We Interrupt This Program...

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to share some really good news I got today.....

Hint:

                               

Congratulations to the following designers!! 

Darlene DeVries 

Kim Dellow 

Lesley Langdon 

Limor Webber 

Kathy Peterson 

Daniela Dobson 

                   Miae Rowe (that's me!!) 

Susan K. Weckesser 

Katarina Damm-Blomberg 

Yep, totally excited, in fact, over the moon!! to get the opportunity to work with Faber-Castell and the team!

We now return to our broadcast......hee hee...

Summer's End...

Hello everyone!

Summer officially ends for us tomorrow as my daughter begins her first day of FIRST grade! Wow!

It's been a great summer full of lots (and I mean lots) of activities to keep the kiddos busy and while I've enjoyed all the time together, I've missed not having as much time to play around on paper. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll soon ease into new routines and I'll find more "me" time :)

I did manage to play along with CSI case #33 and eek out a page at the last minute...

Evidence: liquid medium, woodgrain, sand like stuff, white background, metal
and metal. Testimony: journaling strips

I've always loved this photo of my oldest daughter! Whenever I see it I smile...it's full of just the right mix of happy, adventure, and magic and I really hope that is how my oldest will feel about her childhood when she someday looks back on it.

Prima flowers and sentiment tag. Washi tape from Gauch Alchemy. Dripped
ink from TA (beige) and Distress Stain (blue).

Splatters by Distress Stains.

Most of the work on this page was with the background. I started with gesso, added stamps, sprayed and dripped TA and Distress Stains and added splatters. I took scenic sand and mixed it with a gel medium until I got the desired consistency and applied it with my palette knife.

Prima paper

The one piece of background paper I embossed with a woodgrain die. I added some Ranger glossy accent drops for the "water splashes".

But wait, there's more.......

True XOXO Scrapbooking is holding their challenge of Olympic Proportions through August...that's still 6 days to go everyone! So get on over and play along! Here was my take on the challenge. I obviously used the Olympic rings as my inspiration:)

Faber Castell gelatos and washi tape by Gauche Alchemy.

I drew circles of different sizes onto watercolor paper using Faber Castell gelatos and brushed over them with liberal amounts of water. 

I made the chevron arrows from masking tape and washi tape. 

OK, now that's all for today! Thank you for your visits and comments, I always appreciate them!

Dinosaur Hunting!

Hello everyone!

One of many fun things we did on our recent trip to Southern California was to visit the Natural History Museum. My oldest daughter in really into dinosaurs and we'd heard about the awesome exhibit at the Los Angelos NHM so we had a visit and it did not disappoint! We took so many photos but I don't know that they did any justice to that collection...

I did use some of those pics, however, on a layout I made for two challenges. CSI Case #31 really pulled me in with those bright tropical colors. Yes dinos can seem so ominous and serious but how exciting and fun they are to learn about! I was inspired by Helene's wonderful tutorial over at ARTastic to use stencils to create backgrounds! Here's my page:

For my Evidence: liquid medium, repetition, circles, solid background, parallel lines.
For my Testimony: I journaled about our NHM visit during our recent vacay

 

So I have to brag just a sec...I made those fun dinos in the background using a pack of stencils from the Dollar Store! Always happy when I score a find for a great deal :) I applied Snow Tex and then painted over them with distress crackle paint to give them their "tough hide" ;) 

I also used a circle stencil I had cut out with my Silhouette.

The alphas are an old pack of Heidi Swapp mistable letters with
a resist grid pattern. Oh how I wish I had MANY packs of these! I layed out
my title on a craft sheet then sprayed my colors and flicked
on the black paint.

Very fun arrow stamps by Studio g!

More crackly dinos!

So if anyone is into dinosaurs and you're in the area, check the exhibit out! It certainly was fun "hunting" for dinos! That's it for today! Thanks for your visit and comments, always appreciated!

What a Weekend It Was!

Yes, the next weekend is almost upon us but let me tell you about my last weekend....

I had the FANTASTIC opportunity to meet Anna Dabrowska aka Finnabair (!!) and take her Mixed Media class!!! And yes, it was all that I'd hoped it would be! Anna is a wonderful teacher, passionate, straight forward, challenging, encouraging and most certainly inspiring....THANK YOU Anna!

Anna and me!

Our class was sponsored by Swirlydoos, and held at Prima Marketing. Anna hand picked the yummy Prima goodies for our projects so it was a great group, great venue, and great teacher! 

Cool learning points for me:

1. When working on your layers, commit that stuff down with glue! No humming and hawing with each piece...this is art, there are no mistakes!

2. New approach...thinking in black and white and in shapes...add the colors later (a completely different way of thinking for me!)

3. You don't need gesso (gasp!) to get those bold colors over already colorful items...Lumiere acrylic paints baby! I knew I loved those paints for a reason!

  

Here's my journal...

Some close ups:

Also got to meet some cool people along the way...

Hi Jodi, Pom and Frank!

It's a pretty awesome thing when you get to meet live and in person
a fellow scrapper you've been DT and blogging friend with! Hi Frank!

It really was a memorable event and I'm promising myself it won't be my last! Have an inspired weekend!

   

Hard Hats Required

Hello!

This summer is absolutely whipping by! My oldest is busy with summer camps, travels and good ol' hanging out with me :D and my youngest has offically started walking...sigh..

During all that excitement I've managed to make a page that I'm going to throw into TWO challenges! Oh yeah, I'm proud ;)  I'm playing along with CSI case file no. 28 and Creative Scrappers! CSI offered a color scheme I would've never thought to work with and I got just the design inspiration I needed when I saw the CS sketch!

My oldest daughter has always loved helping her dad construct things...in fact for her 2nd birthday, we got her a tool set and table! Of course that was years ago but she still loves constructing stuff. In these photos, her 2.5 yr old little self is helping her dad make a gate...she even put on her "hard hat" for the job ;)

For my EVIDENCE I used robots, circles, repetition, and metal. For my testimony I used repetition in my journaling: 

Little Sophia at work....buzz buzz! whirl whirl! bang bang! She love to help appa build things...

I took the black bottle caps and covered with gesso and a coat of Glimmer Glaze
in Basically Bare Coconut Shell. Next I wrapped floral wire around in loops. 

Aren't these robots so cute? These are free dingbats off the net called Tombots
that I printed, colored and cut.

Virtually impossible to see but I put down a large helping of textured paste and
smooshed (the official description) the letters into the paste.

I'm so excited by the splatter effects of Distress Stains! Very
satisfying to do this to my pages!

That's my post for today! Thank you for stopping by!

A Quick Little Post....

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I've played along with CSI and I've missed them! Their case file no. 27 looked like so much fun and it felt so good to play along!

Here's what I had to work with:

Doesn't that just make you want to jump right in !  Here's some close ups:

I went a little stamp happy with my Pink Paislee!

I had made an art journal page with a big sun and looking
back on it re inspired me to make this one.

Old LittleYellow Bicycle chippies! How cute are they?

I journaled in rhyme: Up toward the light the kite rose, to try and touch that sun with the tip of its nose...up, up and away it goes! 

Thank goodness for camera phones...

Squeezing this post in before baby wakes up so that's all for today!

Thank you for your visits and comments!

Ready, Set, Scrap!

Hi everyone!

I'm always envious of fast scrappers because it's something I'm not. Just imagine being able to crank out gorgeous page, after page! My endless pile of photos might actually get smaller!

Well this month's challenge with True XOXO Scrapbooking asks for just ONE thing: ONE hour! That's right, print that photo, get your supplies ready and then SCRAP for one hour!

I really enjoyed this challenge because it took me to the core of how I scrap...what are my go to supplies? What techniques do I turn to? I'll be honest, I thought a lot more than an hour about my page before putting anything down on paper but that's the way I work! My page took 1 hour and 4 min to actually make...

What are my go to supplies? Over and over again, I turn towards my paints, inks, and mists. 

What techniques do I turn to? I love to...wait, NEED to splatter, spray, or drip color to feel good about a page...weird? On this page I took my Faber Castell gelato sticks and mixed them with water to paint and splatter on my paper.

Here's our youngest (then 5 months old) attending her
first luau in Kauai.

So plenty of time for everyone to join in the challenge but, hey, we're only asking for one hour so why not join in and get it done now;)

Well that's my page for today! Thank you for your visit and comments!