cozy kittys SB layout

so, I've finally moved on from scrapbook layout makeovers to working on making layouts with some un-scrapped photos! I have a pile of random to-be-scrapped photos sitting on my desk, and grabbed a couple of them last evening to work on. These pictures are actually pretty old- the photos are of my first two cats, Cleo and Phoebe. (I got them as kittens, for my 25th birthday- seems like a long time ago, now.) And from the background in the photos, I can tell that the pictures were taken in the very first apartment I lived in on my own, so it was somewhere in the early-to-mid 1990s. Crazy, huh? More like lucky that I've kept them all these years, without losing them! I'm pretty sure these are actually film photos, too, so that's an even better reason to get them scrapbooked and into my photo album.  

Here's the finished layout:

Well, actually, the scrapping process for this page started a bit before yesterday: I knew I wanted to scrap these particular photos, and I knew I wanted a 'fun' patterned paper that included pink, since there's pink in the pictures. The other day I was in Michael's craft store, and there it was: the perfect polka-dotted paper! It includes the pink, but not so in an 'overly girly' way... and the other colors made it easy to choose complementary papers to use with it. The general page layout was inspired by a scrapbook page I found and have saved on Pinterest. (see the Pinterest pin here. The layout was originally pinned from a website called myscrapbooknook.org but it looks like the site's no longer active, otherwise I'd link to the original layout itself.) 

Now, on to the some of the details:

I thought my layout needed a little 'something' in the upper left corner, so I added a couple small snippets of paper left over from making the layout. I added a bit of dimension with 3-D foam tape, and by inking the edges of the striped paper (and most of the other papers) with a black ink pad.

This is a look at the lower right area underneath the title; that tag was also popped up with 3-D foam tape for dimension.  Funny thing about that 'tag' too... it actually started as a 3x4 card from my Project Life core kit! I had another one of them out to make a Project Life journaling card, and I thought the colors would work perfect with the patterned background paper. Altogether, I think I used six different patterned papers on this page, from about as many different manufacturers. Adding in the stickers and the heart stickers, and that makes it a total of eight different patterns and manufacturers. As long as the colors and patterns work together, I don't care who made it, or how old it is. 

And the 3-D pillow heart stickers on this page? They were still on my desk from the Valentine cards I made last week, lol! I thought they fit in perfect, since the photos are of my kitties being all snuggly and loving with each other. (the stickers in this photo are sitting on a gray vintage ticket that I inked and tucked underneath the top part of the photo mat. This helps lead your eye to the photos. 

Between finishing the previous 2-page layout and making this page, I was in my scrapbooking room last night till well after midnight: now that I've finally got my scrapping mojo back, I don't want to quit! (partly for fear of losing it again, I think...) But sadly, right now I do need to quit, at least for a bit- I need to do some yard work. After all those freezing low temps, I need to do some pruning and cleaning up. But the quicker I get it done, the quicker I can get back up to my craft supplies, right? (that's one way to get incentive for completing my chores, I guess!)

AU 2008 Recap Part 1

My first class at Art Unraveled was Monday: an all-day class titled Two Art Quilts Two, with Jane LaFazio. I decided to take this class because I love fabric, I do like sewing sometimes (as long as the sewing machine isn’t involved, that is!), and because I loved the pet portraits in the class description… I still really want some sort of portraits of Cleo and Phoebe, and was really excited by seeing her interpretation.

I found Jane LaFazio through Flickr-surfing, I think. She does amazing watercolor journaling, and wonderful art quilts of all kinds. Since then, I’ve seen her work a couple more times in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine… fabric and sewing, sometimes combined with paper: what could be more perfect than that?? (perhaps only some glue and stamping added in for good measure!)

This is one of Jane's pet portraits... I love the buttons on the edge!!

We started with the pet portrait- I only had really crappy photocopy enlargements of photos printed off my Flickr account, but I think it turned out okay, considering what I started with. We started by tracing the major shapes onto tracing paper (think paint-by-numbers, or coloring book), then transferred it to unprimed canvas using a Sharpie marker. From there, we started painting using thin washes of acrylic paints…Jane said when coloring in the shapes, don’t think about the “actual” color of the pet, but rather, think about their “aura” and their personality. I had really wanted to make Cleo’s picture a really soft, sage-y, olive-y green, but couldn’t get the paint color right, so she ended up being kind of pop-art instead, but actually, when I think about it, Cleo wasn’t a soft, sage-y kitty in real life, so I think the blue and yellow fits, after all.

I think I managed to capture her personality in the facial expression; I’m really proud of that. The next steps are stamping her name at the bottom, layering the batting and backing with the front, stitching the outlines and details, and finishing it off with an edging of some sort… hopefully, anyway! I really had HUGE expectations of perfection for the results of this project, (like everything I do, naturally) so perhaps I shouldn’t have done something with so much personal meaning for my first try, but I still think I’m going to finish it.

My tablemate for this class was a member of the East Valley Mixed Media group; I mentioned that I recognized her from the one meeting I attended, so she invited me to lunch with her- How nice of her!! This group of ladies meets once a month (in downtown Chandler, in the evening) to learn/discuss/share all sorts of things associated with mixed-media artwork… I’ve been trying to figure out how to attend regularly, but with Tom’s unpredictable travel schedule and the distance, it hadn’t been working out. Anyway, we had a very nice lunch with a couple other members, then headed back for the Landscape Quilt portion of the class.

Below is one of Jane's examples of a mini landscape quilt: I really like the way she used the sheer fabric in the sky, and how the frayed edges of the fabric suggests grass and growing things. And, if you look close, each of the colored bits in the lower left is an individual fabric scrap, sewn on by hand!

Again, I had definite ideas of what I wanted to do with this project, but my creative muse decided otherwise- I had purchased several beautiful batik fabrics from a (sort-of) local quilting shop, and thought I would make a desert landscape with mountains in the background. Jane’s approach to this project was to take a few fabrics, lay them next to each other, see what worked, and pull out/replace fabrics till you get something that feels and looks “right” to you. While I was pulling my supplies for the class together, I decided to throw in some other fabrics from my stash to take in addition to the batik.

During my process of pulling fabrics out and laying them down, I tried to make the desert landscape I wanted, but some of the fabrics just didn’t work, so they got replaced with my other cottons… more of this trial and error process (“no, try this one” and “how about using a piece of this?” from Lulu’s stash of fabrics) led to my landscape changing from a desert mountain scene to Midwestern rolling hills and fields, instead… amazing how that happens, isn’t it??

This landscape also needs lots of work to finish, although I have ideas for some of the details: embroidered grass, running-stitch plowed furrows in the fields, and tan buttons to represent round hay bales. And perhaps some running-stitch swirling clouds in the sky… or maybe a bird or two flying over the fields…

This class was a lot of fun, and it led me to reconnect with a group of really interesting people I hadn’t thought I would be able to again… it also showed me that sometimes pre-conceived notions and thought-out plans about projects can be (sometimes need to be) discarded in favor of what works at the time with how you’re feeling, which can lead to a totally different (but no less successful!) result in the end.

Cleo

April 17, 1994 - November 21, 2007

Cleo had been losing weight for the past few months, and for the last week or so, hadn't been eating anything at all. Her blood tests all came back in the normal ranges, which most likely meant something pretty dire... so, we made the tough decision to let her go, which I have to believe was the right decision for her. Now, she and Phoebe are finally together again.