2015 Top Projects & News for 2016

Hello, everyone!  2015 has come to a close.  I hope that 2016 is treating you well!  I'd like to take this opportunity to look back at and share some of my favorite projects from this year.  Here, in no particular order, are my top ten. 

 1--"Yeti are Cool!" scrapbook page 

2--mosaic-look Valentine card

3--northwoods "Family Vacation" scrapbook page

4--"geek chic" robot tag

5--"Mississippi River" scrapbook page

6--birthday card with "stained glass" stamped butterflies

7--"Wild!" scrapbook page

8--dragonfly beaded necklace

9--clean & simple summer card

10--"A Cat from the Past" scrapbook page

Seeing that colorful bunch of projects brought a smile to my face.  In many ways, 2015 was a good year.

Unfortunately, I suffered a wrist injury in November of 2015, and it is still giving me trouble.  Due to the injury, my papercrafting productivity is way down.  For now, I am going to take a blog break, in order to give my body more time to heal.  I hope to return to blogging eventually, but I cannot predict when that will be.  I want to wish all my blog buddies a Happy 2016, and I hope to return to posting on my blog and visiting your blogs sometime later this year.  Take care!

Cruciform Dragonfly (OBW365)

I am happy to be participating in the Our Beautiful World link party today.  It has been awhile since I've had the chance to participate there.  The theme for this week is beads.

These are photos of a dragonfly necklace that I made in July.  The dragonfly has a rather cruciform shape, and the overall design of the necklace is reminiscent of a rosary.  I enjoyed using non-religious items to invoke religious imagery.  I also enjoyed finding interesting ways to photograph the necklace.  

If you would like to see more beautiful bead photos from around the world, then I invite you to check out the Our Beautiful World blog.  Have fun!

Frosted Four and a Freebie

Hi!  Sorry that I haven't made it around to check out everyone's blogs lately.  As I mentioned in my last post, I've been very busy with my university class and only finding time to make small things here and there.  Speaking of small things, here is one that I made recently.
 

Supplies: carstock from Neenah Paper; paint from DecoArt; ink from Tsukineko; glue from Elmer's; beads from my stash.

Why would I make a "frosted" paper four?  Because this happened...

Yes, I turned forty.  I can't wait to scrapbook my birthday photos.  I still have the paper four, and I hope to incorporate it into my page design as an embellishment.

My class ends in early May, so things will be back to normal soon on my blog.  In the meantime, I wanted to share this free printable from Shimelle.  It's perfect for birthdays, or for any time really.  You'll find a link to the full-sized printable at the bottom of this post.  Cheers!

CPC Mid-Month Challenge

Hi, everyone!  I'm here to introduce the mid-month challenge over at the scrapbooking blog Child's Play Challenges.  During the month of September, we want to see how the book The Cat in the Hat inspires you!  Here's my design team sample.

Supplies: blue cardstock from Bazzill; white cardstock from American Crafts; patterned paper, spray mist, & alphabet stickers from October Afternoon; ink from Tsukineko; Candi dots from Craftwork; washi from Love My Tapes; rhinestones from Dee's Place; pens from Zig; black gesso & pearlescent paints from Ranger; white paint from DecoArt; stamping ink from Hero Arts; upcycled plastic lid & jumbo bubble wrap; sequins & beads from my stash.

Obviously there are lots of directions you could go with this challenge.  You could create a page about a pet cat.  But I did that for my last CPC reveal, and I wanted to do something different.  You could make a page about a Cat in the Hat themed attraction, which I have done that before too.  What I finally decided to do for this DT sample was limit myself to the same red, blue, black, and white palette of Dr. Seuss's famous book.

As far as subject matter goes, I chose a photo from a local nature center--nothing related to cats at all.  Good thing we're all about creative interpretation at Child's Play!  Speaking of creative, I did a bit of mixed media work on this layout.  I stamped a pattern of circles with black ink and jumbo bubble wrap, I used an old plastic lid to stamp with pearlescent paint, and I scattered an array of sparkly bits and bobs across a black gesso background.

Little did I know, when my husband took this photo of me a couple years ago, that it would one day remind me of a silly pop song.  You just gotta love "What Does the Fox Say," right?

I want to remind you that this Cat in the Hat challenge runs concurrently with our sequins challenge.  Head on over to Child's Play Challenges to enter one or both of these challenges.  Happy scrapping!

Summer of Color--Week 6

The final Summer of Color challenge for 2014 has a palette of raspberry and tangerine, with lemon yellow as an accent color.  A luscious palette, to be sure.  Since it's the final color combination for the summer, I carefully considered how I wanted to use it.

The theme for this year's SOC is "Smudge, Splash, and Pop," which refers to our options for using the accent color in each palette.  So far this summer, I have made DIY patterned paper with watercolor splashes, and I've made some scrapbook pages with pops of color, but I had yet to do any smudging.  So, I decided to do some smudgy bubble wrap stamping with pearlescent yellow paint on my scrapbook page this week.

I also had a personal goal to use some beads in at least one SOC project this summer.  I hadn't done that yet, so this week was the week!  I "encrusted" some areas of my scrapbook page with beads and rhinestones.  It's quite a shiny page.  :)
 

Supplies: patterned paper from Carta Bella; stickers from October Afternoon; ink from ClearSnap; corner punch from Creative Memories; black pen from Foray; pink pen from Zig; ribbons from ReStyle; rhinestones from Dee's Place; assorted beads; paint from Ranger; bubble wrap used as stamp; heart charm upcycled from old jewelry.

 
After all that babbling, I had better show you the page itself.  Here it is (above), and it's another page for my cat album.  The journaling says: "Perched atop a big pile of freshly folded laundry, yet still looking dissatisfied, Maggie reminds me of The Princess and the Pea.

My son has not gotten around to playing with this week's SOC palette yet, but the photo collage above shows what he did with last week's color combo.  He wove a bookmark on his Rainbow Loom!

Thanks for stopping by to see my scrapbook page and my son's bookmark!  I look forward to checking out the blogs of the other SOC participants, to see what everyone has made.

Bottle Cap Beads

It's time once again for "T Day," the day to link up beverage-related posts with Elizabeth on her blog Altered Book Lover.  Today I want to share with you a two-minute video about recycled bottle cap beads, made in Minnesota (my home state) at a place called Trinket Foundry.  This is the first time I have ever embedded a video in a post.  I hope it works!  Here is the link, just in case.  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLLqj7j-e8

I have no hand whatsoever in making these bottle cap beads, though I do like to buy them and use them in my art.  I just thought you might enjoy this video.  Happy T Day!

Sunshine & Blue Skies

Hi!  I'm glad you could join me for my latest "T-Day" post, which I'll be linking up with Elizabeth and Bleubeard for T on Tuesday.  After my last post, in which I shared some of the beaded jewelry that I've made, I felt inspired to get my beads out again and make something new.  Since we had lots of sunny weather last week, I made a necklace that I call "Sunshine and Blue Skies."

Unlike last week, I do not have "soda pop beads" in this necklace.  Instead, this time I have a mix of beads from a variety of sources (too many to list).  The twisty yellow focal beads are Czech glass beads--some of my favorite ever beads.

This necklace opens and closes with a magnetic clasp, which is something new for me.  Adding the clasp to the necklace was a bit of a challenge, because it kept sticking to my pliers as I tried to crimp the crimp beads.  I finally prevailed, though.  I chose the magnetic clasp because the arthritis in my hands is getting a little worse, and it's getting harder for me to open and close regular clasps.  The magnetic clasp is working really well so far: it stays closed when I wear the necklace, yet it opens easily when I pull the two halves apart.

I've been having lots of iced drinks (water, juice, Gatorade, etc.) over the last few days, since the weather has been hot.  But today my glass is serving as a makeshift vase for a sprig of lily of the valley.  This is my favorite flower, and I'm so excited that it's finally blooming again here.  As you can probably tell, I am very happy that warmer days have come to Minnesota at last.  :)

Enjoy your day, and feel free to drop by Elizabeth and Bleubeard's blog if you'd like to see more arsty/beverage-related posts.

Root Beer Float, Anyone?

Today I'm going to take a break from posting about scrapbooking and instead write about one of my other hobbies: beading.
 

When you set foot in an arts and crafts store, do you ever feel like a kid in a candy shop?  At Bead Box of Brainerd, one of my favorite Minnesota bead stores, some of the wares are even displayed like candy!  There are probably about a dozen "flavors" for sale at Bead Box; this photo shows three.

Here is a necklace that I made mostly with the "Blue Raspberry Soda" bead mix.  I have shown this necklace on my blog before, but that was a long time ago, so many of you have not seen it before.  I am going to have to work on my "selfy"-taking skills; I could not figure out how to get both my necklace and my face in the photo, LOL.

Another bead mix "flavor" that Bead Box offers is Root Beer Float.  Since today is Tuesday, the day to share beverage-related posts with Bleubeard and Elizabeth, I thought it would be a good time to show you this bracelet, which is made mostly with "root beer float" beads.

I first got interested in beading at a craft retreat several years ago.  The women there were doing all sorts of crafts.  I was scrapbooking, of course, but I watched the beaders with great interest.  They were speedy, able to create dozens of projects per day.  Impressed, I decided to learn beading too.  When I got back from the retreat, I found an introductory beading class.  I would say that my beading skills are still at a pretty basic level, and I am certainly not as speedy as the beaders I met at the craft retreat, but that's okay, because I prefer simple jewelry anyway.  I don't wear a lot of makeup, and I seldom wear fancy hairstyles, so beaded jewelry gives me a way to add color and sparkle to my look.

What kind of jewelry do you wear?

CPC March Challenge

It's the first Wednesday in March, which means it's time for a new prompt at Child's Play Challenges!  This month, we want to see how you are inspired by pipe cleaners, like those you see in the images above.

Supplies: strawberry paper from Jillibean Soup; journaling tags & striped paper from Crate; upcycled clothing tag; label stickers from October Afternoon; tab sticker & "Sweet" sticker from Echo Park; all other stickers from Bo Bunny; Candi dots from Craftwork; paint from Ranger; pens from Zig; household stapler; pipe cleaner & kitty bead from my stash.

For my DT sample, I decided that soft, fuzzy pipe cleaners were the perfect accent for a page about my soft, fuzzy cat.

I used a pipe cleaner as a photo border.  To dress it up, I strung a Hello Kitty bead onto it, and I attached the pipe cleaner to my photo mat with staples.

I also stapled tiny snippets of pipe cleaner onto the journaling tags.  This makes a unique change from the string or ribbon that one usually sees at the tops of tags.

I am really enjoying being a part of Child's Play Challenges.  The whimsical inspiration images and think-outside-the-box challenges are so fun.  I hope that you'll get a chance to join in the fun and play along with us this month.  You have until March 30 to upload your layouts to the CPC blog.  Happy scrapping!

10 on the 10th: February Amethyst (T-Tues)

Hello, everyone!  I have a long story to tell, so you might want to sit back with a cup of tea.  Today I've got red raspberry herbal tea--a perfect color for the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday.  Wish I could share my French macaron cookies with you--they are yummy!

Today is February tenth, so it's time for me to update you on my "Ten on the Tenth" destashing project.  When choosing a color scheme for this month, I thought of amethyst, which is the birthstone for February.  Since the art world is all abuzz about the Pantone Color of the Year being a shade of purple, I was feeling pretty enthusiastic about making some purple projects.

Inspired by the above image, I assembled supplies various shades of purple, plus a few neutrals.

Above are the ten supplies that I worked with:

1. woodgrain patterned paper from Kaisercraft (full sheet)
2. striped patterned paper from Doodlebug (scrap)
3. purple cardstock from Wausau Paper
4. maroon cardstock from Bazzill
5. embellishment: alphabet banner stickers from Doodlebug
6. embellishment: shamrock doilies from Royal
7. throwaway item: plastic purple netting from candy packaging
8. throwaway item: scrap of yarn from gift packaging
9. nonconsumable: stamp set from Lawn Fawn
10. nonconsumable: heart punch from All Night Media 

Below are the flipsides from the two patterned papers.

Like many people, I struggle to use purple in my artwork, so I thought this would be a good way to challenge myself.  I do like purple, so I'd enjoy seeing it more in my scrapbooks.  However, in retrospect, I think I should not have tried to combine so many different shades of purple at once.  I did manage to create a card, a layout, and a collage, but the process did NOT go smoothly.

I was partway through both the card and layout (pictured above), when I decided that they just were not working.  So I took them apart as best I could and started over.  I hardly ever do this, so it was strange for me.  I just felt like both projects were unbalanced, in terms of both color and scale, and I couldn't figure out a way to rescue them.

I took pieces from my discarded project, added in new alphabet stickers (Echo Park) and a new sheet of background paper (My Mind's Eye), and came up with the layout above, which I like much better.  Can you see bits of the old projects in this new one?

When confronted with a bunch of triangular letter stickers that didn't spell anything useful (except for the letters L-O-V-E, which I saved for my collage), I layered them and created my own "arrow" stamp.

I used this arrow stamp, along with Stickles glitter glue, to stamp on my layout.  

Below are photos of a few more details from the layout.

A scrap of the maroon cardstock and a piece of netting help a small photo to stand out.

I did a couple types of stenciling--I stenciled through the doily with a white pen, and I stenciled through heart punch negatives with Stickles.  I also sprinkled on some seed beads while the hearts were still wet.

I like the triangle stenciling from my original layout, but I think it works better in small doses.

I stamped with the string--again, using Stickles--to help my title stand out.

Okay, moving on now to the card that I created...  I ended up using the flowered side of the paper, with only a little bit of the purple striped paper as an accent.  I also added a happy tulle bow and a couple dots of Stickles.  I have been pretty into Stickles this month...perhaps you noticed?  :)

Here's a closeup of the sentiment block on the card (below).

Finally, it was time for me to take my leftover scraps and make a collage.  Actually, I didn't have many leftover scraps, since I'd had to start over with both my card and my scrapbook page.  However, I did have a lot of doily pieces, so I collaged them onto a big cardboard heart...

I added paint and a few splashes of mist.  I really liked this look, and I must try it again sometime, when I'll be able to leave more of it on display.  As it is, I ended up covering up much of my doily collage, to make the project you see below.

~previously blogged here~

Notice that there is hardly any purple on this heart wall hanging, which I made for my son's room?  I'm back to the bright reds, blues, and greens that I'm more comfortable using.  I plan to go easy on myself for next month's "10 on the 10th" and use the bright, happy colors that I so love...no more purple for awhile!

Still, I am grateful for the learning experiences that working with purple provided me.  I definitely tried new things and went outside my comfort zone, and I got some good ideas for things to try on future projects.

I hope that your adventures in art will go more smoothly than mine.  In the meantime, have a happy Valentine's Day on Friday!  :)