random journal pages

just some random journal pages from the last couple weeks. Since I've been focusing on scrapbooking, till just recently I hadn't done anything in my journal at all-- I finally decided to give it some love! (my most recent journal is almost finished, now, so that'll give me the incentive to keep up with it.)

stamped text: I had a spelling issue, but as you can see
I didn't let it bother me- just stamped right over the error.

awkward: the entire page.  

This page definitely 'took a turn' from where it started out, lol! I started with a stenciled background made ages ago with acrylic (blue, pink, and green) and watercolor (gray) paint. The antlers came first, from a clip-art elk. (I think it's an elk, anyway- could be a caribou. Don't tell my dad if I'm wrong, because after growing up in a house with a taxidermist for a father, and getting a zoology degree, I really should know that, lol!) 

Anyway, the elk head was just hanging out on the page for a while... then recently I found the 'eye-image' necklace in a fashion magazine jewelry advertisement. It looked like it should just go there, if you know what I mean. (people who do collage will know what I mean- if you don't do collage, then just trust me- it was the perfect place for it.) I kept flipping through the fashion magazine and found the figure leaning on the railing, added it to the page, then added a skirt (which is actually a calla lily, taken from a different jewelry ad). Since I've already gone 'off the page' with it, I still may give the figure some legs-- not sure (I'm thinking bird legs). Then, the question of people staring popped into my head, so... the text.

odd? yup. but sometimes, 'odd' is what's in my head!

watercolored background (which reminds me of the Brady Bunch,
for some reason) with a clip-art hand and some collaged details.

your outlook on life totally depends on your point of view!
acrylic painted bubble-wrap stamping and a watercolor wash
over the top with collaged images and patterned paper. 

patterns and texture.
all pieces cut from a fashion magazine and
glued onto a watercolored background.

and now, it's back to 'scrapbook' mode for a couple days, because I'm going to be scrapbooking all weekend long in Tucson starting (bright and early) tomorrow-- yay!!!! I'm taking my journaling stuff with me though, of course- along with practically all my other supplies, including my typewriter, my inks and mists, my new camera, my laptop, plenty of Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Mt. Dew, my Mad Men seasons 1-3 on DVD... lol!!  (I definitely don't pack light, that's for sure!) 

It's a 3-day retreat at a Tucson hotel and I'm really looking forward to it- if you hadn't already guessed :D  I found out about it on an online scrapbooking forum- and I'll actually get to meet a few of those 'online' friends in real life! I'm hoping to have a lot of fun, do a little messing  around with my camera and Photoshop Elements, sleep way too little, and maybe even get a few scrapbook layouts completed... I'll let you know how that turns out! 

SB page: lunch in Tucson

yay, another completed scrapbook page! (and #2 of 50 in my 50-project challenge.) This page started out pretty simple in its arrangement, but like always, I made it take forever to complete. I really like it, though, which is a good thing, since I'm the one who made it, lol!

This page documents the day in February when we drove to Tucson to have lunch at Mi Nidito restaurant. We also did a very small bit of sightseeing while we were there, and went to Bach's Cactus Nursery (which I'm going to do an entire 2-page layout about, in addition to the photos I included here). The overall page layout is a grid, one of my favorites arrangements. The three large photos were printed at 3.5 x 5, and the other three spaces were built on top of 3.5 x 5 pieces of patterned paper. The plant photos were printed at 2x2, I think, then I trimmed them down a bit to fit better- the restaurant photos were printed at, maybe, 2x3? I think I trimmed them down, too, so the patterned paper would show  a bit more around the edges.

This photo doesn't look like anything much, but I wanted to include it to show the background cardstock I used for this page... no, it's not a Christmas layout. The holly pattern, while it's technically the 'front' of the paper, was used as the 'reverse' on this layout. I got this paper at the Bazzill warehouse sale a couple years ago- I don't scrap a lot of Christmas pages, but I really liked the color of the cardstock. So, I bought some of it anyway, knowing I was going to use the reverse. Nobody said that just because it has a pattern that you have to use that side of it! :D

Here's a close-up of the flower section: this section was sort of an accident- the green polka-dot paper wasn't quite 3.5 x 5, so I added another piece of patterned paper to it to make up the difference, then covered the seam with some (new) Prima washi tape. Necessity is the mother of invention they say, right? Sometimes in creative endeavors, too! And I actually like it better than if I had just used one piece of patterned paper- interesting how that works out, isn't it??

  

A close-up shot of the title / journaling block. I knew I had quite a bit that I wanted to write (I usually do, lol!), so I typed the journaling on my typewriter-- I could never write neatly enough to fit all of that onto this layout writing by hand. Unfortunately with this much journaling, most of the pattern on the yellow patterned paper is now hidden, as are the three pieces of colored washi tape I put on the lower right side of the space.

here's one of the photo blocks, embellished pretty simply with a journaling tab punch (edged with ink to make it stand out against the cardstock background) along the edge of the block, a stamped/cut-out word embellishment, and a bit of typed journaling glued right onto the photograph. (I was really intrigued by these mosaic decorations that were all over the neighborhood around the restaurant, so I googled 'mosaics in Tucson' to find out more information about them. Turns out they were made by students at an alternative high school and Tucson has won some awards for this program, which I think is very cool!! Thank goodness for the internet, right??)

A close-up of the title area: the tag is a Cosmo Cricket tag sticker I thought matched the colors, and the letter stickers are some of my stash of beloved Sassafras Lass supplies (I'm still sad that this company went out of business, and I sort of hoard my stash of their stuff). The baker's twine was arranged into the perfect loopy arrangement, then I carefully glued it into place with my fabric/ribbon adhesive. (see what I mean about it taking lots longer complete this page than it could have?? lol!)

Here's a close-up of more of the small details that I kept adding to the page-- these details 'make' the page, in my opinion, but they also made the page take a lot longer than it might have otherwise taken! There's a few different types of stickers here (Jillibean soup brand, as well as October Afternoon, I think), and I added 3-D foam tape to give them extra dimension. You can also see here that I added some glitter glue to the striped paper to make it a bit more interesting. (there really wasn't much else I could do to decorate that space, since the photos covered most of the paper). 

One last close-up view of one of the stamped embellishments: I stamped the word onto white cardstock with chalk ink, trimmed around the stamped image, then attached it to the page with 3-D foam tape. A nice detail, even if it did take a bit of time to do! (I've seen people do this on their SB layouts for years, but never did it myself till now- I quite like how it turned out, and I'm definitely going to do more of it.)

card crafting

I started out this whole scrapping / rubber-stamping "thing" by making cards. My sister went to a Stampin' Up! party, I think, then either showed me what she had done, or invited me to attend one myself. It's been a looong time ago, now; I don't really remember exactly any more... heck, I don't remember exactly what I had for lunch on Monday, let alone something that happened at least 15 years ago! :D

Anyhow, over time I lost the card-making-mojo... I went from making tons of cards, to making cards only for Christmas, and I think that might have been the last time I made any. Till yesterday, when I made these:

My problem with cards has been mainly that I can't figure out how to design them; it's easier for me to work on a scrapbook page, for some reason. So, I brought the scrapbooking thing to my card-making, by using a scrapbook page sketch to design the card!! You can see the sketch I used here: Sketchy Thursdays 8/11/11 challenge.

I used the main layout placement for my card design, and placed the butterflies where the photos would be placed. I think it worked out okay; plus, I used a new stamp (Martha Stewart doily), used some of my tiny left-over paper scraps, and used some rather "difficult" patterned paper. (hopefully the patterned paper doesn't overwhelm the butterflies; I don't think so, anyway-- let me know what you think!)

close-up, just to show that I popped-up the butterfly wings with 3-D foam tape... they needed some dimension to them! (too bad I didn't decide that before I glued them down, but I pried their wings back up...)

and, another cute dog picture! Bisbee was just hanging out on the couch this evening... she really doesn't like that Prescott can't play right now! (just one more day till he's recovered enough from being neutered to play again... then, only a couple more days till we pick up Krista!)

stamp de-construction project continued:

so this is what I started with-- 12 wood-mounted stamps that cost $1 each (80 cents each after my coupon), and a foot-long set of Hampton Arts stamps (containing 7 words / phrases and 4 shapes), that cost $3 ($2.40 after my discount!): I un-mounted them from the wood blocks, got out the scissors, started cutting, and after about an hour, I ended up with this:

all together, I ended up with 12 large phrases / words, a circle, and about 40 small words that I can use however I want.

the photo above is the stamps in the foot long Hampton Arts set of acrylic stamps-- after my success with "taking apart" the rubber stamps, I decided to do the same thing to a few of these, too! I cut "life unscripted" out of the rectangular frame, and cut "just us" out of the tiny scalloped frame. That way, I can do things like this:

(of course, I wouldn't do this exact thing, but this shows how I can use the empty frames with other stamps.) My total for this project is something on the order of 50 word / phrase stamps, along with 3 empty frames. Not too bad, for a couple hours work! Now, I just need to use them on my scrapbook pages! ...so, I'm off to the craft studio-- I'll be back (hopefully soon) with a scrapbook layout!

random photo catchup

just a few random photos from last week... this one is a bit of dust storm aftermath... I thought it was so funny to see the dust covering the parking lot at work! just like a dusting of snow, except a dusting of dust won't melt or disappear, till it rains. Wednesday afternoon we headed to the doctor's office-- it was time for Bisbee's annual checkup. They don't mind the vet's office, and everyone at the vet's office loves to see them... I think part of the reason is they're so friendly and cute; who can resist that Sheltie smile?? (I might be biased, I suppose!!) Bisbee was a bit hesitant about the stethoscope though; Dr. Black said she was holding her breath while she was listening to her-- lol!! Anyway, Bisbee is perfectly healthy, if a lb or two over what she should be... so we'll be cutting back a bit. (Shelties are prone to getting overweight, so we keep a pretty close eye on their weights.) Dr. Brown and Dr. Villalba at Maricopa Wells have been great to all our pets, and all the staff are always very helpful and accomodating. They're even open late, and open 7 days a week!

These two pics are a couple "scrappy" purchases I made last week; I've been eying a tape dispenser like this for quite a while now, and used a 40% coupon to finally pick it up. It's like the industrial-type packing tape dispenser you'd use for shipping packages, only slimmed down, and it holds a double-sided tape roller for quick adhesive application for cards or layouts. It was a bit complicated to assemble and load the tape; Tom helped me out, though, so now it's ready to go!! (now, I just need some time to actually make a scrapbook layout!)

I also had a 20% off coupon for Michael's, so this "haul" was gotten for a song-- the wood stamps were all from the $1 bin (score!), and the foot-long strip of stamps was from the clearance bin-- double score!! They are all various words and phrases, and are a "project" in the making for me-- alot of scrapbook layouts right now use word stamps in the titles or journaling, and there are many "word and phrase" stamps are available, mostly thru online stores. A couple scrapbookers who do this very well are Ali Edwards (check out one of her layouts here) and Nichol Magouirk (check out one of her layouts here).

I've wanted to buy some of this type of stamps, but didn't want to wait for online ordering and shipping, so I decided the $1 stamps from Michael's could work for me. These phrases, as is, might not be all that useful, but my idea is to take them apart and use the individual components. "You make me so happy" for instance, won't be nearly as useful as the word "happy" on its own; then I'll also have the words "you, make, and me" to use however I want. So, my next task is to disassemble them all into the individual words, then use them on a layout or two!! (the rhinestone butterflies were also from the dollar bin; I don't have anything in mind for them, I just liked them-- lol!!)

(another post coming up soon; just have to edit the pics!)

even MORE art!!

I thought I'd post a few more art photos from some past projects... art is being done in tiny little spaces of time around here now, because I'm back to work!! yay!! after 9 months of being unemployed, my self-esteem had taken a bit of a beating (which is an understatement), so I'm glad to be gainfully employed again, especially since Arizona has been pretty hard-hit by the economic crisis. (real estate values plummeted, construction is a big part of the economy, etc. etc.) But I digress-- on to the art! This ATC was for a swap on the website ATCsforAll.com, which is an amazing place to trade ATCs, mail art, chunky books, supplies, and more. The artwork in the gallery is fabulous and a great source of inspiration!! The swap theme was "Monochromatic" so all the cards had to be in shades of a color. This is not the card I planned to make when I started out, but sometimes they have a life of their own, and it's better to go where the inspiration takes me. I used pattern tissue, patterned paper, some ink for shading the edges, and rubber stamping, all to go with the theme of sewing-- I think I titled it "Family Ties."

This card was another for the in-person swap last month, for the Hearts and Love theme. I read somewhere that those conversation hearts candies (you know, the ones with the little phrases on?) had just updated their sayings to retire the phrase "fax me" and include "tweet me" and "text me." Which I think is ridiculous, but that's because I'm not the right age for those things to just roll off my tongue, and I only use my phone to make phone calls... but, I thought "tweet me" would be really cute with this little birdie stamp I have! The background is a paper doily with gold gel pen doodles... and more glitter!

And now, a few completed journal pages-- I started the background on the page above ages ago, and finally did something with it. I wasn't too into the SuperBowl game, if you couldn't guess by the amoung of doodling (except for the commercials, which I really didn't think were all that great).

This page was also started ages ago; I think it was actually one of the first pages I painted in this journal-- and then it sat. And sat. And sat, waiting for me to come up with the "perfect thing" to complete it. (at least that was my mental block, anyway-- perfectionist syndrome-- which doesn't go so well with art.) So, I decided to try my hand at some funky-scrolly lettering... which didn't turn out too bad, I don't think!

and one more page in progress, with a painted paper and collage background... I think "journaling" in stages seems to be the best way for me to work-- I get in a "paint and collage" mood, so I get inspired to start the backgrounds, then they will wait till I feel like writing on them, or adding to them... (or not-- I do have some backgrounds that I love just the way they are) That way, I don't have to start "from scratch" when I feel inspired, but don't feel like getting messy with paint and gel medium. Wow, that sentence is not grammatically correct at all, but I'm too tired to fix it-- the worst part of going back to work is having to get up when it's still dark out, so I'm off to bed!

mail art sneak peek front

mail art sneak peek front
Originally uploaded by crimsoncat05

Handmade art postcard, now on its way to a lucky someone! I'm interested to see if this makes it to its destination in good shape... when I mailed it at the local PO; the woman working the counter thought it was really pretty. Maybe they take better care of cool-looking mail?? I hope so!

art project pics as promised...

...although a little late. Life intrudes at the most inopportune times, doesn't it?? I was planning on posting these pictures yesterday, but I had an extra-long day at work (FDA auditor + Monday... 'nuff said!), and didn't feel like doing anything once I got home except falling asleep on the couch in front of the TV after eating Filiberto's leftovers... it's a sad way to spend the evening, isn't it? I agree, but sometimes, it's just what happens. Today is another day, I left work at the normal time, and the audit is now over, with no observations- yay! Anyway, these pictures are from this weekend's crafting... I spent the afternoon cutting, pasting, and painting (I still have some acrylic paint underneath my fingernails... note to self: be extra careful with the black paint!) I am still not comfortable working with overly-large projects, so these are 4 x 6 inches, postcard size. These first two pics are a technique I saw on Flickr (I think from Jeannine P, although I don't remember for sure- there is such wonderful inspiration everywhere on that site!)

The colored sections are regular old Crayola crayons, scribbled onto a piece of watercolor paper. While I was doing this, Tom had to smell them, to reminisce... I think I heard somewhere that crayons are one of the most recognizable smells anywhere- I know they are for me. After the crayon scribbling, I covered the entire thing with a coat of barely-diluted black paint, then wiped it off the crayon areas, to create a "resist" effect. The circles are "stamped" with white acrylic paint, using lids off a couple drink bottles. (I have quite a collection of these odd things going; unfortunately, sometimes Pandora finds them, and we're woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of her shooting them across the kitchen tile...) The quote is a rubber stamp- that portion of the card was covered with a clear sparkle glaze, which was done to cover up a bit of a smudge, actually... but don't tell anyone!

These two pieces of paper were just to test out a couple of my newest toys, Heidi Swapp masks... they're cut-out images made of adhesive-backed plastic, and you use them like a stencil (only it's the opposite: the paint ends up around the image, leaving the image itself blank). I just realized this combines some of my very favorite things: books, the color blue, and plants and birds- funny how that happens, even when I'm not trying to do it. These bits of paper will be used for something- not sure for what, though...

This picture is also pieces of 4 x 6 paper, and it's another technique I've been wanting to try , seen in a recent issue of Somerset Studio magazine. It uses torn strips of regular masking tape and torn strips of magazine pages. The strips were attached to the background paper in an alternating pattern- the lighter strips are the tape, and the darker strips are the magazine paper. After attaching them, you get out the acrylic paint, start painting, and see what happens- the colors of the magazine paper are affected differently depending on the paint colors used... I also added some clear glitter glue for added interest, too. It was a bit futzy to do, but I like how they turned out. Here is the pink piece, finished off with a bouquet cut from a catalog and an edging of blue watercolor crayon. Now, I'm off to work on inchies for a swap, and maybe cut a few more pieces of 4 x 6 inch watercolor paper... (maybe I'll even mail some of these, seeing as they ARE postcard size!!)

a few pics, hopefully...

Yay, it worked! Sedona went to the groomer's Saturday, for a long-overdue "Bath, Brush, and Tidy" and this is the result. She cleans up nicely, doesn't she?? Amazingly enough, her third birthday is next month... hard to believe it's been that long! (sometime in the next few years, hopefully she will start to calm down at least a little!) This is her newest trick... she isn't exactly patient, but she can do it. (unless the treat starts to slide... then, all bets are off) This picture is for you, Mom. This is the red yucca in our front yard; these are the seeds you have. I finally cut last year's flower scape off a couple months ago, and this one started blooming a couple months ago... it should last for at least another six months. These are a couple in-process projects- above is a two-page spread from a board book I bought at the thrift store... so far, I've gessoed the pages, and startd painting the backgrounds. I have no idea what I'll use it for, yet... a two-page spread I started working on in the composition book... painting, stamping with foam stamps and the lid off a soda bottle, glitter glue, and white pen, so far... no plans for this spread yet, either, but it was fun to do. Perhaps a border of some sort...

burst of creativity

wow, it's been a while... like usual- I really admire people who can post regularly, but I will never be one of them. Obviously, I did make it back from Chicago- finally. I was sooo glad to see the lights of the East Valley appear out of the airplane window as we came in for a landing at Sky Harbor Airport!! For a couple reasons- two weeks is too long to live in a hotel room, at least for me- I really missed our house, with our things and our furniture; I really missed Tom and the pets (two weeks is about the longest we've been apart since we met); and I was good and sick of all the cold and snow in Chicago! I took some craft supplies with me to Chicago, but didn't do too much with them... not sure if it was the cold weather, the impersonal hotel room, or the early darkness. Finally this past week, I've been in a creating mood again. These first two pictures are decorated envelopes for a swap on swapbot- mostly stamped, which I haven't done much of in quite a while! The swap was for a set of 10 envelopes to two partners. The only rule was that they couldn't be plain. Mine ended up mostly being rubber stamped (see all of them on my Flickr page). I haven't stamped like this in quite a while; it was really fun, and I ended up wishing I had made some extras to keep for myself. It was difficult to pack them up to send them off; hopefully the recipients will like them as much as I liked making them!

I also started a couple other projects this weekend. One is a visual journal, which I've wanted to do for a long time, but I've been reluctant to start it (that's because of my inner perfectionist, darn him- I've never done anything like this before, so I don't think my pages will be "good enough" so I just don't start). I finally got past the scariness of the "blank white page" by painting some backgrounds. I hauled my notebook, paints, and palette out onto the dining room table, so I could paint while we watched TV and waited for the Sprint Cup race to start... (Tom wasn't feeling good this weekend, so he hung out on the couch most of the time. )

Now that I have some pages started, I can take the next steps and add more paper, stamping, texture, and all that other fun stuff! And then, of course, there's the cover, which looks pretty boring now, with only a black and white design... (see more of these pages on my Flickr page, too)

Next weekend is the Spring Fling rubber stamp show in Mesa, where I'll get more inspiration and ideas ... Sedona has an appointment at the groomer's, so I'll have a few hours of time to kill while I wait for her to get beautified... so I "have" to go, right?? lol!!

back to crafting!

So, since I cleaned up my craft room (surface clean, really, but it's something, anyway...) I was finally inspired to do some crafting again! The first 2 pics are of an ACEO (for-sale version of an Artist Trading Card, 2.5 x 3.5 inches), and the second 2 are a set of hand-stamped tags. Both are currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

wonderful colors of wool felt, along with some fabric from my stash (thanks, Mom, for sending some of it back to me after I gave it all to you when we moved!), lace trim, and hand-sewing for the details. It took me about three times of starting, ripping it out, and re-sewing to get the pink details on the flower the way I wanted them. It's heck, sometimes, being a (semi) perfectionist! I found these tags in an envelope somewhere, and thought they'd make cute gift tags... the flower is from a new set of stamps I got a while ago from a store that was going out of business; the watering can was from a patio-sale at the same store. In other news, it's HOT! here. Highs have been in the low 100s; last night when we went to bed around 10:30 it was still above 80 F. It's higher than normalfor this time of year, and it still sounds odd to me that our nighttime lows in the summer are the daytime high temps back in Illinois! We're going to an East-valley swap meet tomorrow, to look for house stuff... a southwest design key rack, some bedside lamps that match each other (what a concept!), maybe a basket or some pottery to display in the kitchen.

This evening I am attending the first meeting of the newly-forming Phoenix "Craft Mafia" which might sound dangerous, but it isn't! There are Craft Mafias all over the country- groups of crafters who use their collective power for advertising, learning, etc. The first one was formed in Austin, TX and it took off from there. There should be quite a few Phoenix-area Etsy-sellers there; I'm looking forward to it!