Vintage Dad & Me - Graphic 45

My son only went to summer camp for part of the summer this year. He spent the rest of the time at the office with Dad. He takes his Nintendo DS with him to keep him busy, and Dad lets him use a computer at work sometimes too.

These photos were taken with an iphone app called Hipstamatic that gives pictures a 70s look to them. I just love how well they came out once printed!

I used a sanding and inking technique to give all the graphic 45 papers even more of an antique look and feel. Then I placed then on a contrasting black background and added several embellishments that I inked and gathered into interesting clusters of embellies!

I finished it off with a title created with graphic 45 letters and a stunning Rusty Pickle diecut tag and buckle.

Colors, colors everywhere!

I recently had some alone time with my little girl and I took her to a new park in the area. We had the place to ourselves, and she wanted to go exploring. She tried out each structure in the playground and then noticed a path leading into several rows of newly planted trees. She walked down the path with Mommy a few steps behind her, snapping photos with her iPhone. Up and own the various paths she went, picking up rocks and examining each twig on the grown. She's my little explorer!

I had to use lots of colors for this layout. Then i had to pick just a few photos to use, which was almost impossible with a cutie like this. So picked out my favorite 7 photos, lol! I created two separate clusters of embellishments, at opposite corners, and used chipboard letters to spell out my title: Play.

This layout definitely is all about having fun! I sure enjoyed making it.

Papercrafting and Altered Arts - at Scrapbook Update

I am so honored to have been featured as a guest blogger on the scrapbooking industry's leading news blog, scrapbook update.  My article discusses how you can take your papercrafting supplies out of your crafting table, and use them around the house and when creating gifts to create something of your own design that would be used over and over.  Any papercrafter can create altered arts projects.  You simply use the same products and techniques that you are using today in your scrapbook pages.  Please read my article here and step into the world of altered arts. Click here to read the article.

Rusty Pickle Class with Lance Anderson

Oh my!  I had so much fun at the Rusty Pickle class with Lance Anderson, himself!  It was at my local scrapbook store, Cherry Blossom Studio.  We did this amazing chipboard mini book with a tropical theme.  The best part was a pop-up Tiki house!  You just have to look through the pictures to see what I mean.  It was just an amazing project!

Meeting Lance Anderson was a treat in itself.  He was such a normal chilled and laid back kind of guy.   So fun to talk to and so fun to craft with.  He shared his story of how he fell in love with paper design and started his company and is looking to keep things going via his blog.  He also shared a funny story about his black crop-a-dile tools.  One of my classmates asked how he got ones that were not pink and he said that he went back to the company that makes them and complained and complained until they made a pair in black just for him!  Funny story!

Much of our conversation was about literature.  Lance is an avid reader and loves getting book recommendations from the people he meets in his travels.  He highly recommended the book Ender's Game  by Orson Scott Card, especially as a great book for young boy readers.  I made a note of it to buy it for my son to read.  I think he's gonna like it.

Another really cool thing I learned about Lance Anderson is that he speaks Portuguese!  There were a couple ladies there from Brazil and he would speak to them in their language, and it won them over right away.  They had so much fun in the class too!

The project was a 5 page mini book.  Each page was the most amazing, thick chipboard!  Really sturdy!  We covered both sides of each page with rusty pickle patterened papers and stickers, and then added a Sizzix die cut popup house.  Used rafia to turn it into a super cool tiki hut, and completed the project with fibers all along the rings.  I just love my new mini book and cannot wait to take a vacation so I can use it!! lol!

So if you ever get a chance to meet Lance Anderson or take one of his amazing classes, I highly recommend it.  And be sure to ask him what he's been reading lately.