Gesso is a girl’s best friend

Just a short note, as I have been down with a cold and need to catch up with posting. I have really been loving using gesso to “push back” busy papers. This has worked out great for my wish to reuse some of the holiday cards we received this year. The gesso pulls together the different card styles. I think I could do more to pull it together, but this is a great start. The photo for the upper left circle window can be pulled up to see the whole picture.

The gesso came in a sampler set from Faber-Castelle. I think I’ll need to get a whole tub of it when I run out!

A you’re Adorable

A you’re Adorable/
B you’re so Beautiful/
C you’re a Cutie full of Charm!

The “A is for” challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog, initially made me think of the word “alethiometer”, but that’s a project that I’m planning for the Tim Holtz January tag, and I don’t like to mix challenges. I’m just mentioning this as a tease, in case my husband is reading. He’ll be quite interested in an alethiometer project.

So my second “A is for” thought was of a John Lithgow kid’s rendition of “A you’re Adorable”, and who is my little charming cutie these days? My little boy, of course! I just had holiday pictures printed out, so it’s high time to make a 6×6 scrapbook spread for my son’s baby book.

My other little idea was that I wanted to use some of this season’s received holiday cards in the background. I tried to tie it all together and push the bold cards into the background with some gesso and a little Perfect Pearls for shimmer.

Ingredients: Reused holiday cards, gesso, Perfect Pearls, Distress marker, Sizzix Christmas tree die, Distress Stickles, Martha Stewart letter stamps, Micron pen

Learning: This was my first experiment with gesso, and I really like the translucent coverage. I’m not the most experienced with scrapbooking, but I think this went better than some of the previous ones I have done. I think doing a two page spread was a good idea, giving me 12×6 to work with, so I will definitely try that again. 6×6 is pretty tiny, but it’s for a baby book and I want little hands to be able to hold it in a few years. Also, I need to work on my photo setup for large scrapbook pages and spreads!

Loving: I’m happy with how the photos look fussy cut. I really enjoyed giving some of the holiday cards a second life. I think the gesso really pulled everything together, and made a great surface for writing on. And of course, being sentimental, I really love seeing my baby’s great pictures! He is the most adorable in my eyes!

Winter wonderland

Inspiration: A week ago I created a card for a “white on white” challenge at Inkspirational.  But I was a little disappointed with it, because my initial hope had been to create a landscape, but at that point I couldn’t think of anything in my stash to help me produce a landscape.  So I ended up doing a more abstract white-on-white design.

When I saw the “Winter Scenes” challenge on the Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge blog, I knew I had a second chance to try to achieve the snowy, white-on-white landscape in my mind.  I’m not sure why this idea didn’t occur to me in the first place!

Ingredients: Rustic Luxe Christmas paper, plain index paper, Rock Candy Stickles, Rock Candy Distress Glitter, Distress ink in weathered wood and stormy sky, Perfect Medium, Perfect Pearls in blue patina, Deco Art glitter paint, dryer sheet

Learning:  Why did I use the Deco Art glitter paint on the dryer sheet?  I was hoping to get a tiny bit of color into the scene by using aroraborealis style glitter, but I feel it ended up looking a bit cheesy.  It reminds me of the glittered blankets of polyfiber fake snow under my grandparent’s manger scene in the 80’s.  Which could have been cool in it’s own right, if I had been going for a more retro-cute look.

I also put on a bit of the blue Distress Inks on the dryer sheet for shadow, but I wish I had attempted it before sticking the dryer sheet on, because I think it would have been more subtle.

Triumps:  I love love love how the Perfect Pearls worked out.  I had never worked with them before, and I found it to be really fun to stamp on the clear Perfect Medium, then watch the image appear when I dusted on the Pearls – kind of like a secret message!  The effect was subtle, yet legible.  I also like my shadow effect on the one side of the tree done with a Stormy Sky Distress marker, and a bit of Weathered Wood ink on a watered brush.

Cozy with candles

Today’s challenge almost didn’t happen, as baby was sniffly and fussy for most of the evening and wouldn’t nap.  But just before bed, I got my inspiration.  For this challenge, “Grab a Cup” at Flourishes, my brain made a few creative leaps.  The challenge was to be inspired by a photo of a coffee cup and some little cookies.  My brain fast forwarded to “cozy”, and “cozy” made me think of candles and looking out at winter snow.  What’s funny is that until I looked at the challenge again, I completely forgot that the starting point had been a mug of coffee!  Now of course, I want a latte…

I just love the retro candle paper!  It reminds me of when I was a kid, putting up the holiday decorations with my parents, siblings, and some hot cocoa!

Ingredients:  Core’dinations cardstock, Tim Holtz seasonal paper and seasonal salvage stickers, distress inks, stickles, a Sizzix Christmas tree die… I think that’s it, I was pretty tired when I finished!