing our joy and excitement for the season. This is a page listing the things that really make me smile this time of year. I separated the items on the list with small gems, but then I used large gems all around the real meaning of Christmas. And I used a pen with an 03 tip for most of the list, but when I got to the most important point, I used a pen with an 05 tip to give the effect of a bolded text. The Silhouette SD was used to cut out the title and the number 1, for this is the first page of my 2011 Christmas journal.

Life's a Beach

Mishal went to the beach during fall break with her friend, and these are the pictures I thought most represented the trip. The quote about doing something illegal in 55 states was something Sarah said, and Mishal found it so funny because there aren't that many states. You may be wondering what they did; they picked flowers, and that's what Mishal is wearing in her hair. This was a layout that I had to take one item at a time and be happy with before I could move on to the next section. I fell in love with this sketch, and used the collage feature in Picasa to create the pictures to go with this sketch. Then I chose the Lauderdale collection by Basic Grey because of the vibrant colors and the zebra print that would play off of the bikini Mishal wore. I was shocked how long it took me to chose which Martha Stewart edge punch to use at the bottom because once I realized which one I would, it was so perfect! I had to pry details out of Mishal for the journaling... plus a trip to her facebook page to see what she posted that week. Just do what you gotta do for the layout, right? Because I think that the journaling is the best part of scrapbooking, I wanted it to stand out on the page, so I framed it using a sticker from the collection and placing bling around it, and then I made it stand out a little bit more by using popdots underneath it. Then it was time to do the title. Mishal told me what it should be, but I didn't have an embellishment or stamp for it. I used the fonts on my computer to cut it out. My favorite tool to choose which font I want to cut out with my Silhouette is the AMP Font Viewer It's so quick to find exactly the font to convey the feeling you want. For the title I used the AR Hermann font, and used firefly stickles around the 'e's. It still didn't look complete, and then I remembered some Sizzlits that I have had for years. They were the perfect touch, and I am very pleased with the results. I used the echo park wave file from the Silhouette library for the wave, but it didn't stand out very well against the zebra print, so I created a shadow out of the same pink I had chosen for the title and for one of the vertical strips of pp; but instead of putting the blue exactly in the middle of the pink, I off-centered it for a more dramatic look. I printed the quote that Mishal laughs about the most and inked the edges with Tumbled Glass Distress ink. Finally, I took a heart from the collection's sticker sheet and matted that with white card stock and outlined that using a pink and then a green souffle pen.

Fall Spin card

Youtube is the BOMB for neat tricks and tutorials! I made this card with this tutorial: How to make a Swing Card . She posts her blog in the comment section, and you just have to go to the archives of her blog to find the post with the measurements. I made a couple of fall ones, and have the paper cut for a couple of others, and am working on those. I tried stamping leaves on the mustard color cardstock first, and just wasn't happy with the results, so I covered it up with some gorgeous pp from Basic Grey's Ambrosia collection (I used the 6x6 pad), and am pleased with the results.

Here's the other side:

Oh Happy day!

I love trying different techniques, I guess you could call me a technique junkie. :) I saw a youtube video of this ink resist technique and had to go buy a stamp to do it with...any excuse to buy a new stamp or tool, right? Right! I did this in different colors, and even tried doing it with colored distress ink as well as versamark.

Fall Birthday

 

I am in love with using a water pen and distress inks to color in stamped images! I even combined a red and a yellow to create the orange for the pumpkins on this image. It is just so much fun and it makes me feel like I'm an artist, lol. I absolutely love the shading I get with this technique, and it never comes out the same way twice! I used a coluzzle template to cut the wavy slits on each side of the image to slide the ribbon through, and secured it with the brads. I gave this to a lady at church and she loved it! I painted several of these images, now I need to get them onto cards and in the mail. If you leave me a comment I'll mail one to you.

Kidnapped?

This was a funny story that makes me smile even today, 16 years later... "One spring day when Mishal was about 9 months old, we decided to go to Lake Winnepesauka for a day of fun. Mama volunteered to go and keep an eye on Mishal while we rode the rides. Once when we went to check on them, Christopher saw Mama with her face buried in a book as was typical and decided to play a trick on her. He snuck up, took the stroller with Mishal in it, brought it over to where I hid behind a couple of things, and then went back over to Mama, and said, “Suegra! Where’s Mishal?” You can imagine the look of shock and then horror that crossed her face. He didn’t let it last long and laughed and told her what he had done. But it so easily could have happened for real…we laughed about that and brought it up for years." I'm going to have to give my friend Suzette the credit for this even getting scrapped. She hosted a challenge where we had to use Teal as the main color, and none of the pictures I had ready to scrap looked good on the teal, so I pulled out Mishal's baby photo album and found these. Then I had to find a sketch, and chose one from Pagemaps Feb 2011. I thought it was really appropriate with the flags, they are so perfect for a fair or an amusement park. But then I had trouble cutting out a banner that looked good, so I turned to my Silhouette and found the 3 banners file and picked out the one that scoops 3 times and cut strips of pp and attached those to the cutting mat at the same time and cut multiple copies of the file, then I deleted all but one of them, created a shadow and cut that out in white. I cut apart the different pp's of the banner and glued the different patterns together. Then I used some of the scraps to make the flags on the circle on the top right. I printed the journaling on vellum and used scrapper's spray to adhere it, and then punched the butterflies in vellum and pp. Another facet to Suzette's challenge was to put something upside down on the page, so I put an upside down question mark at the beginning of the title because in Spanish grammar, a question not only ends with a question mark, but begins with an upside down question mark...and Christopher was the one asking the question. I had left my big shot over at Donna's the other night, and didn't have it to cut the parenthesis shape, but I really wanted one, so I cut it out by hand. Definitely not as smooth and quick as doing it with the die. Thanks for looking!

First batch of 2011 Christmas Card

I was so excited to finally get this stamp set by Stampin' Up, I knew there were a lot of things I wanted to do with it. The first thing I did was stamp it on watercolor paper with Staz On, cut it out with my spellbinders, and then paint it using my distress inks and some Stampin' Up inks. Then I used some Smooch pearlized accent ink on the light, wreath, tree, door hardware, and sled. Then I put some glossy accents on the light and the door handle to make them shiny. Next, I added liquid Applique to the tree and the sled, heated it with the heat gun, and it poofed up and it feels so neat! Then I added the vintage Christmas flower soft around the door frame. I used my Silhouette to create a perfect mat for the focal panel, and while doing that, cut label shapes for the sentiment, these I cut out of gemstones cardstock which have a shine to them, just as if I had painted them with Smooch. I did the sentiment with heat embossing using seafoam white powder. Next, I cut the brown panel to size and pierced the holes using Stampin' Up piercing mat. I did start to use the Tim Holtz ruler, but found that it was sliding too much for me to get straight holes. Next I made the ribbons using my new bowmaker cards that I made up this week following the tutorial that starts here: Commaholly's bow tutorial . I have a roll of 1/4 tape, and simply put that on the back of the pieces of ribbon that I attached to the brown, and decided this is definitely the way to go! The bows I attached using a tiny zot. I made a dozen of these cards, and already have half of them in addressed envelopes! Now to see if I actually walk them out to the mail box this year...

This photo shows the dimension better.

Smile!

It is very rare to find a picture where my brother is smiling, so when I snapped this picture, I knew it was going to be a great one! I used the DCWV Immortal Love pads for the pp and card stock because of the colors in the picture. The flourish strip under the pp was from Basic Grey's Black Tie collection, and the red, black, and white strip is a ribbon. I used my Xyron X to put adhesive on the ribbon and the strip of Basic Grey pp. I just put them in together as to not waste any adhesive. I crocheted the flower, and put a red Prima flower center in the middle using a glue dot, and then adhered that to the page using glossy accents. I wanted the journaling to really pop, so I used a piece of foiled card stock and used Martha Stewart's Double Loop edge punch on the sides, and then I used pop dots on the back of it. To balance the white flower, I attached a pearl flourish by Prima.

IF

My 8th grade teacher made us memorize this poem and we discussed it at length. It has always been a favorite of mine. When my friend Suzette gave me this collection for my birthday, I knew that I'd be making a page with Alex and this poem. I used a sketch from pagemaps for the design, the decorative diecut pp from the collection to make the shape with the red paper, and printed the poem on velum. it was too white, so I toned it down with a silver ink pad.

Age 15

I was inspired by this layout. The papers are from the Love Shack collection by Bo Bunny which my friend Kimberly gave me. I was over at Donna's while working on this layout, so I used her cricket to cut the largest circle I possibly could from a 12x12 piece of paper, then I used the Martha Stewart Gothic Arches corner punch to create the decorative edge. It's pretty easy to do, even if a little bit tedious. You have to hold the punch upside down and punch. For this one, I made sure that the highest arch was at the edge of the circle for each punch, and that the left edge of the punch just barely overlapped the right side of the last punch. The next thing I did was measure the inside of the decorative punching and then cut the cream/pink circle at 9 1/2 to go inside of the large punched paper, but it blended too well, so I used the cricut again, went to the center of a black sheet of cardstock and using the center cut option cut one circle at 9, the other one at 9 1/4, so that left a perfect circle for me to use. I used the Martha Stewart Gothic Arches edge punch to decorate the strip of black card stock which bisected the circle because it highlights the same punching pattern in the circle. I used glossy accents to attach the leaves, but had to use a staple to hold them in place until it dried because the leaves didn't want to lie flat.

Play Ball

This is another layout I created using a sketch from Sketch Support.. I used Cosmo Cricket's Little Man collection for the papers. The doodling was made easy with the Tim Holtz ruler. I love that it's transparent so I can easily line the dashes up. I used a black pen and a dark orange pen for the doodling, both of these having an 03 tip. I used a black pen with an 05 tip to outline the stars and the title to make them pop more. I love the way the doodling looks like stitching.

The Little House

This was a layout about the small one room house my mother and father lived in with their first 4 kids. For my journaling, I wrote the facts I knew about it from stories I've heard. Behind each of the pictures I have tags for my two oldest sisters to journal on. The tags were created with my coluzzle. I rounded the outside corners of the mat and the journaling block to give it a softer feel. The key I added because I have a package of them and just wanted to use some. It's very heavy, so I used glossy accents to attach it.

Wild Thingsss

This is another layout based on a sketch at www.sketchsupport.com there are things about this lo I love, and things that I'm not crazy about. I love the Bo Bunny Roughin' It paper. I like the fleur de lis, and I love the little flags and the journaling tag which I inked using ink daubers and Stampin' Up ink pad. The blue marks is Distress Inks applied with Cut n Dry foam. I'm not crazy about it, but once I started, it was too late to go back because everything else was already done. The clouds were a package of velum stickers. Another thing I'm not crazy about is the machine stitching. It isn't perfectly straight, and the only reason I did it by machine was to save time. I used an "l" to make the "i" in "Wild".

Scout Christmas Party 2007

This was a quick and simple layout. I find that I'm changing my process of scrapping. I start with the pictures, then I find a sketch that would work for the approximate number/orientation of the photos...I cut the photos to match the layout and have them layed out and go looking for papers which would go with the pictures and the sketch. I have recently discovered sketchsupport.com and am loving their sketches, they have me wanting to scrap! This was based on the #3 single page sketch This was the first time that the Martha Stewart around the page punches came out almost perfect. I used the patch the scouts got for the party on the page, typed a couple of sentences, and printed them out.

2007 Family Camp

This may have been my favorite camping trip, no stress, no preparation on our part, we weren't in charge of anything, we just went and had fun. Because I really wanted to remember that on this layout, this needed a lot of journaling, and I had typed it up and tried to print it, but my printer was out of ink, and I had to have it finished before I could do another page, so I simply hand wrote it. I wanted the journaling to be the focus of the page, so I used the bright yellow pp that is in this collection, it really draws the eyes. The next place your eyes want to go is to the same yellow pp which was used for the word "Camp". These words on the left is a 'subway art' design from the online silhouette store. I made it taller for the design of the page, but did not make it wider, which gave it a little bit of a stretched out look. And then on the bottom, I used a Martha Stewart punch that didn't look too girly from the same yellow pp as I used for the word "Camp" and for the journalling, which leads the eye back to the large circle. For the large circular shape, I had to get a plate from the kitchen, but that wasn't quite as large as I wanted, but almost...so I used my largest Magic Matter to draw the circle that I cut out with the Fiskar's Fingertip knife on a glass cutting board. The layout still needed something. I'm in the mood for stripes lately, so even though the pagemaps sketch didn't have the strip at the top of the wide pp, I added it. It made it better, but there was still something I could do to make it better...I almost got out the sewing machine to stitch a zig zag around the circle, but decided instead to use my smallest Magic Matter to doodle around the circle and the elements on the page at the top.

Beautifall

Aren't these gorgeous papers? I've wanted this set by Basic Grey for about 2 years now, and Katrina, my sweet secret sister sent them to me this month. I was soo excited that I had to use them the very next layout I made! And the pictures from last year's photo shoot with my 2 kids and their 2 younger cousins was perfect, I still have so many pictures from that day I want to scrap. I used a May 2011 pagemaps sketch for the design, and pretty much followed it. for the large scalloped piece on the side, I used a scalloped circle shape on my silhouette and enlarged it and positioned it on the screen where it was mostly hanging off, but there was about 11 inches long and four inches wide left on the page itself, cut that image...and then I offset it 0.17", deleted the first scallop, and cut the larger scallop out of the yellow. Then to create the journaling scallop, I simply copied the scallop, made it smaller, and positioned it on the mat so that they would cut out at the same time. Then I deleted the large scalloped shape, offset the smaller by the same width (0.17) and cut the large patterned pp, but it faded into the other pp too much, so I offset that image also and then used some white cardstock to mat those, and I chose the font for the title (I saw it on a garden flag at Dollywood a couple of weeks ago and knew right away that I would be using "Beautifall" on a layout soon) and also made a rectangle the right size to mat the picture because it was so easy to do on the Silhouette, and cut those out at the same time. There wasn't any inking on this page, but I think the papers and the pictures just really shine.

Season of Thanks

I stamped the images on watercolor paper and then colored in the images using a water pen and distress inks. If you have the reinkers, just place a tiny tiny drop on something non-porous (the craft mat by ranger is ideal) and use that as your pallet.
I used the ticket corner punch by Stampin' Up for the corners of the watercolor paper, then I inked the edges of everything and attached.

Season of blessing

I made a couple of these cards, and I used a couple of different techniques.

For the main image, I colored the stamp with several brush markers, huffed on the stamp and then applied the image directly to the card. (You can get 2 stamps out of this technique, but the second one is not going to be as bold.) The next thing I did was cut a Labels 1 Spellbinder die out of cardstock and centered that over the image. Then using cut-n-dry foam, I applied distress inks (tea dye, brushed mahogany, and rusty hinge) to give it a faux leather look. I brushed the sentiment stamp with three of the colors I used on the central image and stamped the sentiment below. Instead of adding a ribbon, I simply added a strip of pp which I had trimmed off of something for a layout (Yes, I save even tiny pieces like this of Basic Grey). Finally, using the piercing mat from Stampin' Up, I placed the three brads.
TFL!

Natural Beauty

Not much detail to write about this. It was created for a sketch challenge on scrapbook.com

I stamped the Natural Beauty with Staz-On, but had to cut the stamp into 4 parts to get the ones I wanted. I had stamped something below the green peacock pp, but I didn't like how it turned out, so I tried coloring it with a pen, still didn't like it, so I cut circles out of white cardstock and using the cut-n-dry foam colored them with the milled lavender distress ink. Then I put the jewels on. At first, I had put a ring of several jewels, but decided that was drawing too much attention away from my photo, so opted instead for one small stone on each circle. Then to draw more attention to the photo, I arranged jewels on a corner of the photo and above the top.
TFL!

These are the days to remember

I used my Silhouette for the title of this page. I actually used the negative space even though it took forever it seemed to put all of the little pieces on the page. Thank goodness for Zig Pens and cutterbee tweezers!

Most of this page was made with papers from the Obscure collection by Basic Grey.

I used Spellbinders for the parenthesis shape, and punches by Paper Studio for the flowers. After making the flowers out of scraps, I used the white souffle pen and a black pen to doodle on them.

The poem is by an unknown author, I can't claim authorship.

Sweet Thing

This was based on a sketch for a challenge on scrapbook.com I had a hard time choosing the pp for it, because the papers I kept envisioning it with was in the Bittersweet collection by Basic Grey. Mishal helped me pick out the papers for this, and then I added the stickers and then outlined most things with my Souffle pen. I love this pen!

The Greatest Artist

The Greatest Artist
By: Udiah

God is the greatest artist
To whom no one can compare,
Streaking sunsets very beautiful,
Painting rainbows in the air.

Brushing green the hillside scene,
Blotting blue the sky above,
Splashing flowers 'cross the ground beneath,
Shading white clouds with His glove.

Of the wonders God has made
There is none that is so fair
As the smile He paints upon your face
When you realize He's there.

This page took me several hours.

1) cut the 4x6 photo in the largest circle possible using the Coluzzle
2) Use a compass to draw a larger circle
3) Drew the flower within the circle to determine six equidistant points on the circle.
4) Use the Bazzil in Stitchz large circle and put it along the line of the flower petals and punched holes for the stitching.
5) Also use it and a pencil to mark spots for the gems.
6) Cut a larger circle with the coluzzle and marked a line along which to write the poem in the colors of the rainbow, (except for the purple and orange because I didn't have a pen the right size for those colors)
7) Use the large colouzze circle to cut scraps of cardstock the colors of the rainbow and place those along the inner circle using glossy accents to attach them to each other before attaching to the page.
8) Use the large Coluzzle to cut a white circle from cardstock that's bigger than the picture but still shows the photo.
9) Use the Bazzil in Stitchz large circle template to punch holes in the white cardstock and use thread to stitch the rainbow.
10) Use sharpies to color clear gems the colors I don't have the colors for.
11) Use tiny drops of glossy accents to attach the gems

One of a Kind

I was itching to create SOMETHING today. I've been going through creative withdrawals lately. This is what I did after work today. I was inspired by this tutorial http://withfeathersandsequins.blogspot.com/2011/04/small-and-whiteclean-and-brightyou-look.html to make this card. I love the sunburst look. I just changed it to a square card because I want to use up a package of cards and envelopes I got at Michael's for fifty cents. I used scraps for everything except for the flower. The centerpiece is actually a Stampin' Up punch, and the stamp which I embossed is also by Stampin' Up

Kitchen Chairs

BEFORE:

A couple of years ago, a guy I was dating got me a set of 6 chairs. They are very functional, even though they aren't very pretty, and don't really match anything in my house. I've been thinking about recovering them for a long time, but it's so hard to pick a color and a fabric, and then you have to find the time and money for the material, the staple gun, etc. I finally decided to use the colors on my dishes as inspiration for the chairs and started buying the fabric one yard at a time. I didn't even know if one yard of fabric would be enough, but I finally decided it would...the fabric was $10/yard, but I had coupons, so I only spent $5-$6/yard, and I only got 4 yards. Donna let me borrow her staple gun, so I got new chairs for less than $25! They certainly don't look like a professional did them (in my opinion), but they look a lot better than they did!

AFTER:

My first wordbook

I've wanted to do one of these for a couple of years now, but haven't been uber motivated, until... one of my best friends got married on New Year's Day and was kind enough to ask me to take a picture or two, so I had plenty to choose from... and then I got Basic Grey's Euphoria Collection, and was dying to use it. So once I decided that was what I was going to do, there was no stopping the creative process! I decided on a font and figured out the size and worked a few hours on cutting everything out...(The word is her new last name), then I modge podged the pp onto thin chipboard and modge podged over that to seal it,


For the edges, I used an embossing pen and silver embossing powder to add the silver color that was in her wedding. That took quite a few hours, I could only emboss a few inches at a time.


I have been dying to make these flowers I made for the front of the book (and then used again on the "S", so I punched out several of them and heated up my melting pot and then dipped the punched flowers in clear UTEE. There's definitely room for my improvement, but they look good. And I thought it was very cool the way the piece of the flourish bling that I put on the front looks like a heart.


on the next page I put a sticker but it didn't 'pop' the way I wanted, so I used a white souffle pen to outline it.


On the next set of pages, I used the nestabilities to cut out the pictures and mats, then used them again to ink the inside part so the outside part stood out a little bit more, and I used bling on a sticker for the date.


Here is a close-up of the "S" with a faux glass flower and bling.


I had this beaded trim left over from another project and decided it looks perfect for a wedding album, Tut attaching it was a little bit tricky. I used two big glue dots and decided to cover them with flowers I made with punches.


I used the garden trellis edge punch to create this look, and used more punched flowers to decorate it.


The "O" was the hardest one to cut out, getting the inside perfect. On this side I used small punched flowers and bling to decorate


Stickles...not sure if there's a project of mine which is complete w/o lovely stickles.


I tried to balance the fibers and ribbon that I attached to the 'O' wires by placing some ribbon on the "P"

TFL. It's way past my bedtime, so I don't know if this makes much sense. I've caught myself typing things that were nonsensical, but need to sleep so I'll proof read in the morning.

1-6-2011

After Alex came home from school today, he told me that they were going to have the Christmas concert in a couple of hours. It had been canceled due to snow in December.

1-5-2011

Mishal filling out an application at Taco Bell. She wants to make her own money so she can buy clothes, etc. Unfortunately, she has to be 16 to work there. But they told her to come back when she turns 16.

1-4-2011

This time of year, this is the view I have most of the time...I wake up and turn the computer on the very first thing. I take a couple of short breaks during the day, but work until time to go to bed. Today I worked 17 Hours.

1-3-2011

Tonight after dropping Alex off at Scouts, Mishal and I went to Taco Bell and then shopping at Rue 21. Before leaving, she had told me she just wanted to check out the sales. She tried on a few tops, but then got mad at me when I didn't buy her anything, even some underwear.

1-2-2011

Today Summer Hullander worshiped at church. It was such a blessing.