Jenny and Anna

I didn't do much experimenting with this layout, focusing mainly on punched and die cut shapes.  I started with some beautiful MajaDesign papers from their Walking in the Forest and Ska vi ta en Fika collections.

Jenny and Anna (my great grandfather's sisters)

The corners were stencilled with molding paste and then sprayed with an orange mist (once the molding paste was dry), dabbing off some of the colour from the raised pattern.

Memory Box stencil - Flourish

Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio Mist - Kissin' Kenickie Coral

I then used various dies and punches to cut out the shapes to be layered.

Martha Stewart Punch Around the Page sets - Swirling Lace, Cherish

Cheery Lynn Designs dies - Japanese Lace Frame, Daphne Doily, Rum Punch Doily

Spellbinders dies - Romantic Rectangles, Blossom Tags and Accents.

I like to layer each of my shapes on a darker version, offsetting slightly to accentuate the edges.

The chipboard shapes I used are all from The Dusty Attic

Lace Border #2

Leaves

Doily #2

Mini Doily Set 1

Doily #2

Mini Doily Set 1

I painted Doily #2 white then embossed it with Dried Marigold Distress Embossing Powder.  For the doily set, I used clear ink and clear embossing powder, then dry brushed various colours of craft paint over top.

I painted Lace Border #2 with brown paint.  I wanted to do a crackle paint finish on it but because every time I go to open a jar of my crackle paints I find it has dried up, I had to improvise.  I read somewhere you could use Elmer's Glue All in between the coats of paint to make the top layer crackle.  Well, I have a huge bottle of that (rather, my kids had one in a craft bin and have hardly ever used it so I confiscated it). It was a bit tricky.  I applied the topcoat of white when the glue was still fairly wet, being very careful not to overwork it.  Not sure I really like how it turned out but I might experiment with the technique in future to see if I can get a better result.

 For the chipboard leaves, I painted them orange but it was too bright so I did a white wash over top to tone it down and then applied green ink around the edges.

Then I added the embellishments; a couple of metal pieces, a bunch of Prima flowers, a little Petaloo flower and gold berries by Magnolia Stamps.

I finished up with a few touches of brown and orange, using a brown watercolour pencil and diluted orange mist applied with a paintbrush.

Tfl.

Canoeing

Lately I've felt like I haven't been growing much as a scrapbook artist.  I see what others are doing and am awed by their talent and a little discouraged that I can't achieve what they do.  So I am trying to push myself to take more chances in my layouts.  Using mists and stamps always intimidates me (one wrong spritz or stamp and a beautiful piece of paper is wrecked).  So I decided I was going to do a lot of both on this layout.  And the thought "it's ruined" went through my head quite a few times during the process.

I started with a piece of Blue Fern Studios paper, Susan's Dream, from their Ombre Dreams collection that I thought complemented the photo I wanted to scrap.  I used a Crafter's Workshop stencil with molding paste to add texture to the background then splotched on some masking fluid and let it dry before misting so that some of the paper would be protected from the mist (I was afraid of overdoing the misting).  However, most of that ended up being covered by the photo and embellishments anyway. 

I was really inspired by Heather Jacob's stamping on many of her layouts (beautiful, subtle textures).  You can find her blog here http://heatherartandlife.blogspot.com.au/.   So I started stamping with a grid stamp (didn't like the way it looked).  Tried layering with a floral stamp (not so subtle, ugh).  How do I fix this?, I thought.  Why not do even more stamping!

Still hated it of course, the black stamping was just too overpowering.  Let's scribble (eek! I've never done that on a layout before) around the edges of the photo and paper with a black marker to make the black stamping look like it belongs. Surprisingly, it did look a little better.

 I still wanted to tone down that stamping a bit so I added the cogs on top and it seemed to help some more. 

I guess the layout turned out okay.  Not exactly (or remotely) what I had envisioned when I started but definitely a learning experience. 

My New Blog

Why would a socially awkward, nervous wreck start a scrapbooking blog and agonize over every word she wrote?  Well, here I am doing just that.  It scares me that someone might actually follow my blog or that no one will, lol.  I'm going to pretend that I have the confidence to do this and plunge right in.