Friday, February 4, 2011

Create, Play Laugh, Love, Dream Layout

Here is a layout of my daughter and my sister in 1998. We were visiting my sister Mindy  in Seattle and Tysa was playing dress-up. Aunt Mindy is pretending to be her hand maid and fanning the Red Queen. Tysa spent a great deal of her childhood playing dress up, probably about 80% of her childhood was spent as one character or another - almost always a beautiful princess or queen. I think this explains her love of "the process" of getting ready for school dances - which is also playing dress up. I will be sharing a layout of this kind of dress up - hopefully next week.

I apologize for the picture quality, just could not get a good one today. The paper is a Prima Paintable - I love , love these papers, so much fun!! I used Twinkling H2O's for the lettering,, except PLAY with is gold Stickles. the roses are Tattered Angels Candy Apple Red and the Red Mahogany Distress Reinker, water and Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls. The Love is cut form the Lost and Found collection by My Minds Eye. 
I clipped through the Prima Paper so the picture would set behind the flower and leaves, it just did not look right sitting on top of the flowers.  I still feel this layout needs something, I am not super happy with it, but not sure what else to do so I will leave it. 

Thanks for looking..so far I have been keeping  up with my one layout a week, we will see if it continues.....lol.


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday, Spring Canvas and Fleece Socks

I have been itching to do something with fabric and something on these 11 x 14 thin canvas boards I have had FOREVER. I was browsing the Tattered Angels blog and saw a piece that inspired me. So I have spent the last week working on this fabric project. I took a piece of canvas fabric and ripped it into maybe 1 and 2 in wide strips. I sprayed it with Tattered Angels, then decided that was not vibrant enough so I painted the strips with Twinkling H20's -  the colors popped much better.I then used Claudine Hellmuth's Matte medium to glue down the strips for the sky and the grass. I rolled up the strips for the sun, flowers, leaves and stems and used Fabri-Tac to glue them down. I cut a piece of Claudine's stickey back Canvas in neutral and      sprayed it with Spiced Marmalade reinker and water, then used my cropadile to punch out little tiny dots of canvas painted pink with Twinkling H2O's and stuck them to the kite. The kite ribbons are leftovers form the kite and dots. The string is a white fiber from Close to My Heart. I am fairly happy with it, my gluing could have been neater, there are a few spots where you can see the adhesive through the canvas. My biggest dislike is the grass - the color, I wish I had a more vibrant green for the grass but I did not want the grass and the flower stems and leaves to be the same color and that was the best green I have. I used about 4 different green products on the grass trying to get it right, to no avail. Also, I wish I would have used thinner strips of fabric for the grass and the flower petals and finally - I should have added some white puffy clouds...which I still may, or I might make a new version - fixing all my I wish I hads. Let me know if you have any questions about this project, I will be happy to answer them.


I have been coloring with my markers. I have a few Copics,  in basic colors as little as I use them these work just fine for me. I often pair them with my Bic Mark-its, they blend together quite nicely. IF there were more images I liked for Copic coloring, I would do it more. I just am not a cutesy kinda girl..Magnolia's are not for me. The Pure Innocence are Ok and some of the Greeting Farm images are ok, but that is as cute as I get. I do have some monsters and some robots and I love the Daniel Torrente stamps from Stampotique, and I really like these digitals from The Octopode Factory on etsy(which she said she is hoping to have more sets made into rubber this year! She does not have allow for an Angel Policy for her digital stamps and I sell on Etsy so I am holding out for her rubber). I wish there were more rubber or clear stamps along these lines.
I have found some digitals that are ok, but I really really like to ink it up and press it down and hold it in my hand - you know something tangible. I am still searching, so if you know of any funky offbeat stamps that would be good for Copic coloring please let me know. 
Fleece socks are the greatest thing ever. An Iowa winter is cold (7 inches of snow last night -yuck!). These keep my toes wonderfully warm and cozy. 
Thanks for reading my blog and have a great weekend!