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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Finally a new project!

Hello faithful viewers I am back.  Just kidding I didn't really go anywhere just had alot of  things going on in my world.  But with the urging of my wonderfully supportive husband and very great big sister I am finally uploading a new project.  I hope you love it as much as I enjoyed making it.  It is a paperbag book TA DA.    I am calling it "I wish" because it's loaded with pictures and items from all the places I hope to explore one day.  There are a lot of pictures because there is soooooooooooooo much in this book but its amazing what you can make out of brown paper bags.  Enjoy.



I put lots of little blingies on this because you know I love sparkly shiny things.  But they also are meant to reflect the love I put in this book.
 I made the closeure by attaching a key I bought from Michaels for a $1 to the front and taking apart a keychain (also from the dollar spot at Michaels and adding a little chain and there you go a very cool closure.
 The inside is filled with lots of pockets and places to add pictures and journaling.  I think I have around 40 pictures in this book.
 I also wanted to make it very interactive so I added some embellies from Tim Holtz and journaling on the back of the tags.
 This is the inside of the little pullout book above and as you can see I had room to add 2 more pictures.
 I played around with different sizes of pictures in this project and I just had a blast.
 I had to add a little lacing for my to this book to soften it up.  These are actually fancy shoe laces that I found on clearance somewhere so it made it really easy to lace them on the spine of my book.
 Now I have been playing around with flower making I wanted to do something that was inspired but original.  This little beauty is made up made up of some flowers I took apart and added different fabrics in between, kind of a silk flower sandwich.
 More pockets to put little messages in and also I wanted to show how I was able to add a 5 x 7 photo inside the open part of the paper bag.
 I also wrote about the picture that I have added and as you can see there is plenty of room for lots of journaling.

 I found these gorgoes metal butterflies somewhere but I never had the right project for them.  because this book is chunky anyway I was able to make the cover very dimentional.

just one of the tags I added for a little color and interest.
Last but certainly not last I wanted to talk alittle about the tenique I used to make the front and back covers.  I wanted a very vintage feel to this book but I couldnt find the right paper to cover it with so I found this one tutorial that showed how to make a faux leather paper using tissue paper, a little watered down glue and lots and lots and lots of inking.  I could never tell you exactly how I made this because i'd ink and reink and scrunch it more until I got the right look.  I will try to find the tutorial so that you can allo get some inspiration as I did.

Well thats it for now but I really appreciate you all stopping by and taking alook at my little book.

Jennifer

Monday, October 17, 2011

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to put something out here so that they you know I'm still alive.  It's been crazy in my little world lately with weddings, baby showers new babies trips away and of course the ongoing construction zone in my house.  So I really really really appreciate your patience I will be posting some goodies out on my blog this week and I hope that you all love them. 

Saturday, September 24, 2011

5 steps to a happy life



My nephew Jeff is getting ready to walk down the aisle with his girlfriend Jeannie and last weekend was her bridal shower.  Now me, being who I am, could not just give a set of tea towels as a gift so I decided to put together something that I thoughts she would cherish for a long time. Titled it "5 steps to a happy life and filled it with pictures and goodies.

The cover was simple enough, a dollar store hard cover brag book covered with black suede paper and a lovely embelly of a feather quill pin that I made using Tim Holtz pen nibs.  I hot glued it on so that it was very secure.  I have these shells on hand to give as last minute gifts (I make a spot on the last page for a gift card or money).  They double as a brag book of sorts and generally it's a great conversation starter.

The first page I generally reserve for a title of the book and in this case I added "5 steps to a happy life"

I used Tim Holtz (of course) Grunge board as my numbering along with some lovely embellishment from , wait for it, TIM HOLTZ.  I know, I know I use them alot but I just get so inspired from them I can't stand it.

a close up if the second page showing how I layered everything.

I just love those little metal corners!

One fun thing that I played around with was stamping on top of my photos I just love the dimension it adds with adding too much bulk (I do enough of that with my blings ha ha)
 Just a quick shot showing the next couple pages (sorry if this is too long but I just but I am hoping that some sees something in these pictures and it inspires them to use it and create something fabulous)
                                  Isn't my nephew a handsome guy (one of my favorite pictures of him)
 I just wanted to show how I added the last page with a space for a gift card.  Trust me, when you give one of these to someone you get a lot more than a thank you, you get to see the look in their eyes as they reminisce with the pictures.  It's a great feeling.
 Last but not least, you can't just throw this kind of gift in a gift bag, no, you must make a statement with the wrappings.  I used inspiration from one of my favorites ladies , Natasha,  from http://www.moments-of-tranquility.com/,    If you are ever needing a pick me go to this site.  She is brilliant at putting things together and telling a story with everyone of her works of art.  Well she is a master with flowers and I used some in my bow topper and I think it turned out very nice.

 That's about all for this weeks project but thanks for stopping by and visiting my little world. 
 And as always, I'd love to hear from you so please take the time to leave me a comment it really makes my day!

Jenn




Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Love me

This weekend was so lovely here in the far north probably the last really summery weather for the season.  A lot of things are changing in my world my son just entered into 7th grade and my oldest just moved out into her own place.  I guess no matter what we do we can not stop the seasons from changing and time moving on.  So to  play off of these changes and my children growing up I decided to do a layout with my little baby girl as the star.  I used alot of Tim Holtz products as always but this is my first time using Dusty Attic
products.  They are a company out of Australia that make beautiful laser die cut chippies.  Trust me once you use them you'll be addicted (plus there is a wonderful gallery on their site with a lot of inspiring layouts)


Since I am just having a major love affair with Tim Holtz products lately my layout is chock full of his Idea-logy line.  someone gave me a piece of his firm strip to play around with.  I found that it worked out better   when I used a brad and to jazz it up a bit I added one of the hands from the timepiece collection


I used butterflies throughout my layout to show that time flies past us but leaves soft memories.



 One technigue that I did was combining gold leafing and crackle for a really cool effect when used on grunge board (yes another Tim Holtz product)
 I have added a few more close-ups showing some of the detail on the tags I used at the bottom of the photo.
 The journaling "Love me and the world is mine" summed up all my feelings in this picture. When a child loves you all is possible.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my layout as much as I enjoyed making it.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

My first flower tutorial.


I am going to be showing how I made the white flower today.  I dont really have a name for it so I call it the Vellum flower.

I started with 5 petal cutouts from the Sophia cartridge from Cricut.  I made 2 at 3" and 3 more at 2 1/2, 2 and 1 /12 ".  I find that when I use the half inch increments the layers turn out better.

 I then took a skewer and "rolled the ends of the petals, for the 1 layer I rolled under, 2 layer I rolled towards the center of the flower and loosened up the curls.  for layers 3 & 4 I repeated layer 2.  For the center I placed a pencil (eraser side in center of flower) and shaped it around that.  It should resemble a cup when your done.


And to finish it off I simply glued all layers together and added a pearl from an old necklace.  If you like this works great with a little glue gloss and glitter on but I am out of it currently so I painted some Stickles across the top for bling!

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Because of you I know I am loved





Happy Saturday all.  I hope your Labor day weekend is going well.  I am taking it easy this weekend.  My husband went up north and is visiting with his family, my baby girl moved out into an apartment (boo hoo) and my son is visiting his sister.  The dogs are even gone so i thought I would pour all my energy into my blog.   I was feeling very inspired this week because of the fabulous works of art that I have been looking at on the blogs I follow and these ladies really inspired me.  This is a layout of my dear Godson Juju (taken about 9 yrs ago) and really this layout just came together.


The journaling is Because of you I am loved.  this little guy is such a great boy and I am very blessed to have him in my life.  So I wanted to do a special layout for him.  I played around with a few ideas for the journaling.  For the foundation of the wording I used Tim Holtz grunge board that I cut down and inked with Tim Holtz distressed ink pads in vintage photo.  for the words I have this wonderful little glue pen (i can't think of the name right now) but it's great because I can actually hand write something out and then enhance with glitter.  I think its a pretty cool effect.

 I added a new flower that I made from the Pagoda Cricut cartridge that I layerd on top of peacock feather that I made into a quill pen with (of course) Tim Holtz pen quill.

I used a "scmooshing" technique on some of the edges to add a little depth onto the page. 

I also had some fun with the products I used.  This green paper I used under this corner is actually something called "Moss paper" I found it at Jo ann Fabrics in the floral area of all places.  It has a very cool texture and I loved how it added a pop of brilliant green.  Of course throughout the layout I used feathers, feathers and more feathers.  I hope you all are not tired of seeing them yet.  I like using them with masceline pages so that they don't get to "girly".  Thanks for stopping by and looking.  As always I would love to hear from you so please feel free to leave a comment.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Pretty pretty purse

This week I made a mini scrapbook for a friend of my Daughters.  I thought it would be fun to play around with the colors and techniques. I had so much fun I even managed to fashion a gift box out of some heavier cardstock (Plus I was able to add even more bling because I had extra space to play with)


Here are some close-ups of the box.  I added some lacing around the sides and because I used a glitter enhanced cardstock to cover the the top of the box I simply added a cardstock ribbon that I made using the Pagoda Cricut cartridge I added some silk ribbon that I coiled around my finger and simply glued in place to hold it and of course a few more paper roses  I found in a dollar bin at Michael's.

The Purse is made out of a hard sided brag book that you can find at drugstores (they usually hold about 16 or so photos but since I add embellishments to some of the page my purse has room for about 10 pages.

Here is a close-up of the paper rose I made using some pink cardstock and glitter.


For the title page I added a distressed layout with the words "Once upon a time" written with Tim Holtz distressed ink pads with perfect pearls dusted on top.  I couldn't resist added the rhinestones a frame.






I had alot of fun going through all the photos and trinkets from my daughters high school years and even though I made this for a different mother to enjoy the journey through the old photos it really felt like a gift to myself.  Thanks for looking

Jenn