Unofficial Beach Bum

This is one of the scrapbook pages I made for the National Scrapbooking Day "Pick and Create Challenge" on the Paper Wishes Message Board - and it WON!  (Thank you, Paper Wishes!)

For this challenge I chose: Stream, Swimmer, Otter, Swim - which meant I needed to use/do:

• striped patterned paper (used it to mat my photo)
• lake/pool/beach - background & largest embellishment
• Dazzles - a couple of my "shell" embellishments & my sea horse
• Paper tearing - for my "ocean"

Products used were mostly PW:

• PAPER - the paper used for the "ocean" & the striped paper mat for the photo were from an older HOTP "Finished in a Flash" kit called AT THE BEACH. The background paper is their "Sandstone" paper sold as single sheets (which was also used for the journaling piece).
• OCEAN - I tore various strips of the blue paper to create the look of waves, layering them as you see.
• TITLE - The title came from one of the old HOTP books of punch-out embellishments and/or borders. The starfish at the top left corner was cut from a punch-out border (not sure if it was the same book or a different one). I took a brown pen & outlined the edges of it so it stood out better and blended in better with the Dazzle pieces I describe a little later.
• JOURNALING - I printed my journaling on another piece of the Sandstone paper, tore around it, and then inked the edges.
• SAND CASTLE was made using the pattern in the HOTP Paper Piecing 201 book. I didn't actually make it myself - it came in a Paper Wishes Message Board embellishment exchange with IslandGirl way back in August of 2010!
• DAZZLES - I had to really scrounge to find some Dazzles that would work for this layout. They make some wonderful ones that I don't have, but I finally remembered the sheet of "Tropical Christmas" Dazzles. I cut the holly off a couple of shells & colored the gold with brown StazOn ink. It wasn't as dark as I wanted so I added a darker brown marker & heat embossed it with clear embossing powder to make sure it didn't smear. Then I backed one with blue & one with pink. I also added the small seahorse from that set - but left it gold.
• OTHER - I did add 3 little pieces that are not from PW - layered shell stickers I got from the Dollar Store.

Color Burst Mother's Day

I'd been wanting to play with my Color Burst again.  I used one color - Merlot - though it looks like several when you add water!  I tried sprinkling the Color Burst & some Perfect Pearls on heavy watercolor paper, then spritzing with water and a sheer shimmer sparkle spray.  That turned out pretty, but darker than I had been thinking I wanted & the Perfect Pearls didn't blend in as well as I had hoped. 

A bunch of colored water had run off the first project onto my craft sheet, so I took more watercolor paper and laid it on top to pick up color.  I kept diluting the remaining colored water with shimmer spray & laying papers on top, getting progressively lighter shades. 

Finally, I tried pouncing the color from the craft mat onto the watercolor paper with a make-up sponge.  That gave a much softer look - especially since it was also the most dilute.

After all were dry I stamped & heat embossed several images with fine white powder.  I used stamps from two HOTP stamp sets - Lacy Things and Tags & Trims.  To get the look of lace running beneath the roses, I first heat embossed the roses.  Then stamped the lace & added powder.  With a small brush, I removed any powder that was on top of the original heat embossed area before heat embossing again.

The card at the top of this post was made from the very first watercolor paper I had prepared, and the inside paper is the next one.  The tag & extra rose on the front are from some paper somewhere in the middle of my process and you can see it's a bit lighter.  Here's the inside:

I made another card from the lightest one's created.  You can see how different it looks.  Even though the same materials were used to color it, they were much more dilute, so the color is much more pastel.

I added a touch of darker pink with an alcohol ink pen.  Here's the inside of this one:

I hadn't intended to add the panel on the left side, but when I decided to outline the front in the darker pink, it bled through - this was my solution.

Got Cake?

For National Scrapbooking Day, on the Paper Wishes Message Board, they posted a "Tic Tac Toe" Challenge - with extra credit if you did all the ones to make 3 tic tac toes forming a "Z" on the board.

I decided to go for the "Z" challenge, requiring:

• 3+ Patterned Papers - I used 5 - all older HOTP
• Mono-Chromatic - Blues
• Buttons or Brads - Two curly brads from HOTP
• Doily or Foiled Fancies - Doily from my stash
• 2 Photos - Yep!
• Tags or Journal Boxes - I have both
• Birthday Theme - Yep!
• Die Cuts - tags - one from Hunkydory, one cut with my own Paper Artist Die
• Stamp on your page - word "Amy" stamped & embossed with fine white powder (stamp made with Teresa Collins Stamp Maker)
• Doodle or Color on your page - Corner doodles for small picture, stitching lines for mat for small picture & journaling box, dots around focal picture
• Additional: Dazzles Title "Got Cake?"

This was actually part of a two-page spread:

 And here's a closer look at the 2nd page:

Betsy Ross

Paper Wishes Message Board held several challenges for National Scrapbooking Day.  I did two of their "Pick and Create Challenges".  This is my 2nd one - I'll post the 1st one in a few days. I must admit that this page looks much better in real life because the picture doesn't show the glimmer & shine that's there.

Anyway, for my pick #2 I chose: Lake, Sailor, Fish, Picnic - which meant I needed to do/use:

• Specialty Paper - I used red foil card stock from "50 Shades of Mirri - Festive" from PW, and dark blue glimmer paper from "Masculine SaraPapers".  These were used to mat my focal photo - both the smaller mats & the larger angled ones.
• Military or Patriotic - Background paper is HOTP "Patriotic Blue Border" which has the red white & blue border - theme also carried out in the basic color scheme & paper pieced butterfly
• Sequins or Rhinestones - stars on the butterfly are sequins from my stash
• Paper Piecing - Paper-pieced butterfly made using my Silhouette - I used white gel pen to outline it & on the antennae, so that they could be seen against the dark background.
• Other - "BETSY ROSS" title was made with alphabet stickers from my stash, journaling was hand-written on white paper used to mat the focal photo & on little "tag" on the black & white photo.

Diamond Top Kitty

This card was created for a challenge on the Paper Wishes Message Board - here. Instructions were given in the 2nd post for creating a card with a diamond topper.  

I made mine half an inch shorter (because of the dimension of the pot I had already made), so my instructions below reflect that:

• Start with card stock 5" x  9"
• Score in half lengthwise (2 1/2").
• Score the other way across one end at 2 1/2"
• Turn your card stark over so you can mark on the back.  Mark it at 3 1/4" at the center fold and 4 1/4" at each side (so marks on sides will be 1 3/4" beyond the 2 1/2" score line)
• Still working from the back, score lines between these 3 marked points.
• Still looking at the back of the card stock, we'll fold the 1st 2 folds as valley folds (mountain folds from the right side), and then carefully pinch the other two as mountain folds (valley folds from the right side).
• Crease all folds well with a bone folder.
• Decorate it!

I decided to make my card look like a kitten was popping out of a pot.  The pot was die cut using a Spellbinders die (Flower Pots) and shaded with chalks.  The cat was created using Stampendous Pop-up Kitties stamps & dies - colored with chalks, fine-line Sharpie, & a little Smooch Ink (see more details in a previous post - here).  The "grass" was hand cut from green glimmer paper, and the butterflies (here and on the inside) were purchased at a dollar store.  I cut away a little of the diamond so it wasn't sticking out below the cat's head.  The sentiment is Dazzles.

For the inside, I inked around the edges with a mix of Dried Marigold & Aged Mahogany Distress Inks so it would blend with the outside of the card.  With the little "roof" that pops out when you open the card, I decided I wanted to create a banner below it.  For that I took a strip of the same card stock that was used for the pot, folded it in the center and 1/2" over at each end, and attached it to the card as shown below - so it pops out when the card is opened.  This leaves me with plenty of room for my message.