After long hours and much anticipation...

Yes, that's right...my first Swirlydoos page is finally done. This kit was from March and is called Cabaret. I LOVED it. There were so many gorgeous papers that it was difficult to decide which ones to use in order to create my page for the sketch challenge. I even got to use some stuff that I bought on a whim way long ago and have been dying to find the right use for. 

This is a picture of my son Colin. I took the picture at the mall in December 2009 while I was playing with my camera. The picture was so dark it looked black but I knew there was a gem hidden within. During my recent photoshop class I altered the color, blurred the background, and cropped. The slight wash out of color was perfect to go with the dusty blue's in this kit.

The flowers were cut from the Tim Holtz accordion flowers die run through a Big shot. I couldn't bring myself to cut the gorgeous papers into flowers so I used the background stamp that came with the kit and did a bunch of ink blending with Tim Holtz distress inks. The butterfly is actually from a previous download through Swirlydoos. I used liquid glass, some black Stickles, and curled the wings. I took the liberty of removing the antenna. They are way too complex to cut out and I don't have any wire, so this butterfly is NOT anatomically correct.

My hinges turned out FANTASTIC!! Yes, they took me all day at the crop last Saturday but were oh so worth it. I used the tutorial over at Swirlydoos for making rusty hinges. I have some hinge stamps from my previous kit club Scrapgoods and I stamped and cut them out of chipboard. Then I punched the holes and followed the rest of the tutorial. I also used distress ink over the paint, before the distress powder so that it grunged them up just a bit more and I added an extra step of spraying with patina glimmer mist. I gotta say, the tad bit of shimmer is fabulous. The vines were purchased in the floral section at Michael's for 50% off. Score one for the thrifty scrapper.

That piece that I purchased and had forever...this is she. Isn't it awesome? It was some sort of jewelry making line at Jo Anne's that had an Alice in Wonderland theme. It's one long chain and they are a beautiful pewter.  I have yet to find another item that was this cool. This was an excellent find. You can also see some of the paper distressing. I really enjoy the way that turns out and with these really thick heavy papers they end up looking like fabric when they are done.

I had to show the ticket because I am just so proud of the ticket. Yes, it's just a plain ol' raffle ticket. I used coffee and patina glimmer mists to grunge it up a tad. It's been in my stash for a while. I love being able to use stuff like this on my page. I have  TONS of it and plan on digging in and making use of what I have saved much more in the future.

Thanks for looking

Magical Mica flowers

This is a wonderful tutorial using Magical Micas. The video is posted to Youtube by Lindysgang and is just a wonderful tutorial for these gorgeous flowers. I ran across this while looking for ways to use some mica powders that had been sitting in my scrap room unused for the last 5 years or so...imagine my surprise when I realized just what a gem I had been sitting on for so long! Enjoy the tutorial.

P.S. My most recent swirlydoos page will be posted soon. It's my first one! I am so excited.

Then and Now...my progression in scrapbooking

I know, I know, it's almost been a month since my last post. I've been a busy scrapper and a busy momma. My DH turned 32 last weekend and I had to clean the house before everyone came over. I know you all understand EXACTLY what that means.

I also started a photoshop class on Tuesday nights. Let me explain, see my sweetheart got me PSE8 for Christmas 2009. Yes, 2009. Our PC was incredibly outdated and old but I was going to see if I could load the program anyway. At this point it was February 2010. After 5 hours of frustration and loading and reloading software I pick up the box and inspect it thoroughly for approximately the 100th time and realize...the side of the box says MAC OS. I thought this was a photoshop thing originally but for whatever reason, at 12:30 AM on a Sunday night the realization hits that I am holding software for a MAC!!! Yes girls, the blonde is real...just not natural. I also realize that my PC will not run this software due to the lack of a decent graphics card. By the end of March I had my new iMac and PSE8 was loaded and ready to go;) I was so excited. I will not regale the hours of clicking and searching, nor the tears and colorful words that followed, but suffice to say that I was ready to give Adobe a piece of my mind. It was now Winter again and I couldn't even figure out how to pull a photo in. Once I got that down I could not figure out how to keep my tool bars. You may be thinking that I am an idiot. Wait, I'm not done. My sister sat here with me over Christmas one afternoon and taught me some basics. (she is a graphic design artist) Even she was getting frustrated but by the end but I felt a little more comfortable. After New Year's I sat down alone once again to give it a try and was back to tears.  I had no tabs on the upper right! Forget the tutorials online, half my stuff was missing and could not be found in the menus so the tutorials were useless. I couldn't figure out what they were talking about. I called Adobe who told me it would cost me $40 for help with this. I sighed in frustration and told the man, "answer me this. Should I consistently have tabs on the right side of my screen?"  His answer was "yes, you should always have the 'create' and 'share' tabs on the right side of your screen. I then made the executive decision to completely uninstall the software and reinstall it. In Ozzy's own words "No more tears"  :)

I thought about purchasing a notebook for the class but instead decided to make my own. This is the cover. It's done in K and Co Que Sera pattern. I used the Tattered Angels glimmer mists and mask for the gate. I used perfect pearls with a pattern stamp by Prima on the letters down the left.

 This is the back. It's just a tad larger than 12 inches so I painted, glimmer misted and added the border.

 Here's a close up of the letters with the stamp.

 Here you can see the different colors of glimmer mis used on the top of the cardboard.

 I cut the marque out on my Cricuit and Modge Pode'd it together.

 I made the pocket on the inside using masking tape. I put the pocket on before the front. I have pages from magazines that have various tutorials there behind the notebook paper. I need to tab the different sections so they are easy to find.

 I LOVE this technique. There is a tutorial on Swirlydoos.com.  This is just a regular transparency and some pearlized puff pain. Since I mimicked a Prima "say it with crystals" swirl I used magenta pink glitter glue in place of the crystals.

It may not look like much but this notebook took me a couple of weeks to finish and I still need to tab it!

I went to an all day crop on Saturday. This page has been in progress since the beginning of February. At the crop on Saturday I decided enough was enough and this page was finito!

The title is "Liam sometimes you are 2 cool 4 words"  This is my youngest son Liam in front of our house last Summer. Yes, he's a bit of a ham.

This is a stamp that I colored with Copic markers and trailed with iridescent seed beads. I was really happy with the way this turned out. The stamping on the photo is done with a transparency and Stazon ink.

Ok, can I just say that I adore bottle caps?! My GF at the crop asked me if it was a kit from Michael's. I flipped it over to show her the Killian's label!! I had my DH save a bunch for me a long time ago and they have been sitting in my scrap room. I loved the little red wagon but with just a touch of liquid glass you have an ADORABLE accent for your page. Don't forget to hammer the edges down and flatten it just a tad.

 This number was inspired by letter stickers my GF Sandy had brought. I know it's difficult to see the glitter but the 4 is actually raised with pop dots and the black is all sparkly. She had a sticker set that was actually giltter on the top and solid shadow but it provided the inspiration that I needed for the number here. See the safety pin holding the tab? Yeah, we're not gonna go there.

 I thought Stazon would be a lot more Opaque on transparency than it is. My bad. I traced the letters with  zig but it really didn't cut it. I do like the transparent look but it's a tad difficult to see. I think it's cool how the hand stitching at the top still shows through and all the rocket ships on the paper.

And now for the grand finale!!!

At my sister's request, this is my very first scrapbook page ever! Yes, there are fish on a duck hunting page. Vintage right? I got started with stamping up and bought white cardstock, color cardstock, one versatile stamp set, and my album. I had to make my own pattern paper. Although my stamp set was versatile, it wasn't THAT great:) As every scrapper I know I could really do so much better now but there is just something about it like I would be changing history if I took it apart now. Obviously I know much better now what to do with die cuts. Would love for others to share your first page. Don't know if you can load pics in remarks but if now, put it on your page and leave a remark about your first page ever. Here's to 8 years of scrappin'. Slante'