"Smile" for Stuck?! Sketches and Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog

 

This layout actually started with the sketch! I saw this sketch from Stuck?! Sketches:

and wanted to use it, so I went to the camera roll on my phone, and found these beauties from just last week, and thought they would work perfectly. From there, a layout was born!

It was really fun to get messy with this layout. I started with a plain sheet of textured white cardstock, which I spread a bit of gesso on - not everywhere, just in the areas I knew I wanted to apply some ink. I then took a piece of plastic packaging, squashed some Distress Ink onto it, sprayed with a bit of water, and smooshed it all over the gesso. I used four different colours of Distress Ink (Worn Lipstick, Shaded Lilac, Picked Raspberry, and Dusty Concord) and I love how they all blend together to make this vibrant watercolour background!

 

After that, it was just a matter of putting down some washi tape and stamped border strips from my Counterfeit Kit, layering the photos with some patterned papers, and figuring out which sentiments to place where. (I also had to cut out those bows with my cameo, because the original ones from my kit were a peachy colour, and they just were not working!

 

Some closies:

 

So I don't know if lots of schools do this, but every year Ailis gets really stoked for "Crazy Hair Day", and judging from the heads I saw at her school this year, she's not the only one! She took it upon herself to wake up super early to experiment, and she did Brenna's hair, too. I love it how they're young enough that they can participate in these fun events, because I think Nolan was just always "too cool" to let me do anything remotely fun with his hair!



 

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"Back to School" for Let's Get Sketchy and Counterfeit Kit Challenge

I was kind of in the mood to scrap back to school photos, but I didn't have any printed from this year yet. Good thing I hadn't scrapped last year's photos, right? 

This month, Let's Get Sketchy put out this lovely sketch:

 

It seemed to go with my pictures perfectly, although I decided to mirror the original.

 

Now those of you who know me are wondering, "Where's Nolan?" Well, this was the year that he did NOT want me to take a picture of him - probably said it was lame or something! - and he took off before I could force him. Kids, what are ya gonna do? Anyway, I made sure to write about that in my journaling, which you unfortunately can't see very well because my printer decided to give me grief. Instead of black, it came out kind of light brown, and I don't know why because all of my ink levels are "adequate". Again, what are ya gonna do? The amount of times I have typewritten journaling on a layout I could probably count on one hand, so I'm trying not to let it bother me! 

 

If you read my post detailing my September Counterfeit Kit, you may remember these hearts I made with my Cameo:

 

And here's a final close-up of the little cluster up in the top left corner.

I had fun doing a bit of stamping on this page, too. The little word pieces and borders were done with a CTMH stamp called "Picture Perfect" - made me realize I don't use my massive stamp stash quite enough!

I hope you enjoyed my page today, and hopefully I'll see you around here on my blog or over on Instagram where I've been posting a lot of my scrappy creations lately. Toodle-loo!

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"Today" for Creative Scrappers #298

I finished this page this morning, yay! The photo is over two years old now, and my Brenna Bean can read chapter books all on her own - she picked up reading soooooo fast! It's amazing how little kids can soak up everything they learn like a sponge, isn't it?  

Here's the sketch I used for inspiration from Creative Scrappers:

I mirror-imaged it (haha, don't think that's really a word, or a verb!) so my photo would face the right way, but other than that, I think I stuck fairly close to the original. I cut some hearts instead of stars with my Cameo - hearts seemed to go better with the digi stamp I already had on the photo - as well as the sketchy circle, which was a free cut file from...actually, I don't know where it's from, cringe! My apologies to the designer, and if you recognize this, maybe let me know in the comments and then I can giver credit to the artist.

I'm quite impressed with how the background turned out. I pressed some old CTMH ink pads (Sorbet and Creme Brulee) onto a piece of plastic packaging, sprayed with a bit of water, and smooshed that around on top of the white cardstock. I've done this before with Distress Ink and Dylusions spray, but I wasn't sure how the CTMH ink would work out, and without gesso to boot. The circle accent and hearts felt a bit too stark (I cut them out of plain white cardstock) so I dabbed my waterbrush in the same inks and traced around them all. I like that effect, too, it's kind of doodly (also not a word, but I'm on a roll, so why stop now!)

And here's a final close-up of the photo and some of the accents. I just love Brenna's pudgy little baby cheeks and cute pigtails! 

Since I used my September Counterfeit Kit and a sketch, I'm going to link this page up on the CKC blog for Challenge #1. I'm also going to put this into Mercy Tiara's 27-Day Scrappy Challenge. This is a new group for me, so not sure what it will be like to post in a Facebook group. We shall see. 

And that's it for me for today. I hope I get to create more with this kit, but now that school is back in session, it feels like life is crazier than ever - how did that happen? Tomorrow I'm helping with Nolan's cross-country team's bottle drive, so hopefully your weekend involves something more lovely than divvying up stinky beer and wine bottles in the rain! 

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September Counterfeit Kit

Wow, I'm so glad school has started up again! My kids were starting to get a bit stir crazy there, haha! But with the regular routine and cooler weather comes more time for scrapbooking, fingers crossed.

One thing I love to do at the beginning of each month, whether I have a chance to play along or not, is check out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog.  This month's kit is a beaut, and here's what it looks like:

The first thing that struck me were the colours, so I went into my stash and pulled out anything in baby blue, peach, red, or with a black and white print that seemed to go:

Then I went into a kit of Project Life style cards that I'd purchased from CTMH a while back, and pulled these ones out:

And what about 6x6 paper packs? Well, I found some wood veneer paper, as well as more of that peach/coral colour, mostly from Studio Calico and Crate Paper, I believe. The paper on the right, the black and white flowers, was a free printable (link here). Plus once I dug further into my stash, I found some other journaling cards and camera accents that I'd printed out ages ago, hoping to use them in my SMASH book:

So I was pretty happy with all that, but of course I had to forge some items from the kit. Honestly, I put in quite a lot of effort with this kit, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a few things too. For example, those bow die cuts? I made those by tracing a free clip art file I imported into the Silhouette software program. And the hearts were made in the Silhouette software as well, by choosing one of my old heart files and using the line tool to draw some cuts through it. The "HAPPY" and "YOU & ME" title pieces I made using the Impact font and welding the letters together. "Smile" was made pretty much the same way but with a free font called Sweet Pea. The flowers were simply a nesting cut file I had previously purchased from Silhouette that I thought matched those in the original kit best.

Here I have some ancient stickers and some wood veneer pieces from CTMH, as well as some brads, chipboard hearts and a flair button. 

Did you see the "Forgeries on the Fourth" post over on the CKC blog? I copied some of the expert forgers to make those stamped border strips and print out the orange labels. I also pulled some more wood veneer pieces, washi tape, flair buttons and bling from my embellishment drawer:

And finally, a boatload of somewhat coordinating scraps and journaling cards (here and here) :

So yeah, I probably could have played some more at forging different pieces from the original kit, but it's already the 9th and I haven't produced anything yet! Better to quit while I'm ahead, so to speak!

I also started a Pinterest board to keep all my Counterfeit Kit pins handy, so check it out if you wish right here. I hope you've enjoyed my kit and stay tuned here to see what I create with it!

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"Roughing It" for LOAD Mini Summer Lovin' and Stuck?! Sketches

Well, I think this is it for my first LOAD (LayOut A Day, for those unfamiliar with the term). Unfortunately, I was not able to do a page for all seven days/prompts, but I did manage to do four, and for me, that is something of a record!

I looooove how this one turned out, not gonna lie! I used up some newer supplies, including some papers from the Pink Paislee "C'est La Vie" 6x6 pad, which normally I don't think I would have thought of using with camping/fishing photos. I mean, look at all that mint green, pink and yellow! Does that scream "outdoors" to you?  But, with black and white photos, you can kind of do whatever you want as far as background colours, right?

I used this great sketch from Stuck?! Sketches and flipped it 90 degrees:

I used the packaging technique with some Cracked Pistachio Distress Spray over some gesso, and that gave me a nice minty green watercolour effect for my background.  Then it was just a matter of figuring out which paper scraps to layer and cut up in behind the photos. 

These photos are from when we were first married, 17 years ago. Oh my gosh, I cannot believe how young we look!!! The prompt for LOAD day 5 was "Lovin' the great outdoors", and if I'm being honest, I don't really love the great outdoors. But Jason does, and he's dragged me out enough that it was easy to find outdoorsy photos. Before you know it, a layout is born!

Here's a close up of the journaling: 

And because this was such a long story, here's the other piece of journaling on the other side:

And one final close up of the die cut title and accent pieces:

I made this layout while listening to and watching the last ever Tragically Hip concert, which was broadcast to all of Canada on Saturday night. For all you non-Canucks out there, Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, is dying of brain cancer. Their music is very well known here, and the concert was very emotional. Even our Prime Minister was in attendance! Jason and I had the concert streaming on Ailis's little tablet, and the bluetooth going through our stereo, and we had a great time rocking out, just the two of us. Kids probably thought we were a bit weird, but whatever! 

Anyway, that's it from me for today. Maybe now that I've completed four summer layouts in a week, I'll be motivated to continue my streak! Stay tuned to find out!  

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"Sand Sun Fun" for LOAD Mini Summer Lovin'

Hey everyone, I have some good news! I won a spot in Scrap Happy's "LOAD Mini Summer Lovin'" event this week from Alison at Alison Day Designs! How cool is that? This is the first time I've tried a LOAD, or LayOut A Day, so even though this is the fifth day, I'm still getting into the swing of things. The layout above is the third I've finished, though, so that's pretty speedy progress for me!

I used this fabulous sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for inspiration: 

First I scraped on a layer of gesso over the middle of the white card stock. Then I applied some Salty Ocean Distress Ink using the packaging technique to create that beautiful watercolour effect. The die cut is part of a freebie from Scrapbook Nerd:

The circle was fun to do. First I traced one of those Creative Memories cutting circles with a pencil. Then I took the nozzle out of a bottle of black Dylusions spray, and just drew freehand around the circle a few times, making that messy, scratchy look. I love how that turned out!

And here's a close-up of the journaling, basically telling the story of how I thought Jason was nuts to want to take the kids swimming in the river. I didn't think it was safe, but at that time of year, the water was pretty shallow - an adult could probably walk across to the other side without going in over their chest, and the current was not very strong. Still, they were the only kids with life jackets there - I guess maybe I'm a little paranoid, but better safe than sorry, I say! 

And another closeup of some of the papers, cork arrows and gems (CTMH):

I took these photos outside on my deck in natural morning light, but I don't know, the background paper looks awfully blue! It's white, I swear!

Thanks for looking, and hope you have a great weekend, whether it's summer where you are or not!

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"This was Awesome, Epic, Cool" for Let's Get Sketchy

Finally finished this one! It was a work in progress for about a month, if you can believe it. I started off with the background by playing around in my art journal a bit to see what could be accomplished with some white gesso, Dylusions sprays, a stencil, and some texture paste that became rock hard. (FYI: I don't know if there's an easier way, but I just broke off a chunk of texture paste and let it soak in a puddle of water for a while. It still never spread beautifully, I had to really smoosh it into the stencil, but it's not like I could go out and buy another pot of the stuff because, well, Vanderhoof!)

So, if you would like to recreate something like this background on your own layout, here's what I did:

1. Apply a thin, random layer of white gesso all over the middle of a piece of thick kraft cardstock. I used an old gift card to spread the gesso.
2. Spray Dylusions Ink Spray through a stencil, again, randomly. Don't worry if you go off the edge of the gesso, it just gives some more variation of colour as the gesso tones down the bright colours of the spray quite a bit. I used Postbox Red, Squeezed Orange, and Lemon Zest as my three colours, but I could not for the life of me find the brand/manufacturer of the leaf stencil!
3. Apply texture paste in random areas over the gesso and ink spray. The texture paste will pick up some of the colour from the sprays, so you will end up with some white areas as well as some coloured leaves.
4. Any areas that feel too white, take a gelato (I chose gold) and colour the texture paste. It will be bumpy, but that's okay! Then you can use a waterbrush (or paintbrush dipped in water) and spread the gelato out more evenly. I ended up with some really pretty gold, sparkly leaves that the photos don't really do justice to.

After the background was done to my liking, it was relatively simple to lay out rest of the elements according to this great sketch from Let's Get Sketchy:

Here's a few close-ups of the journaling and other details like the die cuts:

It's a pretty busy layout, but I like it! I don't think it's Brenna's favourite, though. She said to me, "Don't you think there's just too many fall colours in there?" and I said, "Nope! It's a fall page." But yeah, maybe she's right? What do you think?

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"Well Hello There" for Creative Scrappers 296

Hey everyone, just popping in on this gloomy Sunday to share my latest layout with you. 

Honestly, this is not the most embellished layout, but I'm loving how it turned out. It features a photo of Brenna from almost two years ago, and I can't remember what was going on when I took the photo, but her face looks so cute, and she looks like she's begging or pleading for something. It couldn't remain unscrapped any longer!

I used this sketch from Creative Scrappers:

And if you pop over there, they have a code for a free cutfile called Chopsticks from Just Nick, which is what I used on my page. I cut it out from white cardstock, and spent a morning last weekend using Distress Ink and my waterbrush to create a rainbow effect. If I were to do this again, however, I'd use watercolour paper, because often the colours would not blend how I was hoping they would. Ah well, live and learn. Plus, it all turned out in the end.

After I had the rainbow background down, I spent the better part of a week pushing stuff around on my page. Does it ever take you forever to get the simplest page finished?  Anyway, I finally got it how I thought it should go, but then I thought I would add some ink splatters. Good idea in theory, until a big huge splotch of the teal stuff plopped right onto my page! There may have been tears or screams of rage, but I've blocked that out of my mind permanently - hopefully my family has too! So I decided to move one of those embellishment clusters over to partially cover up the mess, rather than cut and colour a new rainbow, and it is what it is.  If I didn't tell you about it, maybe you wouldn't even notice, right?  Haha, yeah right!

So that's it from me for now.  Hope you've had a great weekend, and here's to getting some more scrappy stuff done next week!

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"Spreading My Wings" for Stuck?! Sketches

Well, that'll teach me to leave it to the last minute again! I missed the deadline for the sketch challenge over at Stuck?! Sketches, but if I'm being fair to myself, I did have a rather rough 24 hours. Not as bad as my boy, considering he's the one who had an emergency appendectomy last night, but still...scrapbooking was a little lower on my priority list. But, he's safe and relatively comfortable at the hospital, so my mind is a little more at ease.  Enough to finish this page, anyhow:

It's a rather simple design, based off this sketch from Stuck?! Sketches:

And yeah, even though it came together fairly quickly, I think I'm liking it!  I say "think" because sometimes, it takes me a while to warm up to a page, but I tried a new technique, and that's always fun.

That masked circle element?  That was my genius invention.  I cut a circle from a piece of printer paper and used it as a mask.  Then I placed a stencil on top of it over my base cardstock and spread some gesso through the stencil.  Kept the mask in place and sprayed the top with like, two squirts of Funky Fuchsia Dylusions spray.  Then sprayed the heck out of that with water and let it run down.  I think I should have gessoed the whole page, maybe, because the cardstock got a little saturated, but ah well, lesson learned!  I still think it looks cool, all ombre and stuff.  Plus it looks a bit like a dream catcher, don't ya think?

Another close-up:

Just another day with my hubby and youngest, trying to catch some air, or something.  I don't really know, but it was cute!  

All the supplies were from my June Counterfeit Kit, so I'm going to link this page up over on their blog.  Wow, that's four pages this month, definitely a new roll, woohoo! 

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June 2016 CKCB Members' Blog Hop!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my part of the CKCB Members' Blog Hop! You should have come here from Tina's blog, but if you're lost for some reason, no worries.  Just head on back to the CKCB and you can find the whole list there!

I'm so excited to be part of this blog hop because it got me out of my slump and got my scrapbooking mojo going once again.

I decided to give challenge #1 a go, and I have to tell ya, it felt a little weird!  The challenge was to: 

Choose an Inspiration Board 

from Burnetts Boards.

I've never done this before, and it was a lot of fun to go through some of those beautiful boards!  After much deliberation, I chose this board, entitled "Pink Flamingo":

I loved the colours, and they went well with colours I already had in my kit.  I also loooooved the gold chevron on the teal cake, and the pink camera.  So those are the main things that inspired my scrapbook layout here:

I started off by creating that watercolour background on a piece of white cardstock.  So easy and fun! Just prime your paper with gesso, then smear some Distress Ink (in this case, Worn Lipstick) on a piece of plastic packaging, spray the ink with water, and then flip and smoosh the ink onto your paper.  Beautiful results every time!

The arrows I made by hand as well.  They are made by gold embossing a Close to My Heart stamp on white cardstock, then inking over top with Peacock Feathers Distress Ink.  So striking!  The die cut chevron up top was made much the same way, by just inking up with Versamark ink and heat embossing with gold embossing powder.  

And finally, the camera.  It was part of a die cut frame/project life card that I'd previously cut out of plain cardstock with my Silhouette Cameo.  It also had the word "CAPTURED" as part of the design.  I'd had it sitting in my pile of die cuts for a long time, waiting to use it somehow, at some time, when finally, inspiration struck: why not cut the thing apart?  Once I did that, I realized I could use the word "CAPTURED" as part of my title, and inked both parts up with Picked Raspberry Distress Ink.  Now I think they work way better separate than they did together, ha!  Oh, and the gold details on the camera?  I just used a metallic Sharpie pen to colour those in.  

Here's a close up of my journaling:

And another of some details like the tangled thread and gold embossing:

Thanks for stopping by and now you should hop over to Jemma's blog.

Don't forget to leave me a comment to let me know you were here and happy hopping!"

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New Page for Creative Scrappers #295

Hey folks, how's your weekend going? Father's Day tomorrow and I haven't made a card yet, yikes! Maybe I should get on that after this blog post...

So I managed to finish another page using my June Counterfeit Kit. That makes two! Dare I say I'm on a roll? 

Did you hear that Creative Scrappers is back in action? They always have such fabulous sketches! Here's their newest:

And here's the page I put together:

Remember in my last post I said I was messing around with watercolour backgrounds using distress ink, but the end result using blue and pink was a bit too purple for what I wanted?  Well, I saved that background, and used it here.  I love how it turned out, and I thought it complimented the colour of Brenna's dress in the photos nicely.  

It's hard to see in the photo, but one of the layering pieces I used was this feather printed vellum from Close to My Heart.  It's very subtle, but soft and pretty.  I also managed to get some of my forged watercolour blossoms and hearts onto this page, and I love how they add a customized touch to it: 

Hard to believe these photos were taken almost two years ago!  Here's a close up of the journaling, which tells the story of how Brenna got car sick on the way to Barkerville:

Even though she's two years older now, she still crashes hard like that on long car trips, head right back, mouth wide open - so adorable!

Hope you enjoy my page, and if you hustle, there's still time to get a layout in for this sketch challenge, or even participate in the Counterfeit Kit Challenges going on this month.  Better late than never, right?

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"Today" for Sketches in Thyme

Yay, I DID manage to get a page finished with my June Counterfeit Kit, and it was quite fun to put together, especially the watercolour background section! I've been watching a lot of Missy Whidden's YouTube videos lately, and I was totally inspired to try the "packaging technique" to create the blue background with some Peacock Feathers Distress Ink here:

This was actually my second attempt at a background.  The first one I tried, I used blue and pink sprays, and they ended up a bit too purple to suit my photos, but hopefully I can use that paper for another page later on.  All is not lost!

When choosing a sketch for this page ('cause you know I always like to use a sketch!) I turned to one of my old favourite sites, Sketches in Thyme for this beauty:

Here's a closeup of some of my fussy cut details:

Remember those circle cutters from Creative Memories from days of yore?  I broke those out to make the circles.  I also toned down the yellow patterned paper with a coat of gesso, which subsequently warped my paper, but it's cool, I actually love the effect!

And here's a closeup of my journaling, nothing too fancy, just a little bit about how Brenna loves to hang out with me:

I think I'm her favourite person! (And she, of course, is one of mine!)

So now that I've got this posted, I'm off to scrap some more photos with my June Counterfeit Kit. Could this be the start of a good month?  Let's hope so!

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