SCRAP-O-WEEN at Flying Unicorn!

From ghoulies and ghosties
and long leggety beasties
and things that go bump
in the night

 the Celebrations will last all month long

From October 01 October 31

 Haunted Forum Fun

Daily Spook-tacular Give-aways

Fang-tastic Challenges

 Hollywood Horror

FLYING UNICORN FORUMS


Come join the fun at Flying Unicorn, there will be lots of great give away RAKS, contests, challenges, it's a month long even!  Be there or the ghoulies will get ya!!

Flying Unicorn and Sketches: Creatively Yours

Yay, its Friday reveal day at Sketches" Creatively Yours!  I used the gorgeous FabScraps papers available at the Flying Unicorn store to do this LO.  FabScraps papers are special, well because they are beautiful and because they come all the way from Africa! 
I am sad because today is my last day as the guest September Creative team member for Flying Unicorn!  :-(   I've had a great time there and if you haven't visited Flying Unicorn, then you are missing out!  The store carries awesome products, including those much coveted Pion papers, as well as everything else in the latest and greatest category!  Each month there are great challenges put on by the CT with AWESOME RAKS from the Flying Unicorn store.  Hope to see you over there!

Here's the great sketch I used from Sketches:  Creatively Yours designed by Ann Seleshanko.  While the sketch itself is simple in its design, it lends itself to so many wonderful creations.  Take a look at what the DT did with this sketch. 

Here is my design:

I really love how this came together. I cut both sides of a strip of paper with the Martha Stewart scrolled hearts punch, its one of my faves, and then painted it with Glimmer Glam in Tutu Pink just for some extra sparkle. The swirly leaves are cut with a Spellbinders die made for Heartfelt Creations and I inked it with Distress Forest Moss and Bundled Sage. Then I added some Peeled Paint Distress Stickles. The flowers at the right are Petaloos that I sprayed with Creme de Rouge Glimmer Mist and inked the edges with Timmy's new Distress ink, Gathered Twigs. The flower on the left is a flower I made from a Lisa Gregory tut. The wonderful numerals are Pink Paislee Mist-a-bles, also from the store.

Do give this sketch a try and leave us a link to your design here.

As always, I really appreciate you visiting my blog and thanks for your comments!

Good times, good friends! Swirlydoos Sept kit

Last weekend four of my Swirly girlfriends came for a weekend of scrapping, drinking and eating!  LOL!    We turned our upstairs into a big scrappy haven and had such a great time making a big mess!  The poodles especially loved it because they had so many swirly aunties to pet and spoil them.  Every morning they run to the top of the stairs hoping to see their swirly aunties, girls you are missed!!  We all worked on paper bag minis and some of us dug into our Sept Swirly kits.  Dick and I took everyone on a drive through the countryside so they could see our southern lifestyle and tobacco heritage.

I really love the Prima Printery papers that are in the Swirlydoos September kit.  Someone kept telling me that less is better so I think my two LO's have a bit more blank space than normal!  I loved using this Dusty Attic frame that I first painted with suede acrylic paint.  Then I covered with Crackle Accents.  When that dried, I rubbed pewter perfect pearls into all the cracks.  The dress form is one of Primas new canvas resists that I inked with Distress antique linen ink - it was the perfect color for  the dress form.  The spool of thread is an Alterations diecut which I heat embossed to make it look like the dress form.  First I painted the spool, then I stamped swirls and then heat-embossed the swirls with clear embossing powder.  My Mother was an awesome seamstress so this LO is a nod to her talents.

I was really excited and really challenged when I came upon this photo of my great great grandparents, their daughter, SIL, probably a son and we don't know who the other person is.  The original photo was badly faded and I did not imagine that I'd be able to bring as much detail out as I did.  I was really ecstatic about the results that I managed to achieve.  I'm really hooked on photo restoration and think I'm going to have a look at some new tools to make the job a tad easier.  The Dusty Attic pieces are painted with white gesso and then sprayed with Glimmer mist in Timberline and Snowy Pine.  The canvas resist piece is also sprayed with Timberline. Oh my, those are some GORGEOUS colors, moost haves!!  Thank you Jen (jrabs) for the gorgeous buttons above and the trim below, both were perfect for my LOs!

Steam Punk and Sketches: Creatively Yours

I did this layout about 10 days ago for Sketches:  Creatively Yours and have been anxious to share it with you.  The fun part about this Steampunk layout is that the picture shows a REAL steampowered shovel.  Isn't that cool!?  I worked this LO for 2 days before it came together. 

Here 's the great sketch drawn by Ali MacDonald:

And here is my interpretation:

I took the pictures at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, Alaska where they have several old pieces of equipment around that were used during the gold rush.  This piece of machinery helped build the Panama Canal before it came to work in Alaska!

I used Core'dinations G45 Timeless Collection for the base page .  The rest of the papers are from Graphic 45 Steampunk Collection.  The frame is a Dusty Attic piece popped up for dimension that I stained with Distress stain in picket fence.  Then I used a tiny script stamp to stamp over it using coffee archival ink.  The various metal pieces are either Tim Holtz or 7 Gypsies.  The brown flowers were made using the Alterations Tattered Floral die and were cut from Kraft Glassine paper.  I added some pewter Perfect Pearls to give them a nice shimmer.  The sunflower is made from a Spellbinders die with vintage photo distress stickles in the center.  Oh yes, there's also some brown lace underneath the edge punched paper.  I covered the letters with Crackle Accents and popped them up. 

Thanks for visiting my blog, I really appreciate it.  I hope you'll give this sketch a try and post a link at Sketches:  Creatively Yours so that we can see your interpretation of the sketch!

Hollyhocks floral tutorial

When I did my layout featuring a photo of hollyhocks I thought nothing but hollyhocks would do for floral embellishments so I decided to make my own.  I really like how they turned out!

My supplies list for this flower:

Spellbinders Nestabilities Blossom Three - cut 2 the same size
McGill starburst punch - cut 3
Glimmer Mist - for these I used Cadillac Pink and Tattered Rose
Liquid Pearls in Bisque or Perfect Pearls in Biscotti
Glue - I use hot glue
Paintbrush

Ok let's get started.  For my large bloom I used the 2nd largest die and cut two.  For the smaller blooms I used the 3rd largest die and cut two.  Cut between the petals so that you can better manipulate the petals.

Spray the cutouts with the two colors of Glimmer Mist heavily but don't spray the colors over top of each other, rather you want to achieve a varied color effect.

Then place the end of paintbrush handle or something similar in the center of the flower and scrunch the flower around the paintbrush handle.  Then use a heat gun to semi dry the flowers.  I find it easier to open the flowers if I leave them just a tad damp.  Then using the paintbrush handle, curl the flower tips under just slightly.

Now we will paint the center of the flowers.  You can either use liquid pearls slightly watered down or Perfect Pearls.  Paint from the center of the flower towards the outside.  Also paint your starbursts so that everything is sparkly.  Hollyhocks have an iridescent glow to them, at least my fuschia colored ones did.  I used Liquid Pearls on the large bloom and Perfect Pearls on the two smaller.  The effect is nearly identical but I think I liked the Perfect Pearls just a tad more.  Dry the blooms completely after painting the center.

Now glue the bloom with the painted center onto the 2nd bloom alternating the leaf pattern.

Hollyhock blooms are bowl shaped so cup the blooms in the palm of your hand to shape them.  I sprayed a little water on the back of the blloms to aid in shaping.  Curl the petals under a little while lifting and making the bowl impression in the center.

Glue the three starbursts on top of each other alternating so that the "stamen" are not lined up and then glue the assembled starbursts in the center of the bowl impression.  Take your tweezers and lift the "stamen" from the starbursts to resemble the center of a holyhock.

And here are the finished flowers.  One note, the glimmer  mist I had was not quite as dark as I wanted so I ended up painting the petals with iridescent pearl water color paint.

If you make some of these hollyhocks, please leave me a link, I'd love to see what you did!!

Thanks for visiting!

Fabscraps pp and Flying Unicorn

I've been having so much fun being the guest designer at Flying Unicorn this month.  Alda sent me the greatest box of goodies to play with and I did this LO using some of the things she sent me.

The photo is of hollyhocks growing by our house when we lived in Denver.  They are such gorgeous flowers!  The large flowers I made and be sure to see my tutorial for making these hollyhocks.  Tutorials are listed on the sidebar.

The gorgeous papers are from Fabscraps, they were perfect or this photo.  The ruffle along the bottom is Pink Paislee Mist-a-bles, but for this I left in it's natural white color.  The round chippie is Dusty Attic sprayed with Glimmer Mist in timberline and then I inked the edges with Distress bundled sage.  My letters are Authentique and you can find all of these items as well as the tiny roses at the Flying Unicorn store.  I added the cheesecloth and pearl trim from my stash as well as the leaves which I cut with  Marvy Uchida punch.

There are some great challenges with RAKS that you should check out too.  I'm going to put this LO in the Fabulous Flowers and Extreme Layering challenges.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Hope you're having a scrappy happy weekend!!

Swirlydoos LO - July kit

Wow, I am sooooooooooooooo far behind in my posting and commenting! I did this LO about a month ago for a challenge at Swirlydoos to use misting, masking & Gesso on a layout.  I don't know what I've been doing all month but it hasn't had much to do with SBing much to my chagrin!!

The July Swirlydoos kit had some of my favorite papers in it, Pink Paislee's Butterfly Garden.

For the mask, I used  the DA piece and olive vine glimmer mist. I used clear gesso on the hearts border strip and then painted with Shimmerz and Glimmer mist. The clear gesso acts a little like a resist and gave the mottled color look.

The photo is of my Mom, two of her sisters and a cousin. All of the girls lived together in Washington DC during the war. I call it spirit b/c I think it took alot of spirit for 4 country bumpkins to move to the big city like that! I can imagine that my Grandparents were having a fit!    Thanks for visiting my blog and I always appreciate your comments!!

 

Mesa Verde - Flying Unicorn

As the September guest CT member, Alda, owner of the Flying Unicorn, sent me a lovely box of goodies from the Flying Unicorn Store that included Fabscraps and Authentique papers.  I used the beautiful Authentique Journal papers for this layout that I did for Frank's extreme layers challenge. The Authentique papers are so nice and are such a nice weight. I wanted to add some contrast to the blue so added the yellow CS. I made the large sunflowers on the left and the vine on the right is Petaloo. Those wonderful letters are Pink Paislee mist-a-bles, they are so fun as they have a resist finish on them, also in the store. I know you NEED some of them!!! I inked the mistable letters and did the masking with Faded Jeans and Tumbled Glass distress ink.

September Flying Unicorn forum challenges!

As a guest CT member this month I am hosting a challenge, "It's all about techniques."    I hope you'll check it out and join in the fun.  For my challenge I've listed 10 different techniques and I challenge you to use them all on a single layout.  One enty point is awarded for using each technique (max of 10).  At the end of the month a winner will be chosen using random.org and the winner will receive a fabulous RAK from the Flying Unicorn store! 

Here's my example layout that I did for the challenge:

The techniques I used:

I made the large flowers on my layout using a tutorial from member Lisa Gregory. Check out her blog for some fabulous flower tuts. http://what-a-beautiful-mess.blogspot.com/


Heat embossing – I embossed the swirls using marcasite embossing powder

 My edges are inked and then distressed using water distressing. To do this, first distress the edges, I use my Zutter Distrezz-it-all. Then, dampen the edges of your paper a bit with your fingers and then wrinkle, fold, curl, and push the paper edges in so that the effect is 3-.D.

I used a Prima mask and distress ink in the lower left corner

On the upper left, I spread some gesso over my paper and then stamped it with that famous brick stamp!! I let that dry and then wiped over the stamped image with pumice distress ink so that the image of the brick stands out. I’ve also done this with molding paste and I think I like that effect a little better. Here’s a link to a tut on my blog for this technique. http://scraptravelbark.blogspot.com/2011/07/red-fox-sketches-creatively-yours.html

 I used a Martha Stewart corner punch to punch around my circle. That’s a great technique that I learned from Lisa Gregory! (tut http://what-a-beautiful-mess.blogspot.com/2010/10/paper-corner-punch-decorative-circles.html).It’s easy, just turn your punch over so that you can see where you are punching and punch around the circle. You can also use the technique described in this tut: http://scraptravelbark.blogspot.com/2011/07/red-fox-sketches-creatively-yours.html

 I made my cluster from two Petaloo picks, Prima leaves and my handmade flowers.

The letters for “France” in the lower left have been stamped with a Prima stamp featuring tiny script writing.

Everyone on the Creative Team has posted a great challenge, there's sure to be a challenge or two that you'll want to try.  There  are great RAKs to be won for each challenge too.  Come visit!