Calvinball- SB layout share

close-up of chipboard embellishment

Whenever I scrap, even if I get the page started fairly easily, there's usually some detail or part of the page that just seems to take forever to get done. If there's buttons on the page, I need to put thread in the holes; if there's sequins on the page, it takes me forever to decide just where to put them-- things like that. I always seem to think of something that takes extra-long to do, or is extra-detailed.

As an example: the idea for this layout came together really quickly; I saw a layout in the Calvinball gallery here, and knew I wanted to scraplift the page design. I even found the photos I wanted to use and chose the papers I wanted fairly quickly. Then, I had to decide how to embellish the page. I settled on chipboard swirls- like the one you see above. Only problem was, the chipboard swirls I had were silver and glittery. And that wouldn't work on my page, at all!

And what did I do? I tried to find something else in my stash of stuff that would work, but once I get fixated on something like that, nothing else looks quite 'right' to me. In the end, it took me a couple hours altogether, but: the chipboard swirls were gessoed, painted brown, then sponged with antiquing gel, all to make them fit with the vintage look of the papers I chose. 

So, here's the final completed page (click to enlarge):

About an hour for most of the page; plus about another hour all together for the chipboard. But the chipboard swirls look perfect! (well, now, they do, anyway-- lol!)

This page showcases one photo (2 copies) of a Costa's hummingbird that I took a couple weeks ago when I was hiking. I happened to see this hummingbird landing on 'his' tree-- hummingbirds pick a vantage point to land on and sort of 'survey' their territory-- so I set up shop right next to this shrub to see if I could get any decent photos of him. I managed to get a few 'okay' shots, but nothing too spectacular. An older gentleman saw what I was doing and waited for me to finish so he could get a few shots of him, too. He said he photographs hummingbirds at the Botanical Gardens and can sometimes take two or three hundred photos and only get maybe ten really good ones out of the whole bunch. So now, I don't feel quite so bad! 

 For this page, I printed the photo in color then turned it to sepia-toned and printed it again. The sepia photo shows a bit more detail of his feathers and how many (tiny, tiny, tiny) feathers he actually has-- which is crazy, considering these birds only weigh 2-3 grams total!! With a wingspan over 4 inches and a total length of 3.5 inches, they're practically all feathers! 

I'll post a few of the better photos I got of him in my next post; meanwhile, you can click HERE to see what a Costa's Hummingbird looks like close up. 

November 2014- scrapping!!

since work has been so crazy, I haven't had much time, inclination, or creative energy to do any scrapping or crafting. But, I finally did get back into my craft room and finished a layout I started, maybe, nearly, a year (??) ago... and the layout is of a hike we went on 7 years ago! (my scrapping process is definitely not 'timely' by any stretch of the imagination, lol!)

We hiked to the top of Picacho Peak- which is between Casa Grande and Tucson- in April, 2007. Sometime last winter I made the base of the scrapbook pages, but never got around to finishing them up. 

On Black Friday 2013 I bought my Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine, but really don't have time to use it very often. I used it for the title, and knew I wanted to use it on this layout for the embellishments, as well. 

Aren't they perfect for this layout?? The Silhouette is an electronic cutting machine that cuts a design you make on your computer... I know it can do plenty of things I will never figure out, but I'm slowly figuring it out. This purchased cut file includes cactus, flowers, and rocks. You can make a design any size you want on the computer, and the Silhouette machine cuts it out! (if you don't screw something up, that is... not that that's ever happened to me, lol!)

I popped up a couple of the pieces with foam tape for dimension, and did some inking on the edges of the rock pieces. 

I had more photos than would fit onto just two pages, so I added two 6x12 pages in the middle to add more photos and journaling. See the squirrel there?? I had to add him into the pages- I could never forget about being bitten when I (stupidly) tried to feed it trail mix!! I did not try to hand-feed it though-- it grabbed my finger when I was trying to set the peanuts down on the ground for it.

Here's a close-up of the barrel cactus embellishment-- the Silhouette cut out the dark green pieces, I glued them to a lighter green background, and added more flowers and rocks.

So, this is my 7-year scrapbook page, lol! Over Thanksgiving weekend, I started printing pictures and designing some more layouts. Once my supervisor gets back from her maternity leave (two more weeks!!) I'll have a little more time and energy to scrapbook... hopefully!

it's all about scale... seeing the details

March in Arizona is prime wildflower time... the spring weather, warmer temperatures, and (hopefully) a good amount of winter rain all work together to make the short span of time between winter and the summer heat quite beautiful. Some years more than others, of course (that whole 'rain' thing is important!), and it helps if you know where to look, too. (The state parks department posts updates on their website to let people know when and where to go!) 

When we were hiking at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in March, along with the gorgeous vistas and beautiful scenery, there were quite a few wildflowers blooming. Here are a few pictures I took along the way (we'd be walking along, I'd see one, and yell ahead to Tom to 'hold up!!' till I took some pictures...) it made for some slow hiking! That's because some flowers are big, bright, and showy, but not all of them; some of them you need to look pretty carefully to see. 

These plants were growing out of a pretty-much-vertical hillside.
(the green arrows are pointing towards one individual clump.)

{a closer view}
This entire clump was, maybe, as big as my blue Pyrex mixing bowl??
(that's about 6 inches in diameter, and maybe, 4 inches high)

{closest}
I'd estimate that this pale purple flower was about as big as my thumbnail.

This plant was growing pretty much right out of the rock.
The clump of greenery was about the same size as the plant above,
but with bright red flowers on multiple flower spikes.

 

{closer}
This isn't the same exact plant, by the way.
That plant was on the edge of the rock overlooking the creek below,
but there were more growing right next to the path we were on.
(close proximity to the path made for much-less-scary picture taking!) 

{closest}
The flowers are quite complex, up close. By the tubular flower shape,
this plant is probably pollinated by butterflies or hummingbirds.

  

I didn't take a picture of this plant in its 'natural habitat' unfortunately.
I don't remember, but there probably wasn't too much interesting about it;
the (very!) tiny yellow flowers caught my eye, though.

{close-up}
This close, you can also see that the foliage is kind of 'hairy'

This view is along one of the paths,
where the tree on the left and the agave bloom to the right make a sort of 'arch' over the path.
(the plant I'm concerned with is the magenta flowers at the very bottom left edge of the picture.)

{closer}
Another low-growing plant with tall flower spikes.
This plant (+ flowers) was maybe, as tall as my knee, or taller??
(I don't remember, exactly.)

{closest}
These are a purplish-magenta color, and shaped a bit different than the red ones.
This one is probably pollinated by butterflies or hummingbirds, too.

I think the plants with the flower spikes are probably some sort of Penstemon, although I'm not sure exactly what kind. I don't know anything about the other ones- unfortunately, I haven't learned too much about Arizona wildflowers yet-- other than the fact that they're pretty!! They're also very ephemeral, too. There's a pretty short window of time when the conditions and temps are right for this sort of plant to do their thing: grow, bloom, and reproduce, so the seeds can wait through the summer till the next wildflower season.

It looks like this website: Sonoran Desert Wildflower Report has some good information about dates, blooms, names, and information about what plants bloomed when. I'll have to check it out myself, before next spring! (and also, maybe to get a macro lens for my camera, in order to get better, very close, close-ups.)

my other 12-hour crop pages

Here's photos of the other pages I worked on during the 12-hour crop on Saturday; I didn't think I had that many photos, till I started selecting them-- I'll try not to write so much to hopefully keep the post a bit shorter! 

Here's my Christmas 2013 collage page- we didn't put up any Christmas decorations to speak of, partly because of Zola (kittens + trees + glass ornaments = a disaster in the making!), and partly because there was so little time between Christmas and Thanksgiving. I did get out a couple small decorations, so this page is going to be titled 'a small Christmas.' (the crocheted tree reminds me of crocheted decorations my Grandma made, and the lighted ceramic tree is from Tom's Great-Aunt Marie, if I remember correctly.) The rest of the page is a mosaic composed of various pieces cut from the Christmas cards we received. (I always wonder what to do with the cards once Christmas is over, and this was a good way to keep them by saving 'parts' of them.) I did keep a couple cards whole; they'll get put into a regular 8.5x11 sleeve in the album next to this page.

a detail shot- hexagons are 'trendy' right now, so I thought it would be fun to use my hexagon punches to cut bits out of the card fronts. These particular ones are vellum (punched from part of my sister Judy's handmade card), and are attached using metal brads.

 Again, this layout was inspired by a scrapbook layout I came across on the internet and had pinned for safe-keeping. Mine turned out quite a bit different, but I love that I'm actually using some of them to make things from instead of just pinning more and more! (click here to see the inspiration layout, if you're interested.) 

This next layout was alot of fun to make, and turned out pretty much how I envisioned it would- do you know that feeling, when you know your project is working just like you wanted? I don't have that feeling very often when I craft (sometimes my projects seem to have a mind of their own and take a turn I don't expect), but I had that feeling when I made this one! 

the letters for this page were cut using my Cameo- the font is one I downloaded from the internet, called Airstream. (and yes, I can spell: I just need to cut another exclamation point,
because I lost the 'dot' that went with this one- lol!)

It's a fun, light-hearted subject, but one I knew I wanted to make a layout for. Tom and I both love authentic Chicago-style hot dogs, so when we heard they were building a Portillo's here in the Valley (finally!), we knew we had to go. The decor, the food, and the service were all top-notch, just like we remember from 'back home' in Illinois. I tried to capture that 'vintage diner' feeling of the place with the page layout (which is based on another Scrapbook Generation sketch). The journaling will go in the open space under the photo on the right-hand page, probably typed on a tag or on strips of white cardstock.

Somewhere along the way, I found a piece of scrapbook paper that I knew would be perfect for this layout; the paper design was all diner-style signs, which I cut out and put in that vertical area of embellishments. And the 'hot dog' is the Portillo's logo, which I cut from one of the paper bags our lunch came in! (They will ship their food all over the country, in case you're interested- lol!) 

The (somewhat obvious) page title is letters I cut with my Silhouette Cameo-
the font is one I purchased from their online store, called LD Brown Nose.
It's nice and casual, and I think I'll get a lot of use out of it. 

This layout is one I'm glad I finally got to work on- we did this hike back in early April, 2007!! I'm not a hiker at all (my idea of hiking is strolling through the preserve looking at birds, after all), so this is the first and only actual 'hike' I've been on since we've lived here. It was beautiful and impressive scenery, though, so I am glad we did it. (Only Tom managed the last bit to the very top; I wimped out right at the very end where you had to pull yourself up by cables using pretty much just your arm strength.) Oh, and I also got bitten by that cute squirrel you see, there, too- I need to add another page to this layout to explain that, and to add in the rest of the pictures I chose to include. (I also need to add some embellishments to this layout- with just paper, it looks a bit 'flat' to me, especially looking at it in a photograph.)

This shows the rest of the pictures I still want to include, along with scraps of the papers I used and a piece of coordinating cardstock. It's stored in a bag with the rest of the layout for now, till everything is finished. (I want to keep it all together so I don't accidentally use the patterned paper for some other project!)

And here's an example of a page kit I put together for some photos I didn't get to work on Saturday- but the papers and extras are all together in a gigantic zipper bag, so when I do have the time (and the inspiration) it will be a bit easier to get started. The photos are from a day I when visited the Arizona state Capitol in downtown Phoenix. I never got to visit the Illinois state capitol building when I lived there (Springfield isn't exactly next door to the Chicago suburbs, and I just never got around to traveling down there), so I really wanted to visit the Capitol here since we live so close. (It was pretty neat; I'll show some of the actual photos from the trip in a separate post.) 

Since it's the state capitol building (I'm not sure: are you supposed to capitalize 'Capitol' when you write it?), I chose some red, white, and blue papers, along with some more 'Western-type' papers like the denim patterned paper that I think is a photograph of real denim fabric, with actual sewing on the paper. Not sure which of these I'll use when I make the layouts, but they're all together, so they're easier to get to and part of the decision making is done already. 

One more photograph, that probably only another scrapbooker would 'get' my fascination with, lol! The dome of the Arizona Capitol building is covered in copper, and since copper- and mining in general- is an important part of Arizona state history, I included these two specialty papers in my page kit. It was tough to get a good picture of them, but both of these papers are metallic sheen to them, and the one has a brushed-metal feel to the actual texture of the paper. I don't know how I'll use them exactly, but I definitely will try to get at least one of them in there somehow! 

(apparently I don't know how NOT to be wordy... thanks for reading, if you made it this far- lol!)