Beautiful ~ ScrapThat! November Kit

This morning's snowfall has melted away, but left a hint of the winter to come. I have one final layout from the gorgeous November ScrapThat! Kit to share with you today. It was really a joy to work with this amazing kit featuring Bo Bunny Serenade and full of so many wonderful embellishments.

This photo of Rachel and her bridesmaids taken before the wedding is one that really caught my eye. I talked with her about it over Thanksgiving and found out that it is a shot that Rachel suggested to the photographer. I love how the girls look like they are having so much fun peaking out from behind the columns. 

"Beautiful" 

~Using the MK, EAO, & FAO Kits ~

I used Amy's gorgeous November Sketch:

Tips and Techniques:

Corrugated Board ~ You can see the corrugated board layered behind my photo. I have so much fun with this household item. Whenever I get some packaging that has the narrow little corrugation, it goes into my stash. Here I used a foam brush to lightly apply some black paint to the top ridges of the corrugation and edges. When dry, I applied some Ranger Rock Candy Crackle Paint for some great texture. 

Hand Stitching ~ After the paint was dry on the corrugated board, I used my handy piercing tool to create stitching holes around the curved edge along with some x's.

Misted Rock Salt Chipboard ~ My tutorial for the grungy finish on the chipboard door can be found here.

Curled Vine ~ The jeweled Prima leaves came with brown wire stems, which I pulled off to create the vines in my cluster. I wrapped the wire around a narrow metal bar for making wire coils, but anything like  a knitting needle, or paint brush would work. 

Flowers ~ The November ScrapThat! main kit included this gorgeous WOC poppy and the sweet little white poppies. The Flower Add-On Kit included the amazing Prima Gracie vine and lovely Cabaletta blossoms in white, black, and Grey. I layered some of the black tulle under the red poppy.

Punched Frame ~ I needed a different size frame than my punch set would allow, so I punched it larger, trimmed the ends and overlapped the ends resulting in the lovely corner.

Chipboard ~ I simply used some metallic paint on this Dusty Attic Holly piece to tuck under the flower cluster.

Distressing ~ Of course I used my Distrezz-It-All to distress all the straight edges.

My sweet friend, Helen Tilbury, is having an amazing give-away on her blog, Scrap Addict. It is international and open to everyone. You just need to be one of her followers. Her work is amazing, and you will enjoy following her gorgeous work!! Look what all she is including in her package:

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~ 

Christmas Morning - The Scrapping Stamper/Bo Bunny

Today, I'm sharing a Christmas layout with photos going back about 15 years. At that time we lived in North Carolina and made a trip Ohio to spend the holidays with our families. This is Elizabeth who was married in October and Maria who just turned 18 yesterday. Happy birthday, Maria!! I created this page with inspiration from Shannon, The Scrapping Stamper's, beautiful November sketch. If you are in the mood for Christmas and winter layouts be sure to return Friday for the ScrapThat! December Reveal and Blog Hop. 

"Christmas Morning"

Shannon's delightful November Sketch:

Stop by The Scrapping Stamper to see the other inspiring pages created by Shannon's Design Team. 

I won the Mistletoe Collection from Bo Bunny last month. Such sweet cheerful paper, but not my normal style/color pallet. I was determined to created a layout featuring this fun line and combined some inking, punching and fussy cutting to create this page. I couldn't resist cutting out the oh so sweet little quirky, crooked tree and presents which were so perfect for these Christmas morning shots of our girls. I'm entering this page in the November Bo Bunny Layout Challenge to use two separate clusters, each containing a photo. If you aren't familiar with the fun Mistletoe line, here is a shot of the collection pack:

Tips and Techniques:

Layering ~ I fussy cut strips of the green hexagon print, and punched strips of blue and red to layer with doilies and lace to create the background. 

Hand Crafted Fabric Flowers ~ I made the cream fabric flowers a while back when our local craft store demoed the Clover Kanzashi Flower Maker Templates. I spend some crop time creating them, and they've been sitting in my stash until now. I played with several of the templates, but the Pointed Flower template seemed the the best suited for scrapbook flowers. They were quite quick and easy to create. 

Found Objects ~ I recently found a bag of vintage buttons at a thrift store for a mere $2. Most of the buttons you see tucked into my clusters came from that bag of goodness. Don't you just adore the blue flower button next to the cream flower? 

Transparencies ~ I fussy cut my photos to fit the transparencies and hid little bits of red-lined tape under the printed edge to adhere the photos to the transparencies. 

Fussy Cutting ~ I fussy cut the Christmas tree and presents. The gifts were raised with different thicknesses of pop dots and strips for dimension, and I added the Bo Bunny rhinestones to decorate the tree. 

Bo Bunny Products Used:

Mistletoe ~ Mistletoe

Mistletoe ~ Boxes

Mistletoe ~ Greetings

Mistletoe ~ Pucker Up

Mistletoe ~ Santa's List

Mistletoe ~ Twas the Night

Jewels ~ Mistletoe

Buttons ~ Mistletoe

Other Products Used:

Peltaloo Canterbury Magnolia Blossoms ~ Burgandy

Heidi Grace Rhinestone Flourish ~ Aqua

Darice Acrylic Teardrop Ornament

Darice Tonal Duets Chandelier Earring

Prima Alphabet Stickers ~ Craftsman

Basic Grey Pins and Tags ~ MET-3685

Color Bok Transparency Overlays - Flea Market

Jolee's Botique ~ Pearl and Gem Clusters

Darice ~ Gold Wire

Spare Parts ~ Gemstone Antique Buttons

Clover Pointed Flower Template

Distress Ink ~ Frayed Burlap

Keren Tamar ~ Red Lace Flowers

EK Success Scallop Diamond Border Punch

Martha Stewart ~ Doily Lace Border Punch

Scrap Locker Handcrafted goodies:

Bead Cluster

Red flowers

Stash:

Vintage Buttons

Fabric

Paper Doilies

Lace

Adhesives:

Hemar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive

Helmar Zap Dots Clear 1/4" Square

Scotch ATG

Red-lined Tape ~ Hercules

Darice Foam Dots and Lines

I have entered this at:

Word Art Wednesday ~ Challenge #55 Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Wishing all my US friends a blessed and joyous Thanksgiving.

What a wonderful day to reflect on the many ways the Lord has blessed our lives. 

I'm especially thankful this year for our expanding family. What a blessing that two of our children have found such wonderful Christian soul mates to wed and share their lives with.

I'm looking forward to a day with my husband's extended family. It's our tradition to gather together at his cousin's home. I'm bringing a couple turkey breasts and my praline sweet potato casserole ~ yum! 

~ Blessings ~ 

Misted Rock Salt Chipboard Tutorial

I hope you are having a lovely week! This Thursday is Thanksgiving here in the US, so I've been busy preparing for my part our Thanksgiving meal and reflecting on all I have to be thankful for. We will be going to celebrate the day with my husband's family. He's Italian, so it's a tradition to have ravioli along with the traditional turkey and fixings.

If you're a regular follower, you know I enjoy doing fun things with chipboard. I altered a technique by Michelle Grant to suit the Maya Road Doors in the ScrapThat! November Kit.

 I've recreated this technique for you using a chipboard gear from my stash. 

Misted Rock Salt Chipboard Tutorial

Supplies:

Chipboard

White gesso or acrylic paint

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist ~ Almost Black

Rock Salt **

Ranger Crackle Accents
Mod Podge - Glossy

Prima Distress tool, or other wire brush.

Paint brush

Craft Mat (Optional)

Heat tool (optional)

**I have been asked what kind of rock salt to use. There are a number of options, but any pure salt that is chunky like in the photos will work. That includes rock salt for ice cream makers (What I used), Rock salt for deicing your sidewalks and driveways (Make sure it is pure salt with no chemical additives), kosher salt, or the chunky salt that goes into salt grinders. Regular table salt is too fine to work properly for this techniques.

Step 1: Paint chipboard piece with white gesso or acrylic paint. Allow to dry or use a heat tool to speed things up. If you use a heat tool, don’t hold it too close to the painted chipboard and keep it moving or your wet gesso can overheat and form bubbles.

Step 2: Mist with a dark mist. I used Tattered Angels Almost Black mist, but you could use any non-paint based brand or color that is translucent or even make your own from re-inker.

Step 3: Immediately cover the chipboard with rock salt. The salt draws the wet mist on the surface and leaves a beautifully splotchy and distressed surface as it dries. If you have a more solid chipboard piece, you could use less rock salt and spread it out some. With the door in the kit and this gear shape, the chipboard is narrow so I used a heavy coverage of rock salt. You can let this sit overnight, or give it 10 minutes or so for the rock salt to draw up the ink, then use your heat tool to speed the drying time.

Step 4: Once the rock salt is sprinkled/piled on, mist again.

 

Step 5: Once the mist is completely dry, brush off the rock salt. This really has some nice distressing. I could have easily stopped here but wanted even more dimension and kept on going.

Step 6: Use a stiff wire brush to remove some of the mist, leaving scratch marks.

Step 7: Squeeze some Crackle Accents across the piece, then spread it out with your finger.  Set aside to dry. Do NOT use the heat tool. (You could also use Ranger’s Clear Rock Candy Crackle paint for a similar effect.)

Spread out:

When dry:

Step 8: When the crackle is completely dry, it will be loose in spots and flakes off easily. I decided to go with this and chipped off some of the crackle here and there for a more weathered, distressed look.

Step 9: Using a paint brush, apply a sealant so the crackle will stay in place. I used glossy Mod Podge. If you don’t have a sealant product, you can thin down regular white glue that dries clear. (Elmers or similar product).

Now here is what it looks like when dry:

I hope you have learned something new, and will have fun playing with this technique. You can stop at nearly any point along the way if you like what you see or experiment with different colors and products.

If you give this a try, be sure to share your finished product in our ScrapThat! Gallery.

More of our Design Team's tutorials can be located in our ScrapThat! Forum.

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.
~ Blessings~ 

ScrapThat! November Challenge Details

Our ScrapThat! November DT Challenge has been posted by our newest DT member, Sarah Routledge. Here is her challenge:

I can't believe Autumn is winding to a close already. To celebrate this wonderful season, we have an Autumn Colours Challenge for you! (Who doesn't love a colour challenge?) Here are the colours you must use on your layout for this month's

DT Challenge:

Here is Sarah's example using using the 
ScrapThat! November Kit. 

Check out the post in the ScrapThat! Forum for the contest guidelines and prize information.

I hope you will come on over to ScrapThat! and join us for this fun challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.
~ Blessings ~

"Amore" ~ ScrapThat! Nov. Kit & BITW "Winter" Challenge

Hi everyone. I can't believe how fast November is flying by. Our US Thanksgiving is just over a week away, so it's time to be thankful for all the amazing people our Lord has brought into my life and the many blessings that have come my way. I hope that you have some wonderful blessings to reflect upon as well. 

Today I would like to share some close-up shots and details for this layout I created with the fabulous ScrapThat! November Kit, Flower Add-On Kit, and Embellishment Add-On Kit. Do you ever go back and tweak your layouts after you finish them? I don't tweak often, but if you notice a couple changes here from my previous blog hop/reveal post, you are quite astute. I misted the white kit flowers and tucked the door behind my banner. :-)

Our son and his lovely bride on their December 2011 wedding day during their private vows. Our son's vows were more like a book - three pages of them. I pray that he continues to treat Rachel like the precious gift she is for many years to come. 

"Amore"

The current Bird of the Word challenge is to use one or more of these words: winter, spring, summer, and/or fall. Under the key are the words "Winter Wedding." Joseph and Rachel were married in December with the church and reception decorated for their lovely winter wedding!! 

Techniques:

Fussy Cutting ~ The leafy vines and scalloped banner pieces were fussy cut from the gorgeous Bo Bunny Serenade papers. 

Pleated Ribbon ~ I pleated the length of white ribbon and adhered with bits of super sticky red backed tape. I used Hercules Tape, but any of the red backed varieties would work. I then cut out the solid center of the doily and adhered the pleated ribbon strip around the inside doily edge. 

Prima Door ~ No technique here, but what a great kit piece to work with!! I love how this looks next to the photo!! 

Handcrafted Flowers ~ I used a couple new dies for rolled flowers for the handcrafted flowers: Donna Salazar's Spellbinder Bitty Blossoms, and the Tim Holz Sizzix Tattered Pinecone - which also makes a wonderful rose. I inked the edges before rolling and forming the flowers. 

Distress Stickles ~ I fussy cut this dragonfly, then painted distress stickles across the wings and body. A couple mini rhinestones were alcohol inked for the eyes. I love using EK Success Honey Bee scissors for my fussy cutting. 

Misting ~ I used the remainder of my white kit flowers, but they stuck out a bit much among the yellow/brown flowers, so a couple of quick spritzes with some brown glimmer mist, was the perfect remedy. Aren't these crystal encrusted prima leaves gorgeous!! No need to mist these beauties.  

Inking ~ The yellow Bo Bunny Serenade paper was quite bright, so I toned it down by applying some burlap Distress Ink. 

Modeling Paste ~ There are so many fun things you can do with modeling paste!! Here I used it with a stencil to create my title. 

Alcohol Ink ~ The little metal dragonfly was an antiqued metal piece in my stash. I used a paint brush to apply some orange alcohol ink to the wings and brown on the body. 

Flourishes ~ This was an easy way to bring some weight to my smaller title. The paper flourish was die cut and a similar Zva Creative pearl flourish placed over the paper one. 

Distressing ~ Of course I used my handy Donna Salazar Distrezz-It-All by Zutter to distress all the straight edges!!

A quick reminder that you have until Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 11:59 pm to post your project for the Sketchabilities sketch challenge sponsored by ScrapThat! 

ScrapThat! currently has openings for new subscribers.

Stop by the store for details. 

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~ 

Dick ~ Word Art Wednesday GDT Reveal

My thoughts and prayers are with those in the areas affected by Sandy. Although we had high winds for a day or so and prepared for the worst, we were fortunate not to lose power. 

This is my final project as a Guest Designer for Word Art Wednesday. It has been a delight to word with the Amazing Word Art this month.

This week's Word Art is based on Hebrews 4:16 ~ "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." One of the very special people the Lord brought into our lives is Dick Edwards. He worked with my husband back in the 80's. Gary was instrumental in helping him get into alcohol rehab. After completing rehab, he became like a part of our family, even celebrating birthdays and holidays with us. We have so many special memories of special times spent with Dick. I am so grateful that the Lord gave us the privilege of having Dick in our lives until his death a couple years ago and allowed us with grace to help in a time of need in his life.

"Dick"

This week's sponsor at Word Art Wednesday is:

Lisa's Altered Art

Please take a moment to check out her wonderful shop.

Be sure to go to Word Art Wednesday to download your free copy of this week's Word Art and to see the amazing inspiration by the talented Word Art Wednesday Design Team.

Techniques:

Word Art ~ I printed this week's word art on some lightly patterned paper, then inked over it to bring in the color of my background paper before distressing. I inked first, then distressed to keep the white edges. 

Stitching ~ I stitched randomly here and there on this page including this stitching above the word art, several rows below my title and some fun x's on the side of my corrugated board

Handcrafted Flowers ~ I created several of the flowers including the blue one here and off white one in the photo below using my new Bitty Blossom dies by Donna Salazar. The leaves were also cut using Bitty Blossoms. I created the blue flower below using Donna's Grand Peony dies and added a jewel brad to the center. The rest of my flowers are an assortment from Petaloo and May Arts.

Layering ~ Under the photo I used a number of distressed layers including patterned papers, Donna Salazar's Corrugated Board by Zutter, vintage dictionary page -torn and inked, burlap, and cheese cloth. Distressing was done with my Distrezz-It-All. I just don't know what I would do without this handy little distressing machine these days!! :-)

Gears ~ These Donna Salazar Want2Scrap gears were so much fun to work with. I inked them with Donna's Mix'd Media Inx in Patina - I just dabbed it randomly, not covering the entire gear, I then dabbed some Ranger Paint Dabbers in copper. I used my heat tool close over the paint until it bubbled up, then did the same with the gold Paint Dabber. 

Corrugated Board ~ The photos don't do justice to the distressing on the corrugated board. Of course the first thing I did was run the edges through my Distrzz-It-All. Then the ridges and edges were painted with a mix of metallic green and black paint. Once that was dry, I coated with Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint which gave a shiny crackled finish. Finally I added some fun stitching. 

Heat Embossing ~ next to the matted photo I stamped Donna's Lace Corner image using her Mix'd Media Inx in Jasmine, and embossed using seafoam white embossing powder. 

Pearl Flourishes ~ You can get a lot of mileage out of your flourishes by cutting them apart to use on different parts of your page like I did with this sweet Zva Creations flourish. 

Paint Splatter ~ In the top corner, I used a stiff paint brush to splatter some metallic paint behind my title for a bit of extra texture and dimension. 

Donna Salazar Products:

Antiquities ~ Tails of Travel

Antiquities ~ One Sheet Wonderful

Antiquities ~ Time for Tea

Antiquities ~ Die Cut Ribbons

Lace Corner Stamp

Spellbinder ~ Bitty Blossoms

Spellbinder ~ Grand Peony

Want2Scrap Chipboard ~ Sprightly Sprocket

Smooch Spritz ~ Sea Breeze

Mix'd Media Inx ~ Patina, Honey, Jasmine
Zutter Corrugated Board

Zutter Distrezz-It-All

No surprise here ~ I'm entering this layout in Donna's October sketch challenge using this fabulous sketch by Mistra:

Other rules ~ use green - a flower and my leaves, and at least one DSD product - I think I have that covered. 

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~

ScrapThat! with Sketchabilities Reveal

Welcome to day two of our November "Remember When . . . " Kit Reveal. 

ScrapThat! is honored to be the Sponsor for today's sketch challenge at Sketchabilities 

Sketchabilites has a sister card sketch site, Cardabilities.

 Our talented ScrapThat! Design Team has used our November "Remember When . . ." kit to design layouts for this amazing sketch:

 

Head on over to Sketchabilities to see their Design Team's fabulous work with this sketch and to link up your project for a chance to win our gorgeous September "Victorian Dream" Main Kit featuring Graphic45's A Ladies' Diary Collection.

(Actual shipping costs from Canada to be paid for by the winner.)

 

For details about the

ScrapThat! November "Remember When . . ." Kit,

please see our reveal post.

We are currently accepting new
Kit Club Members.

For more information,
complete the form on the link below:

New Subscriber

The team at ScrapThat! would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to our amazingly talented designer, Marilyn Rivera, who has been an asset to our team during her term ending this month. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors. 

What an amazing combination to work with our fabulous November ScrapThat! Kit and the amazing Sketchabilities sketch!! Here is my take:

Created using the November Main Kit

I added some mixed media products, eyelets for my lacing, embroidery thread and tiny rhinestones for the small flower centers ~ all things that most of us have in our stash. 

I created a card box with these engagement photos across the front of the lid for Joseph and Rachel's December wedding. When I saw this sketch, I thought it would be fun to use them for this page. 

Here are a few close-ups with some tips and techniques:

Chipboard Door ~ Be sure to stop back in November for my tutorial on how I created the amazing distressed texture on this chipboard door.

Tulle Lacing ~ Normally I enjoy lots of distressed layering, but this paper has so many gorgeous details like the fabulous dragonfly that I decided to showcase rather than cover. To get the feel of the large mat in the sketch, I added lacing across the page. I set two rows of eyelets for my lacing. The tulle was cut into three two-inch strips, then threaded onto a large yarn needle to pull it through the eyelets. I added a twist between each set of eyelets as I was lacing.

Dragonfly ~ You can't see it too well in the photo, but in real life this dragonfly sparkles. I brushed Distress Stickles onto the wings and body of this gorgeous image. When dry I hand stitched the edges.

Flower Clusters ~ I created the delicate yellow flowers using the kit cardstock and my Martha Stewart Hydrangea punch set. I used the kit pearls for the large and medium flower centers and some tiny rhinestones from my stash that I  colored with alcohol ink. The daisy flowers were created with Donna Salazar's Bitty Blossom die set. I fussy cut leaves from Serenade Vines to add a couple branches to each cluster. (My close-up shot was taken before I added the vines; however, you can see them in the large photo.)

Paint Splatter ~ I dipped a small, very stiff paint brush into gesso and pulled my finger across the tip to achieve the splatter. You could also use an old toothbrush. Be prepared to have dirty hands for this one!! 

Paint Drip ~ Easy peasy - just a blob of black gesso, then a bit of page tapping to get the drip to form. The trick here is giving it time to dry so I don't put a big mark on my drip, and yes I've done that trying to work with my page before it's dry, so I've learned to do this before I go to bed and let it sit overnight. The flower placed in the torn opening is another rolled flower from the Bitty Blossoms dies. 

I am entering this in the Bo Bunny Sketch Challenge to use two or more photos, a tag, and one of these photos for inspiration. I actually pulled inspiration from each of them. 

I was inspired by the scattered flowers in this one, although mine are a creamy yellow.

And the round orange sliced inspired my orange daisy flowers.

My love tag is attached to the chipboard door. 

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~