52 Week Photography Challenge- Depth of Field

I'm a little late posting this week because I had a couple of photos sessions over the weekend, so I have been busy editing those photos. My photo today is from one of those sessions, a newborn session of my newest nephew. My depth of field is pretty shallow here, with the eyelashes of his left eye in focus but his other eye and bum out of focus.

March Calendar Page

Hello! I have my March calendar page to share today! Once again, I was inspired by the two page sketch at Stick it Down:

I stuck pretty close to the sketch, but figured out a way to squeeze a few more pictures in: I used a photo behind my title, and divided the large photo into 5 photos. I used Echo Park Country Drive and lots of odds and ends for embellishing my page.

Materials:
Cardstock- American Crafts, Georgia Pacific
Patterned Paper and Stickers- Echo Park
Tags- K and Co.
Chipboard- Studio Calico, American Crafts
Gems- Michaels
Flowers- Bazzill
Wood Veneer- Basic Grey, American Crafts
Buttons- October Afternoon
Stamp- American Crafts
Ink- Stampin Up, Ranger
Pen- Sharpie
Tape- Pink Fresh Studio
Twine- Pink Paislee
Punch- EK Success
Liquid Pearls- Ranger

52 Week Photography Challenge- Red

Hello! I am back with my photo for the week. The prompt for this week was "red," which should have been easy, with it being Valentine's day and all, but it wasn't.  My photo doesn't have a true red, but maroon instead. I took my youngest to the local sports dome for "tot turf time" this past week. There are three inflatables, this being the biggest. He had a blast running from one to another and bouncing around inside. Here he is with one of his friends after climbing the wall inside and getting ready to jump down on the other side.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi all! I know I'm a little late with this post, but better late than never, right? I am sharing the card I made for my husband for Valentine's day. We don't really do gifts (although my husband did bring home flowers after he told me he didn't get me anything... anyway...), but I do like to make a card for him. For my card, I started with this sketch from Stick It Down:

I tried a technique on my background that involved stamping with Versamark and then blending Distress Inks over it, but it didn't work. I wanted some texture to my background, so I stamped with water on my Distress Ink background to produce some faint images.

I cut the birds using my Cricut and stamped the sentiment. To add some sparkle, I pressed the pink heart in Versamark and sprinkled glitter embossing powder over it.

Thanks for stopping in and have a great rest of the weekend!

Christmas Fun

Hello! I hope you are having a good weekend! I have a new layout to share today. I used some photos from over 5 years ago to make a Christmas layout for my daughter's book. I started by pulling out some coordinating patterned papers. In this process, I discovered I am much more drawn to Christmas paper with non-traditional colors, especially for my girls' pages. I laid out my photos and then layered pieces of patterned paper underneath. I used a 3x3 card, along with a piece of patterned paper to fill in the gap in the top row of my photos. I personalized the card with a stamp of my daughter's initial. The Mix It Up Monday challenge at Paper Issues is to use embossing powder. I used a specialty embossing powder called Stamp N Bond which gets sticky when heated and then I added loose gold glitter to it. I love the sparkle the glitter gives and I love that I can add it to stamped images using this product! I also heat embosses with red powder for my journaling circle. To make that into an ornament, I added a washi tape top and a gold cord string. I used various embellishments for the clusters around my layout. 

Here is a closer look as some more of the stamping and glittering. For my title, I cut the word "Christmas" with my Cricut and used letter stickers for the word "fun". A piece of ribbon and rub on add some interest to the title area. I finished off my layout with dots of pink Liquid Pearls.

The week 3 challenge at Lasting Memories is the scrapbook "celebrations of love". Christmas is definitely a celebration and I love my daughter! :)

Materials:
Cardstock- Die Cuts with a View
Patterned Paper- October Afternoon, Gossamer Blue
Chipboard piece- Making Memories
Letter Stickers- Echo Park
Ribbon- Doodlebug
Embossing Powder- JoAnn Crafts, Stampendous
Glitter, Rub ons- American Crafts
Ink- Ranger, Tsukineko, Color Box
Stamps- Hero Arts, American Crafts, Autumn Leaves, Fiskars
Pen- GelWriter, Sakura
Font- Quiggly Wiggly
Badge, Brad- October Afternoon
Liquid Pearls- Ranger
Tape- My Mind's Eye

52 Week Photography Challenge- Lazy Days

Hi all! I hope you had a great weekend! I have a couple of photos to share this week for the prompt. First up is one of my kids playing/watching video games from the weekend. 

My second photo is from the zoo today. I got lucky and caught the tiger yawning.

Here is the list of prompts again, in case you are interested in participating!

Ewww!

Happy Saturday! I hope you are all having a great day! I am feeling a bit under the weather, but was able to get some scrapping done. I started with this sketch from Stuck?! Sketches:

 

I got a little messy for this layout, but I thought it went well with the subject. I started by watering down some green spray ink and making a big circle of it on my background cardstock. I held the cardstock upright so the ink would run down the page. Then I used the packaging technique to add the dark blue ink. I had a little mishap with the dark blue ink that resulted in the dark blue splatter at the bottom of the page. 

I then used a mask and texture past to add the spots. I like how they kind of look like the shaving cream in the photos. I layered on some patterned paper and a bit of washi tape. I used my Cricut to cut the title and attached it with foam adhesive for some dimension. I found the fun paper clip arrow in an old Scrapbook Circle kit I won a couple of years ago. I also pulled out some roller stamps for my date and the sentiment in the top right corner. I finished the page off with some enamel dots and a badge.

I was also inspired by this month's Take 5 Tuesday challenge at Paper Issues. I used white, enamel dots, cardstock, an arrow, and told the story. The week two challenge at Lasting Memories was also to use arrows.

Have a great rest of your weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Materials:

Cardstock- American Crafts

Patterned Paper- Bella Blvd., Echo Park

Tape- October Afternoon

Inks- October Afternoon, Tattered Angels, Ranger

Stamps- Stampin Up, American Crafts

Enamel Dots- October Afternoon, EK Success

Texture Paste- Golden

Badge- October Afternoon

Mask- The Crafters Workshop

Die Cutter- Provo Craft

Software- Craft Edge

Font- CK Rough Housing

February Calendar Page

Hello all! I am lagging behind a bit on this too! I had a few photo sessions at the end of January, coupled with some poor use of time, and I just got my February calendar page done! I started with the January 2 page sketch from Stick it Down:

I tried to stay pretty true to the sketch, but got creative in how I added more photos to the layout. I also moved the title a bit.

I started the layout by spreading some modeling paste, that I had colored grey with spray ink, over a heart mask. While that dried, I cut pieces of patterned paper and adhered them to the back of my photos to make multicolored and multipatterned photo mats. I used my Cricut and Sure Cuts a Lot to cut the title. For "February," I used a couple of Gelatos and a paintbrush to create the ombre effect. I used the same colors of Gelatos for the Grundgeboard arrow (which started a hinge, but I cut it to be what I wanted).

After I had all of the photos and journaling attached, I fussy cut some flowers from coordinating paper to line the bottom of the layout. To add some sparkle, I spread some glue over parts of the flowers and then sprinkled on some glitter.

I was also inspired by the tic tac toe challenge at Scrap Our Stash (I used the center column):

Materials:

Cardstock- American Crafts, unknown, Michael's

Patterned Paper- October Afternoon

Buttons- Fancy Pants

Mask- Heidi Swapp

Modeling Paste- Golden

Spray Ink- October Afternoon

Glitter- American Crafts

Die Cutter- Provo Craft

Fonts- 2 Peas Platform Shoes, Maiandra GD

Software- Adobe, Craft Edge

Grungeboard- Advantus

Gelatos- Faber Castell

Brads- Basic Grey

52 Week Photography Challenge- Wide Angle

Hello! It's been a little crazy around here with some illness and just hanging around at home. I had hoped to get out and shoot landscape or something for this prompt, but it didn't happen. I decided to take some in our house and embrace the background. I so often shoot zoomed in, cropping out much of the background so the focus is on the subject. I forget that so much story can be told from keeping those background details in the shot. So today we have a photo of my boys playing with marbles in our entry. There are a few toys strewn about, which is pretty typical. I also like the lines of the bench, stairs and window leading the eye to my subjects.