Reveal Day for The Stamping Scrapper ~ WannaBe Friends?

It's Reveal Day for the July sketch at The Stamping Scrapper. Here's the layout I created for Shannon's wonderful Sketch! Be sure to head on over to Shannon's blog to see the wonderful layouts created by her DT, and leave her a comment while you're there.

Here is Shannon's fabulous sketch:

First of all I want to give credit to the inspiring work of the fabulous Irene Tan. I enjoy her masking, fussy cutting, stitching, and stamping.

Techniques:

1) I started playing with Tim Holts/Ranger Distress Ink this spring, and am so impressed with the versatility of this wonderful ink. It is great to use for masking and distress coloring a page. This background paper was a simple green ledger page when I started. I cut a 1/4 inch wide square frame, then sprayed the back with removable adhesive and placed it in the center of the page. I used a make up sponge to rub Orange Marmalade over the frame. To get the lighter bubbles in the orange ink, I flicked water on the inked area with my fingers and then blotted with a paper towel. I only wanted the orange to have the light spots in it, so I inked out the orange area first. 

After I was done playing with the water, I rubbed on the brown ink, and then a couple shades of blue. The neat thing about Distress ink is that it blends nicely so you can create colors that go with your layout and you aren't limited to the colors the inks come in. I play on a piece of scrap first.

Once the inking was done, I removed the mask, drew in a dark brown line around it and hand stitched down the center of the masked frame. 

I also inked and doodled the word bubbles above the photo, which were originally stark white.

2) The white flowers were heat embossed. I used Perfect Medium to stamp the flowers and then embossed with white powder and my heat tool. I applied some X-Static first so I didn't have very much stray embossing powder. I use a very fine tip paint brush to remove any stray granules of powder, so they don't get melted onto the page in the wrong place. Once the flowers were embossed, I used a fine tip black marker to doodle around the design and mimic the pattern in the Bo Bunny Ad Lib paper.

I also used a brown marker to doodle a design on the photo mat.

3) Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. My scrappy friend, Tiffany, had this gorgeous journaling on her page this week. When I commented on it, she told me that she pencils it in before writing it in marker. That's what I did with the "WannaBe Friends?" title. I found a font I liked and wrote it out on the page in pencil first. Thanks Tiffany!

4) One of my favorite mediums to work with is Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE), which I used for the frame around my title. Here is a fabulous tutorial by Ranger on how to use UTEE and Perfect Pearls on chipboard. (I didn't paint my chipboard, and I didn't stamp it.)

Paper:

Bo Bunny ~ Ad Lib

Bo Bunny ~ Ad Lib Hoopla

Bo Bunny ~ Ad Lib Wild Thing

Bo Bunny ~ Ad Lib Vertigo

White Card Stock ~ Stash

Embellishments:

Inque Botique ~ Hip n’ Hot Inqueboard (chipboard)

Ranger Distress Ink ~ Spiced Marmalade, Storm Sky, Broken China, Pumice Stone

Ranger Perfect Pearls ~ Kiwi, Mint, Forever Green

Ranger Perfect Medium

Ranger Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel ~ clear

DMC Floss ~ #838

Zig Writer ~ Chocolate

Zig Millennium ~ 05 Pure Black

Whispers Opaque Embossing Powder ~ Seafoam White

Buttons ~ Stash

Fiber ~ Stash

Tools:

EK Success ~ Honey Bee Scissors

Darice ~ Heat Tool

Tim Holtz ~ Distress Tool

Fiskar ~ Craft Knife

Martha Stewart Craft Ruler

Inque Botique ~ Monarch 52001 stamp

Scrappy Cat Clear Stamps ~ FLRL HRT PHRASES

American Crafts Stamp Block

Gary M Burlin & Co. ~ X-Static

The new challenge has been revealed at ScrapFIT. Workout #48 is "Put a Bird on it." So hop on over and enter your layout. The winner will receive this fabulous prize from Endless Inkabilities:

Don't forget to check out the Weekend Warm Up creating embellishments from patterned paper and enter your project for a chance to be featured on the ScrapFit blog! While you're at it, become a fan of ScrapFIT on their Facebook Page.

 Thanks for stopping by, I enjoy reading your comments!

~ Blessings ~

Exciting News

I received some very exciting news over the weekend, but had to contain my excitement until the announcement this morning over at ScrapFIT. 

Yes, I am one of the newest FITgirls! I'm one of 11 scrap artists selected for the August 2011 to January 2012 ScrapFIT design team, along with 2 returning FITgirls and our 2 fabulous coaches.

Here are the new FITgirls:

Betty AKA Beatriz Rubio De Kimmel ~ USA Tennessee

Carla Robinson ~ Canada ~ Newfoundland

Jenifer Evans ~ USA

Kirsten Michelson ~ Denmark

Kyoko Matsumura ~ Japan

Michelle McClure USA California

Sheila Burns ~ USA New York

Tracey Sabella ~ USA Ohio That's Me!

Tracy Rhodes ~ USA Texas and my Scrap-Friendzy Girlfriend!

Trish Hughes ~ USA Washington

Wendi Robinson ~ USA California

Returning FITgirls

Kylie Symons ~ Australia

Marilyn Rivera ~ Puerto Rico

Coaches:

Head Coach and Owner: Sara Zenger ~ USA New York

Weekend Warm Up Coach: Missy Whidden ~ USA Florida

Be sure to drop on over and check out the most recent challenge!

Workout #47 "Summer-TIME"

I look forward to summertime like most people but the time really seems to fly by when the weather is nice.  Lets create a layout with a good amount of yellow to represent ‘summer’ and we also need to put a clock on this layout to represent ‘time’. 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Blessings ~

That's Debatable

Our daughter, Elizabeth, really enjoyed her time debating. This layout is of her and her third debate partner, Samuel, prepping for the next speech in the round. As soon as I saw this Bo Bunny Liberty paper I knew it would be perfect for this page.

When I saw the challenge for Bo Bunny's Layout Friday Challenge, to draw 

inspiration from an advertisement, I found this gem:

Adding some bling and stickles to the chipboard stickles really made them pop:

The Fireworks paper painted with stickles sparkles just like the mat in the ad. 

The stardust stickles picked up the bit of red and reflect them along with

the white and blue. I pierced the holes before hand stitching this border:

Techniques:

I drew the stitching line using a templet of a square piece of paper punched with the same corner punch, then used a ruler to evenly space the holes for stitching. I actually pencil marked where I wanted the stitches before piercing, but if you're brave you can pierce along the drawn line using your ruler as a guide. Embroidery thread comes in 6 strand hanks. I like delicate stitching and rarely use all six threads. Often I pull out one thread and double it. I don't like lumpy knots behind my stitching, so here is a technique to start your stitching securely without a knot or tape. Using one length of thread (I like using about a yard or so at a time.) put both ends through your needle. You will have two threads coming out one side and a loop at the end of the other. Stitch from the back to the top, leaving the tail with the loop underneath the page, stitch back down again and then pull your needle through the loop and pull your thread to take up all the slack and your thread is secure and you can keep on stitching. When you are getting close to the end of the thread, go to the back of your page, stitch through several through several stitches from side to side and then back again, then trim off your tail. No knot and no tape.  I'll be posting some photos later tonight if this doesn't make sense. 

Hand stitching needles ~ The needles that usually come with scrapbook stitching templates are large - too large for most of my stitching unless I am using all 6 threads which I rarely do. A good needle to use is a tapestry needle, which is the kind used for cross stitching. Tapestry needles have large eyes for easy threading and a blunt tip which makes it easy to stitch through pre-pierced holes. They come in a large variety of sizes and can be found in the notions department of the fabric store.

I love to use stickles, but not directly out of the tip. I squirt a small glob of stickles on a piece of scrap paper or plastic, and use a paint brush to brush a thin layer onto the desired areas of my project. You can get some great detail using a very fine tip brush, like the stars on the banner.

Found items ~ I enjoy finding and using found items on my layouts. I found this flag/heart pin in a grab bag sale last fall, and knew it would be beautiful on a patriotic themed page. I removed the back and had an instant embellishment for pennies.

Supplies used:

Paper:

Bo Bunny Liberty ~ United

Bo Bunny Liberty ~ Old Glory

Bo Bunny Liberty ~ Fireworks

 Bo Bunny Liberty ~ Stripe

Bo Bunny ~ Almond Dot

Embellishments:

Bo Bunny ~ 12x12 Chipboard Stickers - Liberty

Bo Bunny ~ Clear Stamps - Liberty

Bo Bunny ~ Jewels - Liberty

Bo Bunny ~ Jewels - Zoology

Bo Bunny ~ Buttons - Liberty

Ranger Stickles ~ Stardust

Ranger Distress Ink ~ Pumice Stone

Tombo ABT Markers ~ 969, 528

In Stitch'z Thread ~ Red

Flag/heart pin ~ Stash

Ink Jet Transparency Paper ~ Stash

Tools:

Creative Memories ~ Corner Rounder

Gazelle ~ Scalloped Mat - Penny Duncan Designs SVG File

Gazelle ~ Title - Font: Booter Zero Zero

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Blessings ~