Atlanta Vacation

I'm officially starting to share my Atlanta album. I've been slowly working on this since the start of March and am about halfway done. I've been waiting to be home and remember to start photographing it while I had good natural light. I should be able to have a little more scrappy time now that grad class is over for the semester.

 I am beyond excited about how this page turned out. It is very different and new to me. I started with plain white paper. Then I painted on the flourishes with gesso and let them dry. Then I die cut the letters on my Silhouette and tacked them down with a non-permanent glue. I used pink and orange Heidi Swapp mist to mist over the letters. I used paper towel to blot off where the gesso was, and let the rest sink it. This is such a fun page.

My friend challenged me in this album to use a minimal amount of patterned paper and to try and create my own. Challenge accepted and I am having an absolute blast with it.

Scrapbook Expo

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to visit Scrapbook Expo in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We left at 6am and headed down to Milwaukee. It was a great trip and we barely had any traffic. We took two different class.

The first class was put on by Spellbinders and Fun Stampers Journey. Richard taught the class and he did a fantastic job. We did an altered art journal, I plan to do some mixed media techniques in it. He had a new line coming out this summer and I am super excited!

This was our book starting out

First layer of paint

Second layer of paint on and die cutting started. We used the Grand Calibur Cutter with the Spellbinders Dies

Third layer of paint and die cutting a second paper

Sanded the first layer of paint to add in the gold paint, and we painted our die cutted center

The final product at home after we glued it all together and glazed it!

Class two-Disney tag album. It moved much faster so I didn't get many pics.

Ending the day at Cheesecake Factory. My first visit had to be finished with cheesecake!

I got two pins for the day! Thankfully I didn't qualify for the shopping pin

 All my purchases at home!

We had an absolute blast. Can't wait to go again next year. I'm hoping this event grows and they get more classes and vendors.

Cana at Night

 This is one of my favorite pages of our summer vacation of 2013. I love the colors of the paper (My Mind's Eye). I'm really into the chevron patterns, and especially navy and grey. I had to get more of this paper to accommodate my shutterbug issues. It's hard to believe that I had a pile of pictures that were rejected for this album.

I did one 12x12 tradition page and one pocket page. On the back of the pocket page is last week's page (Stormy skies). It's hard to explain how it all lays out, but it flows nicely. The pocket pages make all my pages flow together nicely, with out one subject becoming drawn out over too many pages.

 I used modeling paste and spray ink, along with a Studio Calico stencil to create the chevron journalling cards. I have a hard time buying the Project Life cards since half the page usually does not get used. So I'm experimenting with making more of my own.

Stormy Skies

 Over our summer vacation we had a lot of stormy weather. Normally we spend most afternoons laying at the beach reading or swimming. This was the odd year. Not once did I put on my swim suit. My two sun dresses and all my shorts were never worn. Instead my two pairs of capris got me through this trip. It was cold and rained way too much. To top it off, I didn't have my sister to hang out with. I don't understand the concept of sit or relax real well.

 I did a lot of altering on this page. I used a Heidi Swapp mask on the turquoise paper, and the weathered wood ink from Tim Holtz, to apply a new pattern. On the salmon paper i ran it through the Cuttlebug, and then traced the raised pattern with silver glitter pen. I used metallic gelato on the larger flower underneath.

 The paper line is form Simple Stories, I believe it was last year's line. I did a lot of fussy cutting to get different pieces to look more like embellishments.

The "So Happy" phrase was used with the mindset of being happy to be together as a family. Happy to have time to take a break. Happy to be in our favorite place. The stormy skies don't happen like this all the time, and I had enough time to shoot some pics before it started to lightening or rain.

What a View

 Anybody who knows where we hide in the summer knows exactly why. How can you not love this beautiful view. Everyone needs a little bit of quiet and solidarity to just get away from it all. This is one of two times each year that my phone is useless and I just have to relax.

 I absolutely love this paper from My Minds Eye. The hombre effect is awesome, and cutting it and inking the edges made it pop even more. I went a little embellishment crazy when Archiver closed and got all the coordinating embellishments to go with my vacation pictures.

 I misted all this chipboard to match the paper. I had a hard time coming up with any other embellishments that coordinated, but I needed something else that was small.

The journalling sums up how we all fell about this place :)

All American

One of my favorite things about the suberb I live in is how they decorate for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. One of the main roads has flags for miles, and they are nothing but beautiful and patriotic blowing in the wind.

 This challenge really pushed me out of my comfort zone. The title and border needed to made from gelatos. I figured red and blue was the absolute perfect for these pictures. I just didn't think the original paper I had out wasn't appropriate enough for something so special.

 I quickly decided I like using my wet finger over the brush to spread the gelatos around. Since then I've learned that baby wipes work as well.

I used my faovrite silver twine on the top, and silver Perfect Pearls around the rest of the page. This is one thing that just makes you smile as you drive down the road.