CatScrap Blog Hop

Whooo hooo.  Another Catscrap Blog Hop!!  Did you see the new Catwalk.  Soooooo Lush and Goooorg!
 And who doesn't need a pack of Journal cards!!

Sooooo here is my offering:

 I made it with Ju Kneipp's Always Spring and Little Butterfly Wing's Grandma's Garden.  I just adore them both!!  You can grab it here:  https://www.box.com/s/b2ce04d4799ba19dbc5d

Now run on off to Lilja's beautiful blog!  http://liljatr.blogspot.com/

Hope you have a lovely spring and ENJOY the hop!!

Project Life and Other Awesome Endeavors

I have been busy busy. As maybe you can tell by the lack of postings. First off, I want to show off my Project Life week 5. Sure it is late, but what else have you come to expect from me. No trick ponies this time. I'm trying to catch up (well and play with other things :)).

Just so you can maybe squint and read some journaling (maybe....):

One of the things I have truly enjoyed for this project is being able to use my old stash of digital goodies. See that RACING and the Flame thing next to it. Isn't that cool!! Both are by Chere Kaye Edwards (whom is just one of the nicest!!). That flame thing is from the coolest kit called Superfly!! So much fun!!

Anywhooooo...the real reason I am late is that I have a artist crush...on Balzer Design annnnnnd she has this super cool stamping class. (If you want to join in...you will find the link to her classes on her blog. It's fun!! It will make you Happy!!) Well I am just one of those people that have to make things super hard, and super mine. So taking a stamping class was right up my alley!! And let me show off a little of what I have been doing:
Lesson 1:

Made this with them:


Lesson 2:

Yeah I haven't made anything yet. But I love them anyway and have plans...no time...just plans.

Lesson 3:

Made this:

Yes. That is a paper layout. And yes....I am super proud of myself. There are 3 chevron's used...the bottom and top edge, and these two beauties:

Well and of course I am super proud of my son too. #2 in a National Competition ROCKS. Not easy folks. Definitely worthy of a paper layout!!!

Are you still there? Thanks for looking!

Project Life Week 4-Lots of Pictures

Did you ever think you would see me so soon? Well okay...a little secret...I did these two weeks almost simultaneously. It's okay to do that right? Well it worked for me.

















































And this week brought a whole new crazy challenge...what to do with too many photos. I know...jealous right? It doesn't usually happen this way. But this week I had two events happen that I took lots of pictures. So I applied not one but two solutions...
Solution one - I made a little mini album. We actually go to the zoo lots of times throughout the year, but this does not mean that I don't want to remember all the fun things we do there. However, this is project life...and I wanted to keep this so super simon. So basically I added a little lineage and words to a 4x6 picture, added a cover, stapled the whole thing and called it a day.

The best part is how much Rosie adores her little book!

Second solution is to make a collage. One thing I adore about this solution is that because I am adding an insert in the middle, I have both the back and front to fit photos. In total, I had 21 photos! Going for simple simon again...I did grab a basic block template (which I modified a tad). The words and paper are from Karah Frederickson's Chi Chi Chilly Mini Kit. Using one digital kit that coordinated and a template really made this process fast fast.

Project Life - Week 3 (and a small feebie)

So yes apparently I am on my own little schedule. And yes, I realize that if it takes me 2 weeks (or more) to finish one week...I'm up a creek. But I don't care. As sweet Andrea said "I'm My Own Boss". There. That's all I have to say about that.

This week I did more on using my digital stash. I have an incredible amount of fun frames to use and could not resist this "Happy Moments" frame I found...so perfect for the picture. I also used a text box on a picture. I had not used that treatment before and found it super easy. That will probably show up more often on my pages. It does seem to be easier than actually physically writing on the pictures since I have been printing in Glossy.






















In addition, this week...I finally had a need to include some schtuff! Yay. My daughter got an international package and I COULD NOT resist saving the postage. It was way cool. But how, how, how. I found my inspiration on one of Jasmin's pages...a pocket! So I took one of Becky's cards, cut off the circle, stapled it to another card and voila!




And finally...this week I also found a need to hide some journaling. I have to admit, this is way to fun since I have not been able to do this digitally for years. But I didn't really want to go the pocket route again...so I made up some fun digitally.

Now I did have to make a little protector for us, a la Ali Edwards. And although at first it was a super pain, I realized my mistake was using a dull needle. That is the secret...sharp needle. After that it was so easy peasy I know that I will so be doing small protectors ALOT more!

And since I had to make up a digital piece for this...I thought why not share. If you likie and want to use...feel free to grab this

HERE: http://www.box.com/s/io5c61dg00crteren23i

There is no TOU so use and abuse to your pleasure how you see fit. Just leave me a little comment of appreciation so my ego gets a little lovin.

A little direction though you say --- Type where you want. To hide the journaling type on the big arrow and to the left of it. Then cut it all out. Fold in the arrow and paste the arrow (with the black line around the inside) on top of the arrow. HTH

It Is Done --


I have finished my Traci Bautista's Doodles Unleashed class at Strathmore. And I have to say it was SUCH fun!! I've always loved doodling but it's really been educational to push them to all new limits.

This last lesson started with making the background for the final piece. Basically it was starting out with writing on the page, coloring it up with acrylics and then throwing in some cool texture just for the fun of it. Well color and I were in perfect harmony that day. I am not usually a red person, but for some reason it totally called to me and oooooh yay.
























Now I was not as prepared as Traci with my texture stuff, but yay for me for saving some dry wall tape. I also grabbed some tin foil, crinkled up which created some of the grungy goodness. Yes. I am so in love with this, I definitely took the time to photo it for some digital fun.

The next lesson was about doing a face. So terrified. I mean, I have had lessons on this but in like Middle School. So I practiced :):
The next step was truly scary...paint on the background I love.

That took guts let me tell you!

Then it was modge podging the doodles -- Complicated in it's own right since the flower over her ear was to big and needed to be cut up:
Oh and I must have done the mouth like 15 times! Loved the eye here, but the mouth was buggin me. Next was to add details (and redo the mouth again!)

At this point I stopped playing with it for a day and then when I got back from grocery shopping, I realized the eye looked really odd. Like it is suppose to be open but maybe she is possessed. I like the lips though.

The next day it was time to get out the markers and pencils for final touch ups. This is really the funnest part of all and the most low stress. Doodling is my friend :). And ta da -

I do like the eye better but it's still not my favorite. If anybody has any ideas on how to fix it, let me know!

Eeeees a CATWALK time. And that means it's time for a CatScrap Catwalk Blog Hop. And let me just say I am a lucky lucky girl to be able to play with the designers work. This Catwalk is soooooo now! Hearts, romantic, snow, winter...yup it's all covered.

And here is ma page with it:

I used Aja Abney's New kit Renewal and Mellybird's La Belle Epoque. So cute!

And JUST FOR YOU...
You can download it here: http://www.box.com/s/oddaf2n2etkvctgalky8

OH wait and cause you wondered over to MY little space...you can grab Cythia (limoncello's) Quick Page too!

Obviously we could not keep our hands off of Aja Abney's Renewal! You can grab Cynthia's page here: http://www.4shared.com/zip/zbuYgfwb/Winter_CatWalk_2012_Cynthia_QP.html

With your arms full, I'm shoo shooing you off to Mi's blog (shhhhhh....I've heard she is hosting two QPs too). Go on now and click here: http://scrapmimonteiro.blogspot.com/ .

Have a great CATWALK!!

Project Life Week 2 - The Bad Made Good

Well yes...I suppose I did loose a week somewhere. Completed week 2 of the art journaling and now week 2 of Project Life. At this rate, I'm right on time according to life by Claire.

Anywho...
The complicated thing about this week was the lack of photos. I don't know what happened but about the time Thursday rolled around, I realized I was gettin' a little lazy with the camera. What this meant ultimately was I would need more filler.

Now filler seems odd to me. I mean I am spending my hard earned time on this right. So I want every little part of it to have some meaning. I am not sure I will like "filler" later. So what I concentrated on instead was making the story bigger and better.
Filler Ideas --
1. In the first picture, I used the Facebook Logo, downloaded directly from my computer. Facebook is a big part of our lives (for better or for worse) and little Rosie wants to be a part of that phenomenon. Now I am not saying you should just download whatever you want from the internet. Make sure you are not violating any copywrite laws. But you could do the same thing by scanning in packaging logos. Then you can blow them up or reduce them down.

2. The second picture really did not need any extensive journaling. I just wanted to convey how cute my oldest and youngest were together. So I grabbed some of my fav. digital images and put it all together. (In case you are wondering. Creashens- Three Little Birds rocks my boat.)

3. The third picture is an example where I expanded on a story already in my highlights. I actually did not take that picture the day she got her Ocarina in the mail, but who really needs to know that.

4. This picture is a demonstration of hidden journaling. I really wanted to document my feelings about my son's wrestling experience that week. But I wanted these feelings to not be quite so out in the open. So again I turned to my digital stash, folded it in half and sewed two sides. You could also totally fold a larger Project Life Kit card in two and sew two sides too. I wanted to be able to access the journaling easily, so I put this in a top loading pocket. However, if you really wanted to keep things private, you could require the reader to pull the whole thing out.

Well I hope my fail at picture taking on Week 2 has inspired you to think about how to fill those pages when you too forget the camera. (I'm not the only one right...?!)

I Never Promised Pretty

Well week two of Traci Bautista's class at Strathmore did not turn out quite to my liking. She had us working with watercolors. And strangely enough, although I have tons of art stuff (more than DH would like) I never quite have all I want. So I ran out to Joann's and used the GC I got for Christmas (thanks MOM!) and bought some huge (smaller than called for) Mixed Media paper, some grown up watercolors (you know in the tubes) and some paint brushes. I LOVE me some new art supplies. They hold such promise!

With my brand new art supplies in hand, I watched the video one more time (and of course adored the work she produced) and got down to business. Ta da....

Confident in my abilities, I actually did two at the same time:

And so ummm....no comments from the peanut gallery this week. Yeah. I wasn't thrilled with these either. I am not a fan of the color scheme (did I say color and I do not usually agree...I think I did) and although I kinda like the themes and some of the doodles, the whole pieces feel amateurish.

And so, it's taken me a few weeks to pick up the pieces on the art journaling thing. I do have plans for this though. (but never enough time.) And so I will pick up my brush and try again...on to week 3.

Yay for Messy Fingers again!!

One of the things I want to do this year is a little more Art Playing. And....I was perusing one of my favorite artists blogs, Roben-Marie, who happened to mention that she was doing a new on-line art class...a FREE on-line art class. Hmmm, did I need more convincing...one of my art idols, free, playing art...it's just to perfect.

So this week I officially joined the Strathmore (yes the paper art people) Doodle Unleashed Mixmedia Art Class. And oh joy oh joy it was fun!! I spent yesterday evening playing with all kinds of art joys.

Tada here is the result.
First off I got some of the best comments ever from my family. My son even said: "Mom it should be hanging in a museum." I take this as a totally honest comment because beeeelieve me when I say that 10 year old boys are not known for their un-requested flattery unless they want something. Okay maybe I haven't ruled out totally that he wants something, but I do think it looks completely cool.

Just for grins here are a few pics of the process:

This one shows the first process of putting stencils on the paper and using misters or even in my case Fabric paint. I loved loved how this step turned out and was happy for a chance to break out the copper fabric spray paint! (Like any dumb animal, I sure do love anything that glitters a little.)

You can see some of the things that made the images from buttons to wooden sticks to flowers. One of my favorite images is the cat. The stencil smeared just right so the cat looked all fluffy like they do when they are angry. The pears kinda rock too though.

This second image was made after I added the Cray-Pas and paint.

I'm just going to say that even though I have a ton of art supplies, I never have quite the right thing. I don't think she used Cray-Pas, or watercolor paper, or Old Acrylic paint. This was all working against me. And to be quite honest I do not like it really at this stage. It looked very amateurish to me. I mean I can not make a straight line with the paint brush to save my life, the texture of the watercolor paper was working against me, and the india ink bled everywhere on this paper. And Cray pas and I are still not friends!

But I kept going and persevered. And heck the next step was using my new Copic Markers. So how could I not keep going? And well can you tell I do love markers, pens, and pencils more than paint still. It was at this point the piece came alive for me.

Maybe I will even hang it on the wall? Maybe...

Project Life #1 Post

Well we are off to a rolling start with Project Life. Got last week documented, pictures taken, laid out, etc!! And here is the result:


I totally tried to keep it simple this week. One of the things that really worked for me was to leave a card out that had a running list of all the weeks highlights. This is something I will totally do every week just to keep me balanced while life is moving at a fast pace around here. It also helped me to separate the mundane from the things that we will want to remember.

When it came to putting the whole thing together, I definitely need to streamline somethings. For one thing, I will probably take 15 minutes or so sometime during the week to do the Date Card.

This gave me a little chance to play with my Tattered Angels Misters and some Heidi Swapp Ghost letters.

And although for the most part I went with Becky's standard kit (Turquoise Edition) I did add a few additional pieces of my own. This piece is a little piece of my daughters art work. She loves using the rotating bed to make circles so I have a million of these and did not mind embellishing with a sewn heart and a few descriptive words.

I have a feeling it will be hard to remember to put in small bits of paper and life that pass our way. But I'm looking forward to playing with them, when I do remember.

Finally I totally adored using my digital stash to add to the joy. I will have to do a further post on this as there is lots of fun things to use. For this project, I used Nancy Rowe's Dreamy Photos 1 to enhance my picture of the back porch and crab legs for New Years. I just love that grungy and contrasty look for photos that ordinarily would be kind of boring. In addition, I knew that I needed one more small pocket to fill, so I grabbed Lisa Sisneros Embrace Kit cause I knew she had some outstanding word art.

I made an easy block template in PSE, so adding my pictures or digital art work would be easy peasy. I will share more on that as well probably tomorrow.

So there you go. It is just a beginning and I have to admit, I'm so not feel entirely sure footed with this all, but I did enjoy myself and look forward to next week.

Off on a run with scrapping. But who could totally resist these fun templates by Studio 68. She rocks! Credits are in at the link.

So sigh when I think of this lovely blog. What a rotten blogger I have been. It's just that I always struggle between being creative and telling about it. It seems that being creative usually wins out.

But one goal for 2012 is to blog more often...to get the ball rolling, I will share a few creative goals -
1. Create things to share here, or link to where I'm sharing.
2. Project Life (I'm such a follower, but when somethin's good, somethin's good, kwim.)
3. Play with all things creative, like sketching, art journaling, and maybe even sewing.
4. Learn, love, and enjoy Evernote and other technological loves.
5. and as always find balance between Life, Creating, and Sharing. (I've been enjoying life maybe a little to much. Time to find time to document.)