Splish Splash

Well kids, summer is officially here!

And if it has not yet arrived where you are, let me be the first to tell you that Summer has definitely found us here in North Texas. 

According to Yahoo Weather it is 100*F here today, with predictions for 100*, 101*, 101*, 99* and 100* for the next week.

Did I mention the imminent threat of rolling blackouts because there isn't enough electricity in the city to keep up with all the AC power going out?

How ever is a girl to keep herself from melting?

The pool, of course!

 Supplies: PP:DCWV, Cardstock: DCWV, Corner Punch: EK Success, Cricut Cartridge: H2O, Glossy Accents: Ranger, Other: Stickles

This is one of those Cricut Cartridges that I never expected that I would buy.  

But I stumbled upon it for a super-good price, so I thought why not??

The first day I had it in my hands, I was found these photos in the drawer and decided that it was Fate!

This is one of those layouts that I don't think needs a lot of journaling, since there are several similar ones in each year's album, so these cute little people were a perfect space filler.

A cute title (also cut from the cartridge) with some Baby Blue Stickles and some Glossy Accents to make it look wet and I was done!

Love it when pages come out this easy!

Hope your summer is going well.  

Our has been busy already with work, visits from the family & so much fun stuff to do.

I'll be adding more pictures soon!

School's Out For Summer

Hello Bloggers!

It's another ScrapFit Challenge Day!!

Today's challenge is called "School's Out For Summer".  

The challenge is to scrap school-related photos and use some lined paper.

(Click the link above to see the official challenge)

Ok, so ya'll know that I don't have kids, much less school-age kids. 

But I did quit my job last summer to go back to school, so that's what I scrapped.

Supplies: PP: DCWV High School Stack, Ruled Paper Stamp: Plaid, Letter & Number Stamps: Inkadinkadoo, Bling: Unknown, Red & Green Pens Zig, Other: Glimmer Gel Pen, Diamond Glaze: CTMH

This is one of my first layouts for my 2010 album. 

Yikes!

Time to start working on that one!  

All, in all very fun.  

The background paper is from DCWV's High School Stack.  

Everything was already printed on the paper, so all I did was jazz it up.

I added a glimmer gel pen & some red bling to the swirly bits down the side.

Then traced over "laugh" and "Girls Rock" with green pen and over the butterfly & swirl with red to make them stand out a little.

I added some Diamond Glaze over the heart after doodling my & Steve's initials in it.

(Very high-school for someone in her 30's!)

I stamped & cut out the letters for my title, adding pop dots under the word "school" to make it stand out.

Finally, I stamped the ruled paper for my journaling block and added my thoughts (and a little more bling!).

The whole layout took less than an hour, including drying time!

I LOVE it when they go quick and still come out the way I wanted them to!

Make sure you check out the ScrapFit site (linked above) and share your project for a chance to win some great prizes!

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Perspectives by Ali Edwards

*Yawn* grumble, grumble grumble *Yawn*

Good Morning.

Ya know, mostly.

Does anyone else think that Monday mornings should just be canceled for the rest of the summer?

Especially on the Monday after the 

MAVS WIN THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!

(A little woot woot for Dallas in there!)

Anyway... I dragged my oh-so-tired self out of bed to share my third and most favorite GASC class with you.

My last class on Saturday was Perspectives by Ali Edwards.

I personally love Ali Edwards.

Ok, so maybe not her personaly, cuz I've never  met her or anything, but I love her style & her approach to scrapping. 

The class was taught by Teri from Technique Tuesday.

Poor Teri.  

Our class was not the most responsive group.

I think everyone had just had lunch & was in  partial food coma.

But she really was excellent and super super nice.

The layouts that we did in class were very simple and totally created from PP, Cardstock & stamps.

The simplicity of them is fabulous and they are the only class project that I actually finished IN class.

The thing I love the most, though is the concept.

The 4 pages are:

I Am                             You Are

I Love                                     You Love

Here are a few closer ups

The titles are stamped on, so they could have been whatever we wanted.

We came away from class with 4 finished pages, the sketches that go with them, a small stamp set, lots of journaling cards and enough left over paper to make 2-3 more layouts.

The concept is to make a simple page using your stamps & the journaling blocks that come with the paper pack to document you & someone you love RIGHT NOW.  

I love the idea.

I also love that I ended up with a project that I can USE.  

The pages are kid-friendly, but not so cute-sy that I can't use them.

I've decided that these are a perfect addition to my on-going Project Life.

At the Technique Tuesday booth, I picked up 2 more matching paper packs 

and a coordinating set of stamps

I'm going to do a page each for Steve & I from these.

Since I'm the one making the pages, they will be from my Perspective (pun intended) with all of the "I" pages being about me, and all of the "You" pages being about him.

Not being a scrapper, he was unenthusiastic when I told him that he was part of this, but I think the idea that I might claim that he loves things like Bridezillas made him a little nervous, so he agreed to participate.  

(Kidding, he agreed to participate without me having to resort to blackmail.)

I plan to print lots to wallet size photos to illustrate the layouts with.

I'll make sure to upload pix when I get them done!

So, what are your current scrappy projects??

Oh, So, Beautiful

Hello Bloggers!

It's a lovely, if overly warm, day here in Texas.

I wanted to share another GASC project.

This one is from Clear Scraps.

I had never done anything with acrylic before this class and LOVED it.

 Susan, owner of Clear Scraps actually taught the class, which I thought was super cool. 

This blurry streak is her husband, who was manning the booth while she was teaching.

He darted in & out of the classroom to get something.

They're awfully cute together.

Susan started class by explaining the difference between Cast Acrylic & Extruded Acrylic. 

(No, I'm not going to try to explain it.  

It was 8am on a Saturday and I can't be held responsible for the Swiss-cheese holes in my brain at that time of day.)

The parts I remember is that Extruded Acrylic can be punched, dry embossed, etc., while Cast is stronger & super clear.

Our class kits came with all the goodies for each page packed into an individual bag.

LOVE that!

I learned how to use Alcohol Inks with the Acrylic pages.

Very cool, because I had just bought some Alcohol Inks, but had never used them.

We inked around the edges of the acrylic pages with it.

And I inked the whole back page with it, cuz I've just gotta be a little bit of a rebel.

We then added pearls to the edges of the pages using Pearl Pens.

We only used the Opal colored ones on the project, but seriously, coolest stuff ever.

We had to get those pages done first, so they could dry while we put together the chipboard pages.

I set mine on the floor next to my chair so I didn't smoosh my pearls.

Chipboard pages in progress!

I didn't get the whole project done, but I attribute most of that to the gab fest I had going on with the other girls at my table.

Besides, it was a good excuse to do some more scrapping when I got home!

Here's the finished project!

 Supplies: to the best of my knowledge all supplies are from Clear Scraps & Basic Grey

See the pearls?  Isn't that cool?

 I thought this was another cool technique.

We tore chunks of the paper lace that we were using on the album and added it to the tops of large flowers.

I love how easy it was to create coordinating flower layers without adding bulk.

Genius idea!

All in all, I was very happy with this class.

I learned a ton and love the finished project.

A big Thanks to Susan for such a great class!!

Prima Possabilities

Good morning!

As promised, I wanted to show you the projects that I made in my GASC classes this weekend.

The first class I took was "Prima Possibilities"

Of the 3 I took, this was my least favorite.

Not to say that it was bad, but it definitely wasn't my favorite.

Rebecca was really very very nice, but the whole thing seemed very disorganized, especially coming from a big company like Prima.

The supply lists for the Prima classes got switched, so no one in my class brought the paint brush that we were supposed to have.

She did have some donated from the other class, but there were a lot of people waiting around for a turn with a paint brush.

There was also an issue with the book pages that they were supposed to supply with our class kit. 

Evidently they didn't bring enough books to tear up.

Someone was supposed to be out buying more books & paint brushes for us to use in class, but they never did show up.

I got lucky enough to receive mine, being that I was sitting up in the front of the room, but there were several people in the back that were told to go home & print out their own.

There were also issues with the written instructions that we received.

Many people were missing a whole page and/or chunks of the text didn't print.

The missing pages did get handed out, but they were cheap b&w photo copies of a colored print out, so they were a little hard to see.

And there was no earthly way that we could get even a portion of this project done in class.  

I got 2 pages done.  

Just 2.

The rest had to be finished at home on my own.

So that all kind of turned me off.

I also didn't feel like there was a ton of actual instruction. 

The first technique with the Gesso & Glimmer Mist was a nifty one (I'll explain it further down) , but I felt like it's the only thing I really learned the whole class.  

The rest was just "put this embellishment here just like it shows in your instructions".

So, all in all, not the greatest class and not one I think I would repeat.

That being said, the amount of product that we went home with was well worth the price of the class.

This is the class kit

As you can see-- tons of pretty-ness!

We took the raw chipboard book & painted the front cover, back cover & punched sides with Gesso. 

Once the Gesso was dry, we spritzed all the painted surfaces with Glimmer Mist (Black Cherry, in case you were wondering) and blended them together with the still-damp Gesso brush.

LOVE the mottled effect.

Once those were dry,  we covered the naked chipboard with paper, distressed the edges with brown ink  & decorated!

Here's the finished album

(Well, I say finished, because all of the pages are finished.  The binding is not done yet)

 Front Cover

 Inside Front Cover

This was supposed to have had the Gesso/Glimmer Mist treatment, but by the time I realized my mistake, I had already passed my paintbrush on to someone else and didn't feel that it was worth waiting to get another one.  I just used a leftover piece of PP on it instead.

 Inside Rear Cover

Rear Cover

We were given length of lace to bind the book with, but given how fat the finished project ended up, it's not enough.
I'll have to hunt through my stash to find something else that will work.

Almost all of the supplies used were provided in class.

The only ones that I used from home were just a few large colored flowers.

The only large flowers that were in our kit were white.

Presumably, we were supposed to color them with the Glimmer Mist, but there wasn't time in class.

I did this with a few of the large white flowers, but I already had some large Primas in the right colors, so I subed in a few of those.

While I wasn't entirely thrilled with the actual class, I did get a beautiful project and lots of left-over goodies out of it, so I'm pretty well pleased with it.

Check back tomorrow for another GASC class project!