Busy Backgrounds

There are times when I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE busy background paper.  You can get a layout done in around 15 min and from a distance it looks like you took hours.  I loved the end result of this layout so much that I propped it up on the piano all week to keep looking at it!  However, I am warning you ... you may need to go grab yourself a pair of sunnies!

Basic Grey 'Obscure'

I was feeling particularly slack and it was late.  I glanced at this photo and thought 'urban' and this is what I produced.  The is the FIRST time I have been able to use a piece of my Basic Grey Obscure collection pack.  I have had this pack since it came out and have never found a use for any of the papers!  We took this photo while on the 'Back Lot' at Disney Studios in Florida.  All I added was a bit of paint and glimmer mist around the photo, some ink around all the edges, the city skyline cut on my Cricut, mixed alphas I painted black, and some splatters of white paint across the whole thing.  Oh, and I dug out some old foam stamps for the squares in the title.  All in all I think it took longer for the paint to dry on the lettering than it took to assemble!

Sometimes I wonder if I would be happier if all my pages only took 15 min ... I think I shall still be scrapping this vacation when I am 60!

Chipper

Michael's Wedding

Last Sunday we went to my cousin Michael's wedding.  It was in a beautiful location in a park near the river.  I have a very eclectic family and this wedding was no exception.  I made their wedding invitations for them as a wedding present, which they loved.  Here are a few photos from the day.  I should have taken my camera to the reception as I didn't get a photo of the cake my Aunt made.  I think I shall have to grab a few from my other cousin who took their wedding photos.

My mom helping to get the Groomsmen ready.  The far left person is also my cousin.  The Grooms brother.

The Bride and her father

The start of the ceremony.  Jesinta and Michael

The bride also had seven Brides-people.  The two men are her brothers.

Signing the certificate

Best group shot I could get.  They were an impatient lot!!!  The lady in the big hat is my Aunt

The weather was wonderful and sunny but not too warm.  A tiny breeze to blow away the mozzies would have been a bonus, but otherwise it was perfect and short!  Their sister gets married early next year and her wedding will be bigger than Ben Hur.

Congratulations Jesinta and Michael.  I pray that you have many, many years of happiness together.

Chipper

Shimelle's Starting Point

I did a nice quick layout for Shimelle's starting point this week.  Used up some scraps on my desk and one of the NEW pieces of Basic Grey from my prize :-)  This was the starting point which you can make using any papers you have.

I used a photo from our Florida trip and created this.

Basic Grey 'Picadilly'

I used my trusty old Cuttlebug and a few new embossing folders (I think I have a folder addiction as I brought home 7 more today!) along with a few scraps, some crackle paint and two pieces of card!!  Too easy :-)

Another photo for the album done!!! Thanks Shimelle for this great starting point.

Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

I did warn you that I have been crafting and IF this scheduling thing works this will be another post this week!  I also did Shimelle's sketch from the previous week and I LOVED how it turned out.  This was the sketch.

I used an old Halloween photo with some new Teresa Collins papers and had so much fun with it.

Teresa Collins 'Haunted Hallows' papers

I just love patterned paper and adore this orange chevron.  But it is just a little over powering.  I altered the sketch slightly as I didn't place the large paper under the photo but I painted the patterned paper with Graphite glimmer mist to tone it down and create a 'fake' block of card.  I didn't want to completely hide the paper behind another one.

The green ribbon at the bottom is just a piece of cotton tape that I painted with Twinkling H2Os and stuck down randomly on a strip of double sided tape.  The fake glitter stitches are just decorative and don't hold it down.  I added those at the end for a little more sparkle.  i don't normally create using stuff from just one collection but as I had the whole collection in front of me it seemed to just all end up on the page.  I used some of the die-cuts, stickers, chipboard stickers and brads all from the same collection.  It was lots of fun to have everything I wanted right in front of me.  I also replaced the journaling note paper with three journal blocks that I cut from one of the papers.

I made the flower out of some scrap paper and Tim Holtz tissue tape.  I am not sure whether I like that stuff so i am trying to find ways to use it.  I do like how this flower turned out and I painted it with more Twinkling H2Os and put a brad in the center.  Added a few of my scraps of the old Prima Say it with Studs (I miss these!) and the page was pretty much done.  There was a framed picture on the wall that was dominating the photo so I covered it with a sticker! LOL

That year The Extrovert spent ages making his own costume.  I have already told the story of The Thinker's costume perviously.  Those two really make me giggle!

Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

So many photos and so little time to scrap!  If you had asked me a year ago if I ever use sketches I would have given you an emphatic NO!  But now I seem to be hooked on them.  The past few months I have gotten more done than in the past few years!  That is not entirely accurate because in the last few years I have moved half way around the world, opened a new business and moved house twice so far ... but you get my drift :-)

I liked this sketch by Shimelle but didn't get it posted in time to add my link.  The sketch looked like this.

And here is my take on it using cupcake photos from The Extrovert's 13th Birthday party last year.

Basic Grey '?' papers

I love that stripy paper and I wish I had a pile of it, so this sketch let me leave lots of the paper free for me to admire in years to come as it is the only sheet I have!  The Extrovert chose to have his party at an outdoor laser battle place so his whole birthday was army themed from the invites to the cupcakes.  Our idea was to make swirl cupcakes in green and brown batter with corresponding green and brown frosting.  All did not go entirely to plan!

I embossed some scraps of brown Bazzill using one of my new Craft Concepts embossing folders.  This one is part of their new Christmas collection, but it doesn't look like a 'Christmas Vine' to me, more like a jungle vine!  Then I pressed my Versamark ink pad over the raised bits to make them a shade darker.  Do you see the question in the title?  "Camo Cakes ... or are they?"

Well we should have made a dry run on mixing green batter from a white cake batter.  One would have thought that green food colouring would have been sufficient, but no, we didn't end up with a nice dark green.  We got ALIEN green!!!!  Bright, shocking, in your face lime green!  At least the chocolate half was brown LOL

But The Extrovert wasn't phased as the most important part of the cakes to him were the men on top!  Don't worry I made him scrub them and boil them for 10 min.  Who knows what germs they might have been carrying.  The frosting was still a little bright, but no where near as bright as the inside.  They were a huge hit with the boys and I never thought that I would live to see they day where a pile of 13 year old boys are more interested in plastic army men than cake.  They ate the cake and then started attacking each others toy man!

I had loads of fun staining and dyeing the muslin that you can only just see in the layout, but this time I kept most of it off my hands!

Chipper