Some Holiday Layouts

A few layouts from Halloween and Christmas.

This is a layout of our tree this year. I used Pencil Lines sketch 170.




And a layout of Gwen decorating said tree. These ornaments were a gift from my Mom when I moved out many moons ago. They're my most treasured non-child-made ornaments. I used Pencil Lines sketch 171.




And finally, here is a layout from Halloween. Gwen was a devil and Zach was Saix from Kingdom Hearts. He and his friends pick a theme and they all go all out on their costumes. The weapon alone took well over 60 hours of his and a family friend's time to make from scratch. It looks wicked cool! I used Capture These Sketches 23.

A Year in the Life #1

The first prompt for A Year in the Life of an Art Journal is "What?" kept you from art journaling in the past. Here's my page :o)



I had a lot of fun with this. I picked up a book about the renaissance from the free table at work. I love that era! Much to my dismay (sort-of), the previous owner cut out quite a few of the pages and images. I say sort of because then I didn't feel guilty cutting out the image I used for the base of my page. I painted over the back of the image I loved in a nice, soft green and wrote excuses I've used for not being artsy in silver pen. I used copies of my letters as a mask before spritzing the whole page in dark blue. The letters were cut from another partial page in the book and attached with some black pop-dots. Since this is my first experiment with art journaling, we'll see how the pop-dots hold up in the long run :o)

Go Go Cosmo!

Cosmo Cricket posted a sketch last week and here's my take on it.



Zach and Gwen checking out the tractor I learned to drive on. Granted, there isn't much of the tractor in these photos but I swear it's what they're sitting on :o) I'll use the wide-screen photos in another layout! And please forgive the crappy angle... no sun = no good photos... it's the only way I know how to avoid the flash-glare... until I break down and take everything to work to use our light table.

Heart the Art #2

The second prompt for Heart the Art is "Someday". Here's my take.

The journaling says, "Someday is Everyday, is Any day, is Today. Don't wait for "someday" to fulfill your desires. That day may never come."

Couple things

I have finally created my very first art journal page. I have been following along with Heart the Art challenge and this is the first prompt: Aim. My goal is to do many more of these this year :o)

And here is the layout I did for Pencil Lines 169 and Scrapping the Music 117. I flipped the sketch since it seemed to work better with my main photo. This week's song at Scrapping the Music is Say Hey by Michael Franti.

Four New Layouts

Since I work while the sun is up and then the weekends are miserable weather-wise, I haven't be able to get photos of my layouts. I used our light table at work today (and the help of a dear friend in using the company camera) to finally get shots of these layouts.

This is Zach's 10th birthday. I used a variety of Cosmo Cricket papers and stitched them onto black cardstock. Then I added some ribbons and brads and buttons and the cogs in place of flowers.


I lifted this layout I did of Gwendolyn back in 2008.


Another layout of Zach when he played soccer. I have been trying to use up older photos of him since he hates to have his picture taken these days...unless he's dressed well and posing :o) I'll be working on those in coming days!
I used Capture These Sketches 21.


Another set of older photos being used up. Gwendolyn happily "sledding" down parking lot piles of snow.
I used Pencil Lines Sketch 163. I'm not happy with this layout. The gems I added to the snowflakes are hard to see but beyond that it's just bland. I'm not sure what it's missing but as I read today, I have to Let Go or Get Dragged. So, I'm letting it go :o)


More photos of Zach. He was just so damn cute! I had forgotten...he's so mature looking now at 14.
I used Pencil Lines Sketch 162.

Favorite Creations of 2009

First a few layouts that I love. They aren't necessarily creative masterpieces but they may just remind me of a great memory I was happy to capture.

This first is my favoritest favorite of the year. It's a layout of G when she used to enjoy dressing up as a fairy princess. I love her innocence in this photo.


I was trying to make layouts with only cardstock, ink and a photo. This is Z a few years ago. As he is growing up and finding himself I feel I need to remind him we appreciate who he is. We see that he has a heart of gold and we love that about him. He sometimes thinks we only see the teen 'tude; we know it's just a show.


Another layout of only cardstock, ink and a photo (that became many photos). I loved the geometry of this layout and how much fun we had with the water maze at Hever Castle.


Another layout from Hever Castle. I love the bond G and G have developed. This collection of pics melts my heart.


This is my fav pic of G. There's really nothing else to say but I love it.


And here are a couple of canvas art pieces I created in November. I was just starting to experiment on canvas so these aren't stretches of the imagination but I was very pleased with what I could do with paint and ink and not end up with a wrinkled mess.




I love this tag because it was another result of me playing around with no preconceived notion of what I wanted to make. I started off trying to heat emboss without a stamped image. I just sprinkled sparkly embossing powder onto a piece of dry paper and hit it with heat. I love the result. I then started smudging my two favorite colors over it all and as it started to look like a sky and treetops, found the stamps to add. Anywho, I loved the process and that's why it's a fav.


Happy New Year!