Thanksgiving cards for the grands.

Lost my mojo for awhile so I haunted the web and

found a card similar to mine to make 10 cards.

Circles are your friend when they're critters.

Also I did almost use an entire 6x6 Pebbles paper pad.

Now onto Christmas. LOL.

I have way too many Christmas dies not to use.

😬

I did use watercolor paper for the leaves and then used

TH crayons and in looking back I should've

used the oxides to get more vibrant colors.

Hwoever, their kids. ❤️

 

Tag booklet complete - the backside

I finished this baby fast.

You can see the start and additions of the booklete here and here.

I was making the tags and the majority are mixed media

and therefore, a lot of bleeding going on the backside.

Therefore, a solution was required more or less.

I was still out on the fence because mixed media is supposed

to messy, however.

There's messy cool and messy messy.

So my pals Holli and Brooke convinced me that maybe the

backside needed some cover.

(as if a normal scrapper couldn't figure that one out)

LOL.

 

I could've covered with mixed media and/or plain ole

pattern paper.

Where's the fun in that. 

So....I decided that embellishing would be 

great fun and it was.

Not necessarily in any particular order because blogger

is a pain in the ass about that.

Heaven forbid they actually upload in the order

I went to great pains to do.

But I digress.....It turned out to be a lot of fun

and I did all the pages in one night

and doesn't that prove the fun.

Using a bit of this and that from PebblesWoodland Forest.

That paper bad is soooo cool and I felt it

complimented the mixed media I was using on

the tags.

Got to use a lot of stash.

I think the deer is Bo Bunny but I can't swear to it.

I have a bad habit of tossing packages and

tossing everything into one tub.

Sadly, my head is like I can remember it and

my memory is like - yeah no.

It was a great play and I got brave and started

splatting some mists and nuvo around.

I love that lady - it's TH - a stamp and die.

OOOOO and I love those fauna and flowers

and decided that the bold colors

would be rather pretty.

I love that sentiment.

Love the Christmas cheer and I think I 

need to add a few splats as I look

at this photo.

I got to use some washi tape.

I have issues with using it - it just doesn't look right

when I plop it down.

This actually worked out.

Love my tag booklet and I'll be making a few more.

For some reason I flung out a lot of creativity

that I would normally stifle on other projects

because I have a set thing in my head

that screams you can't do that.

Well I did it.

And I'm gonna do it again.

Happy New Year!

 

To keep things interesting - I started a day planner

Because, Why not?

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not a good diary/note keeper.

Shocking to me, because that was part of my job 

once upon a time.

WELL no longer, evidently.

So...........

I'm using a Traveler's notebook that well....working on that too.

Because neither one is so not a 12x12, 8.5x11 ETC 

scrapbook page and the documentation and creative process

is sooooo different.

AND who doesn't love a challenge.

So with the brilliant deduction to start one brought on by

second guessing and because at one time, due to my job I was day planner,

calendar driven person for over 15 years ago (when

they first came out in the business world

-they had a different name that escapes me now)

but my entire life was driven and I SWORE (so much for that)

that my life would never be calendar/day planner 

driven EVER.

HOWEVER, it's not so much DRIVEN now as remembering

what happened at any given time on our Odyssey.

It's more like a diary.

An abbreviated diary, with hopeful comments that lend

to a more involved commentary.

Which may or may not be working.

I was so excited to find this day planner mostly because

I liked all the cool shaker thing going on - on the cover page.

 So after the purchase I found that I needed a day planner from March 2019

and this one started at July 2019 to July 2020.

I saw 2019-2020 and was sooooo excited UNTIL...

 I needed March.

LOL.

 So I improvised, ad libbed because being on the road and only

finding M's, HL, or ACM on the road and actually STOPPING was 

like just like not going to happen until we light and land somewhere.

 We were on the move or camping at a location

that was nowhere close to any of the above.

So imagine my chagrin when I found out I screwed up.

The internet is a wonderful thing.

I found blank calendar pages and printed them out.

and logged our journey based on the 3-4 summary

thing I had going on.

I'm telling you it's not for the faint of heart. LOL.

 I have to admit this planner has a LOT of pages.

They have the 30 day calendar.

THEN they have pages by the week.

THEN they have a comments sections.

THEN they have a summary page at the end.

What could possibly go wrong.

OVERTHINKING.

So these are my first lame attempts and any helpful/creative

hints will be so welcome.

However, I have progressed to August that even

blows me away at the pages.

I'm gonna wait until August is running into September

before I attempt to blow your mind

with my attempt at creativity.

Remember I came from a business world day planner so

this is total frivolity. 

LOL.

A bit monochromatic

Which I love every now and then and it is

perfect for this photo of Owen.

Love the hat, the pose, the smile.

Love this paper from Pebbles and paired it up

with some old Basic Grey and

just a bit of embellishment that went sort of

'old' school. 

It totally focuses on the photo.

Christmas card layout

I have done this every year since I lifted this idea

from Ali Edwards way back.

Every year the amount of cards get a little smaller but

its still fun. I also put the cards on my little tree long.

So I take all the cards from the tree and put them on a page

to remember them and to save them.

(This tree is from a few years ago).

This year was the year of snowmen and if it wasn't

a photo card which are tucked into the pocket,

 I fussy cut out whatever took my fancy and

added it to the page like an embellishment.

And there is no guilt in tossing out the remnants of the card.

I did save a card from my Uncle Harold who is up in age

in order to preserve his handwriting and little note.

Using what is left of the Pebbles paper or maybe there's more

I'm sort of "out of order" on posts.  

Making spirits bright

with candy cane striped paper and a bit of dimension

with a sort of star stencil and modeling paste.

Didn't quite work out the way I envisioned.

 I fussy cut the title from a card because it was too big

and the berries because I liked them.

 Can't go wrong with mists - it can cover a number of sins.

And that QK flower is just perfect for the sin. LOL!!

Layers and some pink fresh Christmas words and

there you have Annie (Oakley) in her

pink cowgirl hat. 

I did this page before I started running out of the Christmas papers.

Ornaments and Angels page

This is what happens when one doesn't buy enough

Christmas papers.

Using a Studio Calico paper as a base page

and splattered some mists about

and bits and pieces of Pebbles papers.

 Using QK cookie cutters to make the "ornaments"

and dangled them with twine.

The angels, another QK die cut - and put some gold paint around

to pop them off the page.

And yes, I did die cut the photo too....

shades of long ago.

 The trees are another QK die and the sparkly

trees are called disco gold - got that paper from HL (I think). 

How cool is that.

They are so festive and fun!!

I did some stamping around and didn't like the outcome

so enter more mists using the packaging technique.

I have some gold ink to spiff up the wooden "shine."

It's a bit on the wild side. 

LOL!

Mist swirls that didn't quite work out

I have done them before - stealing the idea from Nancy/Kitty Scrapper

and loved them and I have to admit it did look good

on the paper when I first did it 

UNTIL

I put stuff on top and no matter how I changed things it

still looked dumb.

So therefore, after screwing with it some more behind

the scenes, adding more mist splatters and sworls (like I thought that would help)
which made it look even worse, therefore,
 I decided to chuck that background
paper and slap the rest of it on another paper that I
totally love so much better.

So there.

For some reason I don't have a berry and leaf punch

so I faked it with a Martha Stewart

leaf punch and a hole punch.

Fussy cut the "kids" out of the tag sheet and love

the title - a wood veneer from Michael's $1.50 bin I painted
with SC color theory primrose.

SO when something's not working out - undo and scissors
to the rescue. It's not like it's never been done before by yours truly. LOL.

Pebbles, Nuvo.

Sweet child of mine

Guns & Roses title - This is actually the only song of theirs I really liked. Obviously not a fan of AxelRose. But that's ok I'm not above snitching a title of theirs when need be.

The iphone photo was originally in color and I decided to play with B&W - not because there were clashy colors but because the pixels seemed to be smoother in B&W.

And it also worked better with the papers I picked out. I found this paper from Hobby Lobby by the Paper Studio. Its really flimsy so I backed it with some black bazzil. I broke out my new Heidi Swapp mist and played around. I started by sprinkling mist with the mister, but then I decided to mimic some others who slap mist on with a round paintbrush. I sortofkindof got the same effect they did.

I need more practice flinging.

I picked out bits and pieces of Bo Bunny and Authentique and whacked a journaling card in half. I found a place for my Studio Calico rubons (don't they make you swoon) and layered them and some wood do-dads. I tried gelatoes on the flower but it really didn't work so I broke out the watercolors. I also used some Pebbles (from SC Kit) stickers. to balance out that corner and slapped some feathers and a butterfly.

And then the title which took some brainstorming with April. After several lame tries (and I mean lame).  Wa-la. Then had to figure out how to get it on there. I had forgotten how much I love the labler and it was perfect.

The photo in color. It's sweet either way.

But I'm partial to b&w.

How about you?