View from our Heaven

This was a really quick LO and that is really atypical for me!  I actually put it together in about 10 minutes.  Then I played aroudn with it for 2 hours trying to add something to it and finally just decided its clean and simplistic view was perfect for the photo so on to other things.  Used BasicGrey Curio pps for this and that is an old BG rubon on the left.  The birds are a Timmy stamp.  Love Timmy's  stamps!!

I think I will make a companion page for this LO and call it a two pager!

It's a new year and a new look!

I have spent the better part of this day working on my blog.  I thought it needed a facelift and some added something.  Haven't figured out what that "something" is but I'm getting there!  If you have any ideas, leave me a comment please!!

Photoshop

My goal this year is to learn Photoshop and I have spent alot of time this week playing around.  I thought this was quite an interesting effect.  This is a photo I took from our campsite in Denali this past summer.  It was kind of dark so didn't really get much pop from it.

I was playing around with different lighting effects and applied the solarize effect and came up with this.  I think it looks really cool even though it looks obviously edited.



I'm back on my game!

LOL, yesterday was not a good day.  For the first time ever, I actually tore a LO apart 'cause it was just plain ugly.  I salvaged what I could from it.  Today was better.  I was trying to get this picture on a layout and it just wasn't working for me yesterday!

Dick took this picture this summer at Denali.  I had fun photo shopping this photo, I must admit.  It really was a stormy day but I accentuated that feeling by using some effect, I forget now what it was called.

Used GCD Studios Artsy Urban pps for this.  The main floral sheet was hard to design with but I actually am pleased with this.  I think it has that old fashioned post card look to it. 


Journal says:  Denali National Park, July 2010. The Eielson Visitors Center is 66 miles inside the park and generally, the only way to get there is on a shuttle bus. The visitor center sits on a steep slope overlooking glaciated valleys that were carved by the glaciers that still flow from the Alaska Range. On a clear day, Denali will be out towering over the rest of the Alaska Range rising 18,000 feet from its base. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those days, and instead, bone chilling winds and dark storm clouds greeted us. Still, whatever the weather, the sight of the landscape at Eielson stays with me always. On this day, I was taken with the beauty of our flag standing at full attention against the dark foreboding skies and the snow capped mountains.

I am happy to working on our Alaska pictures now.  I think I need to go buy an album just for all the LOs that will be forthcoming.  Between Dick and I, we have hundreds of photos from the summer.  It is really hard to pick out just a few to tell the story!!  TFL!!

Vintage love

I simply love this photo of my Aunt and Uncle taken during WWII before they were married.  This LO turned out really well I think- I love the simplicity of it.  The pp is from the January Swirlydoos kit, and is GCD Artsy Urban green bird.  I love this piece of pp, I only have two sheets, wish I had more!!  The border punch is a new Martha Stewart punch and  I cut the swirls on my Cricut, HomeDecor Cart I think.  Oh I printed the photo in PSE9 using an antique oval frame.  Here's a link to a  mini tutorial on how to do this that I posted at Sisterhood of Scrap.  Oval print job  It's quite easy to do and  I think really lends a vintage flair to a photo.  Thanks for visiting my blog!!

Bears!!

Oh these were fun LOs that I did for the January  sketch challenge and the Odds challenge at Swirlydoos using their January kit.

The pps are from GCD Designs - Artsy Urban collection and Glitz-Scarlett Collection. The velvet flowers are Petaloo and the others are Prima.  The yellow circle mat I made using a MS circle punch.  I love this technique and thank you Lisa at SD's for showing us this!  It's easy to do, here's a link, give it a try!

These are photos I took this summer in Hyder, Alaska.  Hyder is a little bitty town of about 72 on the coast.  It is completely surrounded by Canada.  There isn't even a US border station there.  It seems sort of like a lost part of the US.  They do have a post office but no law enforcement.  Its a strange place!!

Happy New Year! Snowing & GO

Wow, 2011.....that last decade sure flew by.  Seems just the other day it was January 1, 2000 and I was wondering how I would refer to the new century, you know two thousand sounded so odd!

I am done with Christmas - took the decorations down yesterday and scrapped my last Christmas layout, at least for a while.  I am over red and green!  LOL, love this layout of Nika in the snow though.  The papers are from the Swirlydoos December kit and are Bo Bunny and IOD.  What a gorgeous kit!!  I added the platinum Prima flower and colored the center rhinestone red to match.  The snowflakes are from my stash and they are brads covered with icicle stickles.

Bo Bunny - Noel Joy and Noel Rejoice
IOD - Holly Stripes
Bazzill cardstock
Prima flower, Rossetti Roses Lula
IOD tags


I've really been itching to dig into the Swirlydoos January kit, it is soooo colorful.  Well I took alot of photos on Nika in the Christmas foot of snow that we had.  I could have titled this one Dashing Through the Snow but decided on "Go" as the journal tag has a quote from Confucious.  It says "Where ever you go, go with all your heart." 

Swirlydoos has an action photo challenge going on, so this picture was perfect for it!

Bazzill dotted swiss cardstock
GCD Artsy Urban blue floraland Postcard One
BasicGrey yellow lace
Petaloo Magnolia blossoms
GCD Artsy Urban border strip and blue transparency flourishes
Dusty Attic chipboard vines painted white with touches of pale yellow.

Looking for a fun place to hang out?

Join me at Sisterhood of Scrap (SOS)!  This is a no pressure, low key, great forum that would love to have you as a member.  We are not a kit club, online store, nothing commercial, group of gals joined in friendship by our common love of scrapbooking and the pursuit of other crafty endeavors! 

January happenings at SOS:

• We are going to be having a photo challenge by our esteemed photographer Sonya!! (Can't wait foir this one!).
• I am going to present a PhotoShop Elements (PSE) Challenge along with some tuts!! this best part about this challenge is that I am pretty clueless when it comes to PSE so I have to learn before I can post my tut and challenge.  Now that will keep me motiviated!!
• Colleen, our culinary queen, is going to host a Recipe Challenge of sorts!!
• We are going to be presenting a "Sister Blog" of the month!! Not telling you who the first one will be 'cause I don't know!
• We are going to be having a one-hour crop on January 23d hosted by Helen!
• We are going to be holding a "January White Sale" Contest (that will be flipping amazing!) wth a prize to be won.
• And there will be a few other things too, but Helen, our esteemed moderator, won't tell me what those other things are!

Come join us, I promise you'll have fun.

 

 

 

It's snowing!!

Hard to believe we have nearly a foot of snow on the ground here in eastern NC.  That's really unusual! 

Christmas has come and gone again for another year.  I love Christmas but must confess it was nice to have lots of quiet time today with absolutely nothing to do!!  So I scrapped this photo me my mother and me which I think is a great picture of the two of us!

I used the beautiful Swirlydoos Dec kit for this LO.  The dark green pp is Bo Bunny NOel Stripe and the floral is IOD Night Divine collection from Creative Imaginations as are the two tags.  The cardstock is Bazzill.

I used fired brick distress ink to ink the edges of the circle cut which I made using a Martha Stewart corner punch.  Got this tech. from Lisa at Swirlydoos, TY Lisa!  The 4 red flowers are small roses with layered with 2 hydrangea flowers sprayed with red shimmerz. The red flower with the white stamen is a Petaloo, Magnolia and berries pick.  The holly leaves are sizzix cuts inked with olive and green Cat's Eye pigment ink and Forest Moss distress ink.  The butterflies are some I scanned from the IOD design and painted with Diamond Glaze to give them a little shine.  I distressed the edges first with my Distrezz it all and then dampened the edges with water and bent and shaped.  This was a great way to spend my day!!

Meanwhile the spoos were outside having a ball in the snow.  This was Nika's first snow and she was a little overwhelmed at first but she soon was right in the middle of it playing with Chena.

Today...

Well I should be getting ready for Christmas but what the heck, thought I'd sneak a quick layout in!  I am tired of Christmas LOs, tags, etc so I did this page of our 2010 Alaska trip SB.  This is a scraplift of an awesome LO done by Helen at Sisterhood of Scrap.  It is one of my favorite designs ever!

The journal says:  Are we there yet?

We crossed the border into Alaska on June 12th with the biggest smiles on our faces you will ever see! Ever since we left Alaska on July 17, 2000, we have talked about returning in the motorhome. There is something about Alaska that calls to us; we love it there so much. It is such big country, the vistas are incredible and we love the cool weather!    ...................YES!


I love this paper too.  It is MME So Sophie  - Peaceful Plum for the back, the striped is Happy for You and the plum flowered is Circular Bliss.  I made the flowers with T Holtz's rosette die from the same MME pp collection.  Used Ranger distress ink Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy.  Rubons are some old K & Co "Classic"  Chipboard numbers are KaiserCraft

Guess I'd better get at my chores now!  There are two poodles here in desparate need of a bath, though they don't seem to think so!!  TFL!

White Christmas

It is snowing outside here in NC and that is kind of unusual!  Just a dusting, but still it was fun to watch it coming down.

Here's another LO of the dogs, Chena and Chili, from when we lived in Denver.  We had one heck of a blizzard starting on Dec 20th and it was just a real mess.  The dogs loved the snow though so thought it would be fun to do a Christmas snowy page.  I used the Dec Swirlydoos kit for this and these papers are IOD.  I just tore the trees from some Bazzill cardstock.  The flowers are layered Primas.

More challenge LOs!

This was another challenge at Swirlydoos to scrap a Christmas LO with a non Christmas photo.  I chose this photo of Dick just cause I like it.  I took the photo this summer while at Denali Nat'l Park at Polychrome Pass.  It was really windy which is why he is holding onto his hat!

This gorgeous paper is from Bo Bunny's new Christmas collection, Noel.  That tag is from IOD's Night Divine collection, both being featured this month in the Dec Swirlydoo's kit.  I love using corner punches to punch around circles and make "doilies", they are so gorgeous!  This really was a fairly simple LO but the techniques I used took a little time.  The distress the edges, I first ran the pp thru my Distrezz it all and then moistened the edges with water and curling and scrunching   the paper as I went along.  I keep a spray bottle at my work table so I just spray some water on my craft sheet and boogie right along!!  I was in a shiny mood today so got out the gold Perfect Pearls to make the circle on the doilie and just add some shimmer here and there.  Also used gold stickles to highlight the ornaments amd holly berries.  Thanks Lisa and Robin at Swirlydoos for the lessons on circle punching and edge distressing!

Thanks for visiting!

Christmas is fast approaching!

Are you ready?  I'm not, I still have a gift to make for dh, hope to get that started today. 

Here's a layout I did over the weekend for a RR challenge at Swirlydoos.  I love how this turned out and I wish the photo were better.  It is dark and rainy here so no chance for a nice sunny shot today! 

The journal reads:  I was such a girly girl. I loved dolls and always got dolls for Christmas. My dolls always came complete with wardrobes of beautifully hand-sewn garments made with love by my Mom. My favorite doll was Judy. She’s a big doll, the size of a 2 year old. After I grew up and moved away, I came home for Christmas one year to find Judy sitting under the Christmas tree wearing a new red velvet dress that my Mother had just made for her. I was so surprised and moved that Mom had gotten Judy out and made her a new dress. Every Christmas after that, Mom always dressed Judy and put her under the tree.

Another little story about my dolls and the clothes Mom made.  Like most little girls, I had Barbies and similar dolls and you know their clothes are quite tiny.  Mom made clothes for those dolls too but for the most part they never had buttons or snaps.  She just never had time to sew those on so I always kept lots of pins around!!  Too bad they didn't have velcro back then.  I do think she would have used that!

I used lots of glimmer mist on this.  First on the background cardstock, two colors, Snow Queen and Cinammon.  The the chevron is cut from a template I have and has patterns in the template so I glimmer misted that too so the chevron has a beautiful shimmery pattern that doesn't show up in the photo, oh well, use your imagination,  LOL!!  I purposely adherred the circle so that it would no lay flat and painted it with gold Plaid Sparkle Gel.  The dress form is a Dusty Attic piece painted a soft beige and again glimmer misted with Snow Queen.  I love the venetian lace near the bottom.   All the flowers are Prima and the pp is from the Bo Bunny Noel collection.  I also used some gold ink and gold metallic rubon around the edges.    The letters are painted with Shimmerz Grammie Berrie paint and then painted with gold Plaid Sparkle Gel. I added some burgundy stickles on the holly berries too. 

I love this picture of Mom although is is not a great image.  It came from a really small photo that I scanned and magnified quite a bit.  I just don't have many pictures of Mom from this time in her life.  I was either 15 or 16 when this photo was taken.

Thanks for visiting!!

Christmas tag!

Checkout the Swirlydoos blog for a chance to win a great prize from Prima!  Today's tag challenge was to make a monchromatic tag in red or green.  This was easy.  I just cut a circle and used a corner punch to cut around it.  Then I stamped the ornament and embossed it, added some rock candy stickles, and  a little smooch red spray.  I cut the scalloped tag with my Sizzix from paper that already had the words printed on it, inked with Fired Brick and stamped some snowflakes.  Then I tied a ribbon and used hot glue to adhere the ribbon and berry spray.  Assembled it all and called it a tag!  Easy and fun!

Angels at Play

Lisanova at Swirlydoos posted a great challenge, do a winter themed LO using a summer or spring photo!  I ran across this photo of Chili and Chena playing and thought it would be perfect.  Its such a great picture of Chili.  After Chili was gone, Chena was in a funk, I know she was missing her sister.  It took several months for her to be herself again and now that we have Nika, Chena is overjoyed.  They adore each other!

For this layout I used 3 layers of white paper plus the silver die cut.  I glued a large Tim Holtz fragment over the photo and then misted part of the fragment and the photo moreso over Chili, the white poodle, than over Chena b/c I was trying to evoke the feel of the heavens.  I also misted the top two layers of paper.  Here's a closeup of the photo:

The corner pieces are from Pink Paislee and are really fun as you can color them with inks or paints.  I used Glimmer Glam to add a silver shimmer to them.

I love randomness and so I added the tulle and the silver beads and let it play randomly over the page.  I like how it subdues the title which I printed on cardstock and traced over it with a gray Glaze pen.




Supplies list:

Paper - Bazzill dotted swiss
  Pink Paislee House of 3 Darling Doilies
  Not sure about the 3rd piece, its a scrap that was laying around.
  Silver diecut - Anna Griffin
Prima roses
Petaloo layered flowers
Memory Makers silver and pearl brads
Photo corners - Pink Paislee Artisan Elements
Tim Holtz fragment
Collage Trims -both fibers
Glimmer mist - Marshmellow and Silver Bells,
Glimmer Glam - Tinsel Town
I glued silver foil paper to TH's grunge paper and then used an old Sizzix die to cut the leaves from that.
Snowflakes cut with an older Sizzlets die from foil paper.

The jounaling is printed in gray onto vellum paper and adhered to soem of the Pink Paislee paper.

The journal reads:

The ivory angel waits patiently at the Rainbow Bridge for her ebony angel sister to join her, knowing that someday they will reunite.  I can picture their happy tails wagging and the fur flying as they romp through the meadows waiting for their humans.

Thanks for visiting!!