ever tried. ever failed. no matter. try again. fail again. fail better - samuel beckett

Blogosphere friends, you will have noticed that I wasn't the successful picture this! challenge blog design team member this time.  Don't fret.  It wasn't my time and I will keep trying.

This was the moodboard that inspired me to design a layout filled with aqua and pink bubbles.  As you know, I love bubbles and will add bubbles and circles to everything if it wasn't just plain odd.

I adore Audrey's elegance and style and have been using photos of her in some of my layouts and journal pages.  I have been waiting to find the right inspiration to use this photo and design this layout.

I love using bead paste and see it appearing more often in my work.  And I love creating embossed inked backgrounds.  You'll see this technique in quite a few of my other recent projects.

I am submitting this layout in the august 1st picture this! challenge: moodboard.

picture this! challenge design team submission

Hey there blogosphere friends.  It's been a long while since I've been on a design team and I thought I would up my game and apply to be a part of the picture this! challenge crew.

I'm going to sneak peak my submission here today and if I'm one of the lucky selected design team members I will have the big reveal on August 1st.  Remember you saw the close-ups here first .. wish me luck!!

The picture this! challenge for the design team call is this very colourful mood board:

 

If you know me well, you would have guessed that I was immediately focused on those amazing giant pompoms in the image on the left and the coloured discs on the right.  Those colourful little dots became my focal point in the form of bubbles. 

Take a peak at the bubble splatter top right of Audrey's head.  That's bead paste medium mixed with finnabair silver mica powder through tim holtz's splatter stencil.  Crazy awesome result.  I'm hooked.

Come back on August 1st to see if I'm one of the lucky new design team members.  Even if it doesn't work out this time you have to come back to see the full layout which I'll post on August 1st.  It really was a fun one to put together.

Stay crafty.  See you soon.

mother's day x2

I have two wonderful mothers with tremendous style.  My mom loves everything New York and my mother-in-law is enamored with European style and Italy.  I decided to design their Mother's Day cards around Tim Holtz's runway and cityscapes stamp sets and Penny Black's venetian summer stamp with a bokeh background.

I inked up 130lb watercolour paper with peacock feathers, mermaid lagoon and cracked pistachio, sprayed it with water and heat set it.  Once dried I inked different sized circles with brilliance moonlight white and stamped the united states skyline directly onto the background.  This lovely runway fashionista was stamped onto 130lb white cardstock and embossed with clear embossing powder to give her a little more dimension and sheen.  I coloured her in with purple and copper permanent markers.

For the Italian fashionista, I inked the 130lb watercolour paper with abandoned coral and picked raspberry.  As I did for the U.S. card, I inked different sized circles with brilliance moonlight white and stamped Penny Black's venetian summer stamp onto 130lb white cardstock and embossed it with clear embossing powder and highlighted the hat and dress with purple and copper embossing powders.  Getting embossing powder to go where you want it to go is really a feat.  I painted on versamark, added the powder and with a second brush I brushed away the excess powder.  I love the results and it was well worth the time.

Happy Mother's Day!  Thank you to all the amazing women who on a daily basis make incredible differences in people's lives.  Your love and caring bring happiness, security and joy.  All the best xx

pj november challenge: the result

It was harder, than I originally thought, to predetermine and limit myself to a prescribed set of crafting tools but that was the challenge for November with PJ Challenge.  I admit I'm very pleased with the result and I now have 4 mini cards (4x4), 4 regular cards (6x6) and 3 tags ready for the winter holidays.  At the end of the day, being restrictive, once I started crafting, was a bit liberating for me.  I know it's counter-intuitive, however, it was true.  All I needed was right in front of me.

Before I get too far ahead of myself I have something to admit: I switched out the fired brick distressed ink for tea dye.  In the planning and preparation the red ink seemed like a natural choice for holiday cards and I thought the little chick could use a red pompom but I decided, in the end, that the fired brick would stand out too much against the rest of the more muted colours.

The 4x4s: I painted the sweet chick, hats and snowman shadows with the distress inks.  The inks are, in addition to many other uses, a fabulous watercolour medium.  And as expected with watercolour, you can play with the density of the colour and if you're unhappy with what you have applied, you can add or take away colour.  I am really becoming a huge watercolour fan.  I feel a watercolour craze settling in.

 

I distress inked a scrap section of the watercolour paper and cut-out the circle snowflakes using a punch.  Love, love, love the result.  Reminds me of images of the planets which is very far off from snowflakes but still has a nice little effect on the card.

 The 6x6s:

I love how this card turned out.  I used the cut-outs from the windows to create little pockets of snowfall.

The tags:

And the paper dust:

Spectacular challenge.  Very productive.  Thank you HK for my sweet little chick.  He is definitely a nice addition to my modest winter-related supplies.  

And thank you for stopping in.  I always appreciate the visit.

A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren’t we like that wise old bird? - Edward Hersey Richards

I designed and created this card for my amazing friend, Matt (Click Print Scrapbook or CPS Blog). His favourite colour is blue and that served as one of three inspirations for his birthday card.  

The other inspirations come from my love of owls and circles or dots.  Do you ever find yourself attracted to some artwork or embellishment, sticker set or stamp set?  Sure.  And when I ask myself what it is that drew me in to falling head over heels with something I usually can find a few little nuances of myself in the item.  I am often attracted to things which include owls and dots.  Dresses, jewelry, scrapbooking materials, home decor and stuff in general that incorporate owls or dots in the design (can you imagine if it had both? I would be over the moon!)always catch my attention, attract me and take great energy to not bring home.  It's a good thing that I am (a)able to put things back on shelves and(b)not willing to have everything in my life become one-dimensional.  I love variety and I consciously decide and seriously consider which item comes home with me.  This little one was a gift from my friend, Sveta, who lives in Israel.  It surprised me that she remembered my adoration for owls because we never really talked about it.  In fact, I've never talked about owls as much as I just did.  I guess you bring out the chit-chatty in me.  If you look really closely you can see this momma owl has a little guy in her belly.  Sweet little momma owl.

How do you bring all these different ideas together to make a cohesive card that works?  Make sure you have colours tying in the theme or, in my case, themes together and use a ribbon.

The base of the large owl tag was created using Tim Holtz Distress Inks (vintage photo, broken china and spiced marmalade).  The owl is courtesy of Recollections Cling Stamps and the coloured touches have been made possible with Marvy BRUSH MARKERS (no. 64 plum, no. 92 celery and no. 6 brown).

I really have to thank Dawn, owner of The Inked Stamper Scrapbook Store for taking time late one Friday afternoon to demo the distressing inks and more importantly to allow me to be messy and set my inner mess free.  If you ever get a chance, because you're roaming the streets in Edmonton/St. Albert, take the time to stop in.  It really is worth your scrapbooking time.  Dawn also sold me on the importance of Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black.  This ink kicks ink butt.

The leaves are part of the Recollections Cling Stamp pack that came with the owl and the brad is also a Recollections piece. Notice how the music stamp made an appearance?  The ink colour is fantastic and gives it so much punch (made by Studio G).

 

The mini owl is tied on with jute.  It's a Stampin' Up punch.  I couldn't resist.  A punch owl.  Seriously.

I had to finish the back of the large tag given that it hangs over the backside of the card.  I used the same paper as the mini owl and the front of the card to bring in some continuity.  It's cardstock taken from the Recollections: Tattered and Worn paper pad (the thing is so large and packed with amazing paper someone could get hurt).

I love the colours and feel of the argyle cardstock but I really fell in love with the circle images which was taken from the same Recollections package.  The sheet was covered in circles and I cut out a few select ones which I thought were fun.  It was a bit of a stretch to bring the pink in but I like the contrast to the other colours.  It adds a little je ne sais quoi - n'est ce pas?  The soft blue paper was embossed with a Happy Birthday cartridge and the ribbon pulls in some of the rusts, oranges and mustard in the argyle pattern.

I found the bottle cap embellishment at a local scrapbook store Treasured Memories.  It's a fun little store where they make some of their own embellishments (they didn't make the bottle cap.  That came in a bag of many).  The owl in the centre of the bottle cap is from the same circle image paper. Fits very nicely, I think.

I thought the top of the card needed a little movement and by cutting out the diamonds and popping them up I added some whimsy.

I used all of the same materials on the inside of the card to keep the idea continuous.  I distressed the Happy Birthday tag with Tim Holtz Distress Inks (vintage photo, broken china and spiced marmalade) again and stamped the message in the Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black (I love this ink!).  Simple.  I like to keep my busyness to the outside of the card.

I waited to post this card because I didn't want Matt to see it before the official presentation which was earlier tonight.  The party was incredible and I'm so grateful to have such amazing friends.  My family and friends are for whom I design and create.  They are the reason I enjoy loading my work up with love and appreciation.

I think the next few posts will be devoted to Father's Day cards.  Check it out soon!