Newest Education Design Team Member!!!

You are looking at swirlydoos.com newest education design team member!  Wahooo!!!! I am absolutely ecstatic!!! I have been squealing and jumping up and down all day long. I think my co-workers thought I was crazy.

I am so proud to have been chosen and I plan to give swirlydoos my all.

Over at swirlydoos there are various challenges hosted by members. This month the swirly girl challenge was to make a monochromatic layout where you scrap your age. You must include your age and you must scrap pictures of yourself.

At 29 I was having a difficult time with 30 looming ahead and I scrapped a LO of myself and my age.

This was me 4 years ago. I do believe this page was based on a lift. I adored these papers. they were part of a kit form an online club called  Scrapgoods.com but they no longer exist.

At the time there was not much bling...so I made my own. I used a zig writer to make dots and then covered them with Ranger glossy accents.

 This is a close up of my journaling.

And this is me today at 33. This is my monochromatic LO for the swirlydoos challenge. I used the March kit which had quite a few papers from the engraver line by Prima. I used Petaloo color me crazy flowers and sprayed them with TA mists and painted them with primary elements in dragonfly wing.

One of the twists was to use black gesso. I loved the Prima mask that came in the kit and was dying to use it. I used modeling paste on the mask for dimension and then covered with black gesso for the grit and distress.  I colored the roses with TA mists.

 I used some chipboard pieces from another swirlydoos kit and added them randomly before applying the gesso in order to mimic the paper behind. I added spots of glue and sprinkled seed beads all over the Lo.

The white stamp is Kaisercraft and the brown stamp over it is Prima. I did this multiple times around the LO. The dark gold with the iridescent look is the dragonfly primary elements. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this contrast in my last few years of scrapping. It's always fun to remember where you came from.  

TFL,

Andiepants

Fabric Flowers Oh MY!

Posting a  little late and begging forgiveness but boy do I have a treat for you! It's another video!!


Last May I created a paper bag mini album for my girlfriend to keep a lot of journaling in. It was a huge endeavor and the only thing I have left to remember that album is the video on youtube:(

However, I used that album to make my first video (yay) which was a lot of fun. In addition I developed a new flower that I have now used a couple of times.  It uses material so it's very green. You just use some of those old stained up t-shirts or that torn skirt...or grab some material at the dollar store! They have table runners, fabric napkins, etc. 

Here's a pic of some flowers I made using an old dress and an old pair of jeans:

Didn't they just turn out adorable? This is actually a night light made out of a wine bottle that I gave my niece for Christmas. 

 Here is the tut for the flowers:

TFL,

Andiepants

Prima inspiration

I absolutely adore the Prima design team for their wonderful talent and inspiration! I decided to lift a Prima LO and do some super chunky layering and embellishing using the October Swirlydoos kit.

Unfortunately I didn't take any closeups.

The gears are from Spellbinders "gadget gears" die. I painted them with Lumiarte products. The teal color is called sea breeze. It's found in the primary elements pigment powders. I mixed it with the clear silks in order to make a paint out of it. The orange is a custom made color using yellow, emperor gold, and harvest gold. I also dripped the paint around the page. I made the large flower with the giant amber center using the Tim Holtz tattered florals die. The rose to the left of the picture is made using Spellbinders "blossom 1" die. The picture is a pic of my youngest 3 kids with my niece and nephew at the zoo a couple of years ago. I just wanted to showcase the group of them so there is no journaling.
I really adore the LO and I give full props to the Prima blog for the inspiration.

This is another LO using the Swirlydoos October kit. I submitted this Lo for a challenge over at Swirlydoos. The mustard color again is a custom color. This page was so simple and easy...I just loved how fast it came together. It was nice to not have to antagonize over every single detail.

Thanks for stopping by.

Andiepants

Kaisercraft Tiny Woods

Yours truly was asked to design and teach a class at her local scrapbook store! I was so flattered and excited. I was asked to use Kaisercraft's Tiny Woods collection. It was so cute and inspiring but maybe because I'm partial to owls.

The pictures are not the best so I apologize up front for that. The layout features my middle son and our family dog Buddy.  I used a masking technique for the stamps in the lower right corner and of course Luminarte silks paints for the splatters and drips. 

I wanted to come up with a different way of using Mudd Puddles other than the typical "sand on  the page". So...I made a mask using my Cricut and made flowers and dots using the Mudd Puddles.

Flowers are by Kaisercraft as well. The brown flowers were cut out on my Big Shot with the TH tattered florals die.

I just adored this paper.

TFL,
Andiepants

I MADE IT TO THE FINALS!!!!

That's right! I'm in week 6!! This is it!! I could be the lucky winner of the $400 prize pack over at Swirlydoos.com!!!!  

For our last challenge we had to combine 3 of the 5 challenges that we were posed with over the last month and a half. We HAD to use week 3...the layered background and week 2, paper layering, plus one of our choice. I chose the foil tape. I did use a 12 x 12 canvas because I have been dying to try a crayon melting technique. Aubrey Sue was so sweet to help me pick through her broken crayon bits and peel them one by one. Then we arranged them on the canvas and hot glued them down.  Next came the fun part....melting. It was so freeing and just a hoot to do. I LOVE how the wax got so thin at the top that you could actually see some of the patterned paper through the wax. 

Here is a close up of my clustering. You can see the damask and striped papers that I layered underneath. I used the little orange flowers to tie in some of the color without being overwhelmingly busy.

Here you can see the wax drippings over the black and white paper. I just loved that!  I don't have any bead gel and thought that beads would look great so I added some seed beads to some gel medium and spread them on with an art spatula.

Here is a closeup of the clustering on the other side.

I used some of these really old stickers and titled my piece "Delight in Little Fall Family Adventures" because these photos were all taken while on a hay ride this last fall. 

Well, wish me luck and check back next week to see if I won!!!

TFL,

Andiepants

Art Journaling

Happy weekend Y'all!! Time to reveal the 5th week of the Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge. This week we had to create  2-4 art journal pages. Now I don't do much art journaling but I am a hugh fan of Donna Downey and Inspiration Wednesday.

This page is sarcastic (believe it or not).  I was feeling feisty during an incredibly crappy week at work and my GF txt me and said "you bring sunshine and rainbows everywhere you go."  You would have to know her to know she was being VERY sarcastic. I'm usually an upbeat person but I also don't pull any punches...which is what she was referring to. Anyway...that's where I get the bright happy colors with the contrasting black from. This felt fantastic to create.

Close up of texture

you can see a bit of the shimmer and shine in this one

So then I went to post my page and felt totally inadequate when compared to what the other ladies made. I decided that I needed to create something that was 100% in my comfort zone for color so I created this:

I titled it "Never Good Enough" because regardless of the truth...that's how I feel. Here's a close up of the modeling paste

and a close up of the shimmer from the spray.

TFL,

andie

Savior

This week's Ultimate Designer Challenge over at Swirlydoos was to make a canvas using multiple layers of mediums. Just my luck, I had been planning a canvas as a gift and just hadn't made the leap from my head to the canvas yet. What a perfect opportunity to bring my idea to life.

This is a 12x16 canvas. There are layers of gesso, paint, Mod Podge, modeling paste, matte medium, gel medium, moon shadow mist, and glaze all over this thing. The best part is that the odds n ends that were used were all just leftovers in my stash or random parts that but hubby brought home for this specific purpose.

This cross is my favorite part of the whole canvas. It was just a plain wood laser cut that is sold at my local dollar store. I purchased a few for making cards for perople at church and such and it just turned out perfect with the seed beads. The gears and key hole are left over parts from previous projects and the bricks are modeling paste and a Prima mask.

The zipper was perfect!! Garage sale find!!!  The piece behind the R is a napkin ring piece that I disassembled. 

I can't wait to present this canvas, I really love the way it turned out.

TFL,

Andiepants