Playing catch up

Yes I am a chronological scrapper. I know there are so many “names” out there who say not to scrapbook that way. But I just can’t help it. It is my need for organization. In the past I have used scrap calendars for each of my kids to keep things manageable. It was just one layout per month per child for a total of 3 layouts each month. Sounds totally do-able, right? Well, even with that relaxed schedule, I did not get my pages done this past year. I made it to March and then dropped off the face of the scrapbooking earth.

Well, the change of the new year has got me motivated to get things done and I am happy to say that I have completed about 8 layouts in about 5 hours this past week. I will be posting photos of those projects over the next few days.

Here are my layouts for the month of April.

This one I posted back in September with the thought that I would be getting the rest of the series done shortly. That never happened.

So here are the next two for the series. This first one was made with a bunch of scraps from my stash. I just slapped down torn strips of pattern paper and boxed it all in with sheet of cardstock that had a hole punched out of the middle of it – cut out the middle and the pattern paper turns into a tidy frame.

This layout was super fast since I used a sheet of pre-layout-designed pattern paper with coordinating  stickers and epoxies that have been hiding in my stash. Throw in a thickers alphabet and I was good to go.

Happy New Year

Hope you all rang in the New Year with joy. Our family got together with a bunch of other families and had a bash. It was nice. Then I got to work on my New Years Cards – aka Belated Christmas cards. I think a seasonal greeting is a nice expression even if it comes after the traditional greeting times.

For my cards I was inspired by The Paper Variety’s challenge of black and white with “a kiss of color”. They have changed their challenge protocol for the new year and I think I am going to like it. They have fewer challenges but are offering more time for inspiration and tutorials between challenges. Fewer challenges means I will be able to better participate with more time to work on things. I am especially happy since I had troubles with the old deadlines for some reason. They just fell at awkward times in my week. At any rate, I had fun getting some to-do items checked off my crafty list with help from this color challenge.

Recipe

cardstock: Stampin’ Up (black), Bazzill (blue bling), white (stash scraps)
stamps: Stampin’ Up (greeting, snowflake), Boxer (swirl)
punches: Stampin’ Up (border, circle), Fiskars (snowflake from Teeny Tiny Cassette Punch kit)
ink: Versamark, Ranger
embossing powder: Stampin’ Up (white, crystal clear)
ribbon: upcycled from old gift packaging
other: foam adhesive

TIP: It is hard to see in the photo but the clear embossed swirls on the plain white layer add texture and dimension without adding any color. A great way to add depth without distraction. Also the punched snowflakes are the negative space and have glimmer paper layered behind them for more depth without too much bulk.

Hand drawn card

I was back in my space recently making a birthday card for a clipper ship fan in my life. I had no clipper ship anything in my stash so I decided to try drawing one. I am not the best drawer and there are some technical mistakes to the piece but, heck, I am pleased with how this came out. Here is my “cheatsy” tip for you today: find a piece of clip art online and use it as a visual guide for drawing! That is just what I did. It helped me get some clearer proportions and better graphic detail.

Recipe

cardstock: Stampin’ Up, X-Press It Blending Card
stamps: Technique Tuesday
inks: Ranger, Tsukineko
glimmer spray: Tattered Angels
embossing powder: Stampin’ Up
pen: American Crafts
markers: Copic
clip art inspiration: http://www.clker.com/clipart-galleon-sail-ship.html

Before I began I cut my card layer, sprayed with different colors of glimmer mist and inked the edges. I added travel themed stamps with versamark and clear embossing powder. I then gave depth to the stamps with more ink. Once that I was done I went to work with my drawing. I used a 03 American Crafts pigment pen to sketch out the image. I then went back and darkened my lines and colored in with Copic markers. I inked in more blue around the waves. I used my Signo Uniball white pen to add some detail to the water and the sails. The edges were frayed and it was ready to go on the card. On the card based I inked more of the blue and brown. I added a scrip text stamp in a very light inking to add some textural and mood detail both inside and out. Remember you are not just sending a card you are sending a feeling captured on paper. The more detail you add, the more you capture that feeling.

Back to Scrapping

I got my scrap space cleaned up these past two weeks. It really was a massive disaster zone. It was so bad that I just couldn’t take any pictures. I was feeling motivated to scrap so that helped me get things cleaned AND getting things cleaned made me more motivated to scrap! So I have a binder full of ready-to-scrap photos with page layout ideas. When I have a few minutes here and there, things will be waiting for me to put together.

Here is the page I got done this week. I am working on my kids scrap calendars back from April. It really has been that long since I have done any scrapping. When I lost my mojo, it got really, really lost. Now I think it is back, and hopefully not just for a brief visit. And I think I can keep it hanging around by cleaning up my space as I go and not letting the mess get so out of control. That is my scrappy tip for all of you today!

Recipe

pattern paper: Fancy pants (background), Stampin’ Up and Basic Grey
punches: Stampin’ Up
journal marker: American crafts
other: bead chain, staples, wet adhesive, Photoshop Elements

For this one I pre-printed my main photo with some journaling (yeah I know one word is cut off a bit) and my title. I emphasized this photo with a border built in to the print. This saved me some time with title and matting. I went with some softer paper to go with my daughters softer personality. Throwing in some hard metal – bead chain and staples – helps support the dental theme. Using the bead chain for metal allows me to curve it and keep it softer and not too harsh. It felt really good to throw together a quick and lovely page. I hope I have more for you soon!

Quick birthday card

The only crafting I have been doing lately is immediate gift/card items. I haven’t even been planning ahead for upcoming birthdays etc. In fact I actually {gasp} bought a birthday card for a party last month. Sigh.

At any rate it felt good to get down in my craft room and make something, even if it was atop a mile-high pile of mess on my table (reason #2 for not crafting right now).

Recipe
cardstock, stamps, punches: Stampin’ Up (separate image and text stamp sets)
ink: Ranger distress
ribbon: Ofray

Blend inks onto white cardstock, spritz with water and layer over card. Ink white ribbon and let dry. Ink up stamps for images, stamp off on scratch paper 2 times, then stamp for third time on white paper without reinking. Repeat with text stamps and stamp for third time over each image with different phrase. Punch out images. Stamp sentiment in full inking. Punch out. Adhere images, ribbon and sentiment to card.

Garden Craft 2

This gardening season has been very low on my usual veggie gardening and high on my rare ornamental gardening. But I am finding so much joy in choosing and arranging plants in lovely garden beds. Today I did more of the same. My husband and I put together a greenhouse kit recently and it was just calling out for a pretty floral border in front of it. I had some flag stone leftover from working on my shade garden. I had put in the flagstones way before the shade garden plans and decided they didn’t really work into the new layout so I removed them and left them sitting in the driveway for weeks. Those leftovers were perfect for some hardscaping around the front of the greenhouse! I hope you enjoy my little piece of country-cottage gardening.

Completed Greenhouse before sprucing up.

Whole view with changes.

Left garden bed.

Right garden bed.

Creature craft

My daughter really wanted to buy herself a cute little Pokemon plushie and had a wad of cash in her wallet to do it with. After searching high and low around town we found nothing that interested her. In our internet search we found interesting plushies but the prices made her cringe. So we turned to DIY. For the same price as buying her favorite plushie online, be bought fabric and fiber fill that will make half a dozen plushies. While we won’t make that many – the supplies will be saved for some future projects – we did have a good time making our own little Pokemon-like critter.

Playing with light and speed

I’ve got more photos for you. I was playing with shutter speeds in this series. I wanted to see what would happen in various situations. None of these photos are stunning but a nice learning process. All images have been cropped but not otherwise altered.

Some long shutter (bulb setting) for fireworks.
18mm
1/1.3s
f 3.5

Really long bulb.
18mm
43.7s
f 3.5

Trying for the light/dark silhouette.
55mm
1/40s
f 8

Playing with trying to capture motion blur. Used shutter priority setting.
29mm
1/30s
f 7.1

And again. Shutter too slow for what I wanted. The motion almost disappears.
29mm
1/10s
f 8