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