Lily Fairy and More Watercolored Backgrounds

Hello all!

Today I'm up at The Crafter's Workshop with a layout showing how I "fake" a watercolor background :) Have a visit, if you please, to see how I made this page:

For my photo and title, I was also inspired by this month's Scrap Around the World challenge which involved fairies and wings!

Here's some close ups...I wanted to create delicate wings to use on the photo so I used my Cameo and vellum paper to cut out the wings. I outlined them with my extra fine tipped Zig pen then covered them with Versamark watercolor ink and a dusting of Pearl Ex powder. 

I stamped the title with these mini, wood blocked stamps from Studio G.

Thanks a bunch for visitng and again, head over here to learn how I made the background! Have a great Monday!

Supplies:

TCW499 Koi Pond

Angora watercolors

Twinkling H20 watercolors

Zig pen

Faber Castell Pitt pen

Studio G alpha stamp

Prima flower (green)

Recollections Ginko Leaves

Mi Muñeca - The Crafter's Workshop

Hi everyone!

I've got a very easy watercolor background tutorial up at The Crafter's Workshop. Here's how my example turned out.

I'm always attracted to the soft look of watercolors and I thought that sort of background would go well with this photo of my little one. She looks like a doll here (yes, I'm inclined to be partial):), hence the title of my page. 

Again, if you're interested in how I got this effect, please go check out my tutorial here. Thanks so much and have a great day!

Allt Om Scrap Guest!

Hi everyone,

June is almost at an end so this announcement is waaaayyyyyy late: I was a guest designer over at Allt Om Scrap , a Swedish papercrafting blog with inspiration and challenges. When they asked me to be a guest I was so happy answered with a big "yes"!

I made a video tutorial about how I use watercolor paint to make my own layout backgrounds and I participated in their Gold Challenge.

Here's the video:

Here's what that final page looked like:

And here is my page for the Gold Challenge. I decided lots of gold would be more fun than a little here so I went to town with all my gold, glittery products.

The frames and paint strips are from Wilna Furstenburg. Her pages are whimsical, bright, beautiful and she has lots of cool digital designs in her shop. I was excited to come across her products!

I cut everything out on thick, watercolor paper. The paint strips I misted and tapped on mica powders. The large, ornate frame I painted and glittered, and the smaller frames I painted with Twinkling H2Os. 

The "Gold" title is old chipboard that didn't match. I lightly sanded the top, covered with gesso, painted with Tattered Angels High Impact paint, then sprinkled with glitter.

In real life, this page really glimmers and shines!

Thanks for visiting!

The Crafter's Workshop - A Little Piece of Paradise

Hi everyone,

I've got a layout up at The Crafter's Workshop with how to's and all! I used super gloss heavy gel to make the page so if you're interested, please go have a look!

I took this photo on our recent trip to St. Maarten. The water, the sand, the sky.....ahhhh, seriously beautiful! My eldest is just looking so contented here...she couldn't get enough of the beaches. I wanted the page to have some flowing movement, feel tranquil yet fun. For me feathers just lend themselves to movement and TCW has feather stencils both big and small. 

I also used TCW Mini Letters Collage in the background...I like using alpha numerics on my kids pages, something about school and all that ;)

Oh and those canvas circles are cut out after using TCW Mini Circles Regiment. One last close up.....

Again if you're interested in how I made this page, head on over to The Crafter's Workshop! Thanks a ton for visiting!

Supplies:

TCW389 Fancy Feather and 389s Mini Fancy Feathers 

TCW336s Mini Letters Collage

TCW377s Mini Circle Regiment

VLVS Hexagon Stamp

Canvas Corp canvas sheet

Tattered Angels High Impact paint

Angora Watercolors

Twinkling H2Os

UmWowStudio, May Arts, and Avery Elle swap!

Hi everyone!

This week UmWowStudio is swapping and blog hopping with Avery Elle stamps and May Arts! There's lots of prizes to be had, not to mention lots of inspiration so come join in! There will be new projects everyday at all three of the blogs.....

Here's my page for the hop. Ok, what was I going for here? Well, when I snapped that photo, I thought it was hysterical and it immediately reminded me of Alice in Wonderful so that's where the title came from. I was trying to make an organic, dreamy, slightly psychedelic feel to the page....did I achieve it? I hope so :)

I knew I wanted to use the UWS Ray Background on this page. Again, in trying to get a more organic feel, I painted the chippie with gesso then with Kroma crackle medium. I painted them with Color Shine and tapped PearlEx powder to fill in the grooves. 

I stamped the background with the cool Avery Elle sun stamps from the Bright Days collection and used the May Arts Webbed Weave Ribbon as a stencil with high gloss gel medium.

Next, I painted with watercolors. I made pink enamel dots by stamping with the small circle stamp from the Bright Days set then covering the circles with Glossy Accents (beware, drying time is quite long!). 

The final details and touches included fun flair from UWS, little chevron arrows stamped out from Avery Elle and the pink cord loops from May Arts around my enamel circles. 

Thank you so much for visiting my blog! I hope you had fun....!

Supplies:

UWS Ray Background

UWS Wild Flowers Set Flair

Avery Elle Bright Days

May Arts Webbed Weave Ribbon

May Arts Waxed Cord

Taking Care of Business

Hi everyone,

Wow, I feel like I've been so busy with nothing to show for it! The school year is coming to an end and it feels as if my oldest baby has SO MANY school functions and activities going on....(taking a deep breath)...but it's exciting to her and I'm excited for her!

And I've got some news of my own to share :) I'm excited, uh actually, over the moon(!) to be a part of The Crafter's Workshop 2014 Design Team!!

Here is the link to the announcement and here is the page to find out a little more about each of us. Come by and say "hello"!

And I'm not done yet. ;)

It's my turn up at UmWowStudio! 

That's my youngest baby all geared up and excited for her first day of preschool! I grin every time I see those photos...she was so excited that day because she was going to school just like her big sister. 

I wanted a messy, child art-like feel to this page so I just random, messy-painted and left big droplets of color. I wrote the alphabet with white crayon in the back before painting to get a little resist action.

And don't you just love the little UWS alpha chippies? I thought using them for the alphabet would be fun!

The arrow worked so well with that stamped word and I always feel the need to put little hearts everywhere.

I added the circles with molding paste over the watercolors for that texture then doodled around them (what would I do without circles?!).

And that's my 'taking care of business' ;) Hope you all have a great day!

Supplies:

UWS Chipboard

UWS Mask

Glitz Design Stamps "Wild & Free"

Distress Stain

Distress Paint

Freckled Fawn Washi tape

Angora watercolor paint

Dear Lizzy Thickers alpha

  

Kreative Koncepts Sketch Challenge #23 - Girls Only!

Hi everyone,

April is here so that means it's time for a new sketch at Kreative Koncepts (previously known as ScrapFriends)! Here's my page....

and here's the sketch......The bold triangles are so fun! I definitely wanted to make sure I used some on my page :)

I went for a more grungy look since this photo was taken on a desolate, vast, dried lava field. 

But of course it's a fun, colorful photo of us girls (3 generations!) on our road trip so I decided to use some hearts and flowers for a feminine touch too :)

Hope you find inspiration in the sketch and play along with Kreative Koncepts! Happy April everyone!

Supplies:

Faber Castell Gelatos

Faber Castell Big Brush Pens

Angora Watercolor paints

Twinkling H2Os

Pearl Ex powder

Perfect Pearls

Dylusions Inks

Heidi Swapp Chipboard hearts

Prima Flowers

Washi tape

I Love ILS!

Hi everyone!

It's really amazing how international scrapbooking has become. There's so many wonderful paper collections, chipboards, embellishments coming out from other countries, so many international blogs with really fun challenges and so many seriously. talented. people.

One paperline I absolutely adore is ILS or I Lowe Scrap. They're out of Poland and I love their stuff and I LOVE to see what the talented DT members do with the papers. You know how a certain style of scrapbooking just calls to you? Well ILS calls to me :)

I'd been coveting those papers for some time since they are not as easy to get in the US and I finally got my hands on some!! In case you are interested, Freckled Fawn sells them stateside.

I vowed not to hoard the paper ;) so I jumped right in to this month's color challenge here:

I used watercolors and Gelatos to get the colors in the background. Behind the photo are layers made of ILS paper, vellum, and washi tape. 

I've also decided to try a new thing. At the end of every post, I'll do a snapshot of the supplies used for that page. I got the idea from Yvonne Yam and her blog Do More With Less who gives a great anatomical breakdown of her pages.

Patterned paper and sentiment tags from ILS, yellow tissue paper, black CS from Recollections, vellum paper by Daiso, watercolor paint from Angora, Faber Castell gelatos, spray by Color Shine, gesso by Golden, mini roller stamp by Glitz, stamp by Studio g, washi tape by Recollections, thread by Daiso, and TH paper distresser

That's all for today, thanks for stopping by!

Last Minute

Hi everyone,

Have you ever wanted to participate in an online challenge but the timing was never right or you didn't quite have what you needed, or the mojo wasn't quite there or whatever?? Well I'm squeezing the challenge in in the absolute last minute!!

CSI case #61 is about to end in a few hours but I really loved the colors and the evidence and really wanted to work on this but for whatever reasons I could not get to it until today, Sunday!! So here it is:

Papers by MME (Dolled Up), Recollections, Studio g, Atd, Mists by Color Shine, Shimmerz Coloringz, Paints by Angora,  Punch by Martha Stewart, Chipboard by Prima, Silhouette for heart and page tab

Oranges and grey? What a beautiful color scheme!

Anyway, I tried to do it some justice....

I got this awesome page tab from Blinks of Life. She has beautiful stuff
in her store. This cut file is FREE! The large heart was cut from my Silhouette
and the font is Efon (love dingbats!)

Prima chipboard, went to well with the color scheme!

Some mixed media fun!

OK, now off I go, I've got to "turn in" my page!!!! Cheers, thanks for stopping by!

Happy Valentine's!

Hi everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day! I thought I'd share with you (OK, brag a little about) my daughter's Valentine's cards she made for her 1st grade class :)

We talked about doing some "abstract" painting with watercolors and this is what she did:

This is honest to goodness no help from me. I just talked to her about how she could splatter paint.

She made several sheets with different colored backgrounds and then I cut them out with my Silhouette and this is how they turned out:

Pretty cool huh?

I hope that infused a little Valentine's goodness into everyone's day!

A Little Cheer!

Hi everyone!

I've got a word to describe what's been going on in our household the past week: bubonic...
as in, you know, the plague....as in, it's been totally bubonic in our home...!!

Anyway, you get the picture. It's been a bit rough but everyone seems to be on the mend now :)
How about something to cheer everyone up?

Just looking at that photo cheers me up! But I'm a tad partial ;) So how about a challenge? That's right, a new challenge is up at True XOXO and it's based on the timeless, classic Audrey Hepburn. Show us how she can inspire you!

She has a quote that starts "I believe in pink." And that (and this photo) became the inspiration for my page. That's my baby girl all glammed up in her sunnies and I really could not get this song lyric by Pink out of my head all last week so I went with it!

So what's my latest craze? Feathers! I'm seeing them all over the crafting world and I love it! I cut my feathers out with my Silhouette and colored them with my other new favorite thing...Derwent Inktense Watersoluble Pencils...so smooth people, so smooth! Add a little doodling and voila! feathers to match any page!

I'm pretty proud of myself for using patterned paper as my background.  Most of my pages are on white CS but I'd given myself a small challenge this year to use my patterned goodies and to layer those papers together too. I think I'm working it out alright. To add a bit more interest to the background though, I layered with gesso, watercolors, and acrylic paint. Watercolors create a lovely effect...give it a try!

That little banner is made out of washi tape. I found the colors too bright so I sanded it down, stamped my sentiment, taped it on cardstock and cut the edges. 

Well I hope that added a little cheer to your day...see you over at True XOXO!