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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.