Prima Paintables and Glimmer Mist

Several weeks ago I took a great class taught by Elizabeth Hicks who is an endorsed instructor for both Prima and Tattered Angels (the company that makes Glimmer Mist). I've been a fan of Glimmer Mist for a while now, but in the past I had only sprayed it on my paper, chipboard, flowers, etc. This was the first time that I painted it on with a paintbrush. And now I'm hooked on this technique! Liz showed up with tons of bottles of Glimmer Mist and let us "have at it." It was fun to see all the different color combinations that people came up with. Here is the layout I made during the class:

Photos taken by Melissa Walker Scott of Lullaby Photography.

A LITTLE TOOT!!

I have a toot!!!

And in case any of my non-scrapbooking friends or family members are reading this blog entry, I should probably point out that the word "toot" in the scrapbooking world has nothing to do with bodily gaseous emissions. But I digress.

Anyways, I was going to wait until I actually saw it in print with my own two eyes, but I can't contain my excitement any longer and I just have to share the good news now. I recently started submitting some of my layouts for publication, and I had one of them picked up by Memory Makers magazine!!!!! It's going to be in their March/April 2009 issue. I'm super duper excited about it!

A Little Cameo

I've been searching for vintage cameo pieces to use on my projects, so when I saw this week's download from Gypsy Rose Paperie, I knew it would make a lovely cameo. I printed out a one and a half inch copy of the image and cut around the little gold frame. I covered it with Diamond Glaze to give it a glossy coat (though you probably can't see the glossy coat in the picture here). Once it was dry, I mounted the image on chipboard that I had painted gold, then attached a string of mini pearls and added a jump ring with a gold ribbon bow. Now I have a pretty little cameo embellishment to use on a layout or altered art project!

Perfect Harmony

Here is my latest creation for Gypsy Rose Paperie. Don't forget that Gypsy Rose offers free weekly downloads that you can use on your own creations! I added this week's vintage image to a layout featuring a photo of my husband and me. Here I am giving my sweet hubby a kiss on the cheek. If I had a thought bubble above my head it would probably say, "Thank you for looking the other way while my never-ending supply of scrapbooking 'stuff' keeps growing every day."



Wish us luck . . .
The computer at our house is about 12 years old (give or take), and after reaching its capacity on memory and hard drive space, it's about to take its last breadth of life. So we finally bit the bullet and bought a new computer. Tomorrow is the "big day": my husband is going to attempt to do all the set-up, software installation and document transfer himself (I know what you're thinking . . . oi vey!!). I'm hoping that he will be able to get our new computer up and running by Monday and that all of our data will be safely transferred over. But if you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know that things didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. Keep your fingers crossed for us! I've got all my fingers AND toes crossed.

Fun, fun weekend!

What a fun, fun weekend! I had a blast at the Scrappin' Escapes scrapbook retreat that was held in Irvine this past weekend. It was three blissful days of scrapping, chatting and eating. Let me tell you, Jessica puts on the best retreats!! While I was there I took two FABULOUS classes taught by Liz Hicks, and I fell in love with Prima and Glimmer Mist all over again. This scrappin' escape was just what I needed! The only thing that was lacking during the long weekend was sleep, so now I need to go take a little nappy. Night, night.

Happy Saturday!

So far it's been a relaxing, lazy Saturday here at our house -- just the way I like my weekends!! I ventured out this morning to an estate sale and found some beautiful vintage lace. I've managed to accumulate quite a collection of lace, buttons and other fun vintage findings from estate sales and flea markets over the last few months. I think I'll have to have a RAK giveaway here on my blog in the near future so that I can share some of my vintage "bounty." So be sure and check back on a regular basis!

Here's a layout I just completed for another challenge on SoCalScrap. The challenge was simple: use an off-center photograph on your layout. I hand-cut the flowers from K & Co patterned paper and strategically placed them over the dark and empty side of the photograph. I also added some Prima flowers (of course!). The Prima flowers were all plain white to start with, and I used a combination of Glimmer Mist, Colorbok inks and pearlescent chalks to colorize the flowers to match the papers.

My little ballerina

I'm so glad my daughters love girly stuff like ballet, princesses, dressing up, the color pink and all that fun frilly stuff! It provides me with tons of wonderful pictures to scrap. Here is layout featuring my graceful little ballerina. I made this for September's "Use Your Stash" challenge on SoCalScrap.

Cool Scrapbooking Stuff

A couple fun little scrappy discoveries made me very happy this week. . .

First, someone finally opened up a scrapbook store here in the heart of Los Angeles!!! Hurray! It's called Millie Papercrafts. The owner is very sweet, and she has filled the place with all the latest and greatest scrapbook supplies. The store has a sort of vintage feel to it . . . just my style! I'm so thrilled to finally have an LSS so close by.

Secondly, last night was Back to School night at my daughter's school, and I found out that part of the first grade weekly homework curriculum is an ongoing scrapbook that each child will be creating. Every week the children will collect one special item (i.e., a ticket stub, a party invitation, a restaurant receipt, a photograph, a leaf from the park, etc.) and they will glue that item into their own special scrapbook. Then they will write a few sentences about the item and what they did that week. At the end of the year each child will have their own special scrapbook showcasing his or her first grade year. The teachers will also add pictures that they take throughout the school year. How cool is that?!!!? And what's also cool is that the teachers need a few parent volunteers to help compile the scrapbooks. So you can probably all imagine me ready to jump out of my seat last night with my hand raised high in the air . . . "me, me, me . . . choose me, choose me!!!!" Sure! Just tell me when and where and I'll be there with my paper trimmer and tape runner in hand!!!

And now for a little show and tell. Here's the Creative Team project I made for Gypsy Rose Paperie this week. I found a plain 2009 planner in the dollar section at Michael's (gotta love those dollar deals!), and then I painted it gold and added a bunch of ribbon, chipboard, flowers, bling, lace, the cool vintage ephemera image from Gypsy Rose, etc.




And by the way, the Masquerade kit just went up for pre-sale today at Gypsy Rose Paperie, and the Haute Couture kit will go up for sale on September 30th.

My first project for Gypsie Rose Paperie

I finished my first Creative Team project for Gypsy Rose Paperie! As I mentioned, this fabulous new site will be posting ephemera images every week that you can download and use on your creations. I'll be creating things with these images and posting them on Gypsy Rose Paperie every Thursday, so be sure and check the site! My very talented fellow Gypsy girls will be posting their fabulous creations on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so there will no shortage of eye candy there.

I made this card with last weeks' vintage image. I used narrow silk ribbon to sew on real hooks and eyes to mimic the hooks on the back of her dress. We had a lively little discussion going on about whether he is un-hooking or dress or hooking it up. Judging by the frustrated look on his face, I assumed that he was trying (rather intently) to hook the dress up and help her get ready for an evening out. What do you all think . . . is he helping her get dressed for an evening out, or is he about to get lucky?

A whole lot of Prima

Since this is supposed to be a scrapbooking and paper crafting blog, I guess I should be uploading some of my layouts and other creations, huh? Here's a layout I did recently for a challenge on SoCalScrap hosted by Elizabeth Hicks (one of the PrimaDonnas!). The challenge was to use only Prima products. Oooooooooh yeah, anyone who knows me knows that I was ALL over that challenge!!!! I *heart* everything that Prima makes . . . especially their gorgeous flowers and bling (of course). We were allowed to use non-Prima paper, so I added a piece of vintage sheet music that I bought at a flea market. The photo was taken by Melissa Walker Scott of Lullaby Photography.

Oh, and I just finished my very first Gypsy Girl Creative Team assignment at Gypsy Rose Paperie! As I mentioned, I'll be posting my creations there every Thursday, so go check it out. And take a look at the gorgeous creations made by my fellow Gypsy Girls!

I'll also be posting my vintage creations here too, so be sure and check back!

Back to school time

It's that time of year again! Rebecca went back to school last Wednesday (1st grade) and Danielle goes back to preschool on Monday. *Sigh* I've really enjoyed spending time with them this summer. We did all sorts of fun activities -- swimming, the park, a variety of kids' museums, arts and crafts, pony rides, train rides, the play area at the mall, Santa Monica Pier, a gazillion trips to Target, and some other activities that escape my mind right now. And I only dragged them along with me to scrapbook stores a few times during the summer . . . okay, maybe more than a few.

Rebecca's first week of 1st grade went very well and only a few tears were shed (mine). Why do they have to grow up so fast?!? It seems like just yesterday she was starting kindergarten!

Here is an acrylic album I made a while back documenting Rebecca's first day of kindergarten. This project was totally out of the norm for me since I never use primary colors when I scrap (I prefer girly colors like pink, purple, lavender, mint green, teal, turquoise, light blue, etc.). However, this cute little crayon-shaped acrylic album (which was one of my design team projects for Kits2Remember) just called out for primary colors, so I made each page a different color and painted the edges to match.






Oh, and I've been tagged again by Jessica. Jessica is one of my SoCalScrap buddies, and she puts on what are supposed to be the best scrapbooking retreats around. But since I was just tagged a little over a week ago, I'll just refer everyone to my post a few entries down. A girl can't reveal TOO many personal details in one month, ya know!

I'm so excited!

Somebody pinch me . . .

I've just been asked to be on the new Creative Team at Gyspy Rose Paperie! They will soon be offering GORGEOUS kits with a vintage and feminine flavor. The kits are truly out of this world! Gypsy Rose Paperie also offers free ephemera images that you can download and use in your own creations.

The Creative Team (I think we are called the "Gypsy Girls" . . . how cute is that?!?), will be dedicated to showcasing the ephemera images in layouts, cards, altered art, etc. Our creations will be posted on the site every Tuesday through Friday, so be sure to check back. I will also be posting my weekly creations here on my blog.

And congratulations to my fellow Gypsy Rose Paperie Creative Team members: Julie Eickmeier, Rebecca Price, Marcie Morgan. I'm honored to be working with such talented ladies!!!

Oh, and I'm almost forgot to mention . . . Gypsy Rose has a fun scavenger hunt going on this week with lots of great RAKs. So if you have come to my blog for the scavenger hunt, WELCOME and happy hunting!!!!

And here's a little taste of what's in store . . .
I downloaded this lovely image from Gypsy Rose Paperie last week:
Isn't she lovely?
And then I gathered some wonderful treasures that I found at estate sales and flea markets (vintage buttons, pearls, a fancy old rhinestone button, lace, a page from an old book, etc.) and I made this card: Okay, I'm going to go finish doing my happy dance now.

"I Love Your Blog" award.

My blog has just been nominated for this sweet little award:
Thank you Jen (aka ScrapbookingPrincess)!

Really?? You like my two-week old blog? I'm speechless! Well, not completely speechless . . . I'd like to thank the academy, my family who has supported me through all the late-night blog tweakings, and all of my loyal blog followers (all two of you).

And in return, I would like to nominate my fellow Kits2Remember Krew members and Jessica (our fearless K2R leader):
Lisa
Kim
Trace
Jessica
{Trisha is off the hook this time because I noticed that her blog has already been nominated for this award}

I've been tagged!!!!!

Jessica, the owner of Kits2Remember (the site for which I've been a proud designer for the past 5 months), just tagged me!! I'm new to this whole bloggy tagging thingy, but from what I've managed to figure out, being tagged simply means I just need to answer a set of questions and then tag some other people. Uh, okay. Sure. I'm game! Here goes . . .

Seven random facts you may not know about me:

1) I've seen every I Love Lucy episode at least 100 times, and I can recite many of the lines along with Lucy and her cohorts.
2) I have a bowl of ice cream every night. My freezer is always fully stocked with several flavors of Dreyers Grand Light Slow Churned ice cream (my favorite lately is chocolate-chip cookie dough).
3) I like to dance around the house with my girls.
4) I've been an insurance agent for almost 11 years, and before that I was an attorney.
5) Although I consider myself a fairly articulate person, for some reason I always have trouble pronouncing the words "Ibuprofen" and "pomegranate" (thank goodness I've never had to say both words in the same sentence).
6) I like to sleep with lots of pillows -- at least two regular pillows and two body pillows. My husband calls it my "fort."
7) I went to cooking school in Paris one summer during my college years.

OK, so now it's my turn to tag people. I'm going to tag:

Anita
Michelle
Kristi

How I made my blog banner . . .

A few people have asked me how I made my blog banner. Well, I knew I wanted something with flowers and bling (big surprise, huh??), so I took a picture of one of my recent layouts. Here is the one I used:
I moved the butterflies around before taking the picture so that they would be in the center. Then I flipped and cropped the picture and started playing around with my photo editing software (PhotoStudio 5.5). I did a little color cloning and played around with the saturation, contrast and tone. Then I added the borders and used the paint bucket to add some color to the white areas and the borders. Voila!!!