"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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June 2016 Counterfeit Kit

Oh my goodness, it has been sooooo long since I posted anything to this blog! Did you wonder where I've been? Well, I have still been creating, but with a much looser schedule. No challenges, at all! And anything I do create, I usually just post it to my Instagram feed. I've been mucking around with a planner - that lasted three months, I think - and pocket pages, which have been great for scrapping the year chronologically, but don't really get my creative juices flowing, ya know? So, how about a counterfeit kit to jumpstart the summer? Sounds good to me!

This month, the folks over at Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog have chosen the May 2016 Hip Kit to copy, and wouldn't you know, I've actually been thinking about subscribing to the Hip Kit Club for a bit now, and even watching some process videos by some of the design team members. Feeling very inspired, I have to say! And the May kit is just beautiful!!! Here's a photo of the original:

And here's my take:

Back row is all Basic Grey, and front row from left to right is Imaginisce, two Fancy Pants, a piece of feather print vellum from CTMH that you can barely see, and a piece from Carta Bella. 

As for counterfeiting, I had a total blast using my new Ranger water brush and some Distress Inks to make these "die cuts":

I think they turned out pretty good for an amateur, and I'll definitely be trying this technique again in the near future!

I also have a bunch of random scraps in shades of yellow, turquoise, pink and navy, but I think I'm going to leave it at this for now. I can always add embellishments as I go along, but if I spend any longer counterfeiting, I won't have any time in the month left to create! So wish me luck and let's hope I get some actual pages done (and posted!) this month.

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