Scrappers Heaven: Where did the time go!

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I updated my blog. It's been kind of busy what with the grand kids up visiting and then we were off camping for a week. We also got a new member of the family when we got back from camping - a little 8 week old ginger kitten, which we named Hunter (named after one of my DH's favorite authors Hunter S. Thompson) - our other two cats are not impressed, lol. The weather finally decided to actually be summer weather and it turned out really hot which was just in time for our friends wedding which was on Sept 3rd and then this past weekend our other friends daughter got married. So it turned out to be a very busy and expensive month so far, lol. I'm really looking forward to this weekend of not having to do anything!

In between all this stuff I have managed to get a few layouts and cards done. My Creative Scrapbook has started a new "Sketch" blog which can be found here: http://mycreativesketches.blogspot.com/. And as usual Pam (the owner) is giving away some awesome prizes so be sure to check it out! Below is the first sketch on the blog and then my take on the sketch using a photo of my son and his girlfriend taken at one of the beaches in Vancouver.

This next layout took a bit of time. I took my grandchildren to this Farm in Black Creek, BC while they were visiting this summer. This is a gorgeous farm right on the ocean that they will take you on tours during the summer. I did a lot of distressing and stitching on these pages. I haven't done a two page layout for so long it kind of took me awhile trying different things out until I was happy with it. The feathers with the flowers are actually from the Emu in one of the photos. The chicken, barn, wagon wheel and cow are ones that I have drawn myself and that I sell in my "Farm" digital kit on my website and on eBay. I've popped them up with foam for a 3D look. Remember you can click on any of the images for a larger view and then just hit the back button to return to this page.

The My Creative Scrapbook forum's August challenge was to create a layout using some of your packaging that your scrapbook items come in. This was a fun challenge but due to being so busy during August and the first week or so of September I didn't even get a chance to work on it until a few days ago. I decided to use some more of my May LE Kit from MCS that had all these great papers and embellishments from Pink Paislee's "Butterfly Collection" and gorgeous Prima flowers. This is a photo of my daughter and her boyfriend that was taken while they were visiting in Victoria, BC this past July. The packaging items I used in this layout was the card stock with the small little flowers on it, right behind the photo is from some Prima flowers and just to the right of that the white doilie printed on clear plastic is also from some Prima flower packaging. The last item I used was the top of the packaging of the Butterfly Collection of charms that has the bow on it. Isn't it amazing how you can become "green" for the environment when you are scrapbooking! Anyway below is the layout I made for the challenge.

The last thing I have to show you is a card I made using the same Pink Paislee Butterfly Collection of papers. One of the sheets of paper, the "Botanical Garden", had different pieces of the collection all on the one sheet and since this piece with the bird and birdcage on it was a longer piece I thought it would be perfect for one of those tall slim cards - which I've never made before. I just love this line of papers, they are so pretty and just seem to fit perfect for almost any layout, card or altered item! I played around with this for quite awhile because the piece was so pretty I hated to put anything on top of it - I really have a bad habit of doing that with pretty papers, lol. I distressed and inked the two larger pieces of the paper and put them together. for the two smaller pieces on the front of the card I finally settled on one of the other pieces from the same sheet of paper which had the same colors in it and had a white outline of some leaves on one side that I liked and was pale pink on the other side so I just cut it in half and used the pink side for my sentiment. The sentiment is one from Tim Holtz line of stamps, which I have, but I didn't think the "shabby" font of the stamp would look right for the card so I used my Paint Shop Pro program to print out the sentiment on the paper instead. I distressed and inked those two pieces and attached them to the larger ones. I then added some lace to the bottom of the card and then attached these all to my base card stock for the card.

After getting the card basically together I decided it needed a little something so I took some Gesso and mixed in a little bit of iridescent medium to it. I let it dry a little so it would be thicker to paint on and be a bit more sturdy to use (if that makes sense, lol). I painted some of the top left corner where I was going to place my flowers but made it a bit larger than the area the flowers would take up. Then I painted a bit lighter coat around the edges of the pink paper where the sentiment is and then let these two areas dry. After these were dry I stuck the flowers I had chosen onto the card and also some pretty pale pink self adhesive pearls onto the opposite corner and added a little white 3D butterfly that I inked with some pink ink to match the paper and viola the card was done. I'm really happy at the way it turned out.