Secret Garden

Recently a friend from church invited my daughter in law and I over to see her dahlia garden. She brings oodles of flowers, to all events, all summer long and DIL and I told her one day we wanted to see where they all come from. There are always so many varieties; she told us that she has 217 plants, all filled with blooms. She even has this mirror hanging on her fence and wished that she had a photo of her garden reflected in it, so I complied.

I thought the delicate eyelet of the Endearing Eyelet file would be the perfect background for the flowers and that pretty little mirror. I cut it from white card stock, did some watercolor wash and ink splatters, then placed it over an ombre wood grain paper, using foam tape to give dimension. I used the Retro Rounded Corners and Funky Florals to create the big flowers I placed a bright piece of multi color paper for the matte, my photos on top, added little pearls in the eyelet centers, bling in the flowers and my journaling. Pretty simple layout that didn't take long at all, but makes an impact.

Head over to the shop and pick up some fun new files today!

Blood Moon

I really liked these colors at CSI this week. Not sure what made me think of the blood moon photos, maybe the circle photos in the sketch, but for whatever reason, I decided to use these photos. They almost didn't happen. It was a very spur of the moment "Let's go!" that had me grabbing my gear and racing out the door. I am so glad I did too! We drove out a ways to the backside of some hills around here. We got up to the top and didn't see anything. We stopped and asked some folks if they had seen the moon and they pointed out a faint light in the midst of mist. We decided to go find a nice dark spot, with a good view, and by the time we got there, the mist had cleared out and this beautiful moon shone down on us.

I decided some red ink drips would be the place to start. I was going to use them in place of the banners, but without the banner, the photos looked like giant spooky googly eyes, so I added some in, using scientific sort of paper. But first I stamped on the piece of kraft paper with a variety of texture, science, and travel stamps. I really like how da Vinci it turned out. I painted some stars in the teal color, added some stitching, wood, and metal gears to finish off that old time scientific sketch look.

Evidence used: kraft background, transportation, clouds, metal, gears, stamps, and thread.

Testimony is documenting an outing. "News of the rare super blood moon was in the back of my mind, but I hadn't given much thought to it. We were hanging out when we thought, 'Let's go shoot it!', so we packed up our gear and raced to a good spot. So glad we did because it was spectacular to shoot!"

Pelican

 Today I am featuring the Fancy Feathers file. I love these feathers! I searched through my photos looking for birds just so I could use this awesome cut.

My dad and I went to a wildlife area about 2 miles from my house to see what kinds of birds we could photograph. Neither of us had been there before and we were graced with a variety of awesome birds. From heron to hawk to geese, to cute lil birds, and finally these awesome pelicans. They were really cool to watch. I thought the feathers would do them justice.

I simply cut out a variety on plain white cardstock, the kind you find in the office supply and went to work on them with distress ink. I smooshed ink on my splat mat, spritzed with water, and plopped the feather into the inky mess, repeat. All very technical. After they were all dry, I tied them up with twine and placed them on my layout.

The matte papers are from my Gelli print collection and I cut the clouds out and watercolored them, inserting them in between the layers of papers and photo.

Head on over to the shop and see how you can use these awesome feathers for yourself!

Hello Fall

The Cut Shoppe teamed up with Page Maps for the November sketch reveal!

I loved the sketch that Becky sent me. I love working with multiple photos and I really liked the background too. I took some Fall colors photos with my dad a few weeks ago and I thought leaves fit the sketch well. I only did 2 clusters, instead of the 3 in the sketch because mine are pretty big. I did some thread and hearts for the 3rd cluster.

I used a variety of cuts from the shop, including the "hello" from Word to the Wise and Tall Type for the title, and Free Falling and Funky Florals for the leaves.

I seriously love that "hello"! The cut strips are so fun and add so much texture. You could cut the word without the slits to be a different colored background, but I liked the look straight on the orange. I think it looks striking. You could also remove the stripes and have some pretty cute, fat letters. The Tall Type "fall" was the perfect compliment to the fun "hello". My leaves were cut out from two different files, one being a Spring flower themed file, and inked with distress ink and then spritzed with some water to add texture. A few ink splatters, the hearts, thread and journaling were all that were needed to finish off the layout.

Be sure to check out the Page Maps site for a sketch that you can use for your Fall fun.