Christmas 2019

Christmas was an exciting time for me this year.  I finally got to visit with all five of my grandchildren.  This is something I don't get to do very often.  My oldest is in University in Ottawa and is also in the Canadian Armed Forces so even when University is not in session he doesn't necessarily get to come home.  The next oldest is attending the University of Western Ontario in London so I rarely get to see her.  The next two usually work on the weekends so if I get to see them it is a quick pop into the store where they work and that is the limit of my visit with them and the youngest one tends to go to Simcoe on the weekends to visit her other Nana.  So it was a real treat for me to get to spend the day with all five of them.

My wonderful daughter and the family gave me an Apple iPad air for Christmas so now I am able to finally activate my Instagram account and upload my layouts to that part of social media.  Not to mention that I just love playing around on the iPad. :)

My darling husband gave me a boom tripod and now I am finally able to shoot process videos when I am creating layouts.. I am so excited that I can finally do that.  I have been wanting to do that for a long time but being able to get my camera in the right position has kept me from being able to do it.

Creative Impressions has their Christmas mini crop going on right now and one of the challenges is to do a family Christmas layout. This is the layout I created for that challenge.

Products used:  Paper -  Basic Grey Aspin Frost

Chipboard - Creative Embellishments

Frames - Forever in Time

Flowers - Silhouette cut file

Title - Silhouette cut file

Stickles

Liquid pearls 

Lace - unknown

cheesecloth

Here is the video of the process.

Thank you for visiting, please leave a comment to let me know that you were here.
 Thank you,
 Jackie

Another Challenge

Yes, I did another challenge, this time from the Studios Challenges Blog . I created this one using the Simple Stories Heart collection again. Since I am doing a lot of old photos for my client I will probably continue using this line of paper until it is finished and then will go looking for more of it, I just love it so much and it fits with those photos so well.
To start this layout after I had chosen the papers to use, I distressed all the edges, distress distress distress. Then I layered on some texture paste using a stencil. Added a bit of shine with some spray ink. Then I started layering on my paper. I used cardboard between the layers of paper to give dimension and popped my photo with foam tape.  I coated my chipboard with gesso before giving it a nice coat of Clearsnap Mixed Media Inx. Then I added my flowers, tucked in some bits of lace and cheesecloth, added some glass beads, some butterflies, the stars and the title to finish it of.

Here is the sketch we were given to use:

Products used:

Simple stories Heart Collection

Creative Embellishments Chipboard

Prima Flowers

Tim Holtz Butterflies

Lindys Stamp Gang Ink

Simply Texture Paste Medium

Golden Soft Gel Medium

Clearsnap Mixed Media Inx

Layers of Color  Art Stencil

Lace Unknown

Glass beads unknown

Heidi Swapp edge distresser

Cheesecloth

Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment to let me know you were here.
Jackie

Merry Christmas

It was a very exciting day for me.  Last month I had my regular visit with my eye doctor who told me I had the start of Macular Degeneration in my right eye and that was why I was unable to see anything when I looked directly at it.  He made an appointment for me with the eye specialist and I saw him today.  Good news and bad news, I don't have macular degeneration which is wonderful news because that can't be cured.  The bad news is that I have a hole in my retina and a fairly large one at that and it is right in the center of my eye. The good news is that it can be repaired with surgery, the bad news is that I have no idea how long I am going to have to wait for it. So I am going to be sitting here waiting for the phone call.

Now I have been trying for over a year to figure out how to download the photos from my cell phone to my computer.  According to everyone, it should be easy peasy, just plug it into my computer and then just download them but darn if it would work for me and I tried just about everything.  Today I took the phone to my dealer to see if he could figure it out, he is pretty good and he is so patient with me every time I go to see him about anything.  Well he couldn't figure it out and believe me he tried. Well I really wanted this to work because I have discovered that my cell phone actually takes much lovelier photos of my layouts than my so very expensive Canon does.  This is because with my cell phone I can shoot the picture from the top of my desk where I have the lovely Ott lighting and with my Canon I have to shoot from farther away because I don't have the Macro lens. Well when I got home I took that baby and I started playing with it, I played with settings, I moved things, turned things on that were turned off and I turned things off that were turned on, I locked that thing up so solid a couple of times that I had to do a reset on it.  However, I finally found a spot that said "backing up your data to another device".. OMG a haha moment!!  Within ten minutes I had all my photos transferred over to my computer without any more problems. Only if we would learn to read first!!!


Today I created another challenge for Scrap Paper Scissors. The challenge was simple, to use some fussy cutting or die cuts.  Well, I don't have much paper that I can do any fussy cutting on and I don't have any Christmas dies at all so I was stuck going to the Silhouette store and getting some cut files from them.  Of course they have lots and lots to choose from so there wasn't much trouble finding one to go with my chosen layout.

I started with paper from Craftsmart's Evergreen Cabin, paper pad. Now when I first started scrapping forever ago, I bought the ever needed spindle of wacky edged scissors which I never use, so I decided to pull a pair of those and cut the edge of the paper I was going to use for the second layer.  Then I distressed it pulling the little circles toward the center of the page.  A bit of Distress ink to match the layout was in order, so I sprayed a bit of water on it to tone it down a bit. Next I used a Martha Stewart edge punch on my photo mat and one of the paper layers.  I used a Heidi Swapp edge distresser to distress all my edges.
I tucked a bits and pieces of cheesecloth and burlap between the paper layers for some interest. I also layered some cardboard between my patterned paper for dimension. The clocks and gear chipboard pieces are from Creative Embellishments. After coating the gears with a coat of Gesso I then embossed them with black sparkle embossing powder from Ranger.  I added some white circles using a medicine cup and gesso.  The stitches were added using a stitch stamp from Gel a Tins (I don't know if they are still in business, I have to check that out) To finish the layout of, I used some red Nuvo pearls.

Now I also completed two more challenges for the 12 days of Christmas at Creative Inspiration.. only one more to go there!
Day 4 was to use stamp and die set.. Well I just had the die no stamp so I had to go with what I had.

Day 9 The challenge required us to create a layout using tags. I managed to use two tags on this layout.

Thanks for stopping by, please leave a comment letting me know you were here.
Jackie

New Layouts

Today I did some layouts for challenges at Creative Inspiration  The first one was  for a challenge to use lace on  your project. I used lace under the photo and lace in the flowers.  The papers are from Echo Park's Just be You paper line. The flowers are from Forever in Time.The floral tag is also from Forever in Time. The chippie is from Creative Embellishments.  I used a  My Favourite Things stencil to add a bit of dimension using some blended fibres from Liquitex.  I also did some faux stitching with a Sharpie.

The second challenge was to use a punch or two on a project. On this layout I used a Recollections punch to create the flowers, and an EK punch to create the edges on the vertical piece of paper.  The paper I used here was a brand I had never used or heard of before, Scrapbook Customs. I used the Navy Mustard line. I was rather impressed with the quality of this paper.  The lace is unknown. The pearl centers are Forever in Time.  The heart embellishments are PinkFresh.

I was rather pleased with the way these layouts turned out.
Thanks for visiting please leave a comment to let me know you were here.
Jackie