1, 2, 3 Slide

Back to my Summer of Chaos Catch up.  I really loved the whimsical inspiration photo of this CSI case, so I decided to make my piece a whimsical one.  I haven't done a lot of whimsical layouts lately, but I really like them and need to do more.  I took a trip to Salt Lake City in May to visit Adele.  We spent a lot of time with her 3 year old nephew.  This day we went to a nearby park to play.  As Adele was taking care of little brother, the 3 year old grabbed my hand and led me to the playground.  He had me watch as he went down the big curly slide, a recent accomplishment for him, then decided it was my turn to slide.  He grabbed my hand, took me to the top and said, "Go down Auntie Mooney".  What do you do?  You cram yourself onto the slide and go, all whilst your friend is snapping pics.  Ah....to be a kid again, if only for a little while.

Evidence used: sun, bird, transportation element, metal, clouds, circles.

Ice

Summer chaos catch up time!  A month of pink and I had a really hard time with this week's color combo at CSI.  So many bright colors that I don't normally use!  I had no clue where to go with them.  I did like the blue in the pallet and it reminded me of ice and it was the middle of summer and an ice layout might be a nice break.  I took a trip to Yellowstone in January and some some super cool (hee hee) photos of icicles, so I pulled them out, created a grid piece, my sunburst stencil from Tim Holtz and set to work.  I turned the sunburst upside down to mimic the icicles.  I simply took a pen, outlined the pattern, and filled in with a shimmer watercolor blue.  I added some glittery, long triangles and sparkle washi tape to add to the icy feel.  For the rest of the background, I used a cool bubble stencil, outlined with pen, and used various watercolors from the rest of the palette to give a cool watery effect.  I used the acrostic journal prompt and the word ICE.

Evidence used: triangles, grid, polka dots, arrows, and sparkles.

Truffle Trot

Playing catch up from a chaotic summer.  August seemed to be the month of pink at CSI.  Every case had pink in it.  I had to giggle because my BFF and fellow DT member HATES pink.  It was fun to see how you can work pink into all sorts of color combos though.  I loved the black, it just make such a wonderful background that makes everything else pop, so instead of creating a mixed media base, I used plain black.  First thing I did was use some white modeling paste over one of Tim Holtz's new layering stencils and LOVED how it just popped off of the page!  I built up a layered matte for the photos from book pages, tags and paper.  Add a few die cut banners (I really love this new banner die set) and journaling and a pretty fast page is done.

Evidence used: book pages, floral pattern, lace, string, wet medium, mesh (stencil).

Voodoo

The case this week at CSI was super odd, super interesting, and I had the perfect photos to use!  In Portland there is a very iconic and famous eatery called Voodoo doughnuts.  They are famous for their unique toppings, like cereal and bubble gum.  The signature confection is a voodoo doll that is filled with a red filling and has a pretzel stuck through the heart.  The line at the Portland can be blocks long and my friend who was visiting from Phoenix was a little disappointed in the wait.  It was really warm that day too.  I told her there was a branch in my city, so we decided to wait and hit that one.  MUCH shorter wait time.  I liked how the New Orleans style shop and voodoo theme used the color palette perfectly.

I decide to really layer the piece, as layering was one of the evidence prompts, and I think it just added to the weirdness.  I think layering papers and embellishments is what comes to most people's minds when we talk about layering, but I layered art mediums.  I started out with a base of gel through a harlequin stencil (another shout out to New Orleans) then set to work layering distress inks on top.  To do this, I stamped my splat mat with distress ink pads, spritzed with water and turned my piece, face down, on the ink.  I let them drip and dried with my heat gun.  I kept adding layer upon layer until I achieved the look I wanted.  My unusual bit was to wad up some deli paper, like you get served on, dip it in ink and add under the photo.  Then I added some stamped birds, a washi tape matte, gears, clouds, journaling, and sequins.

 

Let Your Light Shine

Another post in my CSI catch up.  The colors of this case were so pretty, just sort of reminded me of light shining through the fog, and the perfect palette for some photos of a lighthouse lens.  We have a great lighthouse that is pretty close to where I live.  It's been closed and under renovation for a couple of years.  I just happened to reopen just in time for a visit from a friend from Phoenix, so we signed up for the tour.  The history and architecture is just amazing.  Life as a keeper was not an easy one.  As renovators, they try to keep as true to the original design and products, and this meant some super cool "sky light" glass was left intact.  I love that it's purple!  You can't go up into the lens room, but get a pretty good view from below and it makes for some interesting photos.  This is a working lighthouse too.

I decided light and airy was the way to go, so I started off with one of my favorite stencils, designed by Julie Balzer, and stamped it with distress inks, misted, laid down on my watercolor paper, and dried.  Makes for a super cool watery background.  I went in and outlined some of the circles with a grey pen to add interest.  The rest was a matter of cutting out banners, swirls, and clouds, penning them, embossing some gears with silver, painting some wood, and adding some gems.

Evidence used: polka dots, washi, swirls, melt something (embossing powder), wood, triangles, and metal.

Shop

I am doing a little CSI catch up right now.  Summer was super busy and a lot of trials took place.

One of the things I did was go visit my mom and was able to spend some time in the shop with my step dad.  He is a master in the shop.  He creates the most beautiful things, especially turned bowls out of cool pieces of wood.  My mom decided to teach me weaving on her small ridged heddle loom and I needed some spindles and spacers.  Why buy boring ones when you can make your own in the shop?!  I traced some of my mom's tools and get to work.  My step dad helped with some of cutting, but the real magic happens on the sanders.  All the formation happens as you twist and bend the wood on the sand paper.  It was great fun!

For my background I pulled out a piece of cardstock and stamped the wood grain with this awesome stamp by Stampin' Up, then I put down a damask stencil and used some Tim Holtz pink distress paint.  It's kind of hard to see the damask pattern, but it's there.  I had this great piece of Crate Paper with the ruler on it, so cut it out and placed it in the space where the stamp didn't fill, at the top.  I also had a great wooden ruler and some pieces of wood veneer that looked like they belong in the shop.  I embossed some "corrosion" on some gears, found some fun letters, made an envelope from grid paper to hold my journaling, and done!

I used: wood/wood grain, damask, grid, envelope, ruler, tags, a key, triangles, and paint.

Green Dot

This week's case at CSI was super fun.  I loved the color palette and the photo of the kitties.  I decided it would make for a great piece about kitties.  Right now I don't have any of my own, but I have 3 grandkitties.  This one is Subi (you can just see his brother's ears peeking out in the larger circle photo) and he LOVES the laser pointer!  I decided to keep it simple and allow for the photos to take a larger roll as well as play with a whimsical look.

Adventure Awaits

My never ending catching up from the Summer of Chaos marches on.  I had a lot of fun with this CSI case.  I love me some earthy colors and this case was full of them!  My daughter decided to do something different for her husband for his birthday this year.  She set up a geo cache style scavenger hunt for him.  She spent weeks planning where clues would be and what they would say.  She started planting clues a few days before the big event.  We were at the canoe leg, with a canoe, to provide help to one destination, if needed.  It was at a porta potty in the middle of the lake and a storm was whipping up, so help was definitely needed!

To start off with, I had taken a photo of some maps, a compass and my husband's glasses that were left out after a planning session.  I moved the photo into some phone editing apps and came up with an antique looking photo that I decided to use as my title.  I used my brayer to spread around some brown paint to act as a matte over the fun patterned paper.  I cut a variety of banners out of papers and some burlap, put my photos into a collage (all done on my phone), exported to the computer and printed off.  I used a Tim Holtz compass blueprint stamp and some odds and ends.  I also cut some clouds out of this cute graph paper design and found a brad that looked like a sun!  Add a few stars, and I'm good to go.

Evidence used: wet medium, wood, sun, clouds, eye glasses, stars, and brads.

 

Double Photo Inspiration!

Welcome to September! I always consider this the start of the new year, not New Year's Day, and to start off with a bang, ScrapStuffz Inspired By brings you two inspiration photos! You can do just one or double your chances at being chosen as our fave and do both. Both photos are bright and colorful, but one speaks of summer and the other of going back to school. Great choices as we shift our focus from the lazy days of summer to back to school.

The first photo may be a fair ride, but it reminded me of hot air balloons. I like to think out of the box, so I went with a hot air balloon ride for my subject. My parents recently went to Turkey and my step mom and little sister took in a hot air balloon ride over some spectacular scenery! I asked for some photos to use for this post. I REALLY love how this turned out. I stuck to the earthy colors of the photos instead of the bright colors of the fair ride, though I got them in as accents.

For the second photo, I did a layout that I've been wanting to do for some time. It cracks me up when I think of my two desks. I MUST have a nice and tidy desk at work in order for me to work well. I clean up between projects, minimize the clutter, have things place at just the right place. My craft space is the COMPLETE opposite. Usually I just shove enough things out of the way in order to get going on my next project. I do pick up, but just enough to make a little room to move. I really need to sort and organize, but no way is that getting in the way of my creative time! I thought a layout contrasting these two desks would be a fun piece to do. I used office supplies for my work desk and drippy paint and such for my craft desk.

I hope you find some inspiration in this month's photos and I can't wait to see what you create!