Show Some Leg

I had some fun with this one.  I found these great photos of my godmother and her sisters and my mom taken after WWll.

Note:  You all know how important music is to me and how it usually coincides with my layouts.  Now I'd like to share  one of my favorite songs that we found performed on YouTube.  I hope you'll take a minute to watch it.  The choir, as another art form, inspires my creativity. And these wonderful girls singing have nothing to do with today's layout theme...other than  Lily wrote this song for her mother--and this is a photo of my mom having fun and I miss my mom!  So hit the pause button on Playlist and hit the play arrow on YouTube.

Pages In Time inspiration sketch for the July PIT kit:

The July PIT kit provided the cardboard cutout shape, the 7 Gypsies Avignon Collection patterned paper: Fleur De Lys  (covering the shape),  Say It with Pearls embellie, lace and flowers.  I placed it on Kaisercraft Devonshire Collection pp from the June PIT kit.  I just liked how the two papers looked together.  And the June Devonshire Guinevere has a beautiful distressed pattern so I didn't have to add anything to it. 
From my stash:
Adirondack gold metallic paint dabber to edge the shape and the paper
paper pieced legs from Graphic 45 Domestic Goddess Collection: Lady of the House
rhinestone flower (from PIT)
Websters Pages alphas
Jenni Bowlin journal sheet
K&Co Kurio chipboard letters distressed with Ranger ink and ColorBox Fluid Chalk and a Hero Arts script stamp
black flower button

Here is this week's Pages In Time Thursday July 29 sketch:

And the August Pages In Time monthly kit is in the PIT store ready for purchase.  I've got it posted on my sidebar for future reference--but hurry.  Last month's kit was sold out in a flash.

One Thing Leads to Another

If you make a homemade flower, then you have to do something with it, so you make an embellishment.  If you make an embellishment, then you have to use it on something, so you make a layout.  And so it goes.....  I discovered a free on-line tutorial to make flowers out of Jenni Bowlin crepe paper.  This was quite fortuitous because I already had in my stash some of this great stuff.  I had used it to make a bow for my Old Settlers' Rides layout.  I don't know the first thing about making my own flowers (other than the famous Wendy grungepaper roses, etc.), so I decided to check out the tutorial.  The Fabulous Flowers Class was a designated site from Scrapbook Challenges and taught by Betsy Sammarco.  I learned how to make several different flowers with JB crepe paper.

To cap off the week, we were challenged to make and post a project using the flower(s).  Back in the spring, I bought some JB paper and chipboard buttons with the intention of making a patriotic layout for this photo.  So the challenge was on.....  This also is my humble attempt at using a lot of white space on a layout as well as putting something interesting in a corner.

The photo is of a cafe owned by relatives during WWII.  There is a sign on the wall, Serving U.S. Armed Forces.  Hence, the red, white and blue patriotic theme. 

All materials are Jenni Bowlin products. 

BLOG BUDDIES

 

I woke up this morning to this email award from my blog buddy Sabrina.  Isn't this the sweetest image? This is the perfect time to thank all of you for choosing to follow my artistic endeavors here at LOTSA SCRAP.   I see that I now have 85 followers!!!!  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine so many cyberfriends when I started my blog 1-1/2 years ago!  I love creating in the solitude of my scrap room.  But I also enjoy the wonderful, supportive comments you leave me when I post the finished product.  And I love visiting all of you and being inspired by your wonderful works of art.  I'm so happy this award doesn't come with any rules. I would like each and every one of my followers to take this award and post it on your blogs.  Yes, this means YOU! Because without you my artistic journey into cyberspace would be very lonely indeed!

Blue on Blue

Blue card for challenges.  Light blue blank card, scissor cut and lined with navy cardstock on right side; (photographed on beige but the beige is not part of the card)
Materials:
Coredinations navy cardstock
sanding block
Tim Holtz Alterations texture fades Patchwork embossing folder
Clear Art Stamps Greetings From Wonderland set (stamped image cut out and layered on top of same paper with pop dot under his head for some dimension)
Memento Tuxedo Black ink
Adirondak lights Paint Dabber: Cloudy Blue
Ranger Distress Ink: faded jeans
Spellbinders Nestabilities
Tim Holtz patterned paper
clear glaze pen
Maya Road ribbon
computer generated sentiment
Best Occasions light blue blank greeting card
gold crown from the candy jar at Red Lead in St. Louis

Wishing you a life of luxury qualifies for the following:
Sunday Stamper Week 113:  Hels' challenge to use Love or Life in our stamped work this week
Gingersnap Creations GC60  : Shades of Blue
Gingersnap Creations Yahoo Group: card sketch
Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge 63 MMSC63: sketch
So Artful Challenge:  luxury
Blue Moon contest

Sweet

Here is a layout I made with the kit I won as the BINGO prize here at Simply Scrapping Crafts' Summer Fun Crop.  I used their Week 2 July Sketchy Saturday sketch.
The photos are from the late 80's.  They were taken in the shade but they had to be scrapped because I love the combo of purses and ball gloves! These are my two DDs before their little brother came along.

Materials I used from the prize:
My Mind's Eye Pretty Please patterned papers: Cheery Flowers, Full of Flowers
flowers, bling brad, pink ribbon, silver binder clip


Other materials:
My Mind's Eye Pretty Please patterned papers 6x6 that I got free with a magazine: used the blue for photo mats and pieced the trim for the left side
Tinkering Ink al fresco alphabet
yellow button and a gem for the other flower center
Tim Holtz pink ledger paper, butterfly, and Making Memories sweet sentiment from Pages In Time
SU notebook paper punch
corner rounder punch for left trim
Hero Arts butterfly stamp
Heidi Grace rub-on

Here's the great Thursday sketch from Pages In Time for this week.


This is next on my to do list....

A Card for Pages In Time challenges

This is one of those ten minute cards that took a tad bit longer to complete. First, after searching the internet sites for freebie image of a monkey, I discovered I had one in my stash from an image swap I did eons ago. This is a Stampendous image. Second, I took some time coloring it as I hadn't used my Copics in quite some time. Third, I decided to find a flower center and scrounged around until I came upon this Heidi Grace chipboard set that just happened to have the perfect center in both color and size. I had recently purchased some pastel cards on sale so I pulled out a yellow one. I added the patterned paper left over from a layout that I made at least a year ago---and finished with some Creative Cafe felt loop trim. I love that I used 4 old things in my stash! Now my description of the night's events does sound like it should have taken only ten minutes or so. But anyone who knows how I work, knows better than that!

Challenges from the Pages In Time Design Team:
Andrea: July Color Challenge to use one of her posted June color combos: I chose the brown, yellow, blue, green combo as that matched perfectly the patterned paper.
Marie: July Card Challenge

I believe I can be good on this side of the moon

This all started with the Gingersnap Creations fairy challenge.

While surfing in cyberspace for inspiration and freebies, I was taken by this manuscript found on the Graphics Fairy site: a few lines in a poem entitled Night from the Lady's Tablet of Friendship, which is a pre-civil war autograph book:
Tis one of morn, the silent hour
When sprites and spirits glide around,
When fairies sport in forest bower, 
And moonlight silvers o'er the ground;

Then there's the Dorothy Gale intro to the Over the Rainbow song in the Wizard of Oz:
A place where there isn't any trouble....Behind the moon.....

And Hels Sheridan's challenge to use Believe or Journey in my work. 

All the while wanting to use this fairy image from Altered Artifacts....  I contemplated what a Victorian fairy would say on Halloween, the biggest night for Tricks or Treats.  (okay, Halloween and Victorian vintage are synonymous with me....)  I decided she'd state, I believe I can be good on this side of the moon.

Challenges and Materials:  
Stamping to qualify for Hels' Sunday Stamper challenge: Believe and/or Journey
2 star stamps from the Making Memories Spellbound clear stamps set
Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490 stamp: Believe

JudiKins color duster (stiff brush) to stiple Tim Holtz/Ranger Distress Ink in brushed corduroy on the 6-1/2 inch square orange cardstock mat
7 inch square black cardstock mat

Graphics Fairy image to qualify for Brag Monday: Man in the Moon image

Fairy to qualify for Gingersnap Creations GC59 Fairies challenge: 
fairy from Altered Artifacts Etsy shop: Victorian Fairies collage sheet

Stitching to qualify for the Lots To Do challenge :  mine is faux stitching--any real stitching done by me would totally destroy my project.
2 12 inch stitch rub-ons that I've had in my stash for 3 years and lost the packaging to tell you who made them


Tim Holtz/Ranger Distress Ink in spiced marmalade pounced with a sponge onto the yellow ric rac as well as the computer generated wording

puffy silver stars; black pom pom trim; heart cut from some lace trim
patterned paper is blackbird from a 6x6 collection by Memory Box Co (it was  flying off the shelf at my lss--I was lucky to snag a pack)

Lake Tishigan Layout for my Mom's 100th Birthday

This month marks my mother's 100th birthday.  She lived a very long life, but didn't reach this milestone.  It's only fitting that my layout  photo is of ma enjoying herself at my aunt's summer home on Lake Tishigan.  Based on a guess as to the age of my cousin in this photo, I'm assuming the photo was taken around 1940.

I used this week's wonderful Thursday sketch from Pages In Time.  I had just come across the Graphic45 Boardwalk paper that had sea horses on one side (not my favorite) BUT also the most amazing two inch squares on the flip side.  It was too good to be true that the sketch fit into my plans perfectly.

Due to time constraints earlier in the year, I didn't get in on any inchie and twinchie swaps.  So I decided to take the plunge and make my first twinchies.  These images actually are mounted on twinchie matboard squares.  In the photo, my mom is on the far left and her sister Phyllis is next to her.  The shells and macrame (around the circle) are from Phyllis' loose bits and pieces in her jewelry stash.  The macrame was made either by her or by my Aunt Alfreda whose husband and daughter are in the photo.  I repurposed a black net vegetable bag for the twinchie on the right. I used a watercolor pencil to accent the backgrounds on the left and right twinchies and color the dock in the center twinchie.

Materials used:  Graphic45 patterned papers, K&Company Tommy's Toys Red Linen Printed Flat Paper, Doodelbug black felt alphas, Maya Road mini chipboard alphas with Tim Holtz for Ranger Aged Mahogany Distress Ink, Jesse James & Co Buttons Dress It Up: In the Depths, Stampin' Up tab punch

BIRTHDAY CARDS

It's my SIL's birthday so we've been busy making cards at my house.
Through Soartful challenges, I found two images, the Enchanted Castle and Gowned Lady, from Pringle Hill Studios. I actually figured out how to layer a png file with a jpeg file to create the image. This lovely lady,wearing a Stickle sparkled gown, is walking back to the castle for some birthday cake.  I used the July sketch challenge from Simply Crafting Scraps:

Now I'd like to introduce you to the wonderful work of two young ladies who are new to the world of card making:

The girls were home for the holiday weekend at the lake.  While here, they decided to raid my craft room and make cards for their aunt. 
DD1 knew exactly what she wanted.  Falling in love with the Maya Road owls, she chose two and searched my stash for the perfect branch for them to perch on.  (branch actually an arm from Tim Holtz' snowman grungeboard)  She hunted for a specific color green which she found on the Prima Flower cardboard packaging.  So we cut the center out for her card mat.  I suggested using a couple of  Spellbinder's Nestabilities for a focal point.  After looking through my handful of Happy Birthday stamps, she chose to use part of the SU stamp as a branch for her owl.

Next up is DD2 who likes looking through my magazines for inspiration.  She used my Prima flowers from my Pages In Time kit (how could I say no?)
She dug through the button box and came up with this assortment, added twine, and turned them into flower centers.  Same SU sentiment stamp.

Aren't they both so talented?  Since I recently started my hobby, we didn't make cards or scrap together when they were younger.  There were other crafts such as the Magic Oven, dough ornaments, and puff painted tee-shirts.  It would have been fun to have been scrapping together all that time.  But it's something new and fun for us to do together now.

Christmas in July--literally!!!!

I went to the Christmas in July open house at Prairie Art Stamps in Springfield, IL and made two holiday items.  At Judy's station, I stamped, inked and colored this adorable post card.  Here's the back of  it:

This was so much fun, that when PID put up their challenge today to make a postcard using PID images, I decided I'd jump right in and make another postcard.  I'll post that one later.

This could be the start of a real trend for me because I'm also in the Pages In Time Mail Art Group and anxiously awaiting my first mail from another PIT groupie.



But I digress.... Back at the Prairie Art Stamps Holiday Open House, I also went to Karla's and Dawn's table and made this fun tag.  They had the pieces cut out; I just had to stamp, paint, glue and assemble.  We used silver embossing ink and Twinkling H2Os.

My next post will be some awesome birthday cards made by my DDs.

Brothers

It's just about time for a new Thursday sketch challenge from Pages In Time. Here is what I made with the July 1 sketch.  (once again photographed on my famous green tablecloth)

Our Pages In Time Design Team is going strong with the July challenges. I'm combining this sketch with DT Leader Barbara's July Pretty Punch challenge to use two punches.  I used the Martha Stewart lace punch for the bottom strip and the Stampin' Up scallop punch for the back of the circular sticker. 

I have so many vintage photos to scrap, so I was thrilled to use this sketch that included journaling to tell one of the family stories.  The man on the right is my DH's maternal grandfather.

Materials:
Bazzill brown cardstock
metal alphabet paper clip
Colorbox Fluid Chalk
Tim Holtz snaps
Maya Road ribbon
Kaisercraft brown pearls




 
From Pages In Time monthly kits:
Webster's Pages Your Life Beautiful Postcards from Paris romantique chic (mustard yellow)
Fancy Pants Fancy Free Collection Free Spirit Victorian Lace (blue)
ADORNit cardstock stickers (photo corners, circle sentiment, and border strips)

Speaking of Pages In Time kits, the July kit already is totally SOLD OUT!  Looking at these yummy papers it's no wonder there aren't any left.  Not only is the main kit gone, but also all of the add-ons.  Mine is on its way to my mailbox and I can't wait to get started using it.  I'll do my best to post early the August Kit--as soon as it becomes available---because at Pages In Time, if you snooze, you lose!  Karen has lots of other goodies in her store.  If you love flowers, she's your go to gal.
Check all of my links to Pages In Time on my sidebar.  You can't miss them.  While you're at my sidebar, click on the PIT Thursday Sketch badge to get to Karen's site where you can congratulate our Guest Design Team Member for July who is Carla Oliveira.  And if you click on the Pages In Time ning site and join, you can read the Pages In Time e-newsletter and give a shout out to MommaSaid for being the Featured Member.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Two July birthdays in the Everything Wendy Vecchi birthday card club means I made two identical cards with a patriotic July theme. And in honor of today, I placed my card on this patriotic scrapping paper.

Materials used:
Image from the Graphics Fairy, edited in photoshop to add birthday sentiment,
printed on Tredrix 100% cotton Artist canvas (my printer choked a couple of times, but I finally got it through.
Scissor distress canvas, trim with lace distressed with Tim Holtz Ranger weathered wood Distress ink, back with a piece of grungeboard placed inside the lace so that the entire square lays flat;
Kraft cardstock cut slightly smaller than size of Wendy Vecchi's Studio 490 by Stampers Anonymous background stamp.
place chipboard star in top corner of kraft paper and spray with Tsukineko Walnut Ink Antiquing Solution.
place post-it note or similar paper in top corner to cover star; use TH/Ranger faded jeans distress ink on Wendy's stamp, and stamp kraft square.
ink edges of square with Th/Ranger Fired Brick distress ink
now I have my simulated flag base.
Cut blue paper so that it's larger on the right side; use star stencil and Adirondack Cranberry Ink Dabber to created 3 stars horizontally on the right edge.
Create a greeting card with DCWV red cardstock and assemble.
Dye jute cord with Faded Jeans distress ink; thread though button and place on top of star.

Grandma's Trellis

This is my example to the Pages In Time members for my July Pile It On Challenge.  I'm trying this new type of challenge to see if there is any interest among the PIT members. 

In addition to a randomly drawn winner for a prize, I'm also awarding a badge.  This is the first time I created a badge in Photoshop Elements 7, so it's simple but effective.   I wanted an image that demonstrated how to pile it on.  This lovely lady has pearls, a boa and a very large hat.  Having a highly decorated hat was important to me.  After hours of searching the web, I found this great image at Art Freebies.  I simply added text to create my badge.  But I figured out how to do it, all by myself!

About the photo in the layout:  This is my grandma in her garden.  It was a postage stamp sized garden in the city but it was filled with flowers.  Here she's standing in front of the trellis where she grew parsley and lettuce. My grandma (Babcia) came to America at the age of 15.

About the Pages In Time Challenge:  I chose 4 July challenges from the other Design Team members and added my own twist, to use a button.  Here are the challenges so you know what I incorporated into my layout:
Denise's Distressing: Inking:  I used Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Ink in China Blue to edge the photo mat, Tea Dye and Antique Linen.  Scissors: blades used along the edges of the tickets.  Crumpling: of the tickets, then inked the creases.
Lisa's Go Green: one hand made embellishment:  butterfly stamped on grungeboard and inked; pearl flower; 2 recycled or re-purposed items:  punchinella (the waste from punching out sequins), the wire connectors for the butterfly's antennae; the Prima Flower cardstock packaging for the mat behind photo; the two hatpins from my aunt's pin cushion.
Lacee's You've Got Style (shabby chic):  butterfly, flowers, incorporate pink (flower), white (flowers, pearls, punchinella), brown (brown alphas for title, brown tickets and ink, brown ink pen for journaling, brown dot in ribbon, brown cord on button); the shabbiness from distressing and having lots of embellishments on top of a busy pattern
Barbara's Pearl: I tried my hand at making Barbara's pearl flower; pearls on hatpins, added tiny pearls to flower centers next to butterfly; the 2 brad flower centers have pearls on them. Maybe we can also count the pearl gems on the punchinella?

I'm entering names a second time if a July Pages In Time Thursday Sketch is used.  Speaking of which, here is the sketch for this week, posted today:

Pages In Time also announced today the July Artist of the Month.  Congratulations to Lisa!!!!  She creates phenomenal layouts!

To see her work and participate in the challenges and groups, won't  you join me at Pages In Time?

Credits for the layout:  
I was inspired by a sketch created by Emily Hammann.
Butterfly is a Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamp by Stampers Anonymous
Prima Patterned paper: Cupcake from Strawberry Kisses Collection and Prima Flowers from a Pages In Time March 2010 monthly kit

Update  posted 7/3/2010:  I also posted this layout at Simply Scrapping Crafts where I found Emily's sketch.  Today I've been honored at SSC with this:

Thanks so much, SSC!!!!