Today Page and some ramblings about flowers and a tutorial

I confess. I really do. For some reason in my life I really like flowers. Real ones, pretty sparkly scrappy ones, ones I make...yes, I love Prima and the ones at Webster...love looking at people who make things with flowers on their pages. Love to make my own too. Spotted a cool one a bit back on a blog that I wanted to make. I have gone through several versions of trial and error, burnt my arm on a heat gun in the name of making one...searched for a blog showing how to make the new ones everyone seems to have except me out of ribbon.

So last time I was wandering around Walmart, I spotted this big cheap spool of Polyester ribbon and thought I'd give it a whirl again. I heard someone mention using a cutter to get the circles which only resulted in wasting ribbon and some not to nice words on my part. So, did it the old fashioned way by drawing a circle on with a marker!

Here is the blog where I spotted the flower I wanted to copy. Teresa is a cool artist, so check out the rest of her blog as well! Next time I think I'll use more layers! She said she will do a tutorial at some point so maybe I will pick up more pointers!

I then cut them out with really sharp scissors and stacked them up with a brad in the middle. Two big circles and one smaller one.

Pretty plain and icky! Next step, heat gun! Very carefully heat up the edges being very careful not to overdo it. Just like a blow dryer, let the edges ruffle up. You can even do the back. I kinda went a bit overboard. And yes my black edges still slow, but I really don't mind. Next time I may use a bigger sharpie.

THEN, pull out your mist and spray the it up good! Since you already have the heat gun out, you can use it to dry the mist so you can use your flower right away. I then sprayed some spray adhesive and glitter to make it extra cool.

Here is my flower clustered in with a Prima flower and a vintage button.

So, next about the pages I made. My SIL and I are exchanging pages from her visit. I choose the photos she took of our girls in my meadow since I knew I might be able to play along with a blog challenge or two and have extra fun.

I'm going to let her pick which one she likes the best. I love both of them for various reason. Leave me a comment on which one is your favorite! Now, both don't have the little butterfly charm because the second one I had has vanished in the whirl wind of scrap supplies that are now laying out all over. So, at some point when I find the little bugger, it will go on the page that is missing it!

I used a sketch layout made by Nadia at Once Upon a Sketch for these pages. Then I thought maybe about playing along with Bird is the Word. And you guessed it, their word for this month is TODAY! So, they got married and I got a fun page to make!

My sis in law also got the benefit from a recent scrappy care package I got from a friend! I am constantly stealing photos of their daughter and using them because she is so gosh darn cute! So, they got me a HUGE stash of goodies! The butterflies, some of the colored doilies, and the big letters got used right away! Big thanks to them for feeding my addiction. And, they haven't seen the last of their baby on my blog, I got the SWEETEST photo of her wearing black and yellow at our company picnic. I am thinking Sweet as Honey would make a nice title....

Alright if you are still with me, look at my previous post earlier today and leave me a comment so I can put you in the running for my RAK!

Purple Pumpkin & some cheating

So, North Country people don't do heat. Well, I'm not officially from here, but I'm going to confess to be more into winter here than summer. So I am holed up in our camper with the AC, two dogs, and two kids watching netflix on my ipad. AND we have plans to hit the beach (yes we have beaches here, lovely clean sandy ones) after hubby comes home with pizza.

BUT, it is cool enough to blog hop and go vote on my Purple Pumpkin page. I only have EIGHT votes!! Ok, there are some amazing pages out there. BUT, can you pretty please go vote on my layout? The trick is that you have to HAVE a Facebook account and also LIKE Purple Pumpkin First...and then you can vote. I made this page a bit ago and I use Purple Pumpkin stuff ALL THE TIME. It does rock.

Thanks guys!

yeah for me, a little monster, and a vote!

So, yeah, I'm pretty excited. I have to say. I am in the Guest Fit Girl Spot Light! Check me out here! Whoohooo!

And, I seriously need your help. I want to do a page for Purple Pumpkin...so you need to head out to their Facebook Page and vote for me tomorrow! I will try to remind you tomorrow but since I didn't even remember camp was this week, things are not looking promising on that front. Maybe you can remind me tomorrow to vote for my page? And they are in Australia, so tonight will be their tomorrow, I think?

And, here is the monster I promised. I recently starting stalking, I mean watching Lisa M. She blogged about her son's art which is super cool. You should totally check it out. Mr. B created this awesome cool monster I am pretty fond of. OK, so maybe he reminds me of someone...and he named him Eragon, super cool!

So go run, check out his work. When you see his name scrolling in the movie theater in a few years when you're watching a DreamWorks movie, you can say you read it here first. Seriously very cool monster. I must admit, it was quite a bit of fussy cutting...but worth it at the end. I don't have copics (yet?) so made do with some photo markers I had. And I used Helen's idea of printing out things on photopaper (She does her journalling) so they are shiny ahead of time.

And, here is the fancy cat. Used inspiration from that card I mentioned earlier. YOU know, the one you should go vote for. Only, I didn't use flowers but microbeads and sticky backed paper. And some primas that were on sale...and some antique buttons donated by Marilyn that had their little white strings dyed with some Tim Holtz purple stain. I was hoping the buttons would take the color, but no, so have to think on that still...

And, last but not least, the journalling. And yes, it's all true. He really is a little monster. A little sleeping monster, but let's not wake the beast or he will want a snack.

Ok and check out this page I got completed! I really wanted to use this monster!

Phew! AND a double page spread....

This am involved a mad dash to camp! I had forgotten we had signed up Lexi for Camp Invention earlier this summer with the cousins coming and all! And, she was already committed to something today, so I begged them to let her brother go. He is super excited, so I am happy it's worked out for them.

And, last night instead of sorting through things on my desk (at which point I may have looked at the camp paper work and realized we missed a day already) I scrapped! It finally seemed to be a bit cooler and I was really inspired to at least start a double page spread. All kinds of ideas tumbling around my head! I had spotted this sketch a bit back on Sketch Support and wanted to use it for the pages I was going to do from our recent camping trip.

As things go in the creative rhelm, the ideas in my head didn' t translate necessarily to paper the way I thought they would, but I am super pleased with the results. My first goal was to age the photos a bit, so pulled them into LoFi and got a suitable color scheme that would work with some new paper I had just received in a kit. I believe the paper I used was Imaginesce and Fancy Pants. I do know that when I got my kit from Sara I took one look at that VW Camper and was like, um....I won't use that. AND, in typical fashion, it was the first thing I used.

Let me show you my inspiration for my second page.

It was the logo FROM the campground. If you want to check them out, click here.

Had to switch things up a bit so it would flow on my paper better. AND, of course the eagle was a Jolees addition that I purchased for the page from Ebay. We got to see an eagle up close on the road into the island and it swooped down and grabbed a fish! I was thinking I'd want to stitch my fish together like the layout, but then I couldn't bring myself to line them up...much less sew over them. So, they stay as is! And on the logo, I didn't like the new camper or boat, so used my own version on my page!

The lace is some that came from a HUGE BAG of goodies I just got from Marilyn. I used some glimmermist to make it a bit mottled. Thanks so much Marilyn for thinking of me! At some point I'll go through it a bit and share some with fellow scrappers.....in fact, I have a dyed button project in mind for a page this week!

Hope you have a great week! And I'm happy to be back in blog land! I have seen some super pages out there and around this week. And an amazing card. Check out Valerie's card here and head over to give her a vote! She's on round 2 yeah! I may just have to scraplift that idea from her...cut out cardstock with cute little flowers....

Happy Day & Out of Town Guests

Today is my Friday, I'm taking tomorrow off. Or at least I am telling myself that. Unless I hide the blackberry..hmmmmm....always an option!

Anyway, I plan on being a bit AWOL from Blogger. Sis in Law is coming with three kids and it will be fun chaos. I likely will still be stalking blogs in the evening though. That is my favorite pasttime!
Wanted to share a quick photo of a little box I made to store her birthday gift. We normally don't exchange gifts, but her daughter had a birthday a few weeks ago and I didn't send one. This box will contain a gift cert for a Mother/Daughter mani-pedi! Sounds like fun to me! I will have to schedule one with my best girlie Lexi.

It went together in five minutes. Took longer to get out the hot glue gun. A doily with some modge podge, two hand crafted roses from a store in Potsdam, Vanilla Stampin' Up Seam binding, some Olive Vine glimmermist...and a recycled container that previously held cream. Super quick! Hope she likes it! I didn't add much else so she can repurpose this either for another gift or a little container to hold things!

Chat with you in a couple of days!

Sand Art and some Eye Candy Magic bling

I'm all about blog love. This post will contain at least two blog love references! If you have not wandered over to the Eye Candy Blog, you really should. Samantha makes her own items for scrap pages and they are even more amazing in real life. I used her little feltie sun on this page and I love it!

She has a new sale coming up, so go check out her SNEAKS!

Here is a pic of her little doily! I am all about tie-dye and these are mottled like that. I SOOO LOVE them. I had to restrain myself from adding more to my page. I wanted to, I really really did. I cut them in half so I could get more on my page! Easy to cut too and they don't unravel. My next page will have more, I am terrible when I get new stuff. I have to use it up, even if I make up projects.



My last little bit of blog love involves this turtle. Firstly, the sizzix came over from Shirley next door. I really have to admit though, I wasn't sure if I was going to use him...I had to make him first and see how he fit in with the rest of my bling...but due to a cool blog I read yesterday, I got an idea that I really liked and now I am super happy with Mr. Turtle. Check out Valerie's page here. She was blogging about loving her sizzix. Now, I have put some pretty odd things through mine. I wasn't sure however about using a little piece of leather/chipboard (grunge board) from Tim Holz. It didn't seem like it might work, but VOILA! It was awesome. And I love the dimension and texture. Of course I added some ink....

Oh and when you get to Valerie's page, she is trying to win Idol, so maybe you can vote for her? Check out the side of her blog and a pretty little flowery butterfly card that is so sweet. I hope she wins.

And there you have it!

Teri's Altered Frames

Found two frames at Michele's during our weekend trip to Watertown in the sale stuff and it reminded me I had wanted to jump on making a couple more. I knew my friend had her new baby and hadn't even sent a card! So, I knew I had to make something fun for her.

I wanted to go through the process behind how I made these a bit, in case you are interested.

First I started with two blank canvases. I added gesso with a scraper so I could get some dimension and let it dry. Then I sprayed two different colors of glimmermist and again, let it dry. You need to allow yourself enough drying time so you're not working on a wet canvase.

After drying, I added some Tim Holtz tape, stenciled a little florish on with StazOn Ink and outlined that florish with a black pen. I also used Shimmer Modge Podge over the tape, photo, and doily.

Then I hot glued some flowers and some Stampin' Up Vanilla Seam Binding that I sprayed with glimmermist. Also inked over the edges of the doily with some CTMH ink.

I didn't go too crazy, Teri likes things more simple. This might be a bit too girlie for her, but hey, she has an office she can always hang them in!

Let me know if you like them!

ROPES

This page was fun!!! These photos were taken at various field days my daughter attended at the end of 4th Grade. In fact, I thought they were at the same place until she pointed out to me that they weren't! I had gotten the photos from her teacher, but sometimes what happens at school is a distant memory when they get home! So, I need to add some journalling to the top so I get both field trips and dates. The most interesting part was working with this burlap that Shirley brought home from Rochester.

I haven't ever tried it before, but I really liked the look. Of course the color was pretty plummy awesome too!

I want to give a shout out to two people that made this post possible. First up, I spied this sketch AGES ago on Helen's blog and I planned on going back and doing a twisty page using this sketch.

Although she is not the creator of this sketch, it's the second time I've used it and spotted it on her blog, so I'm giving her the credit for inspiration. Besides you should check out her pages anyway!

And while you are at it, check out the Sketchabilities blog. I'm following them now, thanks to Helen.

AND, although its kind hard to see (trust me on this) I spotted this cool idea for using a Martha Stewart border punch on Irini's blog. She did this awesome foldie thingie with hers and I failed miserably so compensanted by putting two together...but I have high hopes of getting that fold down. Anyhow, her page is worth a quick look-see for the awesomeness.

Nothing much else new to report on the scrappin' front. Just need to get rolling on a couple of pages and a two part altered canvase project.

Happy Monday OR if you are in Australia, Happy Tuesday!

We Love Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

First up, a photo of the fiend, Eragon. No, he's not supposed to be on the counter. We had a big wind last night and after surveying the flower garden, I saw a bunch of my bee balm had fallen over. So, hence some hasty cut flowers for the counter. Evidently he thought he should have a good sniff and I caught him and happened to have the camera ready...

Now, on to a page....



I had taken this pie photo the other night with just the idea of blogging about it a bit. I do love pie. And I added some grated orange rind to this one that was zingy and awesome. Not to mention how much THE MAN loved it. But, then, I got playing around with a sewing pattern and a borrowed flower sizzix from my super cool neighbor and before five minutes, I had started a page. I was inspired for colors from a blog I read yesterday.

Kirsty was blogging about kraft and white. She was certainly convincing with some lovely photos. Go check it out here. Now, I wasn't EXACTLY successful sticking with just those colors. I think you will agree that I had to add some burgundy in to match my rhubarb! I didn't use exactly white, had to match my flowers a bit, so cream was more the color of choice. And I used a lighter color than kraft...fun stuff though.

The stickers I got from Marilyn the last time I saw her. She shared a couple of packages of hand made stickers that were glittery. I was pretty pleased how they merged right in with my flowers, brads, buttons, and leaves.

And, here is a shot of my journalling.

Just a fun page. Thanks for posting that Kirsty, it really inspired me!

I Hope

I scratched my head a bit when I spotted the challenge at Bird is the Word.

I even got real brave...After I inked up my scalloped circle and glued it down on my page...I grabbed my CTMH rub off letters and spelled out HOPE...And then of course I hit the internet for some inspiration...started looking at songs and poems. I really wanted to do this page with THE MAN and I, not be too sappy, and not really talk about WHY we were all dressed up, but more about the part where we were together. We were going to a wedding, but that isn't really relative since it's their story, LOL! And THE MAN and I rarely get all dressed up. Muddy, yes. But, heels???? Nope. Not my usual attire.

So, found this song by Elton John that I love! It's called Your Song. Of course, I had to download it to itunes to listen to while scrapping this page. It was perfect!

The other thing that was fighting me on this page was my background paper. I made it! The wedding was at Hotel Utica in Utica NY. Included the name of the town to amuse all you ex-NYers out there...it is a beautiful place and had the most awesome chandaleers. Not to mention, I didn't know a lot of people there so I amused myself by taking photos...However, as much as I wanted to use this paper, I really knew it was super busy.

But, the good news was that my next door neighbor had just gotten back from Rochester. And visited a scrap store and picked up these super amazing purple Petaloo flowers for me. AND the UPS guy brought me a new shipment from Stampin' Up which included Very Vanilla Seam Binding. (didn't stay vanilla for long, got a nice good dose of glimmermist in several different colors until it was mottled enough for my taste!).

She also had the good taste to grab some new sizzix stuff that was on sale and offered them to me to try! Yippee! I used it to make that purple glimmery little scroll AND then used it the left over piece as a stencil.



AND, on a personal note, I was going to crop me down a bit more. I have been quite dedicated to a couple of exercise classes I have been taking in the evenings. Of them involves measuring. As in, she takes out a tape measure. I KNOW. It's crazy. But, I have been going since last Oct. and have managed to really tone a bit and lose two inches! I'm excited. Still got some belly to go, but I was pretty pumped to wear this dress. I highly recommend Zumba and also classes where you hang together with a bunch of other people with similar goals. It really has made a big change in my life.
And, wasn't it Julie that said to put yourself on your page more! I did listen. You know Julie, she is the smile lady that always leaves all that blog love.

Have a good night!

A Barn Sale and a quickie Page

-after-
Updated: 07/06/2011

So, there is a challenge out on ScrapFit I wanted to do. However, I kept thinking about yellow and clocks and the only thing lately in my life that is full of yellow are my roses which are STILL GOING STRONG! Holy cow that rose bush is happy! Well, so was the japanese beatle I pulled off earlier until I smoooshed it. Anyhow, I thought, I randomly made this page yellow...and I totally can add a clock or TWO....

So, I did!

I know, cheating. I loved the idea of the clock though. And, I can promote their blog just a wee bit more from my tiny corner of the world!

-before-

Lately I have been getting goodies. Some recently where from my Dad who randomly handed me a bag of smelly musty magazines from 1921. I starting leafing through one and found this really pretty poem and all kinds of neat old advertisements. I even like the cover. My new stash will include these books, smell and all. I think they will be a great addition to scrap pages, scanned in of course! Feel free to e-mail me if you want any of the images I used. I'd be happy to send them high quality and post your work on my blog if you do!

I also had the opportunity to go through a friend's barn sale and found all sorts of cool things. I love this cute little plate stand. And she handed me a whole passle of silk flowers and said, I know you can use glimmermist and get them looking cool! So, stay tuned for more fun with old silk flowers given a new life. I still need to square up with her. Hmmmmm.......

On the scrapbooking front, I had been talking about that poem I found? Check it out! I used it on my page above! Inspired by the THREE DAYS left post from Nadia, I thought I should play along with Once Upon A Sketch. The theme is "Moment in Time" and since flowers are so brief in their beauty and I had this awesome poem to use, hence the page! I do love these roses. They were planted in my memory of my beloved little Westie dog Frank.

What to say about my page...I didn't use any patterned paper. I used a piece of handmade paper I got local in Potsdam and my last itty bitty little piece of ruler I had left. I hand made a quick flower out of some cork that was hanging around my desk and some sticky backed paper to which I added microbeads and a weird shaped button with twine.

Not sure why I went monochromatic, but I have been loving that lately. I also brightened my photos up with that LoFi program. It added the pretty little edges and also a dreamy look to them. Twine and Doily from Purple Pumpkin. Almost used my new stash from them. JUST in time for a new set of goodies to arrive. I can't wait for my stuff to arrive from Eye Candy Magic!

Tug Hill 4 Wheeling & and a mini lesson on energy

So, the page about 4 Wheeling won out over the wedding! How surprising! No, not really, I didn't feel quite up to bling yesterday. Wanted to share also with you some photos of the wind farm we encountered during our 4 Wheeling journey. And, of course, add a little disclaimer here in regards to our activities.

So, basically Lewis County NY is in the middle of nowhere. Worse than where I live, where we at least have four colleges to offset some of the joblessness, etc. They have capitalized on the large snowfall and logging roads by offering up ATV opportunities. These are very rare. VERY rare. We used to have to drive down to Potter County PA at our last house to find enough trails to really get a good day in with the 4 Wheelers. Now, keep in mind, I am deep down very environmental. We act very responsibly, stay on the trails, bring our garbage out with us, etc. I enjoy taking to the hills on a 4 Wheeler because it is almost like the difference between riding on a lake on a boat to riding in a canoe. You just see more.

I've been riding in the Tug Hill area for several years now. Have watched this wind project unfold just a bit. It's pretty much over now, as far as I can tell. The windmills are in, the roads are rocked and gated, and the electrical lines are reseeded with grass. We stopped at Flat Rock Inn for a burger around lunch time and I wanted to show you their view. It's pretty impressive. I asked the barmaid her impressions of the windmills for my own amusement. Keep in mind, I also work in the energy field. It's love hate kind of thing for most people. They love heat, but hate having to give anything up to get it.

She was no exception and told some interesting tales of corruption, trips to Bermuda offered to the local officials, parts from Taiwan that fell apart, and how the Dept. of Environmental Conservation has ignored issues associated with these windmills. I do know for instance that she was wrong on the last part as the windmills are not regulated by the DEC but the Public Service Commission in NY which does keep a good eyeball on things. Or, at least they do in the industry I am involved with. In the interest of being fair, here is a website that has some interesting facts on The Maple Ridge Wind Farm.

My only two comments from the day are the same I'd say to a landowner getting involved with a natural gas well....check your lease with the energy company over VERY well and talk to a lawyer that specializes in that kind of thing. It is your land. And, I wish they would work on their burgers at Flat Rock! Although, they were really flat in keeping with their name!

Back to scrapping! So, spotted this sketch on someone's blog. Mieke's to be exact. And then went and checked out Little Shop of Sketches to see their blog. It's pretty cool and I'm glad I played along with their sketch. I love her take on it too, so check out her pretty birthday page.

I LOVE my background paper. It was a photo I took on our travels. LOVE the little wild blue flags in the photo. And, that sketch inspired me to cut out a banner for my page! I was running short on my letters so opted to draw them in for a sketchy kind of look. And outline my banner too with my black pen. So much fun. Kinda draws you in with it, I think!

Now, I used some pretty little bling on this page. I am planning ahead! I have a wedding page to do which will go next to this page. They cannot be matchy-matchy since it just won't make sense..but I thought maybe a gems might get me in the mood for wedding.

Anyhow, this post is long enough! Happy Tuesday AND here is to a short work week! YAH!

Mitra

Off to the Lake!

We are off to the lake today and I'm bringing these cool pages along my friend Marilyn worked up for me for our July swap. We are a bit ahead of ourselves! My theme for July was "Trips" and I dug up some photos for Marilyn from a trip to Paris I made in the summer between Freshman and Junior year in Highschool. I unfortunately can't remember much about where we took the photos, so I am going to try to rely on my Aunt's memory. I might have her do my journalling too. It might be cool to talk about having her niece hang out for the large part of the summer with them. I will post them back when we're done!

All the pages Marilyn and I are doing for each other go into a book by themselves, so at the end, we will have a completed book made by the other person! I am sticking with an overall theme of Childhood for mine, so they all will have some kind of order. I must admit, if you have a good scrap buddy, this is so much fun. Very exciting as you never know what they are going to do. And if you love their style, it's like getting a hug in the mail followed by chocolate!

My other new fun post is exciting for me! I won the ScrapFit Weekend Workout #9! So exciting to see my name in print! Check it out here! The page I submitted is my Garden page...check it out on the side of their blog!

BEFORE

My other fun thing is my new little desk/table I got for my scrap corner. I have before and after photos! I can now add more sewing to my projects since I have my sewing machine set up. I am a firm believer in having your tools accessable so you can use them!

AFTER!

The last couple of pages I did all had machine sewing! And I'm really happy how they turned out. I see a bunch of blogs this week talking about sewing on pages and there are a couple about what needles and thread works the best. Nothing is worse than snapping a needle or broken thread when you rolling along with your machine!

Anyhow, have a Happy 4th! I am not sure when I will post next, but it might be one about the wedding we went to OR the 4 wheeling the next day...super fun stuff!

Mitra