Right Back At It Again...

I'm back from the Christmas madness!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We certainly did. We didn't go back to Saskatchewan this year, and it made for a bittersweet stay at home, but it was definitely a much more relaxing time. Instead of the 2 days of travelling, trying to split 3 days between two households and a full agenda of visiting everyone, we did what we felt like, when we felt like it. Relaxation and a fair bit of ice fishing!

And as far as scrapping, I just played. Experimented.

I did make something though. Here, I'll show you..........

It is a Teabag Album and Tin.

See? I played with Prima flowers, lace and paper by Iron Orchid Designs. Can you tell I love the stuff?

Before I show you a peek of inside my teabag album, I have to show you how I got the dyed look on that big flower using Twinkling H20s.

Place your flower flat on a washable surface. What I noticed is that these flowers are saturated with color. Doing this technique will make the color bleed slightly.

Dilute some black twinkling H2O and dab it in the middle of the flower. Using the brush, then pull the paint outwards to the middle of each petal (in the photo, the middle is about where the silver reaches). Make sure when you do this, that the brush is water soaked. At this point, the flower will soak up the water and you will be able to watch it climb to edge of the petals.

Next, dilute some silver twinkling H2O and lightly brush it from the middle of the flower outwards. If the silver seems to strong, dilute it by brushing over with a water soaked brush.

Let dry. To speed up the process, you can use a hair dryer.

The finished result will have pulled the flower color (dye) and the black twinkling H2O to the end of the petals as shown.

With that said, the rest of the album:

Page 1 and 2

Page 3 and 4

Page 5 and 6

And have a great New Years too. Thanks for stopping by!

Shhh! Santa's Hiding Around the Corner......

Ahhhh. Just enjoying a little bit of the afternoon. Got a little bit of unexpected time off. I've been putting this time to use to get some things done around home without having a child call my name every 30 seconds!

A little running around.

Cleaning.

Having a quiet lunch.

And finishing up a Chritmas present. Here is some sneek peeks of what I am up to.

So, we asked my mother in law what she wants for Christmas. (Don't worry, she doesn't read my blog, lol!) All she said was a picture. GREAT! We'll buy you a digital picture frame! And while we're at it we'll get one for my parents too! (Don't worry, my parents don't have the internets!

And we did. And we loaded them up! This is just a sampling, but I loved putting a mix of cool artsy family shots, normal everyday photos and some pictures with some graphics. Just gave me a chance to play and fool around.

And lastly before I get back to a little more work, I wanted to make sure I passed on a greeting now, as I am going to be very busy for the next few days......

To all the readers out there that hop over here to read every once and a while....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Patterned paper: Aurora, Steel Toe Mary Jane and Calliope Collections from Prima Marketing
Chipboard Letters, Glitter Star, Leaves and Poisettias: Prima Marketing
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo (Ranger)
Glosshy Accents Crackle Medium (Ranger)

(And yes, I admit, I like the word "joy". Using it has become a bit of a weird habit. Please, I need an intervention! LOL)

Have a great holiday!

Help Me Out Would Ya? Regarding Classes

Readers. I need your help. I am looking to start teaching classes and I want all of you to weigh in. And if you are so inclined, pass this link onto a friend or ten!

The more opinions the better! And hey, thanks in advance!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ZFvS5GlhywaPzu4UWXMbmw_3d_3d

Or note, if you check out my sidebar, you'll find the link there as well.

Bah Flippin' Humbug. Maybe Not. Keep reading this is COOL! I mean ICY!

The Christmas Season can make me incredibly poopy.

Why? How? What the?

Let me rephrase.

Christmas shopping makes me poopy.

1. Packed malls. I don't know what it is, but the older I get, the less I hate crowds. I just want to get where I am needing to, when I want to and be darned if a herd of lolly gaggers are going to get in my way!
2. Those kiosk people. Good lord, leave me alone! No, you can't ask me a question. Yes, I think your stuff is ugly and no, you cannot 'do' my hair. If I wanted that, I would not be wearing a ballcap and I'd be sitting at a salon.
3. Shopping for my husband. Shopping for this man makes me hyperventilate. He is the man with everything and if he doesn't have everything it is because it is out of our budget range. When I actually find something that I think he would like, I get home and the man has purchased said item.

My remedy that sucks the fun out of every Christmas surprise I have ever got him? I tell him not to buy this, that and the other thing. His mother does the same. Ticks us both off to no end.

So, I bought him an ice auger.

There. I told him after I got it. It's not like posting this that I ruined the surprise. LOL!

Vent over. Moving on.......

You gotta see the Christmas decoration I made. Seriously. It's brilliant.

The ladies at work were chatting about these glass block presents. Aren't they fun? Buy those glass blocks from Home Depot or wherever, drill a hole in them, pop in a string of Christmas lights and add a bow.

Drilling the hole, not so easy. It takes a special bit and the possibility of a $25 glass block shattering to pieces.

So, I changed it up a bit and I think it works just as nicely.

Prima Products:
Chipboard Letters Steel Toed Mary Jane by Iron Orchid Designs
Embossed Chipboard Tag
Say It In Crystals
Hambly Products:
Flourish Rub On
Graph Overlay
Other:
Bow: Craft Supply
Paint: Plaid (white), Aqua – Ranger Paint Daubers

A decorated ICE BLOCK!

Take the block and decorate! Easy. Done. No drilling required.

Alright, Janine. Step away from the Paintables....

Did I tell you I love Prima's Paintables? Well, I do. I picked up a few of them on Saturday night and immediately began to play.

And I couldn't stop. No, seriously.

I took out my watercolor pencils and went to town. But no I couldn't stop there. Uh-nuh. This is where I went with it.

And yes, I am crazy.

Prima Products:
IOD Paintables - Metropolis
Flowers - 509804, 507176, 517267
Cardstock: Bazzill
Frame: Ribba (Ikea)
Corrogated Cardboard
Galvanized Steel Wire

See???!?!?!?! I made a shimmering 3 dimensional Paintable masterpiece! I couldn't bear to put pictures over it. Nope. Not this time anyways.

So what exactly did I do the thing, you ask?

Like I said, I started off by getting crazy with my watercolor pencils. Once I was done, I went and highlighted the colors with Twinkling H2O's to give it a shimmer.
Then I took out Stix 2 PVA glue and foils and foiled the edges of the various buildings using similar foils.

But it doesn't stop there. No......

I cut each tower out of the picture and layered placed dimensional foam stickers of varying depth behind them for a three dimensional effect. ETA: I forget to mention and I should my gal Trisha threw that one out to the wind and I ran with it. ;) Thanks Trish!

Then I matted it and placed it in my frame.

To finish embellishing, I hunted down some galvanized steel wire in hubby's tool box and created the metal swirls. All I did was bend them and then attached them with Glue Dots!

Top that off with Prima flowers and voila!

That scrapbook stuff. It just aoint for pages anymore.........

Thanks for looking!

Hybrid Baby!

So, I kept telling myself that I should really try to mix both paper and digital a little more often. I love doing both paper and digi so why not combine them?

So, ther I was the other day, surfing Two Peas when I saw a post for this hybrid challenge. Ok, I admit, I didn't go for the challenge per se, but I loved the sketch that came with the post, which motivated me to get crackin' on this hybrid layout.

So, just a thanks to Sally and Josie for getting me to do something that I have really been wanting to do more often!

Alrighty, now that it is December.....

I can officially get into the Christmas spirit! So what do you do to get into embrace the holidays? Of course! You put up the tree! So, that is exactly what Jake and I did while we awaited Trevor's return from hunting in Saskatchewan.

Pulling out the decorations is a nice little trip down memory lane. And I'll get to some of that, but I could have sworn I so carefully and methodically put the bell garland away with the greatest of care, so that I could easily put it up. I fully believe I am not to blame for the tangled mess it became. I blame trolls.

After 30 minutes of untangling that mess we got well under way. Pulling out sentimental treasures and placing them so carefully on the tree.

This one is my all time favorite. When I was five and my brother was still a babe, my Grandma Ruth gave us both a Hummel ornament. When I started a family of my own Mom made sure she gave it to me to put on my own tree, And every year, I was always excited to put it on the tree because it is MY ORNAMENT.

I think these ornaments are getting particularly ratty as time goes by but I really have struggled to part with them. When I was about 7 years old Mom and I made these ornaments. I have a set of about 10 each. I know that no matter what, I will be keeping one of each. I don't think I can fully part with them. I am proud of my little creations!

And now for this evening....

The family attended Jacob's very first Christmas pagaent for playschool! Jake was one of those little kids that just hung out with the crowd. He wasn't really into the singing in front of a group, but he has been doing a great job of singing those same songs to us all week long. Ha! Still didn't matter, I thought he was the star!

So, Merry Christmas!