PagesPat's Ponderings

Monday, August 31, 2009

Top Chef Layout

Another layout I finished at the crop on Saturday, this one features my daughter doing her homework. That is, making and serving a meal for her family for her 8th grade home ec project.
As you can see, we were more than willing to taste her creation. Luckily, these photos helped score her an A in class. It didn't hurt that the meal she prepared, Breaded Pork Tenderloin Cutlets, was one of the teacher's favorites as well. I sprayed the large flower (which started out white) with Patina Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels--my newest acquisition!! I made some pretty patterned paper with the Fall line of colors, too.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Here's one of the folding cards I made at Heidi's crop yesterday. I changed out the butterfly embellishment for my fave girl, colored her with Copics, glitzed her with stickles and liquid glass, and perched her on a block of patterned paper. I think this image doesn't lend itself to black hair, though, unless I'm just not coloring her right.
This is the card opened up. I love inking the edges of paper, both in my card-making and my layouts.

Finally New Layouts

I took some ME time and went to Heidi's 12 hour crop on Saturday. Besides the generous goody bag, the card class, the games and prizes, the fabulous dinner and the company, I actually completed nine layout pages, finished my Magnolia-licious calendar swap, and made four new cards! The layout here uses DCWV's The Green Stack paper and White Chocolate Chip board Alphas that I gently dabbed with Chocolate brown ink.
These papers are so visual that I didn't want to cover them up with too many embellies, altho I do have the Green Stack Chipboard embellies to go with the papers, If I put these pages in their album immediately, I may not be tempted to add more stuff! Excuse me while I whip these into their albums now!!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

New Corner Bookmark

Here's my newest creation, a Tilda Corner Bookmark. I won't put layer upon layer of embellies on bookmarks, they would make it too thick to use in a book. I love my newest stamped images of Tilda holding puppy. In fact, since it's Diana's birthday on Monday, she's got a great offer at her store. In order to reap the Magnolia-licious benefits, you need to join the Yahoo Group Magnolia-licious. You can use my handle for a recommendation to the group, and then get a great discount! Have fun!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Blog Candy Alert


Vivanne has hit 100 posts, and to celebrate she is offering 100 stamped Magnolia images. I don't have ANY of these stamps (poor little me)! Here's the link, and good luck!


Sunday, August 16, 2009

Magnolia-licious Calendar Swap

Above is my January page for the Magnolia-licious calendar swap. I haven't seen any other pages, so I don't know how mine compares to thers, but I like what I did and will enjoy seeing it in the bound calendar when it's complete. I used Tilda on Skis because my favorite winter activity is cross country skiing. I very rarely get to XCtry ski around the neighborhood, so my only outlet is whe I take my Girl Scouts winter camping. Of course, having the snow on the ground is hit or miss! Snow sounds great right now, for those of us north of the equator! We finally have dipped into the dog days of summer here in Chicago!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

New Layout

I received a goody bag of assorted CTMH flowers and circles and scallops and daydreamed how I could use them on a layout. I came up with the layout idea after I received another goodie bag with the circle alphas. The rest of the circles, in varying sizes, I used to help the flow of the two pages, since I didn't have two pages of the same patterned paper. At first it was going to be a one page layout, but I found more photos of my lovable model, my granddaughter, so it grew into two.

I didn't have a lot of thoughts of the day so I fit my journaling into the flower. We had so much fun in the backyard!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Garden Album

Oi! It's been awhile since posting on my blog. Life is coming at me fast--classes are starting, so there are still catechists to ring in, classes to set up, students to be assigned, and general back-to-school stuff! Son is still looking for work, daughter needs to work on summer reading assignments for accelerated L.A. class, and hubby is fighting to keep his job.
No wonder I scrap and craft! It's such a stress-reliever, almost as good as a massage. I weould have said cheaper too, but not in my case! LOL
My lovely friend Carol offered to swap a tool for one of my albums, and another friend had wanted to see what I did with my pages, so I'm showing the front cover and a few pages. I satarted with a chipboard book. I liked the cutouts on the cover and a few pages. I am terrible with identifying papers, embellies, images,etc., that's why I'll never be published, can't give credit where credit is due. The most difficult part of this cover was the title. I just couldn't find an alpha combo I liked. I was bound and determined to use the stash I already had in my craft room.
I wanted a bookplate so that my gift to my friend would be a rmemebrance for years to come, and I had received this journal box from a swap on Scrapbooking & More Yahoo Group.

I am not usually a pink, flourish-y dainty type of scrapper. I like to mix a little funk, a little grunge, into my creations. I tried to blend funky and dainty on some of the pages.
My only regret is not coloring and using more stamped images. There are some really cool images to use with the garden theme. This one is a Ketto girl from Stamping Bella, a stamped gift from another friend. This is why I love crafting and being in groups and blogging. You meet so many gifted, generous people who become your friends, not having even met them in person!



Saturday, August 8, 2009

Leftover stash Cards

I made a chipboard garden album for a very good friend this past week, and had handfuls of patterned paper and embellies left over. So I got out my handy dandy cardstock and whipped up three new cards, two of them using Tilda with a tag and one a generic tank you card. I didn't stuff pieces of loeftover papper in my bulging paper stash drawer this time--hurray for me! AndI threw away the smaller pieces.


With this card, I used all the leftover strips of paper and wove them together, then trimmed it into a mat the size of my card. When I put Tilda on the card, she seemed lost among the patterned background, so I slipped in a brightly colored frame and she shines now.
I think I'm improving on my coloring skills, and while I'm not up there with many other crafters I know, I have seen great improvement on my own work, and that makes me happy. I think I'm going to take the Beyond Basics Copic coloring class at my lss for more hints.


Friday, August 7, 2009

Two crashes and some cards


The two crashes were NOT by car, plane or train!! Both my home computer and the networked database at work crashed. The home computer is fried, and it would cost more to fix than to buy new. Luckily my hubby backs up all files every other day, but all the extraneous software on my poor dead computer is lost.
At work I was on the phone with the software techs for THREE DAYS working to get all comnputers in two buildings on the same path, using the same database. I had to restore from a July 09 backup, but royally screwed my own office. We now have to reinput every dime our families paid in for tuition, books andf ees for the last two years. And that's after re-inputting all their personal info, as well as two years' worth of attendance, etc. It's been stressful to say the least. So I of course must escape to my craft room, where I leave the world behind for a short time and color, score, cut and paste my designs.
The card above is for the August Rain swap, and will go out as soon as I address the envie. I received the Magnolia stamped image as a RAK, so I had to use her immediately! I am obsessed with the trifold shutter cards (as if you hadn't noticed) so the rain cards this month will all be shutter cards. I took a pic of the "inside" of the card because I love the sentiment!
I also made the butterfly on the front of the card with feathers, an ink pen cap and a black copic.
This card is just slightly different than the one above it, with sentiment and colors. Except that the butterfly was the last of a collection I picked up in a sandwich baggie at my church's rummage sale.