Love ~ Donna Salazar June Sketch Challenge

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!! I've taken some stuff to a friend's home for a garage sale and have been blessed to stay cool enough in this hot weather. I actually took my scrappy stuff with me today to work on this layout for a challenge over at Donna Salazar's blog. I just adore working with Donna's amazing products so this was a fun layout to create. I'm a Girlie Grunge gal at heart!

Our daughter, Elizabeth was recently engaged to Andrew, and we are looking forward to adding our new son to the family in October. Here is one of the engagement shots I took on Memorial Day.

Here is the sketch by Mistra for Donna's June Challenge:

Techniques:

Focal Flower ~ This was created with one of my hand loomed twine flowers and you can find my tutorial for them here. I popped an adhesive backed pearl by Want2Scrap in the center. The background petals were created with Donna's amazing dies - Grand Peony and Carnation Creations. I used muslin, tulle, and coordinating paper. To cut tulle and fabric, cut a piece of scrap cardstock a little larger than the die. Layer the fabric between the paper and the die, and it will cut right through the fabric. When I cut the fabric without the cardstock, there were quite a few uncut sections. This was corrected when I cut it with the cardstock. 

Distressing ~ I recently purchased Donna's Distrezz-It-All. This is an amazing tool and has already saved me hours of hand distressing in the couple weeks I've been using it. All the the straight edges and my photo here were distrezzed. The circles were hand distressed and then inked. 

Ruffled Circle Edge ~ I punched strips of coordinating paper and trimmed them to 1 inch wide. I dampened the paper and put a small pleat at each design repeat, creating curved strips that easily edged my circles. I added a bit of Distress Ink on the edges.

Lace Slots ~ I saw this technique done on one of Mistra's projects and knew it would be perfect here. Simply fold your paper and distress on the fold creating a wonderful little opening to tuck some lace into. 

Hand Stitching ~ I drew curvy looped lines around the edges of my large mats, used my hole piercer to pierce evenly spaced holes, then used a back stitch with two strands of embroidery floss. 

Corrugated Butterflies ~ I used Donna's Corrugated Board by Zutter for my butterflies. I've had a lot of comments about my butterfies, so be watching for a tutorial for them to be posted soon. 

Stamping ~ I used Donna's Crackle and Lace Corner stamps on the mat behind the photo. I first used the crackle with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink and then used brown Archival ink for the Lace Corner. I distrezzed the edge after stamping.

Chicken Wire and Burlap ~ I love the contrast of girlie and grungy elements, so the real chicken wire and loose weave burlap were used to give that grungy feel. 

Donna Salazar Products Used:

Botanique Paper Stack

Grand Peony Die

Carnation Creations Die

Distrezz-It-All

Zutter Corrugated Board

This has been entered at:

The Happy Scrapper - Challenge #2 The Great Outdoors - photo take by the lake at my parents' home **

Thanks for stopping by. I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~