Saturday, February 28, 2009

Grace's Scrap Attic

Okay everyone I do not have much time today to journal about this but I have a tun of close up pics that should explain the way my Scrap area is set up. I hope you get inspired to organize yours as well because I have found that it is EXTREMELY easier to scrap in a beautiful, clean, and organized area. So here it is, my home of creativity...

Grace's Scrap Attic!




Thanks for Looking!

~ Grace ~

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Trinity - It's A Girl

I have to admit I have had this one done for a while ... I have been waiting to get pictures of it as a full two pager but I just finally made the time. This was a big event for us not only because we were adding another member to our family but we did not know if it would be a boy or a girl. I had gestational diabetes with this pregnancy so I was getting ultrasounds every week... and every week a new technician would tell us it was a boy ... then it was a girl ... then it was a boy again...lol. This was rather frustrating for my Hubby because he really wanted to know... I on the other hand did not so I was excited to find out I was going to be able to have a sweet girl to dress, primp and play tea time with. Not to mention a mothers intuition was telling me it was a girl the whole time...lol... once again I was right.
On the first page is one of my favorite pics of all time. I love the proud expression on my son's face when he gets to hold his new little sister for the first time. This was one of the happiest moments of my life. It made my family complete.
Now that you know a bit of the story behind this momentous occasion here are the LOs.
These were created for two different challenges. I am still not satisfied with the "Our Princess" title on the second page, but I will need to find a rub-on or a sticker or something else eventually. I may just leave it...
Now for the juicy details of page 1:
Top Left: This flourish is done with the cricut Home Accents cut on cream CS with the bling added. Also there is a K & Co. butterfly sticker (which I like to only stick the center down and put pop dots under the wings to give them flight.) The pearl beading is from the JoAnns 1$ bin. Also one last little touch. The little silver wire twig with purple gems at the end is from the wedding craft section.

Bottom Left: This is a pic of the bottom Left floral detail with the hidden journal box fully pulled out to show. Most of these paper shapes were done with the cricut Home Accents cartridge.
Bottom right: The rub on is "Its a Girl" the velvet beaded ribbon was a & store special and I love it! Also in this pic you get to see the green {bracket} boarder used on the right of the photo. Please note this } shape was hand drawn to create this cute boarder. Also there is a sneak peak of the lettering. Again that is cricut George Font Cartridge.
The second page was inspired by the first and I basically used the same papers with slightly different cricut images. The LO needed to incorporate the three photos of the people who were there with the Hubby and I. My mother, MeMaw and my Mother in Law, Tia. I loved this bird image once I saw it I had to have several cut for me. I will admit that now I currently do not have a cricut. I knew I wanted to do a symmetrical LO for the second page with the three pictures. These type of designs are not easy for me and It took me all day at a crop to get this done...





























Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about my family and my hobby. I would be happy to answer any questions about the LO or an item I used on one. Please feel free to express your opinions about my work in my comments. I appreciate you taking the time to read and view bits of my life.

~ Grace~

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

An Obsession...er... WarCraft Paladin

OK this is a hard one for me to post. I have something to say about myself now...
"Hello my name is Gracenstar...er... Grace and I am a closet gamer" There I said it. (Gracenstar is my character's name). Now let me answer some questions before you even have to ask...
  • Yes, I went to a Geek fest convention about video games ....
  • Yes, I dressed up as the main character I play... and competed in a contest in front of 13,000 people *yikes* (but I made the crowd explode as I bubble hearthed off stage... you would need to play WoW to understand.)
  • Yes, I have played now for years... I even leaded groups of people to their deaths online... umm... I mean to kill the Bosses so we can get gear for our characters...lol.
  • Yes, I actually am admitting this is part of my life and and I am entering this into two contests... * Breathe Grace ... it is OK... they will still like you* - and I got overly excited lifting this secret off of my shoulders and posted it in all the challenges I am in to "share"... I am crazy... hehe.

Well Enough about exposing my deep dark secrets... lol. Lets get down to the details.
First I think this qualify s as a Hybrid LO. I did most of the BG design work on the computer on a 12 x 12 word document...lol. Well counts as digital right? Anyway this is the most I have ever done for one LO on the computer. Though I am a huge fan and on most of my LOs you can find some little thing from the wonderful inviention called... a PC.
The Background:
Started with a plain black CS paper and took the gold paint I used on my costume and lightly brushed it over the top and bottom. The Ribbons were layered on with the same goldenrod CS paper I used in creating the crown (helm) for the Paladin costume. The Background picture is one of my favorite spots in the game... Nagrand at Night. I took the screen shot of it a long time ago and had it as my Computer wallpaper for a bit and now I got to use it here. The nice thing about printing this is I was able to add the word Obsessed and all my journaling in on the computer and then print it out and stickle the title "Obsessed". I then took a silver pen and colored the white boarder around this layer and used a black fine point pen to doodle on the corners and make mitered corners.
The Photos:
Here I used a photo we got taken at the Blizzcon Convention as my main photo. I love using word rub-ons on my negative space of my photos so ... you guessed it here it is. This time with a bit of bling. I also did the silver and black over the white boarder here. It created a "metal" looking frame like the three Tag Pics at the bottom. These I stickled the edges and placed a single bling on the upper right corner. I used two shades of blue. The small pics are as fallows left to right: My face in Tyrael's body from Diablo, Me on the Lych King's Ice Throne with the Frostmorne and his helm at my feet, and finally this is an in progress pic of my shoulders for the costume.
The Embellishments:
I will start with the sword since that is the main one... I backed it with the blue ribbon I used through out my costume and took the image of the sword from my Wrath Collectors Edition Art book. I then scanned, stretched and printed it up onto a gunmetal grey paper. I took my black pen and a blue and brown marker and doodled and colored all over it. I finished it off with silver stickles and light blue bling in the eyes of the skull. The flowers are Prima except the red on that is silk from Walmart's Christmas line. I took my stickles and accented all the flowers and used bling brads in the centers of some and sticky bling on the one folded in half. The black flourishes are from the Cricut home accents carriage. I added silver ink and stickles to them.
I entered it into the fallowing Scrapbook.com challenges and here is the criteria:
The Feb BOM Obsessed challenge and The ABC {xyz}:
X- 10 - list ten things about you
Y - you and only you in the pic
Z - Zany something about this LO needs to be Zany... UMMMM... let me see.... ME DRESSED UP AS A FANTASY CHARACTER...lol

TFL!I hope you had a good laugh... lol.

~ Grace ~

Monday, February 23, 2009

My first Design Team! The Layout is "A Fun 5th"

I am so excited that Liz from The Scrappiest Blog has announced the Design Team positions. It has been something I have wanted to share with you all yet I have not been able to say a word! The suspense has been killing me. Thank you Liz for not waiting till March 1st... LOL. Well I am very excited to see my Design Team members who are the fallowing:
Well lets get down to the challenge here. The Scrappiest Blog is a sketch blog. I will be challenged to come up with two Layouts a month with the Sketch that Liz provides. Here is the first one:
If you know me you know how much I love a good scrapbooking challenge. This was it for me! I usually use Asymmetrical layout designs and this one being symmetrical posed quiet an obstacle to cross. Here is the ... drum roll please ... first Design Team Layout!
I have been wanting to scrap these photos for a very long time. I love the color combo the provide and the way my son is looking at the camera in the picture on the left is ... well ... uniquely him. These were taken on the day of his 5th birthday party. We created Knights of Vacaville theme. His invitations were hear ye hear ye type wording printed on parchment and rolled into scrolls. The same parchment I used in the harlequin pattern BG paper. But now I am getting ahead of myself. So lets begin shall we.
The Background:
The Background patterned paper is a very old paper from my stash. I edged this with a thick gold marker just to finish off the edges... I don't usually use stripes because I don't like the edges that allow the stripes to lead your eyes off the page. Then I added some black corner boarders with gold doodles to really frame the Layout. The parchment Harlequin pattern I created by measuring out the diamonds and creating a template to match. Then I used the template to mask the alternating diamonds with a brown chalk.
The Photos:
The red and gold paper used for the mat of the photo with "The Look" is red rice paper with a gold embossing on it (purchased that way). The pic on the right was printed on vellum to give it a sheerness and to create an asymmetrical depth and weight while maintaining a symmetrical shapes. This was the hard part for me.
The title and journaling:
The center title "A Fun 5th" was created with chipboard inked in gold, a harlequin stamp inked in brown on the yellow parchment and these fabulous adhesive rub-ons that you use foil on top of it to adhere the foil in the rub on design. I love the way this turned out.
The journal box is unusual for me I love to incorporate the journaling into the design of my Layout not in a box. So This took me a while to get right. I inked the small harlequin stamp with versa mark and did a watermark pattern on the Tan color. Then journaled over the top. I finished it off with a bracket lined with gold and tipped with some bling.
The Embellishments:
Ribbons, ribbons and more ribbons. This is how the layers of ribbons were created... hehe simple but I do love how I got a rub-on to stick to the red suede ribbon. I learned something new today about rub-ons. LOL.
The flowers are made by Prima and I love these. I have started to collect them in every color. In this LO you can see the Tan and white sets. They are centered with black brads.
The bracket and the black architectural piece are both cricut images topped off with my favorite pen the Zig Painty gold/silver oil paint pen.

I hope you have enjoyed looking this LO as much as I have making it. I hope it or this sketch inspires you. Thanks for looking and Happy Scrapping!

~ Grace ~