More Scrap-Journal Pages

I haven't really had lots of studio time lately. I think in the spring I get motivated to do yard work (makes sense after being stuck inside all winter) and get some spring cleaning done inside (makes sense since there's a winter worth of cluttered and closed inside dirt that you want to clean up!). But, I have squeezed in a bit of time and have been having fun doing these travel pages.

Today I have a few more page peeks for you.
Above is peek #1 for you.
I cut the cars out of the photos, added some October Afternoon little paper cut outs, some buttons, a Paper Smooches die cut and stamped image.

peek 2
I stenciled the stars, added some tape strips, some left overs from a piece of chicken wire background I die cut. Also, some little clear gemstones.

peek 3

A painted background and some Sharpie outlining. I doodled the letters in the words, colored them, and then outlined them with a white pen.

peek 4

I painted heart, some lace trim, and an October Afternoon horseshoe which I colored with some Viva rub in iron color.

peek 5

This time I used some little cowboy boot die cuts (Dienamics), lots of letter Os (from the long word MOO), some writing with black Sharpie then outlined with a white pen. Oh yeah, and I wrinkled the paper background-give it a little old and distressed look.

Hump Day! This is another busy work week for me. Will make this month fly by-but I want things to settled down a little bit. A little too busy for me.

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous spring day- and now I can say- we really have leaves!!!

Puts your whole mindset into a different place when you look out and it is green.

Have a super day and thanks for stopping by.

Monday Chatter and some Scrapbook Pages

So I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Mine was busy-more spring cleaning (why is it it seems like you clean and only make another mess someplace else? It doesn't end!). Dave got his new truck; I got a few walks in, along with some studio time since I needed to make a Mother's Day card to get in the mail this week.

I also read a lot of this book

.

 I had recently read Without Reservations by this same author and I just love her writing. It really speaks to me. Gives me the idea to start going places to take classes. Of course it doesn't take much for me to get any ideas when it comes to going places.

Did I tell you where I am going this summer with my husband and daughter in July?

Here's a hint.

I am in full planning mode for that right now!

I have another trip this summer in August to, an education trip kind of like in this book I just showed you. More later about that.

So here's a few scrap pages to show you today.

Back to my February 2012 trip to Arizona.

Here's a page with a photo of my hubby I like, even if he is half hidden in the shade.

I started by spraying watercolor paper with red Dylusion's spray ink. Then I added this piece of polka dot paper, which I outlined with black Sharpie.  Then I added this strip of blue ribbon trim and a couple of matching buttons. 

I added one of this October Afternoon cutouts on the top-like this line they put out-Sasparilla.

The Historic Bisbee piece is cut out of a travel brochure and I think it works well, as does the Prima snaps.

I used another piece of paper from October Sasparilla on this page. Love the denim. Then I added a beer coaster from a brewery we visited. Some numbered paper tape, some little scraps from when I die cut some chicken wire. It works, and I didn't have to throw out the scraps!

Finally for today, one more scrap journal page.

Two shots of this one.

More Sasparilla paper and assorted other Sasparilla accessories.

I added some blue ribbon, a die cut quote bubble from Spellbinders, and some more Pima little metal gear  embellishments.

That's a lot of chatter for a Monday, isn't it?

Thanks for visiting my blog page!

The Old West-Embellished!

More of my Arizona scrap-journal today to wrap up this work week.

I like using this BIG stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms to make my journaling block, and I like to cut a side off of it and then adding it to the side of a page.

I distressed this page quite a bit too, since I wanted it to look old.

I especially like how the paint blobs look and make it look like the paper is really old.

Here's another page that I wanted to look old and cowboy-ish too.

Obviously with the cowboy on the page. What I love is the trim that looks like leather, but is really just white paper that has been stained and rubbed with ink to look old. Embossing folder is from Provo Craft.

The 5 cents metal pin sticker is from Jenni Bowlin.

And this Tombstone page was some cowboy gambling tables. Thought a poker chip or two would help out on this page. So I took some white new chips (since I don't have any old ones sitting around) and painted them with yellow and brown Distress Paint. A little rubbing while the paint is just about dry- and this is what I got. I also like using the twine- helps a lot create that vintage old west feel I was going for.

How about this horse-shoe. It is from October Afternoon. I painted it, put some Crackle Glaze on it and once dried, I rubbed some brown ink over it. I added some black brads into where the nails go, and then I sanded them a bit to give them that worn you. I also used a few stickers, not sure who made them.

Don't know about you, and even though this week hasn't been that long, I am so ready for the weekend.

Hoping we'll have a new truck to go pick up tomorrow....I am tired of truck shopping and next weekend we need to go move Katie home from school. Speaking of Katie, she has her big presentation for one of her classes today. I bet she's a wreck this morning with nerves.

Poor kid.

I also know Dave is getting antsy to bring home his boat from his mom's where he stores it for the weekend. He needs to clean it and in a few weeks we can bring it down to the marina for the summer.

Yeah.

OK, enough for me today.

Have a super day!

Another Vacation Bites the Dust

There's no way of stopping it from happening but alas, it has come, the end of my week off. Tomorrow it is back to work, BUT it is the last leg of the school year. Senioritis with be in FULL swing, and since I have 2 classes with almost all seniors, it should be a blast. AND the weather is getting more and more spring like and things are greening up. It is getting light so early in the morning and staying light at night too.

Think I can make it through this stretch.

In just a couple of weeks Katie will be moving home from college for the summer and then things will be hopping around here too.

Dave will be getting his new truck and the boat will be coming home and then off to the marina for the summer. Boating and fishing season will move into full swing.

I've got 2 trips planned this summer-one with my family and one from work to get some grad credits and to have a wild adventure in an exotic place.

All of that is coming.

It is an exciting time of year.

So today, some more scrap-journal pages from Arizona-2012.

I hardly made it into the studio all vacation-it was a real work around the house week,

but I feel good I got a bunch of chores completed! Yeah!

Snippets from pages- this one is a postcard of Bisbee that I had picked up. I used 2 scraps of background paper and then used a bit of distress stain around where the postcard would go. After I added the postcard I outlined it with black Sharpie. I cut an stamped the banner (Paper Smooches), colored the edge and wrote in the title. I added the  random October Afternoon letter stickers to make the other title and then I added the little Jenni Bowlin metal button sticker.

Also in Bisbee there was this giant fly sculpture I thought rather interesting (being a biologist by trade and all).

Here's views of the page I made using this photo.

Here's the side of the page. I used some Tim Holtz tissue paper on the page and then added some Distress stain. Some paper tape, and then I added some of these snap embellishments from Pima. Also, I used some red Distress paint around the photo and then outlined the photo with black Sharpie.

Background under the photo is some deli paper that I painted and decorated prior to using. Then I added some October Afternoon alphabet letters and outlined each with a fine line black Sharpie.

So this week it will be May. Where did April go to?

Have a great rest of your weekend!

The Project Was Quite the Work

Took me almost all day yesterday to clean and sort and reorganize my clothes. Still not 100% happy with this new arrangement in my new cabinet, but I am sure I will be rearranging sometime soon once I get a good idea in my head.
(see this post for photos of my new cabinet
http://fat-emma.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-cabinet-and-few-other-things.html)
Frustrating because I spent hours and hoped to have it all finished and perfect.
On the good news
it was cloudy dark day and not a bad day to do the job.

I just have too many clothes and I wish I was someone who could just get rid of a lot more.
You know, a major purge.
I wear the same things all the time anyhow.

Even though I filled 3 bags to drop off today at Goodwill.

And I filled a big bag for the trash too.
The pack rat in me I guess is a pretty strong trait.

I took a break late in the afternoon and watched Lincoln which I enjoyed as much this time as I did in the theatre the first time I watched the film.
I needed to do that, I needed to recharge and to sort my thoughts how to finish up my organization.
Enough about how I spent my day.

So I never made it into the studio. :(

That disappointed me even though this was a job well done.

So here's some of my scrap -journal.

Today, some Mexican food photos from when we were in Bisbee, Arizona.

(Feb 2012)

Painted page, some scrap paper, some die cut hot peppers (Quickutz), a Tim Holtz cabinet card die cut, stamped image and this little metal button sticker.

I like those photo of me.  I look thin in it, the self I want to be 15  (or more) pounds lighter. 

I added some of the scraps from a Cheery Lynn chicken wire die-cut- I liked how these little scraps look arranged as a sort of border. I made the medallion from some October Afternoon pre-cuts tags, which I outlined with a white pen and added some white  Viva paint-pen dots and a bright little Prima gems.

You know the letters on this page are just drawn with a black Sharpie and colored in, but adding the Stickles really makes them look 3D and pop off the page. I cut the photo of my lunch out of the big photo and added it to the bottom of the page. Really like how that worked. Must say I like this page.

So it is going to be a beautiful day today and I am planning on being off to go visit my mom.

Don't mind visiting mom but I hate how I have to spend over 4 hours driving and how it takes up so much of the day.

But a daughter must do what she must do, and then I have the rest of the week to do whatever I want to do.

Sometimes one week off just isn't long enough, but what can you do? I was lucky to have the week. Only when you're home for a vacation it seems to turn into a working week. Always so much to do around the house.

Feels good in a lot of ways though.

Oh well, I am off.

Thanks for visiting.

The Wild West

A little more of my Arizona scrap-journal from my February 2012 trip to Tucson and southern Arizona. Today's theme is the wild west- as we spent 2 nights way down in Bisbee- an old western mining town and then on our way north we passed through Tombstone and a ghost town called Fairbanks. 

I actually like wild west themed things, so it was a lot of fun making these pages.

The page above is an old postcard I found of Bisbee. I started by adhering this cool leather look paper down on my watercolor paper base. You can see I lightly colored some of the swirl. Then I die cut the chicken wire background (Cheery Lynn)  and then, after putting down some paint where I wanted the postcard to go, I attached the die cut and the postcard over that. Some October Afternoon pre-cut stars, an October Afternoon rub on, and some die cuts from a set of Die-namics western tags finish embelling this page. Oh yes, and one of these Jenni Bowlin new metal price embellishments.

You can see the other side and the actual postcard I used better in this photo.

For this page, I was using a picture of the famous OK Corral where they was the big gun fight that has become not only a historical question but also a western legend. I chose to spray the page with some red Dylusions spray ink-heavy in one spot, and also a bit of (just a tad) of brown to make it look like blood-since during the gunfight that makes this spot historical- there were some deaths. I added this Tim Holtz western set, which I actually use quite a bit-especially while working on these pages. Some stars from that stamp set were also inked and added. I cut out a Tombstone title word from a free brochure I picked up while visiting.

I will say I was actually quite surprised how tiny this pace was. I somehow pictured it much bigger.

One more little peek for today.

This time I used a BIG photo. I snapped this inside the Bird Cage Theatre. 

I started with my watercolor paper. I added some paper tape- you can see that on the left, and I used a stipple brush and some black ink on the right side. After I added the photo I stamped the saying and added a little handwritten note. Then I added these brads and wrapped a bit of twine around them- I was using the brads to hold this twine in place.

So yesterday I did manage to clean through some shelves I hold my Sizzix dies on. I store those on some CD shelves-CD /DVD shelves are the perfect size for the size of those dies. My shelves come from IKEA and they have adjustable shelves, which I really like. So yesterday I emptied and readjusted shelves and made a lot more room without getting rid of anything. Love that!

I only got that far though because then we had to go bring Katie back to school and Dave wanted to truck shop a bit more and we had to go to Home Depot. That seemed to take all afternoon, and then Dave was working on wiring last night because today my cabinet gets moved into my bedroom.

YAHOO!

Can't wait to see what it looks like AND I hope to spend some time this week cleaning out the exploding too full closet and also cleaning out my bureau and putting all of that into the new cabinet.

What an adventure!

Thanks for visiting my blog.

I love that you stop by.

Vacation Adventures

I don't mean to brag or rub it in, but I am off for the week up coming and I am so excited. No big plans, lots of potential plans, hardly any time commitments.

What a great feeling!

And it is even better this morning because I have the whole week ahead of me.

Not sure it will be a great weather week but at least it is spring and I shouldn't have to worry about being stuck in or home with a snow storm.

At least I hope I don't.

So here's a scrap-journal page from my trip in Feb. 2012 to Southern Arizona. I go in and out of scrapping mode, and lately I have been into it more. Been working on photos from this trip, even though it was over a year ago.

Fun thing about scrapping is that you can go back, and even if you don't remember every little detail (thank goodness for travel journals), you can relive the feel and the moments and the fun of a travel adventure.

This page is pretty basic- I painted the page with some leftover paint on my palette. I added the tracks which I made with a Tim Holtz's Sizzix embossing set. Added the photo, some brads, the banner label (Paper Smooches) and then stamped this little car. I have had this car stamp since early days of stamping, and I love it. Not sure who made it, but I do remember I bought it a long long time ago at the ink pad in NYC.  

Funny how you remember such details.

Here's another road page. This one has speckly spray on the base paper (I use watercolor paper for my bases because they're heavy and you can do a lot to them) and some bandana paper from October Afternoon. Love this steer skull- another old stamp- from Acey Deucy.

Here's the top of that page. I learned last spring in a Tim Holtz class I took about making these letters using his Grungeboard. I love them- they look like the old wood printer letters. Only since they are grungeboard they are lighter than wooden letters on a page. Maybe still a bit heavy for paper- especially if you use thinner background paper, but on the watercolor paper I use they aren't too bad.

So last thing for today is  my latest read and a book I picked up used that came in like 2 days from an Amazon book seller.

Can you tell lately I have been in a major travel mode?

My vacation reading list-

This book looked good and so far is good. What an adventure- walking across part of France. The author says that after living there for many years he still didn't feel like he knew the land and that this was a way of getting to really be a part of it. Love that thought- and I think being a part of the land makes you feel like you belong to it-more so than whizzing by in a car or train.

Although whizzing by is better than never being some place.

So I just finished Without Reservations  and loved it! 

So I bought a used copy of this book by the same author and hope to read that this vacation also.

In this book Alice Steinbach talks about her travel adventures with some different classes she takes around the world, and I can't wait to see if I like this book as much as her other book.

And finally

one more travel book for my vacation reading that I hope to make it through.

This is the third book in a trilogy that author Chris Stewart wrote about living in Spain. I loved the first 2, they are light, interesting and funny, and now I want to read this one and finish the trilogy. 

Hopefully I will have enough time to do a bunch of reading this break- I have been in a big reading mode lately!

Especially since the new Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood book by Charlene Harris is coming out in just 3 ish weeks.

But look what it says on the bottom of this book-

The final Sookie Stackhouse novel.

OH NO.

I guess it is time to move on (sniffle-sniffle), but that does make me want to read this and see what Sookie ends up with as a happily ever after scenario.

I am assuming happily ever after. Wonder if she will end up with Sam- who I thought she should be with all along.

The last book in this series was just ok until the very end. It finished on a big question oh no you can't end here note.

But I am sad to read this is the last book in the series.

It is like when a good friend moves away and you know they're still there but they're not close by any more.

You can still communicate with them but you don't see them regularly any more...

(I hope) you get my point.

I must say I have really enjoyed this series of books.

Enough said.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting.

Wild Wild West

You might surmise that this journal page might be a dead give away of why my post is titled as it is. But I picked this topic because of my adventure yesterday.

But first, my wild west journal pages. We went to Tombstone last February on our trip to Southern Arizona. I like this page-although  it is quite uncomplicated. A little spray ink-yellow and brown, some bead board paper under the photo. Some craft paper die cut letters. The gun from the Tim Holtz western set stamped a few times, an October Afternoon button and this cool wood looking sticker from a set of western stickers I bought last summer at Archiver's. Not sure who made them

Here's another page from inside the Birdcage Theater also. I don't like this page as much as the one on the top. I used some brown and yellow striped paper on this page that I brushed ink onto. I added a bunch of tape and some more of those western stickers. I don't know about you, but pages like this are hard to get the color right when you download them, they get this yellow tinge I can't get rid of. Anyone have any suggestions?

My favorite part of this page is this horse shoe. It is a chipboard die cut from October Afternoon. I painted it and then used some crackle glue. Once dry I inked it in some darker brown. I also added some small brads to the holes and then sanded half the finish off of those to give it an old worn look.

So anyhow, why I titled the page the wild wild west. That's because my friend has a sort of new car- she bought a 10 year old in like new condition Porsche Boxer. Convertible. Just YUMMY! We cruised out to the western part of New Hampshire which is hardly Tombstone but is the west of this state. Western NH is beautiful and very different from where I live here in the Eastern part. It is way less developed out there-fewer box stores, more little local stores. Didn't see one Home Depot or Walmart or MacDonald's or Target on the whole trip. We traveled these little back roads. Fabulous. Not tourists today but travelers. Part of our 8 hours of chatting was trying to decipher the difference. Lots of little towns with a town common and the white meetinghouse that is from the 1700's. Lots of beautiful old colonial homes. Quieter. Less traffic. More rolling hills-we aren't flat here but we are getting into the lower end of the White Mountains. We're not quite as gentle a scenery either.

Western NH is kind of like it was in NH back in the 1970's. It is so beautiful out there. I had such a great day.

Took some photos I will post later on. 

And today I am off the the very eastern part of my state-to Portsmouth-to go meet with my intern at school. I am not ready to go into the building, but hopefully this will take about an hour and then I can fly free. I was hoping not to do this until August, but he is impatient and that is indeed a good thing to see.

My latest read! And what I am really waiting for-that I pre-ordered on Amazon and should be here  tomorrow according to the tracking number

I should be all set to read it since I am close to finishing Explosive Eighteen.

Anyhow-

have a great day- can you believe it is already Thursday and already July 12th?

A Ceiling

This was the coolest ceiling ever...I want it in my house. So I made a scrap-journal page about it. And the way this page  came out makes me happy.

I started by stamping the background a bit, then adding a bunch of Tim Holtz tape. He taught us this technique at one of the classes I took with him. Not laying the tape, but then inking it. Finally a die cut tag, some stamped  and cut out images and a little paper flower.

I know, who makes scrap pages of ceilings?????

So now we're down to 5 classes with kids...and still counting!

Happy Wednesday.

Thanks for visiting!

Saturday Has Arrived

A tile picture Mary at a Spanish Mission in southern Arizona.  I love the colors on this wall image.

So I scrapped it so that the picture was brighter than the background, so it would pop off the page.

I also got to use a German gold scrap shrine image that I had forever. 

AND

I also used (for the first time) the new Sizzix/Tim Holtz flower strip die that I recently bought and I must say, I love it. Didn't think I really needed another flower die but this one makes cool little cuts and they have the hole punched in the middle already-so I just added a brad after cutting, distressing and layering these little beauties.

And beneath this cool tile design were these trays of candles. You can't see the details on my page very well in this big photo, but here's some close -ups.

I used the left over paper from the die-cut butterflies to make a stencil (though they are hard to see because they are very light in this photo) and then I added some Viva clear glass effects paint pen dots (boy-that is a lot of words).

Here's the final page from this area of the mission-a cool little portico area-you can see the stands for all the candles. 

I created this cool little icon image at the bottom with stamps and 2 Milagros and a charm.

I used water colors, Copics and a gold pen to color this great image. You can see to the left too where I used a 7Gypsies chain rub on too.

So Saturday is here! My busy work week is over! And
 they say today the chances of rain are pretty slim.

I am off to work at the lake-which hopefully won't be too busy so I can a take a moment or two and enjoy the scenery of the mountains and the ripples on the water a bit.

I need a little nature zen at the moment.

And graduation was a success at school last night-

I love going- it is like putting the bow on the wrapped present- the pomp and frill after 4 years of hard work.

Anyhow- before I write anymore bad similes...

Happy Weekend!

More Colorful Pages

Here's a page I made because I wanted to show these cool mountain shadows. The picture isn't anything spectacular but I do love the shadows. The other thing I played with on this page was doodling these words and then using some Tim Holtz markers to color them. I then took a wet brush and pulled out some of the color onto the page. Like it.

I purposefully wanted my cloud images to be a bit fuzzy, kind of like shadows are so I used Distress Stains and a stencil.  Because the stain is so wet it doesn't give you a clear image through the stencil, but it was exactly what I wanted on this page.

So after 2 days of rain we are back into the sunshine-and warmth-though it has been very humid the last couple of days. I am excited for sun but I suppose it won't be help to be productive at school.

So last night I started TrueBlood new season (4). Saw one episode. Today I need to pick up Katie after she's done with work at UNH and we plan on coming home and watching several more. Been waiting to see this for almost a year-but then when I finish it I guess I'll have to wait again since I don't get HBO.

So can you believe it is almost JUNE?

Be back another day!

Poppies

Celebrating poppies in all kinds of ways today.

Here's a page I recently made in my Arizona scrap-journal of some wild poppies in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

I started this page by stamping with word poppies in orange ink using a Technique Tuesday alphabet set. Then I added a little Technique Tuesday butterfly in brown and some more TT leaves/vines in the same orange as the the words.

A spray of some orange Dylusions spray randomly over the page. I added the photo, some rusty paper scrap from a rick rack (spelling?) Sizzix die. I think the scrap edge words great here and I love not wasting that strip of paper. Then I created the swirl using orange and bronze Viva paint-pens and using a piece of cardboard and a Sizzix die I cut butterfly.

I also made the textured postmark using an embossing folder from Sizzix. Finally, the corners got some green spray just to finish off the page.

Here's a close up. You can see I also stamped this word bloom.

And here's some real poppies at the garden center last Friday. I love them enough I picked up a couple of perennials to plant in my garden so next spring I might get some pretty poppies ablooming.

So last night was stormy after a wet and foggy day- but at least it wasn't so bad having to go to work in that weather. But my poor puppy, he was a wreck with all the thunder rumbles.

Suppose to be a better day today.

Happy Wednesday!