It's a Boy, well, make that 2 ~ SOUS ~

Yeah! It's Friday again and time for another weekend .. and time for a new Stuck on U Sketches reveal. We have another great sketch from Pagemaps, so we hope that you can find time to play along with us! 

Truthfully,  I am not too happy with my layout this time around.  I was trying to accomplish way too many things on one page .. and I was very hard-headed about a few things. But the good news is that I finally got these photos scrapped from the day my twin grandsons were born. They are 2 months old now and starting to flourish and laugh at their silly Granny.  Should be the Grandpas they are laughing at IMHO ~wink, wink~

But back to the page ..

I was determined to use:

~ these photos, at this size

~ this paper

~ my Tim Holtz rosette die

~ my Vagabond

~ my Imagine

... and several more things that didn't happen ...

I should have been more flexible!

This is just a close-up of the rosette.  They are so popular right now but this is my first time to make one.  I used my TH die and my new Vagabond to cut. I found the Vagabond on sale at Michael's and couldn't turn it down. ( It will be awesome for cutting and embossing chipboard and canvas.)  Instead of the TH center piece, I substituted an image from my Imagine Nursery Tails cart. I did not do the layers as my circle is only 1.25 inches and I thought this would work just fine as is. I quickly hand cut my streamers. Then decided I needed 2 of these, one for each boy!

My rectangle and scalloped piece were welded using my Gypsy and cut using my Imagine.  I seem to be using it for most of my cutting now. I have it postioned closer to my work table, plus it does such a great job.  Sometimes, however, I have both my I and my E cuttng at the same time.

I cut a few butterflies and dragonflies from the Nursey Tails cart using layers this time, although only the dragonflies made it on the page. I enhanced them with a bit of Stickles and pearls. I wasn't certain how the Stickles would work with the printed paper but the moisture did not seem to make the ink "run."

My journaling was computer-generated and is simply the boy's statistics.  I think the photo with the oh-so-proud-Grandpa's kind of says it all! The boys were named after them, so it made a big deal even bigger!

Just to remind you that I'm human, I'm throwing in this photo of a few of my rejects. I'm keeping them for page 2.  I have lots of photos from that day, so this will be a 2 pager in the end. Thought you'd get a laugh out of this.

And for your convenience, here is a copy of the sketch.

Now, time to announce my blog candy winner! Of all the comments left, only a few people actually followed the rules and said why they wanted to win it.  Another poster suggested this person to win and I couldn't agree more. So ... the winner of "Full of Love" is the wonderful Fern Riley. This is what she said:

Fern  said "What a brilliant idea for a give-a-way!!! I'm always open to learn new and better ways to scrap and to journal.. I would love this book.. And I truly believe it's so important to let our children, no matter how old they are, know how much they are cherished and loved!!! And we all should preserve the past and the present for the future generations!!! Thank you for the chance to win!!!! ... "

Well said, don't you agree?

I hope to post some more projects very soon. March and April have been a whirlwind for our family. I am off work today and hope to be scrapping! Happy weekend, All!

Happily Ever After ~ SOUS 4-15-2011 ~

Hey, hey, hey! It's Friday and time for a new reveal over at Stuck on U Sketches.  I hope you can stand another wedding layout because I wanted to scrap this neat photo of my granddaughter and her new husband during their wedding ceremony pouring vases of sand together symbolizing their union.  I made it awhile back, so hope I can remember the  basic recipe.

Once again I used some of my DCWV stacks .. Immortal Love, Mademoiselle and Bella Amoire.  You know me, I love paper .. so it doesn't matter if it is designer or not .. if it's pretty, I want it! In this case, it will be handy for the multiples I will surely be making! 

I wanted to get some turquoise/teal in there because that was one of their colors, so I used it as a base.  Then I just layered per the sketch. My title, subtitle and label were cut with the Cricut Tie the Knot cart and the A Child's Year cart.  

The most exciting part of the page for me was using this gorgeous dress form from our own Ness Waller. This is one of the A2Z chippies that she sent me as a surprise!  Thank you, sweet Ness.  First, I painted it an ivory color so that it would better match the background music paper and be differentiated from the real bride. Then I added a necklace and some ribbon. I fussed a bit over how to dress my chippie but in the end, kept it simple so that you could actually see the pretty shape of the dress.

Of course, I wanted to use lots of bling to replicate the swirls on the sketch .. and just because I love it! LOL My flower is Pink Paislee - House of Three - Parisian Anthology Flower Darling in charcoal. I had planned a teal Prima floral but fell in love with the way this one softened the page.  My journaling was computer-generated. With my bling and my chippie, I only had room for one journaling block.

In case you haven't downloaded the sketch yet, here it is .. another wonderful sketch from Liz Qualman. 

I think that just about wraps it up this time!  Remember that you have 2 weeks to upload your project to SOUS.  Also, we have announced our blog candy winner .. better go check to see if it is YOU!

Thanks for coming by! For those of you in the USA, hope the tax man was good to you!

Wooden box tutorial ~SOUS~

Hi, everyone! I thought that I would have some fun this week altering a wooden box that I bought at the local craft store. Since I am expecting to be doing some beyond the page projects soon, I thought I'd get a little practice in "altering" before I start those!  Okay, let's have some fun, shall we?!

This is what my box looked like to start. It was just the bare, unfinished wood that needed just a bit of sanding before I did anything.  I plan to use this for storing photos that need to be scrapped soon.

Next I removed as much of the hardware as I could.  The corner pieces were nailed on and gave me some resistence as I tried removing them. In order to refrain from bending those, I just left them in place.  My hardware pieces were smallish, so I used some jewelers screwdrivers to get the job done quickly.

Okay, so this was the fun but messy part! I LOVE making a mess when I work! Paint, ink, glue .. lets me know that I'm working on something good.  LOL! Anyhoo .. I took my box out to the hubby's garage and used some wood stain that he had on hand (MinWax Wood Finish) .. the color is Provincial 211.  Because I wanted my box to be fairly dark, I used 2 coats.

While the box was drying (which it does fairly quickly), I went back to my craft room and choose some paper and embellishments to use.  The sky is the limit here but my paper is from Basic Grey's Curio collection, the flowers and bling are Prima. I used all the same flowers because this project doubled as a design team project for Generations Crafting.  So I cut my paper to fit the box, rounded the corners a bit, then used some Colorbox Chestnut Roan ink on the edges. 

I used some glossy Modge Podge to adhere the paper to the top of the box.  Although my photo shows the "right" side of the paper, the glue went on the underneath side of it. 

Then I let that sit a bit to dry.

Next I used more of the glossy Modge Podge to coat the top of the box .. to add some sheen. I'm sure you're laughing at my well-used and well-loved brush but it is a fave of mine that I just can't toss.

This photo shows how the Modge Podge still has a creay white look to it before it actually dries to a nice gloss.

Time to decorate! Since I already had the glue out, I used it to adhere the crochet doily from my stash. I have bought a ton of these from JoAnn's Fabrics because they add such nice texture to a project.  Not all craft stores have these, so I thought I would add where I purchased them.  I ran all over town looking!

Next I experimented with some skeleton leaves from my stash .. I believe these are Recollections brand. I decided the beige one looked the best, so chose that one.

Before adding my flowers (Prima Floret, Camille) I used some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Iridescent Gold and Sunkissed Peach.  That gave the roses a nice glimmer .. but I wanted more, so I coated them with glossy accents and then dipped them in Diamond Dust.

Here is a close-up of the flower being dipped in the Diamond Dust .. do be careful though, especially with children around, because DD is made from finely ground glass.  I also have this in Gold and Silver for use at the holidays.

Here's my flower afterward! Sorry the focus is not better.

Before adding the flowers and other embllies, I added my Prima Say it in Pearls, brown, in 2 corners. Then everthing else was adhered with Aleene's  Tacky Glue.  Just let your imagination be your guide in adding on whatever looks good to you.

Here is a view of the box once the hardware was added back on.  I am thrilled with it! I have ordered some Tim Holtz metal feet to add to bottom of the box and let it stand up a bit from my desk .. think that will really look awesome!

I hope I have inspired you to do a little something "off the page" and I can't wait to see what ideas are spinning around in your head!  

Dream ... BoBunny Gabrielle ~ Generations Crafting DT ~

Just another quick project for Floren at Generations Crafting using up some scraps of my BoBunny Gabrielle papers (named after the lovely Gabrielle Pollacco.) The good news is that I got more of these same papers in the mail with my Swirlydoos kit .. so you'll be seeing more! I love the beige, peach and teals in this collection .. they are so me! 

I was actually feeling under the weather the day I created this page but I was sooooo determined to have some crafting fun. So, I did a bit of punch work, fussy cutting and distressing, then added my embellies .. after spending a bit of time doing some photo editing to my photo to make it more "dreamy." 

Lastly, I added one of the BoBunny Gabrielle trinkets, some Webster's Pages bloomers in peach and a Prima pearl flourish from my stash. The title was made from fabric Thickers that came in my SD kit.

This project was done to highlight the wonderful Prima florals that Floren has in the store. These are from the  Whisper collection, specifically the  Reflections pack .. lots of yummy colors! I like that they are soft and not too bulky for your albums.  Be sure to hurry over to see what floral specials Floren has in the store this week!

Thanks for coming by today. Hope you'll be back tomorrow for my SOUS tutorial! Yep, it's my week!

Junior Bride

This was a quick page that I did over the weekend using some of my new blog candy goodies .. Prima and Zva Creative.  I wanted to let Beatriz and Jane know that their gifts were so appreciated.

The photo is of little Marianne at Maddison's wedding.  She did manage to fulfill her duty to walk down the aisle with her brother,  the junior groom.  It was nip and tuck ... but they made it!

My craft table is piled high with projects .. hope to share more soon! Thanks for coming by!

I Love you ~ SOUS 4-01-2011

It's April already? How did that happen? Seems that this year is flying .... but as you know, we as a family have been really busy with lots of wonderful happenings! One of which was the recent wedding of dgd Maddison and it was absolutely enchanting.  An outdoor wedding, warm, sunny day, a gorgeous bride, handsome groom and God's love spilling over. 

So, for my first Stuck on U Sketches reveal of  April, I decided to do a wedding layout .. haven't gotten to do one of those in a while! This photo is not the best .. we don't have the photographer's photos yet. But I was able to get this one from my dear cousin Marilyn.  It was taken while the couple listened to the groom's aunt and uncle sing a glorious love song in Portuguese.

I've done this sketch before .. at least a very similar one that Beggahuna did for the Swirlydoos kit club.  Here it is:

My papers are a mix of DCWV Mademoiselle, Bella Armoire and Immortal Love.  I followed the sketch fairly closely and didn't really use any new techniques. I did use my new Martha Stewart deep-edged scroll heart punch ... I absolutely adore it, so I'm sure you'll be seeing me use it frequently! I saw it, didn't buy it, regretted that decision, went back the next day and snagged it with my M's coupon! So, the moral here is: if you see it and like (and it's in your budget,)  buy it! Not that I would "enable" you! LOL

The only Cricut cut was the circle (GBS circles welded to make it thin) and the rectangle (PSB.)  

My vine is the new Prima flowered tendrils in Grape. I added a bit of Icicle Stickles to make them glimmer.  Some older Prima Pixie's were mixed in to fill it out. There is a Prima Say it in Crystals along the bottom that came with the ribbon, as well as a corner  bling from my stash. Behind the vine is another rhinestone scroll that I believe is by Zva Creative .. can't remember! The butterflies are from my stash.

My journaling is computer generated and is a quote that says "I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you."  The date at the bottom is built with Making Memories tiny alphas in black. 

I think that about wraps it up for me! I hope you will visit all the SOUS designers to see what they did with this sketch! Remember,  you have 2 weeks to upload your project. Plus though who uploaded to the last challenge and upload to this one as well, have a chance to win that awesome blog candy donated by Generations Crafting that we showed you last challenge.

If you didn't see the post below and want to see how I have my room organized, scroll on down! Nothing fancy .. just what works for me!