Mosaic Monday: The Octagon Die

When my son came home from Hawaii (and the U.S. Navy), he brought a fiance with him.

Her name is Ola. She was born in Tonga, a Polynesian Island in the South Pacific. Her family moved to Hawaii when she was small and she became a United States citizen. She has embraced many U.S. customs, but has held on to many of her Tongan customs, as well.

I’d say Ola is the perfect blend of cultures and she is absolutely ideal for my son. She complements his personality by accenting his strengths and compensating for his weaknesses. She gets his sense of humor, isn’t at all bothered by his lack of neatness and is a genuinely nice person! She seems to make him very happy, and given that they have been through some stressful situations — including living in a hotel, living with his family, and living through a few blizzards — I think they will be together for a long, long time.

I didn’t get to spend much time with them … they only stayed in Michigan for a year before heading to NYC to pursue their dreams — him as a vegan chef and her in the fashion industry. So now I am missing them and decided to finally scrapbook the engagement photos I took of them last fall.

I used a soft gray Mosaic Moments Grid Paper, with black cardstock accents and some really old fall paper I had in my stash. To accent the page, I used the Octagon Die from Mosaic Moments. It comes with tiny photo corners and fits perfectly on the grid paper. I’d have to say this is one of my favorite layouts ever … the colors just work so well and subjects are just adorable!

I made a short video to show you how to cut and use the Octagon Die. You can watch it by clicking here.

I hope you enjoy the video and the page … and if you’re in NYC and see my kids, tell them their mommy loves them!

Mosaic Panoramic

One of my favorite techniques using Mosaic Moments is the ability to turn multiple photos into one “panoramic” photo. It’s easy to do, just by cutting strips.

It’s a technique that is perfect for landscapes, sunsets and downtowns. But it also great for photos of people when they are far from you like at the beach, in the pool or on the football or baseball field.

I created a video to show you easy this technique is. Click here to watch it!

 

It’s been a while …

It has been more than two weeks since my last post … I cannot believe how time has flown.

Although my blog may disagree, I have not been ignoring my job. Rather, I have been working day and night — or so it feels — creating things to sell.

I have been making garden fancies, altered cans and altered spoons for craft shows. This was a quick snap shot before packing them up last weekend.

And, I have been working on page kits …

I still have lots to do and more to make … fingers crossed I’ll be participating in a large craft show next month.

I’ve also been doing a bit of number crunching and soul searching … I’m changing things up a bit with my retail business. To make room for new stock, I’ll be doing grab bags during the crop this weekend at Holy Family in Grand Blanc. Stop by for some GREAT deals!!

And, I promise to get back to tutorials and ideas ASAP!

Beautiful Banner Dies

I had so much fun making this page with Mosaic Moments new Banner Dies.

Check out the video, here …

 

I did receive compensation for making the video.

My Favorite Recent Layout

Today is Favorite Friday at Scrap It Girl.

Each of the designers is sharing their favorite layout. I chose to share my favorite recent layout — because digging through albums was just too much!

Click here to see each of the favorites and then submit your own.

Best Friends Forever

My daughter, Korie (on the right), has an amazing friend named Kandace. Kandace is a few years older than Korie and they are at different points in their lives — Korie is in college and Kandace has a young family — but they are the best of friends.

I am so thankful Korie has Kandace for a friend. Kandace is always there for her and has opened her mind to new experiences (like country music).

When I saw this photo on Facebook, I knew I wanted to scrapbook it to help them remember their friendship.

A few weeks ago, I was honored to be asked by Tombow to be part of their Sticky U, the stickiest school around. My assignment was to use their brand new adhesive — Xtreme, which is five times stickier than their regular adhesive.

For me, that meant I had to find some difficult things to adhere. I knew this lace would be a perfect test … after all, what could be harder to adhere than a delicate, but wide, lace?!

I used Xtreme to adhere the lace to paper and the paper to lace, as well as the photo and the other elements on the page. And, to my astonishment, and pleasant surprise, it stuck — even when I picked up a corner of the lace and tried to shake it off the paper. I can honestly say I have never met such a strong tape runner.

I used papers and stickers from We R Memory Keepers’ Indian Summer collection. I titled the page simply k & k. The letters are chipboard colored with Distress Ink and then coated with Glastique. The & is a plastic letter from Tim Holtz.

I added a couple of pins from Maya Road and dangled a little purse charm from them. (My daughter loves purses) I finished it off with a bit of fiber.

To see the works of other students at Sticky U, click here.

 

Love at First Sight

I am excited to share this page. Inspired by “Letters to Juliet,” it is one of my all-time favorite pages.

Click here to read about my inspiration and get step-by-step directions for creating this type of Mosaic Moments page.

You Make Me Smile

This challenge for Mosaic Moments was to show the things that make me smile. There are so many things that make me smile, it was hard to pick … so I opted for the biggest and most important things …

And, yes, that is one of my new baby turkeys. Isn’t he/she cute?!

To see how I created this page, click here …

Sketch Challenge

This month’s challenge at Scrap It Girl is a sketch challenge, designed by one of the girls on the team.

I decided to create a layout featuring Matt on his 42nd birthday … tasting five different types of beer at an Irish pub in Holly, MI.

 

I used paper I have been carrying around for quite some time, ribbon from my stash, some bottle caps that have got to be at least 5 years old and some chipboard letters. I painted the letters in Antique Bronze Distress Stain and then went over the tips with Picket Fence Distress Stain … I was trying to capture the look of the foam on the beer. Corny, I know, but sometimes it still escapes!

I hope you will participate in the sketch challenge at Scrap It Girl this month. You have until the end of May to make a page, card or altered item that follows the sketch. And, the prize package is amazing! I wish I could win it myself!

Here’s the link with all of the details.

http://www.scrapitgirl.net/index.php/2013/05/01/its-a-sketch-challenge-time/

 

Sometimes Simple is Superb

It is easy to feel intimidated when looking at another person’s creations.

Some pages are so beautifully layered, I cannot imagine ever doing something so fantastic. When I see something like that, I have to remind myself that is a special page and not all layouts can be like that. Many are designed to inspire or sell products, not necessarily to preserve memories.

Sure, I like to create beautiful art, too, but I have neither the time, nor the funds, to make every page outstanding. I have too many stories to tell and I take too many photos. Besides, simple pages focus on the photos much more than those done in the name of art.

Personally, I would rather see someone adhere their photos to a piece of cardstock and take the time to write the story behind the pictures rather than just frame one photo with tons of embellishments.

So, today I am sharing some of the pages I did last week during my scrapbooking retreat. They are not “artist” pages and wouldn’t be found on display at CHA. But they help me remember those special moments and maybe they will help inspire you to relax and get your memories recorded. (Click on the photos for a larger view).

These are some random pictures of my son while he was in Guam. I used paper, die cuts and a transparency from KaiserCraft. Some of the photos are behind the transparency and some are on top … I love the way they look! The tags talk about how wonderful it is to live in paradise.

These are photos of the chicken tractor my husband designed and built for our chickens. It is designed to be picked up and moved around the yard every week. This way, the chickens always have fresh grass to eat and the yard doesn’t get turned into a sand pit. I was pretty proud of the way he researched and engineered it. It can comfortably accommodate seven chickens. So far, it has worked exactly like he planned!

These are some pictures of my son I “stole” off of Facebook. The quality of the photos isn’t quite what I expect, but they work just fine. This is the first time I have “seen” him working since he joined the Navy, so I was pretty excited to see these pictures. When I went to scrapbook them, I couldn’t find any military paper. I didn’t want to work on plain cardstock, so I used the back of one of the Valentine’s papers from Authentique. I thought it worked perfectly … although it does make me laugh when I flip over the page to lovely pink flowers!

This page commemorates our first time growing vegetables and preserving them for later use. This year, we canned two different kinds of salsa, three different kinds of pickles and two different batches of yellow tomato preserves. I also made sun-dried tomatoes and vegetable broth and froze green peppers, corn, zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant. My mother-in-law also made pickles (her bread-and-butter pickles are so good, I won’t even try to make them), beets and tomatoes. I love looking at all of the food we put up. There is an amazing feeling of pride every time I open that freezer or closet door!Many of the elements on this page are cut from paper, including the tags I journaled on and the jars along the bottom. This is a great way to embellish pages without spending a lot of money … after all, an extra sheet of paper is about $1; embellishments usually run $4 to $5. I used Pop Dots on the jars to make them stand out. This page uses papers from October Afternoon’s Farm Girl line.

So there you have a few simple pages. Hope you can find some inspiration in here, too!