Monday, April 25, 2011

Swimming Pool LO

OK. So I'm a major slacker. I know I told you that I'd you I'd post this weeks ago, but life got a little crazy. As always. Plus sometimes I swear you have to kill someone at the library to get a damn computer. (this is the third time I've come with everything in hand to write this post, now and finally there's a free computer)Here's the full Layout or LO if I'm a cool scrapper like everyone else. It's a two pager. I apologize because my apartment isn't the best place to be shooting copy work.I did open the windows and turn off the flash, but you can still really tell which side the windows were on. Plus I was doing it really quick and was hand holding it with my little point and shoot. Bad photographer. I really did go to school for photography. (If you can believe that.) I swear I did. Of course it was before computers where a photographers best friend. The only thing we used it for at school was for making our title slide's in some program like Corel Draw. Way before Photoshop. OK I'm digressing and showing my age. Anyways, that's why I took some close-up shots also. So i think that makes up for it. UMM, yeah OK. OK so close-ups. Whoo-hoo. Go me.

But before I forget let me tell you what I used in this LO. I didn't use a sketch, but I knew I wanted to do some paper ripping. So I just eyeballed it and started scrappin. I had seen someone doing the paper ripping at the crop I went to and have never really tried it with a LO. I also had this vellum that had been sitting around literally for years. I bought it and then never really had a clue what to do with it. My friend Betty gifted me a book about using vellum that she found in her bargain hunting travels. Right now I couldn't even tell you the name because I didn't think to write it down with all the other stuff I used. But while browsing through it I got this idea about using it for the title. How cool right ?
The title of the piece is swimming pool so I thought the see throughness of it would work. Which it did look cool till I glued it down. This is what it looked like after I glued down the vellum.

Yuckko as Rachel Ray would say!!!
I mean look at it.

I thought oh I'll wait till tomorrow and it will dry clear. Nope, didn't work that way. So the next day I ripped all the word "swimming" off, which of course ripped the brown paper underneath. Let me just add that at this point there were plenty of words coming out of my mouth and they were not pretty. At this point, I had to get up and walk away. Which lasted for several days because I was so mad. I keep telling myself, this is how we learn- From our mistakes. Then I would say to myself -yeah so right now I must be a freakin genius at scrapbooking. ( I wish)

So I ended up going with white letters to say swimming. Which helped by hiding the rips I had made. I made them from white Colorbok paper using the Fa La La font on my Slice. I stuck with the vellum which is Alabaster color and made by The Paper Company to say pool. I hadn't glued it down yet, so I used a regular glue stick to glue it to the blue patterned paper I had cut into waves. Which by the way is made by Darice and was gifted to me by my friend Betty also. It came in a book of weird home made papers with strange patterns on them and I really had no idea where I'd use them when she gave them to me, but as always they just kinda fell into place like everything else. Don't you just love how a layout just kinda comes together when you have it planned another way. The blue bracket is from a 6x6 paper kit which i didn't of course write down and can't remember the name of. Sorry, i just threw it on because the color matched.

One other thing I'd like to add about the letters I made using my Slice. I find that using thick paper works well the Slice. You don't have to have fresh glue on the glass to hold the paper down every time with a thicker paper. Cutting vellum was an experience to say the least. Its very thin for those who have never used it and I had to add the sticky glue type stuff to the glass, everytime i lifted the vellum off. It has to be really sticky to cut thin paper or else the paper just moves with the blade and jumbles up. Yes thats what i said. Jumbles up. I made it up and i'm sticking to it.

This brown polka dot paper is from the Life is Good collection from Echo Park. The blue polka-dot paper for the top part of the layout is from DCWV from one of the gigantor type paper books you can buy at Jo-Anns.

I had gotten these white "discover" and "explore" tabs from my hot chocolate that ordered from Cropchocolate.com. I added them to kinda add some more white to the project to go with the new white swimming letters. I did have a dickens of a time gluing these babies on, but in the end they worked so it made me happy :)

Here's more of the vellum and the same blue paper I used for the waves on the title. I carefully wrote out some journal ling so i didn't smudge it. Didn't want to mess anything else up!
I really needed to journal the leaf on the nose because it was such a good
memory from when she was little. (Plus who can resist smiling at a naked baby. They are just so darned cute.) My mom and me sat in lawn chairs and laughed about it because she was so oblivious to the leaf on her nose. So then i decided to add the arrow to showcase the leaf a little more. The arrow is a Kelly Panacci sticker made by Sandy Lion.
Wasn't she just so stinkin cute back then. I just can't stand it. And even still I just felt like it wasn't finished yet and needed something else. So i grabbed a blank white tag. Something i have a bunch of. I bought a big pack of them at staples or some office store a long time ago to catalog my Pez collection. (but that's a whole other story lol) I added some sparkly rub on's that matched the colors of the pages. I think i picked them up for 75% off at Archivers at some point. Not sure who the manufacturer of the rub on's are.



As Hannibal always said, " I love it when a layout comes together" (OK
so i improvised a little, but I'm sure
he would agree and let me add my little artistic license to it)



over and out. Shannan.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Gram LO for Sketchy Thursday

So i thought hard about my new years resolution. One of the things i really want to try to work on is actually participating in some of the blogs i read when they have sketches or LO contests.

Here's some secret confessions about me: I am a reeeeaaaaalllllyyyy slow scrapper. Sometimes at work when i'm bored I sketch out idea's but when i try to actually do them i just throw the sketch away because it isn't coming out like i want it too. Or sometimes i just slide the LO to the side and start something else because i get so frustrated on how to fix a LO gone sooo wrong.

Now I know i'm not alone in all these things. Yes lots of us are slow scrappers, lots of us have half finished LO's laying around. But can you see how this would hinder my new years resolution. My thought was that by forcing myself to do someone elses sketches that it will make me a better scrapper. Also that maybe by forcing myself to do LO's based off sketches that i'll get better at it. I also think it will force me outside of my little box that i'm oh so comfortable in.

So last night i made myself sit down and work on a Sketchy Thursday LO. The deadline was today. Cutting it close and the pics aren't great because i had no light to shoot in. (I like getting in nice and close and using natural light so no glare from flash.)

Yes i need to work on my procrastination too. But, Ehhhhhh...maybe next year.

It's from a blog i found and started reading cause i really like her sketches. The rules stated not to post the sketch. So i won't put it on here if your wondering why. Here's the pic's of my LO entitled "Gram".





See how that looks washed out on the full picture of the the LO. So i took some close ups. They look way better and show the full color and how it really looks. This is why i really need a digital SLR dammit! It sucks photographing my pages with a freakin point and shoot camera. Ok now i'm just digressing and i can hear you all now telling me to suck it up. So i'm shutting up about my camera right now.

Here's what i used: BG Green at heart papers, CI paper, MM Glitter Clears, Archiver stock paper, and some Color Box Chalk inkpad.

If you want to join in the fun, come check out Sketchy Thursday on FB. Now here's where i apologize if this totally doesn't make any sense because i'm typing this in between getting ready for work and i don't really wake up till around 11am. Sad i know. See thats why i was scrappin and watchin David Letterman last night. Because i'm a night person dammit! Ok time to go make the donuts. (Hehe remember that commercial)

Sunday, January 2, 2011

So as i sit here in my pajama's at 3:36pm watching the steelers kick the brownies asses and doing dishes on the commercials- I remembered i never posted my Christmas decorations that i did for work. Better late than never right?



Here's another view from the other side. Some idiot started hanging up Christmas cards. Which i think just made it look stupid. But i can't argue, I'm just the scheduler for the department.



I used sizzix die cuts: snowflake #2 (which i might add is a total pita because sections of it never cut right and you end up getting out your scissors and xacto blades.) I had this clear sparkly glue someone had given me and i used it to bling the snowflakes up a bit. Also i used ornament ball. the top of the ornament i use some glimmer mist on. I wanted them to look metallic, which worked out quite nice (if i do say so myself) I thought about running them thru again with an embossing folder but in the end i just used some zig markers and wrote everyone's name on the ornaments who work in the department. Everyone at work like them, so i guess that's all that matters. Here's some close ups of the ornaments and snowflake