…in love with fairy tales…

…and my dear hubby.  So when I saw the September moodboard at Scrap Around the World, it immediately brought him to mind.

He’s a fabulous (yes, I’m biased, but I’m far from his only fan) fantasy fiction writer, published on Amazon Kindle (Charles E Yallowitz, http://www.legendsofwindemere.com).  He’s been creating stories since he was a kid, and he’s got this amazing creative imagination.  The old tomes made me think of some of his influences, including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.  The exposed gears reminded me of his interesting injection of technology into his world (for anyone who’s read fantasy fiction, technology is not high on the list).  And I don’t do nearly enough scrapping about my hubby, so this was perfect.

I also found this great sketch on Creative Scrappers and thought it’d be awesome.  I’d recently gotten some scrap goodies and wanted to play.

I pulled out some old and new goodies for this layout.  I got some new papers from Amy Tangerine and Fancy Pants, as well as tons of other awesomeness.  My initial idea didn’t quite work out as planned, but it’s cool 🙂

First I took some patterned paper I didn’t really like and flipped it to have a blank background to start.  Since my hubby’s a writer, and I had leftover alphas (who doesn’t, right?) I made three columns, the middle with old Thickers and the side with flat alpha stickers.  Then I covered them with gesso and stamped using a large rubber ticket stamp from Unity and Archival black stamp pad.  I gave the background a spritz with Dylusions Calpso Teal and Postbox Red.  Then I pained over the alphas with green, blue, and yellow paint.

Didn’t quite go as planned, since Dylusions is water-reactive and mixed with the paint.  But, no worries.  I thought the background was a little too bright, so I grabbed a Dina Wakeley stencil and gessoed over everything but the painted letters.

After that it was time to start layering.  Patterned paper, a kraft photo frame, other die-cuts and Amy Tangerine embellishments.  I used some older alphas, and a chipboard alpha that I had initially painted, but it was too light, so I wrapped it in washi tape.

I also used washi tape on the sides of a journaling card and painted over the words and added more leftover alphas.  You can see I also added some paint smudges to help tie everything together.

Thanks for looking and happy scrapping!  Feel free to ask any questions! 🙂

relishing the pure joy…

…of this fabulous photo I was able to capture of my son.

I submitted this to last month’s CSI/Scrap365 collaboration file, but never actually posted it. Main reason is my new schedule. I was working close-ish to home part-time, which meant I had two whole days during the week to work on stuff. I got a great new job in the city recently; pay, benefits, great people, etc. I also now have a commute into the city every day, which takes a fair chunk out of my day. I’m working on getting an art journal/scrapbooking travel kit put together so my lunch break can be put to good use, as well as my ride home.

Anyway, so with all this, I don’t know how many challenges I’ll be able to submit to, but I’m determined to enter at least one a month, regardless of the project (layout, canvas, ATC, etc.)

So I had this photo (I’ve got several more from that morning) of my son playing with a balloon that the grandparents brought back from a New Year’s Eve party. Now he’s only stayed up until midnight one time, mainly because he does not sleep in most mornings anyway and he’s a beast when he’s tired (aren’t we all :P). So he came downstairs New Year’s morning and found a balloon. You can see from the look on his face that he was a tad ecstatic 😀

So I wanted to experiment with a gelato watercolor-esque background. I don’t own any gelatos, but I do have a set of Faber-Castell water-soluble crayons. From what I’ve seen (having never used gelatos, though I’ve used regular crayons), what I have are smoother than regular kids crayons but not quite as smooth as gelatos. At some point I will have to get me some gelatos.

So working with the color scheme, I stuck with the blue and green shades. I’d color, then used my waterbrush to blend it in to watercolor effect. After that I did some freehand doodling as well as doodling with my HS circle/star/heart stencil. I used my Marvy Uchida stamp markers (which I need to use more) to add some color to the circles. They might have some out looking more like bubbles, but it stills works I think.

The same blue and green I combined with accents in the other colors. I cut some patterned paper strips as well as a few small pieces from the cover of an Amy Tangerine paper pad. Stapled them, outlined with my black Sharpie, and added a button and TH gear. I traced over the bottom label sticker with my Sharpie (it was pink originally), and took a flat homemade “flair” circle of patterned paper and pressed it into a bottle cap. I used an Amy Tangerine border strip, as well as some classic Mickey Mouse paper and part of a inked doily. I also added a large photo corner type cluster, although it’s fairly well hidden. I stamped using a circles Inkadinkado stamp set and my Rubber Stampede mini dye ink pads, then cut a scallop corner from that white stamped cardstock and the Mickey paper, layered them, and stapled. I also added some doodle clouds.

Thanks for looking and happy scrapping!