Mini-album, part 10…

This is the last spread in the mini-album from Roni. The challenges were to use the color yellow (the reason will become evident when you read the verse!) and to use a stamp you have not previously used in the book. Well, the challenge part was easy—I painted cardstock for the background with Claudine Hellmuth’s Studio Paint in Yellow Pastel, and then streaked it with Touch of Yellow. These colors are BRIGHT!!! You can see them here at Simon Says Stamp. The challenge came in trying to take a picture! It took awhile, but the yellow finally came out kind of close. The challenge to use a stamp that I hadn’t used before was easy, too. I used one of the first stamps I ever bought—who knew it would be so versatile?? The verse for this final part is, “Friendship is like peeing your pants. Everyone can see it but only you can feel the true warmth.” Don’t you love it? Now, here’s my take on the final spread:

I hope you’ve had as much fun with this little book as I have! I need to figure out what to do to the covers, and I also want to go back and distress/ink the edges a bit (you can still see the chipboard edges) and maybe embellish some of the pages a little more. The hardest thing I need to do is decide who to give it to!!

I also want to say again—this is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. I really didn’t think I could do it, but it ended up being very easy when it was broken down into manageable chunks. If you’ve been hesitant to try something like this book or any project outside your comfort zone, I say, throw caution to the wind! What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll have a “learning experience?” Go for it, and be sure to share it with all of us!

Mini album, part 9…

As promised yesterday, I’ve finished part 9 of Roni’s mini-album challenge. Whoo-hoo! I’m all caught up again!! The challenge for this part was to “Make it Metal” by using metallic paints, inks, embossing powder, or real metal on the layout. I chose to use metallic paints. I randomly dabbed Adirondack metallic gold, silver, and copper acrylic paints to the card stock, then I took Distress Crackle Paint in Tarnished Brass and Antiqued Bronze and dabbed it pretty thickly in vein-like patterns in several places. I allowed this to dry completely, then used an ink blending tool and Black Soot DI all over the whole thing to tone it down and make the cracks in the crackle paint stand out. I’ve embellished with some metal flowers I got somewhere. The verse for this layout is, “This is my oath…I pledge it to the end. Why? you may ask. Because you are my friend!”

Let me know what you think!

Mini album, part 8…

Bet you thought I’d forgotten about Roni’s mini-album challenge, didn’t you? Well, I’ve been mulling over the part 8 challenge for a couple of weeks, because I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. The challenge was to use at least three different stamps and at least three different ink colors, not including black. The ink colors weren’t the issue—I couldn’t decide which stamps to use. I finally settled on something the other day when I decided to use the faux bandanna technique for the background. The background image uses three different Stampin’ Up! images stamped with jet black Archival Ink. The background was then colored with Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, and Forest Moss. Some of the colors weren’t blending as well as I wanted, so I sprayed the whole thing with a generous coating of Wheatfield Glimmer Mist. You may also notice something different about this spread. If you’ve been following along, you know that I’ve embellished every page with the same trim. Well, I’m out of it. I went to JoAnn’s last night to see if I could find another spool, and of course they didn’t have any. I search that darned store from end to end hoping I could find some tucked away somewhere—big mistake. I went for a $2 spool of trim that I couldn’t find, but came out $88 broker! How does that happen, anyway???? So, I’ve used some different fibers for embellishment and plan to go back through the other pages and replace some of the other trim with this combination of eyelash yarn and beads strung on hemp. Let me know what you think, and I hope to be back tomorrow with another spread complete, then I’ll be caught up again! Oh—the verse says, “When you fall, I’ll pick you up and dust you off—after I laugh my rear off!”

 

Mini-album, part 7, and GC50…

Let me just start by saying that I don’t like to combine challenges—it feels like cheating to me. So the fact that I’ve combined two here is kind of unusual, but the stars all aligned and it seemed to work. So. The saga of the mini-album challenge posted by Roni over on Ink Stains continues. This week’s verse is, “When you are sick, stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.” The challenge was to stamp the background with something other than a stamp. We’ve all experimented with using non-stamps to stamp with but maybe don’t do it on a regular basis, so this was fun. I looked around for some candidates, and this is what I came up with:

There was still some string laying on the table from the string background technique I did a couple of weeks ago, so I wrapped that around an acrylic block. I also found a piece of corrugated cardboard that I tore a layer off, and a wrapper from a fast food spoon.  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a pic of the background before finishing the layout, but it turned out pretty well. The string around the block didn’t work very well, so I ended up wadding the string in a glob, pouncing it on the inkpad, and then pouncing on the background. Did the same with the wrapper.

After I had the background done, I started looking through the cowgirl collage images, and none of them really looked sick, although one did look like she had a rough night and could be slightly hung over. That got me to thinking about some bottle caps I had collected several years ago with the intent of making some bracelets, so I went looking for them, which leads beautifully into challenge number 2, GC50—Found Objects! It did take awhile for me to find them, too! So—the bottle caps are the found objects for that challenge. Now—here’s the layout:

I know people usually use the inside of the bottle cap, but these seemed so appropriate, for both the cowgirl theme and the one who looks hung over (she would be on the right). The gal on the left has a bit of a flushed appearance, so I thought she might have a fever—I know, it’s a stretch!! Next time I’ll think these details through a little better!! Anyway, hope you like my stamped-without-a-stamp background and my beer bottle cap flowers—looks like I might need to replenish the bottle cap stash this weekend! LOL

Now I’m going to try again to go to sleep—if this is a menopause symptom, I hope it goes away quick!!!!

Mini-album, part 5…

Whoo-hoo!!! I’m caught up! I finally caught up with Roni’s mini album challenge over on Ink Stains. The next part airs tomorrow, so stay tuned!!

The challenge this week was to use recycled items. The only cardstock allowed was on the collage images, and you could use brads and other embellishments that weren’t recycled. Roni’s background for part 5 used torn pieces of an old book. I decided to deviate a little, and use a technique that was a result of a successful experiment a couple of years ago. Plus, it’s green!

This is what I started with:

This is a brown paper bag from Skyline Chili. If you’ve heard of Cincinnati chili, this is what they’re talking about, but that’s for another post!

I actually had two of these—you can’t tell from the picture, but they are the size of a standard lunch sack. I tore off the printing and threw it away, then took the rest of the bag and tore it into irregular pieces. I then wadded each piece up pretty tight to get some texture, and then pulled out a bunch of ink pads. I unscrunched each piece of paper, and roughly rubbed an ink pad over the high spots. Once I had a bunch of these little pieces of paper, I adhered them to the album’s chipboard base with Mod Podge. After it was dry and the edges were trimmed, this is what I ended up with:

I love the look of this. I used this on a composition book a couple of years ago, and it still looks great!

Here’s the completely decorated spread:

And here are the individual pages:

The flowers are also recycled. I used the new Tim Holtz flower die to cut the flowers out of pages from a phone book. I sprayed them with various ink colors (yes, I finally got some mini-misters!), glued together, then dried with the heat gun. Once they were pretty dry, I sprayed them generously with Wheatfield Glimmer Mist, then dried them again. This time, the paper started to get a little “crisp” but the petals started to curl beautifully. I have to say—so far, this is my very favorite spread!!!

I hope you like it and that you like my distressed paper bag background.

Looking forward to the next installment in Roni’s challenge!!

Mini-album, part 4…

I got a little time to play today (shhhh…..I brought the laptop home and should have been working!). The next spread in the mini-album from Ink Stains was calling my name, so I took the background paper from a couple of posts ago and used it on this spread. Let me say again how much I like this glue distressing technique! I used it on the stamped image I incorporated into this spread, and think it turned out pretty darned good! This verse of the poem says, “When you’re scared, we’ll high tail it out of here.” This is getting pretty fun—I hope Roni hasn’t created a monster! I’m looking forward to making another one soon!

Here’s the two-page spread:

Here are the pages individually:

I am having some issues with this whole concept, though. I’ve never worked with collage images before, and I’m not quite sure what to do with some of them. I’ve been using them pretty much as is up until now, but on the second page of this spread I cut one out (the cowgirl on the horse in the upper right corner). For you folks who do this regularly—I salute you! They are very difficult to cut out!!! Embellishing isn’t coming easy to me, either. I feel like there needs to be more layers and “stuff” on these, but I can’t quite figure out what to to. Maybe when the whole book gets done, I will go back through it and add embellishments. If you have any suggestions, be sure to let me know!!!

I’m still one spread behind—maybe I’ll get caught up tomorrow. The technique for the next one is “recycle it”—Roni used pages from a book for her background, but I have something else up my sleeve. I’m looking forward to showing you.

Hope you’re having a good weekend where you are—it’s raining here. Good weather to stay in and play, right?

Mini album, part 3…

Slowly but surely, I’m catching up with the mini-album challenge that Roni Johnson is sponsoring over on Ink Stains. This verse says, “When you smile I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.” I’ve been trying to follow the techniques Roni has used for each of her spreads. The challenge here was to use glimmer on the spread. Initially, I wasn’t sure I liked the way this Northern Lights technique turned out, but the darkness of it lent itself to the theme that eventually emerged. I didn’t have any of the ink refresher, so instead I used a gold Glimmer Mist with the Perfect Pearls, and it turned out OK. I hope to get the next spread done before Tuesday, then I’ll be all caught up!!

In addition to the collage image (lower left) I also used some Oxford Impressions stamps from the Cowgirl Blues sheet. BTW—if you’re wondering what the brass embellishments are, they are spent .45 cartridges. Nuff said….

The more I do….

…the behinder I get!!! Sound familiar? I’m still two spreads behind in Roni Johnson’s BFF album challenge over on Ink Stains. These little album thingys are hard to do!!! Like I said, this is my first attempt at one of these and my first time using collage images. So far—not sure I’m too successful!!!

First, I want to thank Roni—she posted a picture of my first spread on her blog today. YAY!!! Thanks, hun!

After looking at that first spread, something seemed missing so I added another image—here’s the modified page:

Not a huge change—just added the cowgirl on the bucking bronco.

I also finished the second spread. Loved the technique Roni used on the second spread, and I changed very little. I was worried about the brown chipboard showing through, so I covered the spread with some pages ripped out of an old book before creating the paint/reinker background. Before I show you the spread, let me warn you about this—I wanted the cowgirl to look like she was turning blue, so I smeared some blue Stickles on her face. She looks more like she has a case of chicken pox!! Oh well. So, here is spread number two:

And here are the individual pages:

I think these need more embellishments, but have no idea what to use. I made the yo-yo flowers with pages from the same old paperback, and the centers are some cool buffalo buttons I found awhile back. There just isn’t much “umph” to any of these pages so far, is there? Go ahead—you won’t hurt my feelings if you say so! I have a strange feeling I’m going to be fiddling with this little book long after it’s “done!”

Now, I have a challenge for you—why don’t you go over to Roni’s blog and play along!! I would love to see what you do with the challenge!!!

I hope to get caught up before the next spread’s challenge is posted next Tuesday. So—off to play. Leave a comment and let me know what this danged thing needs, OK???

GCSP3, take two…

Last weekend when I was playing around with the string background tutorial for the Gingersnap Creations Blue Moon challenge, I ended up with a couple of “trial and error” samples, so I decided to use one of those for a card today. I love this stamp image!! Can’t remember who makes it and am feeling too lazy to go look it up right now—sorry! I do know I picked it up at Stampaway last year. I haven’t played with the new Distress Ink colors a whole lot yet, but I’m loving the Victorian Velvet—what a yummy color!!! The other thing I tried on this card was something I saw in the latest issue of Stamper’s Sampler magazine. There was a gal who made backgrounds by gluing down paper scraps and then going over them with watered down gesso. I did that with some paper last night, and liked the way it turned out, so I used that for the background. The Prima flowers have been hanging around here for awhile and I finally decided to use them. I altered them slightly by rubbing some Victorian Velvet ink on them and edging the petals with a little Rock Candy Stickles. Hope you like it!!

 

I can’t mention the latest issue of Stamper’s Sampler without calling attention to the fabulous article on Wendy Vecchi—doesn’t she do amazing work? And of course, the magazine also features some gorgeous creations by the even more fabulous Lynn Stevens!! You go, girlfriend!! When are we going to see a feature article about you?

I know I shouldn’t jinx myself by bringing this up, but I hope to post something else tomorrow. I mentioned something a couple of posts ago about the great mini-album challenge Roni Johnson has on her blog. I’m going to start on that. The thing is, I’m going to try to incorporate collage images, something I’ve never done before. Not sure exactly how to start on that, but I did make a resolution at the beginning of the year to try some different things, so this is it. Wish me luck!!!

Til tomorrow—TTFN!!!!

Guess who?

Just like Santa and the Easter Bunny, I do exist!! Wow—when was the last time I posted? To be perfectly honest, my mojo has flown the coop! I just haven’t felt at all crafty or creative. Do you ever have those periods? I even took a creativity workshop at the local art academy last week, and it didn’t help. I did make a card last night that I’m going to share with you—I hope you like it:

Love these stamps from Oxford Impressions! You know, I haven’t even kept up with my daily blog reading—that’s how bad it’s been. So if you’ve missed comments from me, I apologize!!! I did take a quick look at Roni’s blog, Ink Stains, this afternoon, and I may have to step up to her mini-album challenge. Check out the poem here.

I hope to get myself motivated soon. Until then, if you see my mojo will you tell it to get the hell home?????