My 13 top page picks for various reasons

It appears that there are a lot of heritage pages.

I love to do heritage pages and I wanted to get more

original photos "safe" on pages.

This one was controversial because I couldn't get the 

baby's name right & I used feathers.

 I love shapes.

I adore shapes and this page was fun.

 This was a sketch challenge with a lot of

"white' space going on.

I love the simplicity of it.

 Been catching glitter girl episodes and

decided to try one of her tried and true page

designs and get more than one photo on a page.

 And of course, my infamous or not bathroom re-do

finally completed with amazing results.

And a bit of humor thrown in because it couldn't

be helped and busy crazy papers and colors.

 Colorblocking - who doesn't love the way that works

with some shapes and laters.

 Designing one's own tracks with stamping, inks and paint

with a splash of colors & shapes.

Using predesigned papers with a bit of extras.

 Using a photo as a base page to tell a story.

 Using negative space with layers - another idea from

glitter girl with photos portrait and landscape and just

start - picking out papers and design and then grab photos.

Getting busy papers rolling and jumping in with 

some travel photos finally - had the worst time getting

them going. 

Here's to next year being as fun, eclectic and adventerous.

HAVE A SAFE, BLESSED AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

 MY FRIENDS!

Off the Rails Scrapbooking Challenge Revealed

A sketch and color challenge combo...

by Diana Gonzalez

AND ta - da 

my version

You are my sunshine.....

I concentrated more on the orange with some stamping

and more on the pink with some flowers from spare parts.

The doilies are the gold ones that I used in a previous

page here and I used some MM paint - manila

to change up the color to match the challenge.

I also changed up the elements at the bottome of the

sketch - using the flower to emulate the same kind of design

as in the top.

Brought in some green because I liked it.

Click here to see what the rest of the team created

and join in the fun!!!

Working with acrylic

In case you didn't check out the Off the Rails challenge #1

use acetate - go on over and check it out.

This is my version of the challenge.

I decided to make a 12x12 scrapbook page on acetate.

I learned a few things which was different

than making acetate albums, I found.

1. Like don't peel off the blue backing while misting and using

alcohol ink on the acetate.

2. Do not mist and ink while the humidity is high.

(Unfortunately in Florida humidity is the norm).

3. While waiting for the mist to dry and in hurrying it along with

embossing powder - DO NOT use the heat gun with the blue paper on.

It is NOT pretty and its very difficult to remove.

 Here's how it looks without the blue paper. 

You really need to have backing to see what's what.

And isn't my kitchen rockin' or what.

 I got the blue backing off - very very carefully. 

And it was warped.

Not happy with the warping.

SO I put some paper behind to make sure what

goes where when I begin the placement of the elements.

 Can I say that I am totally giddy with delight as to how the

misting and alcohol ink is designed on the acetate. 

 It was hard finding a surface to photograph it on.

The misting made me swoon.

The alchohol drips made me swoon.

A close up of the cluster amidst the inks and sprays.

I had the best time with taking thephotos.

NH in Autumn is beautiful.

Stay tuned for the next Off the Rails challenge to be revealed on
December 27th. 

Sitting on Santa's lap

Should be a fun filled time - obviously my

favorite eldest son is not quite the fan

I thought he'd be a this age.

Santa was amused though and

Santa was also a woman.

 Favorite youngest son never had an issue.

He knew who he had to butter up and

had the innocent "who me" look down to a science.

I'm sure I did pages, however, I'm thinking

these were done way back in the day

and 

A. may not have been photographed because blogs 

weren't quite there yet or,

B. They are soooooo bad they'll never see the light of day.

Now I have to look.

Looks like its B.

This page is ME and my dad played Santa.

And I never knew - mom told me the story when

we found this photo. Priceless as my shock.

 Keep in mind these were all done in 2006 and

I belonged to a design team that GAVE you the papers

and you had to work with it whether it was your style or not.

 I'm not sure I actually had a style then. Everyone was kinda

floundering except for the graphic designers and artists.

They had a bead on it.

I really tried to emulate them.

 I worked at a LSS and this page was designed with

Pages by Designs templates and classes were

held to learn how to use said templates and sketches.

This page was designed by that.

This is kind of surprising since it breaks the floating/sneeze rule.

Well 2 items of them do. 

AND aren't rules just made for breaking.

An avacado bag adds texture

It's a new look - I have an onion bag that I use quite a bit and those are mostly square and wider apart, the avacado bag is small triangles that expand only I don't have enough hands to keep it that way.

Love the rustic way of it - using coffee bean paint and a stipling brush. I found I needed to use less paint and a couple dabs will do it.

I had to dig about for some jute I knew I had somewhere. And love how it moves across the page and the bow was added on top.

And burlap - doesn't it make you swoon? It does me. Had to dig for that too, and clipped off pieces that I added here and there for texture along with some washi tape.

Studio Calico has the cutest transparencies.

Love the texture and rustic of the alphas too. Little Yellow Bicycle and Tim Beck. Yum.

Aren't these two cuties. You just want to pinch those apple cheeks which was a title that blew through my head. However, after thinking about that one and a few more, I decided to go with the tried and true. Hopefully I can use the other titles I managed to think of somewhere else.

Writing the titles down will be key in remembering them.

Capturing the ouchie moments

 Poor Q-man was a happy go-lucky kid standing on a wall and before you know it.

Face plant at the bottom of the wall.

So not funny and totally painful and would you look at that pretty puss.

However its too good to pass up for a picture moment. Stuff like this happens and fortunately he was not seriously hurt. Teeth are good - so his smile is still terrific and nose or face not broken.

Just a bit battered and bruised. Poor baby.

And he picked himself up and hopped right back up on that wall after some ice.

Ice heals everything.

You gotta admire his spunk.

Some basic grey old and new, sassafrass lass, Studio Calico stuff, quickutz die, washi tape, twine, thickers.

Not a lot of tricks going on the page - couldn't help the splat behind the camera though.

Finally got that title....whew!

Most of you that know me, always know I'm

usually in search of a title.

April is my go to as well as my pal Holli, 

my husband and and a title book that has 

come through in a pinch.

This time I asked my blog buddies and you came through.

Thank you!

Pointing out Amelia's pretty red lips I came up with

"Sugar Lips".

And that brought me to remember a bouncy tune from Al Hirt

(a trumpet player) called Sugar Lips.

And didn't that just date me. 

 So I got my Wilna from in the mood to scrap from 2peas on. 

I love her stuff.

There are mists, inks, stamping, glitter and paper tearing going on.

A lot of fun.

The thickers are the ones that you can "customize". 

ooooooooooooo

 So I did with Martha Stewart's glitter. Her glitter

isn't scary - because its like a salt shaker.

Just shake it on out and it mostly goes

where you shake it.

I designed this page and put it all together then

I needed to search for a photo.

And because of the pre-done mat I needed

a 2.5x4 photo. 

I love the runs and dots of the ink amongst the

generous misting and stamping as an additional layer.

I also broke out the sewing machine to give

it a finishing touch.

Bazzill, Paper Studio, Primas, Ranger alcohol inks, Heidi Swapp & Mr. Huey mists, Abbey Road brads, MAMBI hearts, Thickers, Inkadoo stamp, Studio Calico do-dads & pattern papers.

Free for all over at

OFF THE RAILS SCRAPBOOKING

Check out all the wonderful

projects by clicking

here!

Join in the fun by submitting your Free For All

project and you may win a prize!

In the meantime I need a title for this photo.

Transparency & Silver

Switching gears in the metals and going with silver.

I also love this photo too and wish I had taken it as well. Miss Amelia stuffing her own stockings. LOL!

It needed special papers so I went with these Christmas papers that were in my Studio Calico kit and the transparency was just made to go together. I also found in my stash some silver paper.

I kept going back and forth about the kraft and in the end it seemed more right than off white. The trees are not quite white and not quite beige. Total conundrum - so kraft it is. Broke out an edge punch too.

Going all out. I cut out a circle with deckle scissors and found it looked plain. Broke out the sewing machine and stitched - twice. I then broke out some glimmermist.

I did a lot of breaking out.

However, the edge on the circle needed something too, so I went to my broke out stash and got some silver liquid pearl and painted around the edges. AND, I didn't make a big mess.

Shocked you I know.

More breaking out came in the form the of the arrow as I broke out my die cut and let'r rip. Found some stash silver ribbon and it accented everything perfectly. Got some tags going on and popped in the red flower and sequins for a pop of color.

The title is from Basic Grey alphas from long, long ago and they look better in person.

So here's a close up.

I picked up the red from the tree lights and skirt. And I love the little flag I punched out of denim ribbon - its to the left of the flower under the ribbon.

Unintentional gold rush - page 2

First off I want to say that this photo makes.me.swoon. It is soooo Norman Rockwell and I'm also soooo jealous that I didn't take it.

(And the sequins are gold not orange).

I love this paper from Studio Calico. Its soooooo WOW and pretty.

Behind the photo is another transparency and I popped the pix up to give it more dimension.

And then wa-la the second gold doily. (I now have 2 more curtesy of Studio Calico for re-upping for another 6 months- I love their kits so it was a no brainer).

Of course it needed some flowers. Lots of blingy flowers from Spare Parts. And then some gold washi tape - curtesy of Studio Calico. Again. And the sequins. And actually the title - though I changed it up for the fancy gold paper because the preprinted tag wasn't snazzy enough So I made my own and used my own handwriting because stamping wasn't working out. I tucked a lil gold tag behind the flowers that can be pulled out and journaled on.

I wanted to keep the page simple and elegant to let the photo shine through.

I'm having a gold rush totally unintentionally

At the same time I'm having a transparency gala as well.

This is page 1.

Not only that I have some Wilna action going on behind the golden doily.

Gelatoes. She added them to some tissue type paper, matched them to her mists and then toned them down with water.

I didn't do most of that.

The white cardstock has some embossed bumps on it and I spread the gelatoes on and then found some mists that sort of matched. And then I was stumped because it looked odd - to me.  The white c/s is 7.5x7.5 and is backed with some baby paper that I've had forever. It doesn't look like baby paper there.

I found the Hambly transparency while I was looking for something else, and it worked on half of the page, introducing the gold.

WELL...

The gold doily from the Studio Calico kit became a great mat and hid most of the gelatoes. And that's ok. AND then I found I had only ONE golden butterfly. Before I got to the golden doily, having the transparency on there without covering up edge made me crazy so I whipped out some of rick rack from Creative Cafe.  (I'm really using some stash up here-go me).  I'm glad now that I used white because it sort of fades into the background now. The sticko's alphas were perfect. I have never used them before and I like them better than thickers because they don't fly off and stick everywhere but your page). These babies are polite they want until you take them off the backing - oooohh & aaahhh. However since I have A LOT of thickers to use up I won't be going crazy on the stickos.

I found some more golden Hambly paper and made a little tag for writing down the names of all the cousins on the couch. OOOOO that would've been a great title too. I'll have to remember that.

I love kraft paper

It just works with everything.

It can be rustic.

It can be elegant.

It can be an accent.

So I don't remember who made that butterfly paper.

I know you're surprised.

However, it works great with the kraft.

 I kept this page kind of monochromatic.

Love the touches of beige.

I changed the butterflies 3 times.

I wanted to have a pop color so I chose blue/green

like Amelia's sassy.

However it had white in it and was glaring.

So I changed it to blue/green with beige. 

That was jarring.

So I went with black.

 Like the little black dress you can't go wrong.

Especially around kraft.

I also used transparency newspaper from K&co. as

a mat in order to show the second mat 

and to also keep the butterflies flying.

Can we say pop :) with the black butterflies.

I did a bit of layering in the 2 corners.

I kept the title simple - also black

 - I love the labeler look and it does bring it all together.

Those photos are a total hoot and was supposed to be

for another page I made, however, the photo

was way too big for the mat I created on the other page

so it gave me more mojo to create this page.

A total win.

However, I'm still hunting a photo for the other page

that I got my Wilna on.

Layers, Stitching & some Stamping OH My

I love how that title just rolls off the tongue. Well okay - it's pretty well known I'm easily amused. And I wish I could say I was amused in building this page. It was a drive-by that started before I left for Thanksgiving. And there it was taunting me when I returned. From the cold tundra. With a sinus infection.

WAH WAH WAH !!! LOL!!!

 So here's a sneaky peak at all the layering that went on and use of negative space.

Of course it wasn't until after I glued everything down, along with pop dots that I decided it needed some stitching. I creatively curled the remaining thread around the tag to hang at the bottom to throw you off in thinking that I meant to do that.

:)

It totally worked right???

Then I had to find a photo.

So in order to keep the ole triangle going I stitched the arrows at the top and through the title at the bottom, and that means I can't be changing my mind about the title, and I really don't want to. 

I was trying to use the brick wall as a grafitti thing and I'm sure its been done. However, I am not at all confident in my drawing ability and I couldn't make up my mind about stamps to use so being the decisive person I'm known to be, I decided to use the grafitti paper that was in the kit. I'll go out on a limb and figure that's why Studio Calico put them in the kit.

A total win-win.

And maybe you'll notice that there's something I normally always do on a page - that I've not done on this page. 

3 guesses :)

Everything is Studio Calico & from their kits;  except pink paislee, sissix dies, washi tape.

Cousins of all ages

Stick together as you can see and give their Aunt Lynn a fit. However, I'm all good because they will be immortalized. ON the internet, in my scrapbook and whatever else I can think of. :)

Is this not cool?? The internet is a wonderful thing and you can find all kinds of stuff. Photos side-by-side. Who knew??? In case you care - go here and you too can figure it out. Not hard just scary messing with HTML. I didn't change the size already there because A. I'm not good at math and B. I didn't want to screw anything up. But you can make them bigger. OR you can click on them and change them on the small, medium, large and extra large menu OR not. It appears medium is way too big. But you could plan it that way.

:)

As soon as I conquer this stupid sinus thing which makes me sleepy and lazy (and I'm totally blaming that), the mojo thingy will hopefully return. Sadly, I was busy visiting so these are the only photos of Thanksgiving 2014 I took-well except for outside ones. I know. I'm going to have to turn in my badge.