Spring Crafting!

 Wow...it's been quite awhile since I blogged on here- almost embarrassing enough to start a brand-new one so that no one discovers just how long a hiatus I had! But, here I go!

I started working with Close to my Heart in November and I am LOVING it! I'm just a lowly consultant and struggling to get it all going but I really adore the company, the products, and being able to justify doing creative things everyday! I have been hosting classes at my home and this set of pages is from my February class. The paper I used was from Close to My Heart's La Vie En Rose line- which is sumptuous black and white designs with bright and bold roses. Here are my detailed directions and supply list if you want to make one of your own!

The Left Page

The Right Page

Supplies needed for the 2-page layout:

2 sheets Whisper cardstock (smooth gray)
2 sheets La Vie En Rose (double-sided paper)
1 sheet Hollyhock cardstock (smooth pink)
2 sheets White Daisy cardstock (white)
Black Shimmer Trim
Inks in the following colors: black, hollyhock, pear, and slate
Bloom stamp set
Cricut Art-Booking cartridge and stamp set

You can find all these materials on my website:
www.melaniescraps.ctmh.com






Aren't these pages pretty? (my horrible cell phone pictures just don't do the colors justice)

To make the pages: start with by cutting all your major pieces:

Cut two 4-inch-wide strips from the rose paper- save the remaining half for cards later!

Cut two 2-inch-wide strips from the hollyhock cardstock

Cut two 12-inch-long strips of Black Shimmer Trim

Cut your White Daisy paper- one piece should be 6 1/2in x 8 1/2in, the other piece should be 6 3/4in x 8 3/4in

Cut one 7 x 8 rectangle from your rose paper and one 4x7 rectangle.

Cutting the rose paper using my trusty
Fiskers paper trimmer!

Now that your pieces are cut, it's time for the fun part!! I like to lay my pages out side by side and make sure that everything lines up just perfectly- but I recently got a new mat to work on- which has a ruler so that I can now measure it perfectly! So yay!

The first pieces to get affixed to the page are the black 4 inch strips- they go 1/2 inch from the bottom of the page- then line up the hollyhock strip- another 1/2inch up from the black strip. Finally, line up the Shimmer Trim another 1/2 inch up from there! Check out this picture: (full disclosure: to do this tutorial, I had run out of shimmer trim so I had to substitute this pretty gold and black ribbon)

(forgive the wrinkly finger and not even polished nails....it's winter)

So make sure you do this to both pages- using Whisper as your base paper, of course. If you used the ruler- you can be certain that both pages will have the same spacing! (or if you don't care you don't have to measure- just eyeball it)

Your next task is to place your 2 rose rectangles in the upper left or right corner of your page:

The larger rose rectangle goes on your LEFT page on the LEFT upper side: it should overlap your black strip a little bit:

I left about a quarter of an inch of Whisper showing around my large rectangle- but you could always place it flush with the edge of the cardstock!





The smaller rectangle goes on the RIGHT upper corner of the RIGHT page: also with a quarter inch clearance on each upper side and not overlapping any of the black strip:

Check out the acrylic stamp I have laid there- this is a gorgeous lace-look-alike stamp from Close to my Heart's Cricut ArtBooking collection.

I wanted to add a little pop to the side with less rose paper- so I decided to put a little lace decoration using that stamp- you could use a different stamp, a half of a doily, or even use a lace stencil!

Before I stamp on my Whisper paper, however, I must finish placing my cut paper- the white daisy cardstock is designed to hold 2 4 x 6 pictures each without cropping- I placed my cardstock to house vertical pictures, but you can position it any way you want!

Time for the best part!

What you need for stamping this awesome layout!

Starting with the flower: use hollyhock and ink up that flat flower-shaped stamp: this will provide the background color of the rose. Stamp it on a piece of your White Daisy Cardstock.

Ok- so the first one I did (bottom) didn't turn out so good- but I inked it up again and BAM! Perfection!!!

Now for the outline- inked that up with Black...

Lined up the outline to the background- and voila! Perfect rose!

Now for the leaves- I inked up the background in pear- so nice-

Inked the outlines in black- you could use a darker green or light brown- but I really wanted mine to pop

Here's the finished leaf! Note that I didn't get it quite perfect- which is ok! I actually love the whimsical look it has!

Fussy-cut those and now you have perfect flower embellishment :) I adhered the rose with a little 3D tape and slid the leaf under it to give it more dimension. 

The last touches of this layout are optional: if you don't have a Cricut (I couldn't live without my Cricut!), you can make your own journaling block- but this is what I did:
I used the Close to my Heart ArtBooking cartridge and the corresponding stamp- I cut out my perfectly-sized shape out of the White Daisy cardstock and then stamped my journaling block- and BAM! Done.

Then I added pictures and some small embellishments:

Finished Product!!

Thanks for reading!

Art Journaling Experiments :)

Well, I have been doing lots of scrapbook pages (none shown here today though)- but what I really wanted to post was my art journal pages. I took up Art Journaling this year as my "new" craft- which is really just an extension of my scrapbooking and creative desires- only now I find out that it has a name :)

I've done a couple of different kinds of pages since then- mostly just to see what my "style" is- I don't think I've found it yet- but I'll keep looking!

Here is one I tried- cutting out cool pictures, outlining them with paint marker (my new favorite crafting tool), and adding glitter! I started this page with a couple different colors of acrylic paint- then made the clouds with more paint- before the paint dried, I added 2 different colors of glitter (everything is better with glitter). Then I added the cut out picture, the words, stamps, and rhinestones. For a very first page in art journaling ever, I thought it turned out rather nice :)

This was page 2 of this journal- Very different style and techniques on this page- I used my inking tool with lots of Tim Holtz colors (man I love that guy's stuff!) and blended them with a watercolor brush. I then added stamps and drew my own brain and neuron- yes I drew those- I was very impressed with my abilities there- although since being in psychology, it was not the first brain I had to draw :) This page I toyed with different ways of writing and spent more of the page in reflective writing- I am not sure about how I feel about this page- it seems less "punchy" than my first page...

Here is a detail shot of the brain and neuron....I thought it was pretty good :)

More art journaling goodness to come!

Childhood Challenge Album

Over at Soul Scrappers, I've decided to keep up with a year-long challenge about scrapping childhood memories. This kind of book is more of what I want my scrapbooks to be about: less about just the big events like birthdays and Easter, but about personal memories that matter. This book would be impossible for my parents to complete for me because they are MY memories- so while I like to have them commemorate the big events and name the people that I am too young to remember, I like to pull out the things that I found to be most memorable.

One note about this book- since I was a young child of the 80s, I decided to forgo the muted, distressed colors of most people's childhood books and go for more appropriate colors for that bright decade: hot pink, lime green, and electric blue (peppered with black of course). I hope that when my future children some day get to leaf through my childhood, they will catch a small glimpse of what it was like for me as a kid.

Stretching those creative muscles

I love learning. Whether its a new technique, or how to use a new tool, or really anything! I just love learning about everything! So, as part of my challenge to myself this year, I am committed to learning something new every month and trying to incorporate that new knowledge into my creative ventures. This month, I joined an ATC swap at artfortytwo.org which challenged me to "zentangle" my new year's resolutions. 

First, I went, "What the heck is zentangles?" Then I hit up Google images- and it is really cool! The only thing you really need is a white background and a black felt tipped marker. Then you just make repetitive designs as you feel- for my first one, I leaned heavily on Google images to give me ideas about patterns- but once I got the hang of it, I started to invent my own :) 

It is really relaxing and I will definitely be employing this technique on my scrapbook pages- it IS time-consuming but it feels just like the doodling you would do if you were chatting on the phone (or half paying attention in class).

Here are my four ATC cards:

I was supposed to represent my resolutions in zentangle format- but I just couldn't get away from using words- so I tried to incorporate them as best as I could. 

I really wish that Blogger would stop "fixing" my pictures to the way it THINKS I want the photo to go!!

I am researching what my next month's new thing will be! Right now, I am hooked on these zentangles~ :)

New Years Goals

Well, it's that time again: time to start a new year and start fresh! I really don't make "resolutions"- they tend to be lost within the first month- sometimes even the first week- and then I just feel guilty about not following through. So, instead, I've made some goals: mostly for self-enrichment (not the typical diet/exercise ones: those never have worked for me, but ones with life-enriching tones) and of course, creativity! 

My first creative goal is to participate in at least one challenge a month and in one ATC swap every other month. So far, I'm doing well: as of today, I've completed not one, but 3 challenges :) (of course that was last month so I still get to do one for January, but that's only because I find them fun).


The first challenge was a sketch challenge compliments of Joy Anderson at Soul Scrappers: Here is my page: 

This page I made to commemorate the cool dragon ornaments I put on the tree in honor of the year of the dragon- I had fun with this page- especially cutting out the ornament toppers by hand and adding lots of Stickles glitter. 

The next challenge was to use a quote in a Christmas layout that describes a fun aspect of Christmas- and I couldn't resist giving our "mooning" angel its own page. :) The quote was, "at Christmas, play and make good cheer, for Christmas comes but once a year." - Thomas Tussler. I thought it matched perfectly with my theme and decided to run with it! I had a lot of fun making this page- I even continued my love of glitter on this page!

The final challenge I completed was a sketch as well- with a challenge to scrap about a particular holiday event. This challenge was also issued by Soul Scrappers- and this one I had fun with too! I decided even though the sketch was for a single page layout, I needed a double page to fit my event- so I did the sketch on both pages- but made them a mirror image of each other. I did spell Solstice incorrectly: but I fixed it after the pictures were taken :)

I think that I am starting out this year creatively charged and ready to try new techniques! I can't wait to get going- what kind of creative challenges are you taking on this year? Are you going to try to learn new things? Try a new approach? Or just resolve to get more pages in your scrapbook album? I'd love to know! 

Christmas craft!

Christmas is such a fun time to do crafts! There are always so many that I want to do and so little time to complete them all! One I have managed to complete was a countdown to Christmas calendar: there are little drawers and tasty candy in each one- I had fun making the small pieces and using buttons and other really bulky elements that wouldn't go well in my scrapbooks.

I made the numbers mixed up on purpose- looking for the number is part of the fun! 

Here is a close-up of a few drawers- I really liked getting to use that flower brad (on day 4)- I have had that embellishment for years but it was just too bulky for my scrapbook!

What crafts are you working on this Christmas??

Branching out for Christmas!

Since getting my "crafting legs" back, I've been playing with ATCs (artist trading cards) and Art Journaling- I'm still diligently working on my Italy scrapbook, but it's been fun just creating for the joy of creating! I don't really see myself as a "real" artist and have very little confidence in myself when it comes to drawing or painting. Lately, my darling husband has been encouraging me to draw more and to be confident about what I make- and so I decided to find other ATC swaps online! 

This swap was for making Christmas owls- I could have used a stamp or paper- but I really wanted to doodle it- so I did! I drew in pencil, then colored with acrylic paint, and then outlined the whole thing with a paint marker (my new favorite thing). Of course, I had to add some glitter! I was really pleased with how they turned out and by making them and sending them to complete strangers, I feel like that demonstrates confidence! 

Here are the owls- I had to make 3 of them- so there are slight differences- but overall I think are cute :)

Ok- so Blogger hates me and I can't flip this the right way- but you can really see the glitter on the lights on the tree- plus I think the painted background looks the best in this photo

Obviously, I have seen better owls and will lament again about wishing to be "that talented" but I am finally feeling like what I create is "good enough"- which is an empowering feeling :) I am trying to learn new things and create for the sake of creating- not just so that a page can be in my scrapbook :) What is your challenge for the end of the year?