Meet Stacy

A new year, a new month and of course a new Guest Designer! Avina brought December some wonderful layouts and it was such a delight having her with us...and now it's time for her to gracefully exit stage left as we welcome January 2010's Guest Designer, Stacy Stone!! Stacy has been around lurking in the wings of the blog for a long time. She's one of the few people on my friends list on FB who I've never actually met. I bet she'd be about as fun in person as she is online though.



Q-Tell us a bit about you & your family

A-I am married to my BFF Randy going on 12 years we have 3 beautiful kids 2 boys and a girl we live in Central Alberta i am a mostly stay at home mom i work casual at the local hospital as a lab assistant

Q-Why do you scrapbook?

A-when i was growing up i always asked alot of questions about when i was born and when i was little all the things you could think of i asked my mom never knew the answers she did not keep track i wanted those questions answered for my children besides the fact that i am a creative person and need an outlet

Q-What is on your playlist right now?

A-love various kinds of music country, classical even the young stuff love miley cyrus taylor swift those girls are so cute and talented

Q-Where fuels your creative mojo?

A- good pictures!! i have a photographer for a sister so she helps! I also recently purchased a canon rebel also helps

Q-What projects are on your scrap table today?

A-9 calendars for christmas presents 3 all about me books for my kids for christmas

Q-Which products are currently getting the most action in your layouts?

A-love october afternoon, amy butler paper or material love some independants like evalicious!

Q-Tell us about one of your personality quirks (weird habits/rituals)

A-i like to talk alot not much for adult conversation in my house when i am around others adults i talk alot!!!

Q-When you finish working on a layout, do you tidy up or walk away and leave the mess?

A-most of the time i walk away incase i am not finished

Q-Have you ever had a scrapbooking disaster? (spilled paint, burnt w/ heat gun?) and if so, were you able to rescue the destroyed layout?

A-yes i had a candle burning and did not notice my big plastic container to hold finished layouts was above quit messy noticed it before any real damage was done

Q-If time stood still for just one day, what would you do with the time?

A-breathe spend time with my kids and hopefully its a good moment where everyone is getting along lol

Q- Please share three of your favorite layouts.

Meet Eva

In the craziness of December I completely forgot to post Eva's introduction post!! Ack! What a faux-pas! Here's the lovely Eva::


Q-Tell us a bit about you & your family

A- Hi! My name is Eva, I’m 28 and I’ve been married for 3 years now, I live in Italy but my family lives in Chile. I try to go there at least 2 times a year because its really hard for me to stay away from them. My husband is the best and he always make me feel loved and tries to make up for the long distance that separates me from my family! I consider myself a very happy person. I love to read, cook, spend time with family and friends, go to the beach and take long walks.

Q-Why do you scrapbook?

A- I scrapbook because I want to keep my memories alive and because for me it’s a way to express my emotions and find answers to my problems. Through journaling I often give vent to my feelings and I’m able to express gratitude and love for the people in my life.

Q-What is on your playlist right now?

A- Right now on my Ipod there’s a mix of Ne-yo, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift and Bryan Adams… a bit of everything!

Q-Where fuels your creative mojo?

A- I surf the web A LOT! I also look at fashion magazines and search for color combos and sketches.

Q-What projects are on your scrap table today?

A- I’m currently working on a mini album of a trip to Tuscany my husband, my sister and I did in June. I’m also working on Christmas cards, gifts, tags and decorations! I’m really really late this year!

Q-Which products are currently getting the most action in your layouts?

A- Right know I’m a Ki memories fan. I love their bright colors and their designs. I also love thickers and my sewing machine.

Q-Tell us about one of your personality quirks (weird habits/rituals)

A- Sometimes when I’m walking I try not to step the lines in the sidewalk…

Q-When you finish working on a layout, do you tidy up or walk away and leave the mess?

A- Unfortunately I don’t have a scraproom, in Italy apartments are really small and I have to use my living room table to scrap. I have all my things in an Ikea shelf and every time I want to do something I have to put everything on the table and then tidy up everything. I’m kind of constrained to tidy up, but if I could I would leave a everything on the table and tidy up once a week!

Q-Have you ever had a scrapbooking disaster? (spilled paint, burnt w/ heat gun?) and if so, were you able to rescue the destroyed layout?

A- Luckily I’ve never had a “big disaster”, I tried once to use a clear stamp with acrylics…. It didn’t work an the result was a very ugly and partial stamp. I had to repeat the stamp and the result was a mass of white acrylic with no shape… I left it that way… it doesn’t matter to me because when I see the LO I immediately look at the photo and remember the moment and that’s all that counts to me!

Q-If time stood still for just one day, what would you do with the time?

A- I would wake up at around 9 and I would do breakfast in the couch with a blanket while I watch cartoons (Early in the morning I don’t want to think so much so cartoons are perfect!) Then I would tidy up just a little bit so I don’t feel bad all day. If it’s sunny outside I would take a walk or ride my bike for about 40 minutes otherwise I would stay at home and I would search the web for scrapbooking and crafts sites. I would eat something fast and then I would use my time to do a LO, some cards, a sewing project or something sweet like a cake or cookies.

Q- Please share three of your favorite layouts.

A- These are my favourite LO’s.

This is one of my firsts LO’s. The picture was taken 3 days before our marriage in our favourite beach and every time I look at the LO I remember that important step in my life.

This one is the “disastrous” one… The stamp on the bottom right corner is all messy and it doesn’t look very good, but it’s fine to me! I also like the color combo in this LO.


I just have so much fun with this LO! I embossed every heart and all the yellow cardstock.

Tuesday Tutorials

Hello :)

Ever since I've discovered mists and all the things you can do with them I've been hooked. The possibilities are endless and simple to achieve.



There are a few different brands out there. These are the ones I have. Tattered Angels, Maya Mists and my homemade Perfect Pearls Mist that I will give you the recipe for at the end of the tutorial.

One of my favourite things to do is to use negative pieces of chipboard as masks, so don't throw out your chipboard negatives!

Here is an example I did using the negative circle chipboard and the Tattered Angels mist (brick).

Here's a layout using this technique...
After spraying the Tattered Angels mist (brick), instead of just letting the mist dry on the chipboard I flipped it over and kind of stamped the extra ink on to paper. I love the distressed look of it and it would look great on a tag.

To use the negative chipboard that has multiple shapes when you only want to use one shape, mask off the ones you don't want with scrap paper.

Here I'm going to use a few colours for more texture. I also like to use scrap paper or my notebook to spray on. I lay my tag or whatever I'm spraying on top and put it all into a cardboard box to protect my work area.

I started by spraying the entire tag with Maya Mist (gold metallic) before I laid the chipboard piece onto it.

I then sprayed the Tattered Angels mist (brick) over most of the tag adding some Maya Mist (silver metallic) and a touch of Adirondack colour wash (Espresso). Just play with your colours and see what you get.

You can also use the mists to cover your chipboard with a quick spray. They dry quickly and it's a fast easy way to cover raw chipboard for your layouts.

This is why I use scrap paper or notebook paper behind my projects. You can use this as a background on a layout.

I also love to use the mists to add a touch of colour to layouts, just spray directly to the background using your eye to imagine where it would look good. My layout for this Friday will show another example of this.

Here's the recipe for your homemade mist...

You need:

Spray bottle (mini misters, or you can purchase small spray bottles at Michael's at the same price but 3xs the size, that's what I use)

perfect pearls

distress die re-inker

water

Using a Popsicle stick, add a scoop or two of perfect pearls to your bottle, if you are using a bottle larger than the mini misters you will have to add more. Add a full test tube of re-inker to your bottle. As before, if your bottle is larger than the mini misters you will need more ink. Fill the bottle almost full with water and shake the bottle to mix. You can add more of the perfect pearls or ink after you have mixed it if you think your mister needs more glimmer or more colour. Just shake the bottle to mix again.

Have fun playing :)

Challenge 156

Merry Christmas!! I hope Santa has been good to you all. :)

We have another sketch for you and the Design Team has rocked it out once again. All the information to play along is here. If you would like to lift a layout by our Guest Designer, Avina, that is here.

Tania
Vanessa
Gudrun
Eva

Carol

Elly

Avina

Tuesday Tutorials

Hi everyone!
I don’t know where you live, but here in Italy scrapbooking products are really expensive… Shipping costs from the USA are even worse so I try to find ways to make my own embellishments, tools and also stamps! Today I’m going to show you two ways you can make your own stamps spending just a few dollars.

The first stamp is like a foam stamp, to do it you will need:


Craft foam by the sheet (you could also use the foam that comes with some mouse pads)
Design, you can draw your own design or print one. Choose a design with no so many details otherwise it will be difficult to cut. If the design isn’t symmetric you will have to reflect the image before you print it.
Pencil
Scissors
Wood or polystyrene
Adhesive
1) With a pencil, redraw your design and place the paper with the design side down on your foam



2) rub the pencil marks with your finger to transfer the design



3) Cut the design with scissors or a craft knife.




4) Adhere the stamp on the piece of wood, polystyrene or acetate.




5) Stamp!


When I started scrapbooking I made two complete alphabets with this technique!
For the other type of stamp you will need:
Carving Block (I search the internet and I saw one called Speedball in pink)
Carving tools
Design (your own or printed, make sure to reflect the image before you print it if needed.)
Pencil
Scissors or craft knife
Wood or polystyrene
Adhesive

1) With a pencil, redraw your design and place the paper with the design side down on your carving block



2) Rub the pencil marks with your finger to transfer the design




3) Carve around the lines of your design, start with the smaller ones to get into
small areas or for adding details.




4) Use the bigger ones to carve larger areas.



5) Cut the stamp leaving half and inch all around the design.
6) Adhere to the wood or polystyrene with double side tape or another type of adhesive.




7) ink up the stamp and do a trial test. If you’re not satisfied with the results continue carving



I hope you like this two techniques! I would love to see your own stamps! Leave a comment with the link if you make some!
Merry Christmas to all!
Eva

Challenge 155

This week we are challenging you to

scrap a page without a photo!

I had these tickets laying around from a fun night with my girls but no photos. I still wanted to save the memory. There are lots of memories without photos that I want to save and have always left them unscrapped because I had no photos, but I don't have to... and neither do you. Lets see what you have!

All the info to join our challenges is here.

If you are looking to lift Avina's layouts go here.

Tania

Vanessa
Gudrun Carol

Eva

Elly

Avina