Mid-Point

I'm in the middle of trying to get a mixed-media piece out of my head and onto canvas. That's part of the reason I've been rather....absent. Anyhow, I'm really happy with the way it's turning out, so I thought I'd share a mid-point photo, I'm a bit further along than this now.

Anyone want to take a stab at where I'm going with this? My hubby saw it at just the background stage and his guess was "sun". I guess it does look a bit sunny.

Happy Tuesday.

A More Normal State of Affairs

Happy Saturday!

A while back, I posted pictures of my scrapbook room, here's one, taken from the doorway:
See how nice and clean my room was? Well, I thought I'd show you a more normal state of affairs. This is my room, in the middle of a major mixed-media art piece:
Quite the transformation, isn't it. :)

Finding Balance...and the Need to Simplify

I have been doing a bit of soul searching and relishing a bit of downtime over the last two weeks. Many thanks to those of you who are still checking the blog, I appreciate your patience. You'll be happy to know that I am planning to start posting again this week. I have an alcohol ink technique or two up my sleeves to share.

However, I have established that I need to simplify my life a bit and strike a balance between the work I do for money (engineering), the work I do for the love of it (mixed media), and my "other" life (marriage, friends, etc.). To that end, I am planning to do away with the scheduled weekly technique post. Instead I will be posting at my muse's whim, more with my creative flow instead of on a set schedule.

I hope to still post once or twice a week, so please, keep checking back.

MIA

Sorry I have been "Missing in Action" these last few days. Lots going on...and some changes will be coming soon. In the meantime, here are the remaining layouts I created with the September SFTIO kit:

This layout is all about the fact that I don't think I've gone 2 consecutive days without wearing my flip-flops since I moved to Florida more than a year ago. The palm tree was created from a Maya Road chipboard tree that I "Florida-ized" and some brown felt ric-rac.

The journaling on this one says it all "The ability of the very young to sleep whenever and wherever they desire is highly underated".

The background on this layout was creating by cutting swirls from scrap paper, laying them on the background cardstock, and spraying the whole contraption with copper Glimmer Mist until I was happy with the color saturation.

Happy hump day!

Thank You and What's Next...

I want to thank everyone for their wonderful and uplifting comments about the acrylic album I posted last week. I'm glad you found it inspiring!

And I've been contemplating what's next. I've been doing posts revolving around acrylic for a while now, and don't get me wrong, I've still got at least a couple of acrylic related surprises in me, but I'm beginning to think I need to mix it up a bit. So what do you think? I was thinking maybe I'd start some alcohol ink based technique posts starting next hump day.....

Today's hump day is all about what you would like to see. More digital? I do have a few digital tricks up my sleeve to share. How about paint techniques? Like I've said before, I don't consider it a successful scrappin' session unless I'm cleaning paint off the ceiling. How about storage and organization ideas, I happen to be pretty happy with some of my storage solutions. Do you just want to see more layouts and projects...have me make less with the step-by-step? What do YOU want to see? Have an idea? Leave a comment!

An Acrylic Layout

This layout is of one of my three nieces. The outside frame of the layout is black cardstock punched with the threading water punch using the technique discussed at the bottom of this post. I backed the cardstock frame with a thin frame of black chipboard for support. The inside of the layout is two transparencies. The photo is adhered between the transparencies for protection. I used a Heidi Swapp mask with alcohol ink and white paint to create the negative butterfly images on the transparency and the cardstock, respectively. I used the crop-a-dile to punch the holes and attach the eyelets for the ribbon that hangs the transparency from the cardstock. I hung the layout on a wall for photographing.

I actually think this layout makes a pretty cool home decor project.

Hope you had a great weekend!

September SFTIO Layouts

Here are three of the six layouts I did with the September SFTIO kit:
This one is all about being ok with my scraproom table having all sorts of ink and paint marks, or as I refer to it, "looking loved". My favorite part of this layout are the smudgy hearts.

This layout is my favorite of the September bunch! It is so me.

This layout didn't turn out like I hoped. I am really unhappy with the inking. But I wanted to share it because I like the idea behind the "carved" heart in the wood-grained paper. And here's the hidden journaling:
I'll post the last three layouts a bit later! Have a great weekend.

A New Acrylic Album

Happy hump-day!

Recently, I came up with the idea of creating an acrylic album that could double as a piece of home decor. I wanted the viewer to be able to "get" the entire album by just looking at the front, but also wanted the album to contain a lot more than can be seen from the front only. I wanted the album to be relatively formal in appearance from the front, so that it could function as a piece of home decor. But wanted the album to be fun to flip through. Sounds like a lot of "wants", doesn't it?

The concept I came up with for the album was the "evolution" of the relationship between me and my husband, which started in high school. From the front, the album appears to contain seven photos of us in chronological order, from the back of the album to the front. These seven photos are in black and white to unify them and to fit into any home decor scheme.

However, I used the "back-to-back" design scheme, discussed here, to hide a whole lot more in the album. Remember, you can click on any of the pictures to get larger, more detailed shots.

The album is bound with black linen bookbinding tape, using the method discussed here. I etched the title "evolution" into the cover page using the technique discussed here. To finish the book I added a bit of stamping (corners) using Staz-on ink and some butterfly rub-ons.



There is journaling hidden behind each black and white photo. The journaling is related to the time period of the pictures on the page facing the journaling.

Each black and white photo also hides a color photo, behind it and on the underlying page. The color photo is of the same time period as the black and white photo on the same page.
Each color photo hides a title block for the spread.

The title blocks hide the journaling of previous pages as you flip through the book. Notice the butterfly rub-ons that were on the right hand pages are building on the left hand pages as the pages are being turned.

I mounted photos that were not quite the right size on black cardstock.


I added a final set of title blocks on the back of the book, to hide the last bit of journaling and the back of the last photo. When you look at the book from the back, all you see are the title blocks of the different phases of our relationship. I think this colorful, pattern and text-heavy back contrasts well with the black and white, photo-heavy front. You could flip through this album backward and get the same affect as frontward.

Hope you find this album inspirational! Happy hump-day.

To hold you over...

...until I get this week's technique posted Wednesday afternoon (which is a whole acrylic album, BTW), here's the mini-album I did for September's Scrapbooking from the Inside Out kit: "Comfort".

The base of this mini-book is the Maya Road chipboard tree album, you can see it, here. I altered the shape slightly to take it in a different direction:

"See" ya tomorrow!

September 2008 SFTIO Kit

Here's a picture of the September 2008 Scrapbooking from the Inside Out kit, Comfort:
I'll be posting the 6 layouts and mini-book I created with this kit over the next couple of days.