August Kit Sneak Peeks!

Can't believe it's already nearly August.  Where has the summer gone??  Well, a new month means new kits from Scrapbook Heaven.  If you have school aged kiddos, or school photos that need scrapping, you will adore the Elite kit.  And when I tell you it is jam packed, chock full, and overflowing with TONS of paper, trims, and accents (like an ENTIRE BOX of Fancy Pants chipboard shapes!), I am not kidding.  This kit is amazing, so be sure to grab yours up before they sell out.

Method Playground: all white and a doily

This week's challenge on the Playground is to use all white and a doily on your project.  I love color challenges--totally takes the guess work out of which colors to reach for.  For this one, I went straight to my stash of white papers (which meant going into the archives of my paper supply!), and to my white button stash (which was overflowing).  Here's what I pulled together:

I tacked the trim into a ruffle with some white corsage pins, created a mat with some white paper doilies, and used more trim to cinch a flower.  I'm wishing that I had added some white paint to the edge of the photo (it's a color copy--I don't like to use original vintage photos), and added some paint to the "baby" letters--they have a blue hue to them.  Add that to the to do list!

Books and Wishes

There's nothing like an online crop to get the creative juices flowing.  And the cup of inspiration was flooding over during this month's Sizzling Summer Sketch and Challenge Crop over at Scrapbook Heaven.  Here are two pages I managed to complete, but now I have a slew of sketches for future projects.

I rotated the sketch 90 degrees for my LO.  The flowers are made from book pages, a printed shopping bag, and printed twill tape. Her challenge was to use 5 different flowers.

And here's Teresa's fun sketch:

I used a series of candle blowing photos for the row of pictures, and added a stitched border around the mat.

There are loads more inspiring sketches and challenges to get you thinking.  Hop on over and play along.  The deadline for prizes is Wednesday at 4:00pm, but you can link your creations up any time!

Sizzling Summer Sketch Crop

Scrapbook Heaven's sketch and challenge crop is in full swing!  My challenge just went live, and I thought you might like to play along.


The challenge: use music lyrics as the journaling on your LO.

The Sketch:

The Layout:

The Link-up Spot: Post your LO in this thread or post your creation in the comments here and I'll link it in the gallery for you.

The Studio: Final Round {and I need your votes!} (eta the card)

Last week I found out that I was chosen as one of the finalists for a position on The Studio design team.  Each of the final 8 (you can see the announcement here) were posed with this question:

Scrap about the bravest thing you have ever done. 

Have you taken a big risk in your life? Did it pay off? 

And THEN... make a card from the scraps left over from creating your page!

 

{Okay I just realized that I somehow spaced on that last part.  But wait, I had no scraps from my LO!}

So here's my page:

Journaling reads:

I'm not a very brave girl.  I tend to play it safe.  I've never bungee jumped, or sky dived.  I think I've recently discovered my fear of heights.  I've never been in the armed forces, never risked my life for my country, state, or even town.  I’ve never risked my life to save someone else’s, never been in a situation where I’ve had to, thank God.  I'm sure I've stood up for myself, but it happens so rarely that I cannot even think of a specific instance.  I've never jumped feet first into a business venture, risked the possibility of failure and loss of money to chase a dream.  Heck, I don't even like casinos and don't play the lottery.  But here I am posed with the question of the bravest thing I've ever done, a risk I've taken in my life, and what the payoff was.  Here's what I’ve come up with.  I got married.  In this day and age where half of all marriages end in divorce, I was brave, erred on the side of love and committed to spend the rest of my life with one person.  Forever.  I had children.  With wars waging, terrorists raging, drugs abounding, schools failing, and numerous other horrific things happening in our world, I was brave. I brought children into this world because children bring hope and happiness and innocence and promise for a brighter future.  I braved the discomfort of pregnancy, the agonizing pain of childbirth without any medications to bear three beautiful, wonderful children.  Three children, no less, because we were brave enough to be out- numbered 3 to 2. Brave enough to venture out alone with one less hand than I really needed.  Brave enough to take the risk that someone may be left out with the two’s-company- three’s-a-crowd equation.  And lastly, I quit my job.  We risked the loss of income, I left behind my dreams of teaching and sacrificed a piece of who I am to raise our children.  I can’t honestly say I’ve loved every minute of it, motherhood is hard and takes a league of bravery all its own.  But I can say I wouldn’t trade these years with my children for the highest paying job in the world.  We’ll never get these days back again, and I am so happy to have been able to spend them with my children.  So I guess, even though I’ve never climbed to the top of Mount Everest, or rocketed off to the moon, I am being brave every day of my life in my own little way.  And the payoff is huger than anything I could have ever hoped for.

And here is my card:

Had to get creative with my scraps because there weren't really any left from my LO.  Used the paper plate  I spray painted the roses on and the packaging from the flowers to punch the squares and 2 of the butterflies. 

You can read more about my process for my page at The Studio blog and see all the gorgeous creations everyone made.  While you're there,

please vote for my layout

I will be forever grateful!

Creative Refueling

Sometimes you need a little blog surfing to refuel the creative juices.  That's just how I felt tonight.  Too tired to create, too drained to think.  There's a fine line to walk when refueling because it can easily cross over into feelings of creative inadequacy.  It's a chance I take.

Here's what I came across during tonight's journey:   

Please note: none of these creations is my own; credit is given in each photo's caption.

Want to try this with some fabric:

Tempor'elles

Love the cardboard and beautiful mess on this one:

Mirjam @ Sweet and Colorful

Just a few elements come together to make a great LO

thinking cutting letters from book print, thinking tone on tone texture, thinking negative space from punch, thinking stretching an element by cutting it in two parts

The super sweet and sassy Sasha Farina

Want to use a whole alpha like this:

another Sasha

Need to play with some tape

Liz Tamanaha @ Paislee Press

Paislee Press is a sure hit for a dozen pieces of inspo on any given day.  Here's another:

Love the monochromatic patchwork circle

Paislee Press

And another:

Want to play with a sketched timeline and punched circle relief

Paislee Press

I'm feeling better already.  I follow some pretty fab blogs if I do say so myself.   I have them all linked up on my other blog, and am in the very slooooowww process of  adding them to a page here as well.

A Crochet Video Tutorial!!

I am so thrilled to have finally posted my first crochet tutorial (as if little me, the newbie crocheter, who first produced things like this not too long ago could actually teach someone how to crochet!).  Well, I recorded this late one night over a month ago, and finally today got around to uploading it to Vimeo (which I am loving, BTW, tons of cool stuff to search through and another time sucker, I can tell!).   I'm hoping to get part two recorded and up next week when the wee ones are at day camp.

Let me warn you first, that this was recorded upside down (what was I thinking??).  So you'll have to stand on your head to watch it.  Seriously, I'm thinking this is going to be a problem for those of you who want to actually learn how to crochet.


Granny Square Tutorial part 1 from Michelle Neddo on Vimeo.

The pattern I am using for this is from The Crochet Spot.

Wish my Mojo was Mojo-ing

Was given the precious gift of time today.  Too bad my mojo didn't get the memo.  I sat down in my stUdio with the possibility of greatness spread out before me and went totally blank.  My supplies were all wrong, my photos were no good, nothing was coming together.  Sometimes it's like that.  But I pressed on, I forced it a bit.  Sometimes you have to.  And here are the 2 measly little LO's I came up with:

I used papers from Fancy Pants and Foof-a-La.  I copied the star motif in the paper and doodled my own in the upper left.  Filled them in with a touch of paint.  I just love that little photo of Perry tying Logan's tie on the morning of his first communion.

And this one is for Teresa's challenge to use your stash.  I've been holding onto the DCWV cardstock for about a year.  I bought it because it screamed my oldest son.  It's his styling exactly, and he plays guitar.  Looking through my photos, I realized I had this one filled with his little 9 year old 'tude and style.  A perfect match for the paper!

Hopefully my mojo moseys on back here soon.  I've got lots of creating to get to this week!

ATC's

Here are the projects I shared on last night's webcast.  I had a bunch of fun designing these, and presenting on the show.

These are the ones I created using artwork from Somewhere In Time Collage:

a simple feather for his cap and one of my favorite quotes completes this artiste

a bit of fussy cutting and a whimsical flower wand

I simply added a touch of glitter and a handful of beads to these vintage Valentine's from SWITC to create the perfect accents for this heritage LO of my grandparents' wedding day.

And here are the ones I did tutorials for on the show.   The show is linked above, and I've included time markers for the show under each card in case you are in a rush to get right to the creative nitty gritty!

I used an emboss acrylic paint resist to create the flower on this.

{12:15}

 The background here was created with a wash of watercolor sprinkled with course salt.

{29:20}

 This last one is embellished with an image transferred with packing tape.

{48:28}

 So check out the recorded show.  It's good for a laugh when I try to explain the chemical reaction of paint and salt!  Thanks so much for looking (and watching!)

Tonight's the Night!

Scrapbook Heaven is hosting a LIVE webshow featuring ATC's and product from Somewhere in Time Collage and I will be there to share some fun techniques for your paper craft projects.  I am trying hard to not shamelessly beg you to be there, so I'll just ask super nicely with sprinkles and a cherry on top for you to join me for the fun.  And I can't say whether or not there will be some fabulous giveaways, so here I am not saying a word!!

Tune in here if you have a Facebook, and here if you don't.  Show starts at 9:00 EDT.

A bit more Bloggy Catch-Up

This one is from  Jules' Friday Sketch from last weekend.  Got a chance to put a LO together using it, and what do you know?  It's a page of me!  The photo was one of my Daily Mug Shot photos, and the journaling was written in the wee hours of the morning when I was too wound up from creating to sleep, yet so tired and exhausted.

I replaced two of the photos with pattern paper and masked the title with some gesso to create a journaling spot.

This card was for a card-a-day challenge at For the Luv of Art.  I think they do these every week. Cards are a great way to get the creative juices flowing in a no pressure kind of way.  And when you're done you've got a little bit of love to send to someone special!

And now for a couple of projects that fell through the bloggy cracks.  I know exactly how it happened too, they needed journaling and I was going to wait until I added the journaling to post them.  Well, that just didn't happen b/c here they still sit journaling-less.

I've got the journaling all written up, but couldn't get it to fit on the LO.  Whoops!

And this one was for Teresa's June challenge to use a doily on your LO.  I {heart} me some doilies in a big ole way so I was more than happy to put some doily lovin' on my page.  And what's almost as good as doilies?  A banner.  So I combined the two into a "doil-anner", a little term I coined myself.  Think it will catch on?!


I think that's it.

Oh, one more piece of exciting news from one of my bestest blogging buddies, the lovable (and uber creatively gifted) Lolly Chops.  She was scooped up by the amazing Donna Downey to be one of the teachers at Inspired. I am so ecstatic for her, and she's pretty psyched, too.  And I know Donna's thrilled to have her, too.  So all in all, it's just one big happy, creative family out here!  Oh, and if you read about a man-hunt for a sunglass-ed woman with a piece of patterned paper stuck in her hair, and ribbon dragging from her foot who robbed a bank, please don't turn me in.  I'm just trying to come up with some cashola for Inspired!

And don't forget to tune in on Friday night for the ATC webshow.  Deets here.

Mirror, Mirror

Method Playground is back with another challenge for your sweet summer days.  This time, we want you to use something reflective on your layout: mirrors, aluminum foil, reflective paper.  I came up with these two:

 I folded a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil in fourths and ran it through the Big Shot with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  I wanted to add some alcohol ink, but I didn't have the right colors--next time!

 

I used the adorable Crystal Wilkerson kit on this LO (with a bit of MME thrown in).  I used small round mirrors from the craft store as accents.

Hope you can grab some time to join us on the Playground for this round.  Link up your projects here.

Scrapbook Heaven has begun a series of webinars as a way to share some wonderful inspiration and teach new techniques for papercrafts.  The shows are held on Friday nights at 9:00 pm EDT and feature products from some fabulous manufacturers in papercrafting (Prima, Maya Road, and SEI to name a few).  This Friday, July 9th, I will be teaching viewers a bit about ATC's (Artist Trading Cards).  This show will feature product from Somewhere in Time Collage.  I have some really fun projects to share with you, as well as some new techniques for you to play with on your next scrapbook page or card.  Here are some sneak peeks:

I would love, love, love it if you could tune in to the show this Friday at 9:00pm EDT.  You can view it through your Facebook account here, or Scrapbook Heaven's Linq To room here.  Email me if you have any questions on how to access the room.  If you can't make it on Friday, the show will be recorded, and I'll post a link when I have it.  I am crossing my fingers and toes that you will come check it out.  The shows are loads of fun, the more, the merrier!

Big Idea Festival

I just signed up for this at Big Picture Scrapbooking:

It's BPS's latest class.

And it's FREE!

Class begins August 12th.

Come play along!

Bloggy Catch-up {again}

It's been a while since I posted.  I hate when this happens.  Life just gets in the way.  Good life, but still the kind that makes it hard to post some projects.  I don't even know where I've left off, so I'll post a few things now and then try to get back on track over the weekend.

Some LO's:

for a sketch challenge at a new forum I discovered recently: For the Luv of Art .  Lots of talented artists over there.

 I was the super-duper lucky duck winner of Echo Park Paper's first paper release designed by Crystal Wilkerson.  Just by playing along with Paper Craft Planet's 4 May sketches, I wound up with this sunny, happy kit.  I am a lucky girl!

for Carla's June recipe challenge at Scrapbook Heaven

for Susan's June rub-on challenge at Scrapbook Heaven

That's it for now.  I've been working on some granny squares for a scarf that I hope to have done in time for winter.  If only I could get a headstart like this on Christmas shopping!  I filmed a little video tute for them a couple of weeks ago.  Just need to rewatch it to see how it came out and then maybe I'll post it here.

Speaking of videos, I'll be doing my very first live recorded show with Scrapbook Heaven next Friday, the 9th.  Please, please, if you can, come see me.  I'll be posting all the deets this weekend.  But I can tell you that it will be a show on ATC's  If you don't know what those are, you've got to come check it out.  If you do know what they are, please come see because I'm hoping to have a couple of new techniques for you and some projects to share. 

Alrighty, I'm off to bed now because somehow tomorrow has suddenly turned into today and I need some sleep!