In the pink!

I sort of got carried away.

Starting with the hombre paper.

Who knew there was that many shades of pink.

And isn't that a fun thing to find out.

This photo was taken while on the broken foot tour.

The kids came up to hang with us at the campsite and while in

the camper Amelia found grandpop's hat.

And she looked totally adorable.

And it was fun.

She just owned it.

Love the Echo Park, again. Studio Calico, Paper Studio and Dear Lizzy stamp.

Silver and sequins and feathers

What a combination. 

Always fun on a date, a go-go dancer or a scrapbook page.

This page was so much fun to do and I really tried not to over think it.

Which, for me, is tough to do.
It started with the silver doily - mostly because I wanted to use it.
And you can't have silver without more bling going on.
I actually misted first and the sequins were a last minute touch

letting them drop where they may and quickly gluing them done.
One.at.a.time.

The vellum envelop had been floating around for awhile and with some journaling
I thought it would be perfect for the page.
I can remember when vellum envelops were as popular as
the word strips for titles that I referenced in Going back old school.
Its fun to see some of the "old" stuff make a come back.

For the title I took my cue from the bows next to Anniegirl.

Annie loves Minnie. Annie makes an adorable Minnie.

And how fun is that?

I hunted down that heart in my grungeboard stack and added some
liquid pearl. Both items were from stash older than dirt so I'm
really impressed with myself that stuff like that is finally getting used.
The blingy pink thickers is in that stash too.
Why I hoard that stuff - I don't know.
Raise your hand if you do the same.
I know I'm not alone!!!

On a side note :

I think I used to puchase stuff like that because everyone else did and then I had no idea

what to do with it. This was also back in the day when anything new

came out I jumped all over it. Mostly because I worked at a SB shop and tried

to keep up with all the new stuff in case customer's had questions.

 I'm a lot pickier on what I purchase now, learning a lot

from those I follow in using my purchasing power more wisely and not

having a lot of stuff laying around unused.

Although....just sayin'....

My stash is like a bowl of spaghetti - it just keeps growing no matter how

much I use. I'm thinking another purge is in order.
AND

 I am almost done with my August SC KIT which is soooo cool.

WOW!

Studio Calico, thickers, Tim Holtz grungeboard, dear lizzy stamp, american craft bow, spare parts, heidi swapp mists and liquid pearl.

Covering up some mist....once again

I had a vision when I began this page.

And right now that vision is covered up under the title and embellishments.

Its barely peeking through and I find that I like

this turn of events better than the vision.

I wanted splatters about - which there are.

And then I wanted a splat.

Well I got my splat, however, since I have bad aim, it didn't quite

land where I wanted it to, AND, I picked a color 

that didn't quite work with what I had chosen.

GASP!

(Have you noticed that I've been gasping alot?)

I think I stumbled into a brand....either how to NOT do a page, or

however to cover up mistakes as if they've never been made.

ummmm MURPHY'S LAW perhaps?

Anyhoo.......

While roaming in Michael's I stumbled on that netting, which they

called "ribbon" and of course the brand name was ripped off.

I know you're shocked.

It totally covered the mist splat, which I also turned.

(It was supposed to be above the photo)

The embellishments are also doing their job by toning it down.

This is the August Studio Calico kit

(with a mix of previous kits).

It came yesterday.

Swoon.

Making a page with a 5x7 Photo collage

This is a great photo collage of the lil Miss

eating a donut.

And enjoying the donut.

Becoming one with the donut.

I love the everday moment.

And a sweet treat.

Its an instagram collage that I printed out on my canon printer as a 5x7.

I wanted all of the pictures in the collage to be seen and with

 a 4x6 you'd be getting eye strain.

There's doilies and a frame peeking from behind the photo

and I just started layering on the gesso and watercolors.

Then Kaiser Craft bits and pieces, that I gessoed over to tone down 

the black and beige. 

Broke out my lil girlie stamp and painted her up. 

Thanks to soaphouse mama I'm getting the hang of incorporating

those kind of stamps on my pages.

 I love all the layering and even managed

to work in the very girly ribbony crepe paper

that can be very trying with sticky fingers.

And doesn't the adorable bow in the corner make you swoon.

Going green with the color green

The color green!!!

It just sort of happened and of course it works well with wood.

Like that's a stretch.

However, it just seemed to work especially with the different greens.

There was a time when if the greens had not matched perfectly I'd be quite

neurotic about it. 

But not any more and its quite freeing.

Like Lou having a ball.

bwahahahaha!

He's just too stinkin' cute.

My entries for the Avacado Design Team tryouts

I didn't make it. And its all good. Win some-lose some.

So here's my card using their stamp sets.

There stamp sets are adorable by the way.

 I have trouble with cards. I don't know why but they baffle me and now I have to work on that skill.

I used the jar stamp from inkadinkadoo - and embossed the edges. And fussy cut the flowers for a bit of dimension.

I kept the inside simple.

Whooooooooo doesn't love owls.

I cut out and chopped down the tree from quickutz for it to fit and added some leaves from mulberry papers. Got carried away with the mists.

On the inside I used the mulberry paper and didn't like it - so I ripped it out and thought it added some texture along with more mists. Of course when I saw the word who - I went straight to the Who's song, "Who are you? who who who who." It really couldn't be helped.

And this sweet tea set worked totally perfect with this photo.

Love the Studio Calico papers and envelop and Dear Lizzy frames.

Anyway it was fun to do the challenges and work the stamps in. 

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and I love the outcome. 

I want to thank my pal Connie, check her blog out, she rocks the vintage and all

things country at Crafty Goodies for giving me a heads up.

First layout of 2014

was a long time in coming. It laid around taunting me for a long long time.

Why?

I don't know.

Connor and his stuffie are totally adorable and I think I just wanted to savor it a bit more.

I had the papers, design laying about for awhile on my desk. It was a driveby page and I love those - however, they usually don't take this long.

So I decided get this baby rolling just by stamping a bit of background and then adhering the main things down. After that I poked around to get the bits and pieces from various baskets where those bits and pieces live and they just seem to come together.

The majority of everything is Studio Calico pattern papers, project life do-dads (and I just got January's kit today) can't wait to dive in. However, there are some things I need to do before I can get rolling - so I'm just fondling and oogling in the meantime. Sissix die, Dear Lizzy frame, bottlecap I found at a flea market, and a couple mfg's I can't remember. Sadly.

The ghouls & goblins came next

Love the Bella Blvd papers, added clear stamps, some

ranger spiced marmalade and had some orange twine & dear lizzy

frames from another kit to use.

I bought additional papers in this line because I loved

the border strips and also the B side so I really really needed 2 more sheets.

JUST IN CASE.

 Fun fun in the dress up department, Amelia is a cyclops monster.

Never heard of that, well I know about cyclops just not in a kid

friendly kind of way, Cavin was a soldier and Quintin a ninja.

Got all the bases covered.

I feel better already.

So I'm not sure if the flow is off kilter or just me. I became kind of

frustrated because I became all about the spiders and I left

them at home. I stamped spiders and tediously cut them out and used

some black gelato on them. 

But I wasn't happy. So when I got home I hunted down 

those elusive spiders I had in my stash

and replaced them.

They are way more believable and cooler than the ones I did.

And leftover stash from in washi tape from Halloween past.

Love that. 

4 pages so far, if you're counting. I know I was because I was

totally shocked at how much I got done with all

the goofing around that was going on.

Because I participated in it all.

It couldn't be helped.

The second page I completed

is titled "channeling Lady GaGa" and I believe it was one of the first I kitted. I ended up with a lot of stuff in there because I couldn't make up my mind. I'm sure you're surprised. I ended up using different alphas and background papers.

This set of photos is hysterical. With a firm grasp on technology Owen was able to set up the karioke session for Annie - who handled the limelight quite well. 

Sing it Annie.

Prizes were there for the takin' at the crop but you had to have the dice when the bell and/or sound went off. It was a hilarious undertaking. You call for the dice once your page is completed. I think I just touched the die when someone else completed their page and had the dice in their possession. It made for a fun time and the prizes were sweet. 

I managed to win 3. 

I used a bunch from the studio calico kit = pp, tim beck alpha, and the cork cameras, stars & brad. Got some Jillybean soup, thickers and dear lizzy, a punched flower and lacy heart. I added the vellum to take a bit of the busy-ness away. 

Worked perfectly.

It surprises me too!!

Blue eyed Girl

I wanted baby on there but I used up all the B's from this thickers package for crabby bird. LOL!!!

This is Amelia and her eyes. Love it. And the page is a lift of Wilna over at 2-peas in the mood videos.

I learned to mix gesso and gel mediums to slap into the evil templates that I used reusable adhesive to keep it in place.

I broke out the gelatoes and smeared them around.

I used the entire sheet of star transfers from Studio Calico - because Wilna was all like why not. Which is cool because now I don't have a half a sheet flopping about getting in the way.

The a mix of Studio Calico; pattern papers, thickers & Tim Beck alphas from this months kit, vellum die cuts & star rubons, then some Dear Lizzy, Fancy Pants and Amy Tangerine going on.

Confirmed child of God

These photos have resided in the wayback box for a long time.

I was hoping my mom would scrap them since 

it is her with her parents in the backyard celebrating 

her confirmation into Christ Lutheran Church

that happens to be right across the street.

My gram went to that church and my grandpop went

to his family's home church in the country.

I thought it was normal. lol - and it worked for them.

In this  photo my mom is 13 years old.

And confirmation back then was nothing like it is today.

You were quizzed in front of the entire congregation.

I would've fainted.

She actually looks way more mature than me at 13.

Her faith was a great foundation throughout her life and also her death.

Used Studio Calico pp & Tim Beck alphas from this month's kit. 

Josephine Kimberling die cuts, Dear Lizzy die cuts

Crafters workshop stencil and thickers.

I also used (and I think its ranger-not sure) but its like 

a glittery mist - that gives it a shine but not a SHINE.

Adventure awaits!

Well like father and mother like daughter.

Adreneline junkies all.

I went with this photo and let the flowers

perculate a bit. See here.

I'm still pushing stuff around on the flower page but
I think I have something going on.

Maybe.

Anyway this one became kindof painful.

I really didn't like the way it was laying out.

However, it all worked out with

some Studio Calico-MME, vellum tags, wooden veneers -

I thought it clever to use a big male and itty bitty female (like 

father/daughter) - well it worked in my head lol!

Frame around photo - Dear Lizzy.

Some Simple Stories pp & title and Bella Blvd journal card.

Got a bit carried away with the ditto mist.

Thankfully I covered up most that looked like a crime scene. 

This is old Gram... (not)

I actually started this page with a photo. 

Kinda sweeps you off your feet doesn't it. 

Anyway I've scrapped this photo before several times;

as a page, in my many heritage albums and journals so imagine

my surprise when I flipped the back over and 

'IN HER OWN HANDWRITING" wrote 

THIS IS OLD GRAM. 

Sadly (for me) that woman could run circles around any one of us

any time, any place, anywhere. 

It annoyed me in a good way. I never beat her though

until she was in her 80's. 

I wanna be like that.

Brought tears to my eyes - because she was really never old

to me. I admired her immensely. 

BUT I have her handwriting - how cool is that AND

I refuted her statement that I used as a title.

I KNOW...

I wanted to use the board paper because she is standing on a board.

Clever eh?

So I decided it needed some texture and stuff, so I whipped out

my gesso and handy-dandy onion bag.

WELL...........

I dumped the gesso on and started smearing it around

and the bag moved.

So then it looked like a white blob.

Thinking rather quickly for me, I whipped out a babywipe

and wiped up as much as I could and then

flinged the bag back down and started to rub over it.

I did get some texture back, but just to make

sure I decided to use a black stamp with circles and used it

over top of the white sortof textured blob.

And then a flower stamp was required because while I was

being not happy with my onion bag I found that

round thingy that I also used as a template to smear stuff such as
paint, gesso, ink around with
on other pages.

AND its okay to swoon here the colors were

really perfect with what I sort of had in mind and it ended

up being NOT the colors I had originally picked out.

I copied the back of the photo and cut it down and then couldn't

figure out where it would work. 

Flowers, my fall back in any tense situation, became

the base for the fancy signpost after 

rearranging everything 13984710928374109847 times.

Well I had to be sure.

And that left enough of a gap for the journaling.

Doncha love it when a plan comes through?

AS if.

Anyway my gram is about 23 in the photo and in the 1930 

census her occupation was laundry and living at home.

She lived on Island Park Rd in Glendon, PA.

I had to look it up because I only know one road

through Glendon and that one wasn't it.

If you know anything about laundry back in the day - it

was a lot of hard work. I remember she had a wringer

washer until I was in jr. high. It worked so no sense

fixing something that ain't broke.

People back then totally knew how to do it.

So I used American Craft-Dear Lizzy, Prima, Bo Bunny and Basic Grey.

Sixxix and QK dies.

M's stamps.

Kaiser Kraft flowers.

Live creatively

I couldn't decide - sweet & silly girl.

Love them both.

And Amelia's a hoot. 

Mama's got her hands full. 

It appears she loves the spiderman mask and

evidently wears it often.

Of course what is a super hero outfit that doesn't

have a tutu, leg warmers and blingy sandals.

You just gotta laugh.

So using crate paper, and lots of other cool things from my

Studio Calico kits makes me love how fun this page turned out.

Cool things: kesi'art templates with some gesso

going on to make the dots.

 Two stamps from the new kit and also using the vellum title

 and badge from the add-on kit

this month. Feathers and cut apart from other kits.

Twine.

A laugh is a smile that bursts

I played on this page with some gelatoes and in real life it looks very girly. I was looking for a girly photo to go with.

That's me in curlers and a homemade flannel housecoat in a behind the scenes look at getting ready for the prom back in 1972 so it doesn't get any more girly than that.

I used my water pen and smeared the gelatoes around on wax paper and then smeared them on the page. I even smooshed the remaining gelatoes from the wax paper onto the page. Love the way the gelatoes came out. I also painted the butterflies using the same gelatoes.

Using my Dear Lizzy labels as a title and some leftover papers as mats from my Studio Calico kits made the photo a perfect pick and that photo has been rolling about in the wayback box for a really, really long time. Recollections pearls and some burlap to add some texture as well as gossimer-looking ribbon.

(I sewed back then and made that housecoat. Made a lot of them actually-got my money's worth from that pattern) I also made my prom dress and there is a photo of it somewhere in the wayback box.

Sweet girl

This page evolved because I bought a new punch - the honeycombed punch by Fiskars.

Love it.

From one of my Studio Calico kits I encountered this hombre colored paper and decided I'd give the ole dump some gesso on it and roll my SC stamp roller through it.

Again.

Worked out pretty good this time beause I didn't dump half a bottle of gesso on it. (you can see my adventures here and inspiration here).

I also purchased some Dear Lizzy chipboard shapes and of course they worked perfectly. And I used the same moss colored vellum paper too. Don't you find you use the same materials?

I put it all toghether and than I had to do something with that gap - so it became a perfect spot for the title. Took me awhile to think of the title - I know. Impressive right??? Geez! LOL!

Anyway I'm really happy and its soooo girly girl. I have another girly girl page in the wings. Waiting on a girly girl photo.

Its gonna be awhile.  :|

Love you to the stars and back

First off, how can you not love this photo.

Upon further inspection it looks like Ms Amelia 

is dressed for warmth.

Check out those sandaled feet.

Totally cracks me up.

I loved this paper the moment I saw in my SC kit.

And it was quite overwhelming.

The colors are perfect. I love that they aren't pastel

or fru-fru....Sort of fall but not quite.

I found some vellum way back in the stash and it was perfect.

How often does that happen.

I picked up a pack of Dear Lizzy labels & tags and

wouldn't you know they were perfect too.

The jillybean soup buttons finally got used.

Had them forever.

They are sewed with twine directly to the page.

The rest just worked amazingly well together.