Diva Acrylic mini album

Made with the Clear Scraps Amy's Fashion Clear N Chip mixed pack mini album set.

This is really a mini mini-album, which made it a project that was done in just a few hours, including drying time.

Since paint takes a bit to dry, I tend to do all of my painting first. I like to use the Folk Art acrylic paints, especially the metallic ones - they have a shimmer to them that I just love. (this set includes pieces that I used for layouts too)

Most of the painted pieces for this album were chipboard. Some pieces were covered with cardstock, which is another thing I like to do ahead of time. I use Zip Dry to attach the patterned paper to the chipboard. Once dry, I use a technique I learned at a Basic Grey make and take - use a file to sand the paper at the edges of the chipboard - it eliminates the need to cut with a craft knife or scissors, and gives the sanding effect I love at the same time - which means I don't have to do the edges twice.

One of my favorite techniques to use on the acrylic is to emboss it with a cuttlebug folder, paint it, then wipe off the excess paint. I love how the paint stays in the embossed areas of the acrylic. This technique cannot be done on all acrylics though - the acrylic has to be soft enough to be embossed (acrylic from a home improvement store generally will not work for this).

Once the pages were all prepped, painted, sanded, and dry, I clipped them together and used the Bind It All to punch the binding holes. It was thick enough I had to do it in two sets. A lot of the mini albums I do come pre-punched for rings, but one of the nice things about the Clear N Chips is that you can make them any way you want to. Once the albums was bound together, I added the embellishments. The key things to remember when making acrylic albums arethe Peek A Boo Effect, and hide the adhesive. The Peek A Boo Effect means that you can see bits of the next page through it. I don't believe in covering every inch of an acrylic page - if you are going to do that, get a chipboard album. Covering up the acrylic defeats the purpose (and that's one of the reasons I like to mix chipboard and acrylic pages).

For the cover of this album, I punched a hole in the center with my crop-a-dile to put the brad through. The chipboard shoes cover the prongs on the back side. The DIVA letter stickers are Thickers from American Crafts. Sometimes I add extra adhesive (Zip Dry) to help them stay in place since the albums get handled a lot.

The next few pages were fun to do, and one of the things I like to do a lot of with my acrylics. It looks like the black frame is on the right hand photo.. but it isn't. There is an acrylic page between the two photos - and the rub on frame is on the acrylic page. That way, when the page is turned, it frames the photo on the other side. Sometimes this takes a bit of planning, and sometimes it is pretty easy (like with these two photos).

On the last page I used Thickers again, and left the back cover blank other than the paint. I always add the ribbon last, as I think thebindings look too plain without them. (And, for the ringed albums, I usually make all the pages before I bind them, so it's become a habit.)

HA! I was right! (And I'm not even into cars....)

I have been saying all along, that the truck Bella drives in the Twilight movie isn't the right truck. In the books, she drives a 53 Chevy with rounded fenders (So stated in New Moon - I'll tell you the page number when I get home ;) ) Every time I see the truck in the movie, it bugs me, because it isn't the right one (yeah, ok, so I'm a purist...)

So I'm perusing through Stephenie Meyer's website... And I find a page titled "The Cullen Cars", intended to show the cars (and motorcycles) that were portrayed in the books.



And look what I found! A picture of Bella's truck!


Bears a striking resemblence to Jones, dunnit?

LOL Guess I know what color he's going to be painted now, eh?

Pic of Rowen

My brother just sent me these pictures of Rowen.. they are a little blurry as they were taken with his phone, but they are great nonetheless. Oh my gosh, what a darling! And that hair!

Hooray!

I am an aunt again! My brother David and his wife Jennie had their first baby today - a little boy. Born at 1:06 am, 8 lbs, 8oz, 20 inches long. I'm not posting his name, as I don't have permission, but it made me cry - because they chose our dad's name as his middle name.

I can't wait to see photos, and am hoping we will be able to drive up to Des Moines soon to visit them. (as soon as they are ready for visitors, that is!)


updating - I have permission now :) His name is Rowen Donald Erwin - can't wait to see photos of the little guy! I also can't wait to tell the kids in the morning that they have a new cousin!

Photos with Jones

Took some photos the last few days of the kids with Jones.. I love how they turned out! The truck is a fabulous backdrop.. and I'm going to take more photos of the cousins tomorrow (hopefully the weather will be good!)

blog candy and a birthday

Found some lovely blog candy posts (Thanks Harley!) Make sure you check out the rest of their blogs too, because these ladies are fabulous paper artists!

LOVE the Magnolia stamp in this candy giveaway! I NEED this stamp - she has a little lamb! I do love these stamps, and hope to have a few eventually! Check it out HERE

Awesome blog candy with some of Tim's stamps (hooray!) HERE

Beautiful SU blog candy HERE

More lovely blog candy HERE.. check out those crocheted flowers!

White blog candy - flowers and lace and thickers HERE. And check out her tear bears - omg, they are AMAZING!

Blue blog candy HERE

Lovely MM blog candy HERE

2 chances for blog candy HERE.. a stamping bella GC and some cuttlebug/BG prize!

Xtra special blog candy HERE

Amazing candy HERE

More great blog candy HERE

Fabulous papers and stamps HERE

Ladybug and Friends stamps - very cute HERE


I missed the blog candy on THIS blog but OMG you have GOT to check out her work!! AMAZING! (the original blog is in Swedish - the link goes to a translation page).


Oh. Yeah. And it's my birthday again. Hooray.
Had yummy Strawberry crepes for breakfast, and can't wait for dinner at the Abbey tonight. Not going to get much else done today, I don't think, so I'd better get going.. have fun with the blog candy above, and like I said, make sure to check out the rest of the posts on the blogs.. there are some fabulous paper artists out there - one of the things I like best about blog candy posts is the chance to find new blogs for inspiration. (I just hope Jingle doesn't enter them all! the lucky duck! LOL)

On being sick, blog candy, and birthdays

Being sick sucks. For most of this month, my whole family has been sick - probably the flu - coughing, stuffy heads, etc. Not fun at all. I still (2 weeks later) can start coughing at the drop of a hat - or especially around aerosols or other strong odors - which makes my husband unhappy, since he smokes. Bleah.

On the bright side - it's been in the 70s and 80s this week, so MUCH nicer weather... and it is nice to get out into the sunshine. My brother is coming over a lot more, and tilling up the gardens, cutting down all the deadwood from the storms last summer, and putting up storage buildings.

Found some LOVELY blog candy on Sonja's blog - poor girl accidentally lost all of her previous work and had to start a new blog!! I love the Chloe's Closet items - those little stick pins are too too cute! Check out her blog HERE


Saturday is my birthday.. and most of my friends know how birthdays make me feel.. I just find them rather depressing. I'm hoping this year will be different - I made to take the day off work, and we are going to a fabulous restaurant called the Abby for dinner - I went there once before for a friend's going away party, and had the most fabulous dinner (melt-in-your-mouth, cooked-to-perfection steak *yum* ). And they are very willing to work with us to find something my daughter can eat, since she is so sensitive to high fructose corn syrup.

Patti from AMR sent me this birthday card the other day - I love it! It is a bigger card (6x6.5), and I was surprised to see it.. I love the background on the stamped image, and am waiting for Patti to tell me how she did it!

This is what my husband gave me for my birthday!

This is Jones. He is a 1952 Chevrolet truck (I forget exactly what kind). DH has been looking for a project car for himself and DS, and since I told him I wanted a Mater... this is the closest he could find. I think he's a really cool truck. (but if my DH thinks I'm going to get out there and sand the rust off, he has another think coming!!). My daughter thinks that the right headlight should be knock out, the hood taken off, and a tow apparatus added to the back. LOL

Still hoping to get a new lens for the camera for my birthday too, but that will have to wait.

Post crops photos

Two of my boards (AMR and Serendipity) had online crops this weekend, and Scrap Attack is full swing into the {SAS}sy Member Fun Month - makes for a LOT of challenges! I didn't get as many done as I would have liked, since we went to the toy show on Saturday, but that's ok. The SAS crop is going on for a whole month, so I will have plenty of time to work on those challenges. {Once I get my word and name atcs done!}

Here is my desk after the crop - I cleaned up after every project this time, which made it a lot easier to get the desk cleaned afterwards. The only thing I added since the first photo is the bow near the top of the photo (left over from the roses my DH gave me for Valentine's Day) and a Cropper Hopper insert that is holding the papers and big scraps from the crop projects.

These are the five layouts I got done this weekend, plus one of the cards (tucked on the lowest shelf of the new shelf unit). Pretty good for me. That brings me up to 9 for the month, and 3 cards. So in order to meet my February goal, I need to do 1 more layout, 2 more cards, and finish up the minialbum.

This is the other card I made- done for Kelli's tropical greetings challenge. I love that stamp - the stick people are too cute. The tree was done in several layers - I stamped it on the green for the leaves. Pink adhesive cardstock (DCWV) for the swim suit, and a piece of sandy colored cardstock for the base. I used a masking technique to that only the girl and the tree trunk were stamped on the base. The leaves were inked, curled, and put on with pop dots to add dimension. The tree trunk, hair and sunglasses were colored with colored pencils. The patterned paper came from the DCWV summer stack, and has surfboards on it - love the colors, but wish I had done the card so you could still see the surfboards.

I'll post the layouts separately at another time, especially the two I used Clear Scraps acrylic on.

The Oscars

Been busy working on layouts for challenges and the DT, but I wanted to mention that Heath Ledger won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor tonight, for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight.

I was not a big fan about this role. I couldn't see Heath, of all people, playing the Joker. After he died, I had decided I would never see the movie. But after hearing from many people what a wonderful job he did, I finally rented it and watched it last week.

Holy makeup artist, Batman!

There were a lot of times during that movie, that if I didn't KNOW it was Heath, I wouldn't have guessed it. I thought he did a phenomenal job at playing a difficult character - especially in a much darker manner than Jack Nicholson's Joker from the Batman movie.

Certainly, the Oscar was well deserved.

AMR crop, revamped desk

Tonight is the Tropical Crop at AMR - and Nicole is having a scrap space challenge. We need to post pictures of our desks "right now" and then again on Monday showing what it looks like after the hurricane! LOL

So.. here is my desk tonight - I spent a little time this weekend revamping it a little - it's not completely done, and I'm not sure I like it, but we'll find out this weekend as I try to get some of the challenges done.

One of the things I was unhappiest about with my previous set up was that it was hard to get my inks out from where they were. I wanted to get some shelves like AnnCaryl has by her desk, and was lucky enough to find one that was realtively inexpensive. I have my StazOns on one shelf, and Tim's and Nick's inks on another. Also sitting on the TN shelf is my points list for Serendipity's Team Challenge. So far, I love having the inks there - they are much easier to go through. Also, on that shelf, I have 6x6 Basic Grey paper pads, 5.5x8.5 Bazzill packs, some favorite stamp sets, staplers, acrylic blocks, chalk inks, pigment inks, inchie stamps, loose gems (in a tin, not really loose LOL), journaling stuff, sandpaper, and my wire dress form that I have started putting ribbons on. It won't hold all my ribbons by a long shot, but I do like the look, and I like having some ribbons close at hand. I don't like that it is so high up right now, but since the ribbons extend past the base, it needs to be up on some kind of pedestal. But it works for right now. The little white basket holds 3.75x3.75 mat stacks. The ribbon is on a metal thing I picked up at hobby lobby - it looks like a mini paper towel holder, but it is perfect for ribbon. I also have my Big Bite sitting there, for lack of a better place at the moment.

The other thing I didn't like was that it was so easy to set things in front of the drawers with my pens... so now they are in a better place. I bought 2 more each of the 3 and 5 drawer setups, to have it go across most of the desk. I had to actually set them up on a piece of wood (taken from the old wood kitchen shelf I used to have) because I couldn't open the bottom drawers if the paper pad was on the desk. And since I do just about everything on the paper pad.. The package that is on the desk is a RAK I received today from my friend Abby - she rocks! She send me a calendar to put together, flowers, and a really awesome chipboard butterfly album with precut patterned paper pieces. It is really cool! I wish I could get her to make her handwriting into a font... I love her handwriting!

Another new thing above the desk are the wallflowers. When taking down the old cork board, it broke into pieces.. one of the things I liked best about the cork board was being able to pin up my flowers. So I took the small pieces and stuck them on the wall between the new shelf and the spice racks (which I didn't move). Then I stuck the flowers up there.. it's perfect, and I love how it fills up an otherwise useless space.

Spice racks - pretty much unchanged. On top of the drawers, I have my portable mini Ott light, my cast iron hand model with rings, my wire basket with MM and Scrapworks rubons, my Copic markers, the popdots tin, and a shot glass from my friends wedding, which has a couple of stamps in it. Peeking out from behind them is my dymo label maker.

The drawers. The first set has floss/needles, silver and pewter minibrads and jump rings, self adhesive gems (mostly the martha stewart ones I love so much), MM clears letters and shapes, white glitter alphabets, K&Co journal boxes, and the Heidi Swap large flowers (because I have too many and use them too often to put on the cork board!). The next set is full of markers and pens, sorted by type. The third set has colored pencils, stipple brushes and paint dauber tops, hammers, tweezers, piercing tools, rubon tools, dotto refills, liquid adhesives (not including zip dry), pins/charms, regular pens and pencils, and journaling pens. The last set has buttons, date stamps, staples and mini staplers, files/sanders, straight edged and deco scissors, other cutting tools, and some small alphabet stamp sets. So I still have a lot of stuff on the desk within easy reach, but I think some of them will be much more accessible, and it looks a lot neater than the pencil cups did.

To the right of the desk is the metal shelf system, and the small bathroom organizer. The shelf system hold my light, flower jars, specialty ink pads, some alphabet stamp sets, button jars, a couple of punches, and the QK Magnolia dies I love so much. The clear paint can with the ribbon scraps is hanging from the corner, and there are several hand punches stuck on one end. The other one holds my glue dots, x xyron, zip dry, edge distressor, and corner punches. The little green basket with the foam brushes needs a new home. The little blue one is for little scraps.

On Monday I'll get another photo and post again. It will be interesting to see how well the space works for the crop.

Layout made with some of my favorite photos of my daughter... they were taken during an impromptu photo shoot at Hobby Lobby last November. It was fun to do such detailed work - was sorta following a challenge from a friend (Abby) to use pink on a layout.

Today we did a photo shoot - a couple of weeks ago, we took Maggie into the pet store, and I came across this lovely little coat - that matched Rhi's fleece top perfectly. So, even though she is a working dog, and will probably never wear clothes again, I wanted to do a photo shoot. Unfortunately, it has been cold the last few weeks, and we didn't have a chance to get outside until today - and Maggie has almost outgrown the coat!

We also have my niece and nephew visiting today, so I have included some pictures of them as well - Kami is such a little diva! And NO Ramsey is not peeing in that picture - he was picking up a pinecone! (a side note - my mom made both the pants and the sweater he is wearing.)