I miss you Tiffany and Marisa!

Well its almost 3 a.m. here in Indiana and I just finished my last layout for the month!  Its going to be rough tomorrow I'm sure but I have a busy week ahead and have no more time...

So this page is for 2 of my nieces tiffany and Marisa.  They came to stay with us for a week last month and it was so nice getting to hang out with them.  They are truly special and unique girls and they both have so much personality.  My sister-in-law warned me that they would fight a lot but you know I don't remember them fighting once!  While we had our little photo shoot they both cracked me up because while they may act like they get on each others nerves sometimes you can really tell that Marisa looks up to Tiffany and Tiffany doesn't seem to take that lightly.  She, at least while she was staying with me, always seemed to encourage her and brag on her too.  Just looking at these photo's makes me smile thinking about them, they were so fun...and it also makes me miss them badly! 

I did this for two challenges.  Creative scrappers sketch 168




OOOps!  Totally forgot that the color room comes with a sketch too???  I will tell you that taking place in the color room is me trying to get out of my comfort zone a little.   I tried 1 challeng there and struggled the entire time with it.  I have long admired all of the amazing work that comes from that site but I get so intimidated with having to use specific colors.  Now this layout came easy but I think its just missing something?  Don't know what right now...but since I don't have time to figure it out its staying how it is! :)

The corner is an ornate corner from dusty attic that I gesso'd and added glossy accents to.

 I used Tim Holtz crackle paint behind the photo and some on the rafia.  I hand made the flowers...and the goofy looking butterfly was another metal piece that I took off an old rusting birdhouse in my yard..I added some stamping, and glitter paints as well as a game spinner to make its body...

Well I'm hoping that all of this makes sense because I am soooooo tired right now!

Thanks for looking! I appreciate it!

Restoration

As you all know the subjects of my layouts lately are usually of my nieces.  I have a huge heart for young girls right now.  There are so many pressures to look and act a certain way and if they don't fit the cookie cutter mold they are thrown to the wayside as outcasts.  This isn't me supporting some of the rebel lifestyles out there either though.  To me that is just breaking out of one box and putting yourself in another one...but I do believe we need to start speaking love and acceptance into their lives...and somehow find away to convince them that they are amazing people with endless possiblities! 

This page is of my niece rylee...you've seen her before in my "wired differently" layout.  She has had a roller coaster of a life from the get go!  My sister had her at a as a teenager....and then ended up in the hospital for a week after Rylee was born because she had a blood clot caused from a botched c-section.  Sadly, this caused my sister and nieces relationship to be strained from the beginning because they didn't get to bond in those beginning days.

 Then my sister moved away and married an evil man (of course, she had no clue) who damaged the lives of Rylee and her 3 younger siblings (the inspiration behind my exposed layout)

 My niece went through a long depression at a super young age because of these series of events in her life and she really started to feel invisible and inadequate.  She decided to change that feeling by making people notice her.  Thats when she became a self proclaimed "emo" kid.  She started dressing more alternatively (which I kind of liked, compared to her I don't care what I look like outfits), but then she started doing things just to shock people...and some of those things weren't smart or safe. 

 With much prayer and love things are finally starting to turn around!  My niece still rebels against anything in regards to God and faith, but its starting to become evident in watching her, that she really knows she is loved!  This was the biggest part of the battle!
 Soooo....that's what this layout is about.  Taking those broken pieces  with love and understanding and bringing restoration into her life.  Once she has the totally healing that she needs, I believe there is no end to what this girl will accomplish!

This layout is for the punky scraps challenge #26 (I've used random pieces of sequins, the Tim Holtz movie strip transparency, paint, orange mist, a paperclip from my work bag (because I rarely carry a purse anymore) and I've left white space on the layout.

Its also for creative scrappers challenge 170..here is the inspiring sketch that I used:

 Forgive her photo here...she is not quite that pale.  My printer is running out of ink and made her look incredibly pale!

 I used gesso, marmalade glimmer mist, did some stamping and to make the bricks I used modeling paste, sand, cardboard.

The pic was really scratched up but my mom said to keep it and consider it symbolic for the roughing up she's went through...since I'm out of ink, I went with it! lol

I'm hoping to have another page done tomorrow inspired by Elins sketch over at creative scrappers...


As always thanks for your awesome support!  Hope you all have a great week! 

punky scraps #25

Good morning!  I decided to take a break from doing layouts with my nieces as the subject and scrap my baby girl. 

While I was taking pics of my nieces, Liberty decided to copy some of the poses and I was able to get a decent shot.  You can't tell in the pic, but irl she was so filthy!  She had red sucker smudges all over her face...she was quite the "skanky doodle".

This was my take on the punky scraps sketch #25 designed by the talented Marie Mison:

I made the background paper with the Daisy Cluster TCW155 template by the crafters workshop and different tattered angels mists and inks I had on hand.  I actually mixed some hot pink and white acrylic paint and watered it down to spray some pink in the background.  I hated it because it looked like I spilled pepto bismol on it...thankfully the pic covers most of it!

 The flowers are inspired by Gabrielle...then I also used some modeling paste with the stencil to add some texture to the background.

 The corner piece is an ornate frame from dusty attic

I finished my layout and realized I didn't have a title or any room for one so I chose to cut out some small journaling at the bottom (since the sketch showed journaling in that area anyway).  Its says "her eyes are the window to a beautiful soul"

 Well, thats it!  Thanks for stopping by, I always appreciate your support!

Thank God It's Friday!

Hello my peeps!  The layout I'm sharing with you today is another one of my niece Brittany.  I snagged the  photo off of her facebook because I fell in love with it!  I can't wait to try some shots like this myself.

It appears to be a really simple layout but I put a lot of work into it!  All of the flowers were cut and sculpted from the multitude of old bottle caps I have that my sister gathered up for me.  Ok...I'm totally lying!  I wish I was that crafty becaue I do have tons of bottle caps!  I actually dismantled a metal bird house that has been rusting outside.  I sanded them then painted, misted, and inked them up!  So there was still a lot of work that went into them and my hands feel a little raw due to the sharp edges on some of the flowers.

Thanks again goes out to craftysprinkles for the flourish chippie that I received as a R.A.K. from her "no challenge" challenge at sb.com

Happy Birthday Erin!

I just wanted to wish my best friend Erin a happy, happy, belated birthday!  I'm so blessed to have her in my life!

  I had so much fun with my last project that I had to do another one.  I originally wanted to make this actually fit in with her decor in her homeschool area but I couldn't seem to do it right! I'm not sure what they are going to be able to do with it because it soooooo is not fitting in with their decorating style even after my second attemp...

Aside from that, I loved doing this canvas!  It was so much fun.  I was inspired by the reds and blues and summery feel of  punkyscraps challenge#24...

I would like to thank Mandy, aka craftysprinkles for the Dusty Attic Flowers that I won in the challenge she hosts over at sb.com.  I remembered seeing mistra's angel wing technique over at dusty attic, and decided to see what would happen with the flowers and I really like how they turned out...very 3 dimensional!

So here are some-not so straight pics- of the birthday present for Erin:

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!!

...I can't take a straight picture.  All this time I just thought maybe my paper was so crinkled from all the distressing and misting that I do...but this project is on a hard back canvas (sure it has an actual name, but hey...I'm new to this artsy stuff) and I still had to crop inside the actual canvas a bit.  This is my first attempt at doing an image transfer onto canvas.  I wasn't going to show this because I now know what not to do...but I think there are a lot of people like me who can learn from my mistakes so I'm showing it anyway!!!

This is my beautiful niece Brittany!    I titled it  "her heart will change the world", because she has such a HUGE heart and is just overall a sweet girl with so much potential to do anything she puts her mind to!

So what I would do different...

First, I would keep the background under the picture lighter so the pic stands out more...plus, the pic needed to be much bigger I think for this canvas...since it distorts the pic a little.

Then, I would be more prepared in the design...I totally did this on a whim like I do most things, but it would look much better with more of a purpose in the background.  Like, more neutral background with splashes of color.

Anyhow, I have another one I'm wanting to make soooon so hopefully I figure it all out!

Thanks for looking!