More LOAD

 Documenting the Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival - Project Life style.

 Same day as the Cherry Blossom Festival - went to WXPN Music Film Festival. After the movie, got to hear Lisa Fischer and Darlene Love each sing a song live!  After the festival I started (still don't know why) receiving Rolling Stone magazine... and in the first issue was an article about the very documentary I had gone to see!

Spent Friday night and Saturday at a fundraiser crop for ALS. I FINALLY got Sarah's first year baby album done!!!!  33 pages! Most are super simple - this is an example of one of the better pages I did. Most are just white background, photos, and text.

 Yesterday's page - with Krystal Hartley's newest release Painted Love.  This kit is a lot of fun!

Today's page.  Super simple - scrapping a photo from 2003(?) - need to check on that date so I can add it.  For my "People We Love" album.

Get Artsy #3

Week 3 technique was playing with modeling paste. I used a doily stencil with a very thin layer of paste scraped across the doily with an old credit card.  I originally had a bunch more words to put on but it started feeling crowded so I eliminated some.  Do you think this layout could have handled more word strips?

Clean & Simple #6

Week 6 was an 8.5x11 layout featuring a then/now story.  I did it and was happy with it.  Then I looked at other layouts in the gallery and got some ideas from fellow classmates...

And changed it up to a 12x12 just by adding more paper and borders.  The heart borders are from Krystal Hartley's newest release - Basically Edgy #6.  The papers are from a very old blog train freebie kit by Bohemian Art and I couldn't find that designer online now.

Which version should I print for our album???

LOAD513

 These are my LOAD layouts (in no particular order) that are for neither the Clean & Simple nor the Get Artsy classes.  First up - Liberate Your Art.  I pulled the art work from Kat's site to create the Title block.  All of the postcards are attached with Washi tape and can be flipped up to see the other side.

 Last night's layout. Used a digi QuickPage freebie from Sweet Shoppe Designs because I needed something fast and easy. Recolored the QP to match Becca's shirt and added the journaling block - other than that, I can't take credit for the fun & funky playfulness of this layout.

 Photo from the late 70's - my Dad played in a band. Used an old pre-made paper layout from my Top Line Creations consultant days.  My "Dad" (step-father and no where near old enough to actually be my father) is the one on the far left. Those outfits were red or white satin.

Finally documented our kitchen remodel in this two page layout.  Remodel was done in 2007 and it is almost hard now to imagine the way it was "before".

 LOVE our open concept space!

 Another paper page - a layout I started years ago (probably in 2001) has finally been finished!

 Another old photo - from the 1990's... and another pre-made paper layout from my Top Line Creations days.  Really working on using up some old stash during this LOAD challenge. Can you spot me in this group photo?

One of my absolute favorites so far from this LOAD session - a story that has been on my list to document for quite awhile.  Using Jady Day Studio's "A Wizarding World" kit which I snagged during the iNSD sale (been on my wish list for awhile) which was just perfect for creating this magical layout.

And finally the age-old mystery of the never clean scrap space...

As you can see, I've got a good mix this month of paper and digi, old stuff and new stuff.  I really LOVE the challenge of creating a layout every day! I never seem to run out of stories to tell or everyday life to document.

More Clean & Simple

Having already used the Week Four assignment for a layout about the relationship between Jay & Sarah, I decided I needed to do this one just about Sarah

and this one just about Jay.  Isn't it amazing how different you can make the same template look?

And then for Week 5 I decided to skip the template Cathy Zielski had created, but used elements from it to create my layout for the assignment which was to document a typical day in the life of...

Well, I chose me... but not a typical day at all - I chose iNSD! :)

And yes, this is a real Project Life plastic page protector and hybrid layout!

And did I mention that I'm also doing LOAD this month???  Of course, all three of these layouts have met LOAD requirements as well.  And I'll be back another day to share what else I've been up to for LOAD!

Liberate Your Art - Blog Hop

Kat's Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap provides a way for artists from around the world to get their art seen by new people and to share it with the world.

What I sent:

I chose this photo because I loved the contrast between the softness of the pink flowers and the rugged texture of the bark  and I was a bit enamored with the bokeh in the background.  I wrote an inspirational quote on the back, but I honestly can't remember what it was! In fact, I couldn't even remember what image I had sent until I watched Kat's video of this year's art!  So many beautiful images there. Go check it out!

What I received:

Aren't they gorgeous? I'm planning a scrapbook page with these.  The ones that I could identify (either from their postcard or their blog/website) came from Canada, New Jersey, and California... and of course Oregon!  I couldn't figure out the other two which kind of made me sad. :(

The hop runs for three days and the links are below! Enjoy!

ETA:  With a little more sleuthing I was able to find the artists of the other two cards - both from California and was able to leave a little love on the sites of every one of the artists from whom I received cards. Sadly, I haven't heard from a single person who got my cards - I quickly scrolled through 57 blogs (everyone who had linked to the hop by the time I'm writing this) and not one of them had one of my cards. I would LOVE to know where they ended up, so if you got one of mine, please leave me a comment and let me know where it landed! Thanks!

Get Artsy

Seriously, I can't keep up with my life anymore! I have so much to share but have had precious little time to get anything posted here to my blog. I'm here today trying to remedy that at least a little!

I'm taking the Get Artsy class by Mou Saha over at Big Picture Classes.  This class combines two of my favorite things - scrapbooking and mixed media techniques. Up til now I've kept these two hobbies separate, so I thought I'd give this class a try to see how I felt about mixing it up.

Week 1:

Week one we were to use a gessoed background with gelatos (a stick form of watercolor) to create a background. I didn't have the gelatos yet, so I used my Neocolor Watercolor crayons.  After the color is applied you can use a stencil and a baby wipe to remove color to create a reverse resist (see those little butterflies just above the photo?). I didn't get exactly the look I was going for because I didn't have enough stencils on hand to do what I wanted. But I was still very pleased with the final result.

Week 2:

This layout was a result of my Studio purge/memorabilia review last month.  I came across a "love letter" I had written to my twins when they were toddlers. I excerpted the portion that was just to Rachel for this layout.

Week two had us using gel medium for collage (lower right corner of the white canvas) and for a resist technique with watercolors (chevron upper left corner).  I learned that gel medium works so much better for collage than mod podge and dries without the stickiness that has been causing so many of my art journal pages to stick together. Good thing to know!  This layout (because of drying time between layers) took all day.

I'm rapidly learning that I don't really like mixing mixed media with scrapbooking.  Although I love the results of these two layouts, this is definitely too fussy and time-consuming for scrapbook pages (let's face it, I LOVE Digi!) and because I still want to tell a story with words and photos I'm finding that you really have to PLAN placement of elements to make a balanced layout. Doing mixed media just for fun doesn't have those kind of constraints and I can just go with the flow more.

I still intend to finish out the class and participate in all the exercises, but I'm happy to have learned that after this, I'll likely be keeping these separate.

I've also learned that I'm rapidly running out of my butterfly stash! Oh no! So to all my bloggy friends here's a heads up... my birthday is May 29th... and I'm almost out of butterflies...  Seriously, just kidding.  Sort of. ;-)