Mixed Media Playback

Starting today I'm going to be bringing back some of my favourite projects I've posted on my blog in the past years. Hope you enjoy them...again! You'll find a sneak preview of this post at Party Time Tuesdays blog!



Putting stencils on paper and spraying vibrant colours sometimes is all I need to get my mojo going and pour out my feelings onto paper. Today I woke up feeling rather down, for no apparent reason, but I decided not to waste my day in negativity.

I put Crafter's Workshop stencils and Dylusion stencils down on watercolour paper. I sprayed with some vibrant Dylusions sprays, and then my muse came out to play. I layered more stencils, sprays, strips of Basic Grey Plumeria papers I had from my Scrap'n with Flair July kit, down on the page. Texture paste ... and of course my trademark canvas and inked paper towels. Add some Prima resist canvas pieces, sprayed lace and I was well on my way. Christy Tomlinson stamp for some texture, dew drops and Prima gems and crystals. I dove in head first into my art journal. Grabbed a coordinating paint swatch and stamped my journalling down.

The complete spread in my Prima mixed media art journal

Left page

Right page

Inked paper towel ribbon and resist canvas stamp

Art gives me wings

Inked lace and gems on Plumeria papers

Inked paper towel flower on Prima resist canvas flower

Inked canvas and texture paste, Basic Grey papers and stamps. Heaven.

Negativity does not live in this mind today, not any more. I cut my paper in half and glued it down into my Prima mixed media art journal. And I am happy once again.

You are worth it!

If you follow my galleries, you'll find that there is one message that consistently turns up in my journaling, whether it be on scrapbook layouts, or art journaling. That message is that you ultimately are responsible for your own happiness. This piece of wisdom is one that I will always treasure. I remember when my mother told me this, and to this day it still resonates with me. I think it is partly what gives me strength when going through tough times.

If you've had rough days, weeks or months and you just feel like throwing in the towel, it goes without saying that you aren't alone. And today when browsing Facebook, I saw a meme that resonated with me, and a friend's words go along with it. Samie Kira Harding (aka Journal Girl) runs online workshops and has a Ning site for art journalers. I happen to be a member of her Creative Warriors group. The group is designed for people who have chronic illnesses or need support in one way or another. And one thing I admire about Samie is that she tells it like it is, but she one thing she stands by is that while we may have a chronic illness, we are by no means victims. That message is slowly drilling itself into my heart and my being.

And it complements my mother's own sage advice. Because if we take the attitude that we are victims, we are relinquishing control over our happiness. Being responsible for your own happiness means that you take control. If it doesn't make you happy, change something. Change the circumstance. Change the outcome. Or change your attitude. And that last one my friends is the hardest. It is a difficult thing to accept something as hard as chronic illness and decide to change our attitude. But I am a firm believer that changing your attitude is truly the key to getting past the pain, the despair, and finding hope and strength again.

Using the Respect kit for the month of March, from Scrapbooking from the Inside Out

And for having that understanding I will never be able to thank Samie, and most of all my mother, enough for their wise words that have given me tools to use when things look like they are hopeless.

So if you feel like you wish things were different, make them so. Take courage and change something. Find support from friends, like people who are going through the same issues, like I did with Creative Warriors. Journal out your feelings and take a look at what you've written to give yourself more clarity as to what you can do to change the situation. 

It is not easy to decide not to be the victim. It's a hard personal journey to take, but like any journey, the destination is usually worth it.

The "Why" has changed

Have you ever had those moments where something triggers you to become very clear on something you are doing, or an area of your life? I had one of those moments last night.

I was out for dinner with girlfriends last night at The Sidedoor (an aside: you need to try this restaurant if you live in the Ottawa area). We were discussing scrapbooking, as usual, and we got to talking about styles and the whys of what we scrapbook. I came into scrapbooking by way of mixed media. First, by artjournaling my life without pictures, to canvases, again without pictures, and then into scrapbooking. But when I started scrapbooking, my "why" wasn't about the story, or even the photos. It was about doing something with gorgeous product lines. I would search for pictures that looked good with a particular paper line, and not even consider the story behind the picture. I also wouldn't scrapbook what I considered "bad pictures" of me. Now things have changed, and I really feel that it's because of my role with Scrapbooking from the Inside Out.

So now, I'm pulling pictures out of my stash that may be years and years old, but I want to tell the story. I don't care that I don't have makeup on. I don't care that there are dark shadows. These are the pictures that I have of the event, the pictures that tell the story. And now, I'm happy to say, a lot of my layouts are about the story. Which is what makes working with SFTIO's kits so much fun. Because they challenge me to think about a particular theme. This month's theme kit is "Respect".

This trip that I decided to scrapbook taught me a lot of respect. Respect of nature. Respect of time limitations. Respect of my own body and what it could and couldn't do. And I'm so glad that I took the time to scrapbook these now.

The other thing that has really changed for me is that I journal in my own handwriting most of the time now. It's not pretty. But it's mine. And if anyone else reads my journaling, from my family to my friends, they will know what my handwriting looked like. And I was never comfortable with my writing. But I'm okay with it now. It's authentically me.

I hope you'll drop by the forums at SFTIO to challenge yourself in the near future. It's a lot of fun, believe me!

Have you played yet?

I'm so excited! I just finished playing with my kit for the month of March, and boy was it fun to use. The theme is challenging as well. So keep your eye open for that soon.

And that means....that there's only another week to play in our online crop at Scrapbooking from the Inside Out! You definitely should check it out. I'm having this challenge, I've already told you about, where you can scraplift the design team. Well, colour me floored when Rachel decided to lift one of my layouts! Take a look!

I think she did a spectacular job! Don't you think? Drop by the gallery to leave Rachel some love on her layout, or upload your own challenge layout and play along with us!

Working with transparencies

Alright, I have to admit that I've never loved the ideas of transparencies when it comes to scrapbooking. As a frame, I got it, but as an element, no. But now that I've played with a couple, I think I get it.

Sometimes you want a little something to add some texture, but not overcrowd something else. Like this quote transparency I got to play with recently. It definitely adds something to the page but doesn't overpower the flowers and delicate embellishments.

Using Risk kit from Scrapbooking from the Inside Out

Now I'm not saying that I love them yet. But I am learning that they have a place in scrapbooking, albeit not one that I think I would use frequently.

Do you have an embellishment that you don't use at all because you just "don't get it?" I'd love to hear about it.

Rise Up ... we did!

I quite often get asked how I met my husband, given that he is from the USA and me in Canada. That's not the only obstacle we had to hurdle. He's also from the Pacific Northwest, and I'm in the East. So it's safe to say that we didn't run in the same circles.

As you might expect, we met on the internet. Now, I'll start off my saying that it is not for everyone. You need to go into that type of relationship with eyes wide open and a head on your shoulders. There are definitely risks involved in long distance relationships.

When I got this month's kit from Scrapbooking from the Inside Out, I thought long and hard about the risks I've taken in my life, and if or how they paid off. By far, the biggest risk I've ever taken in my life is giving my heart to a man who lived almost a continent away. But it was also the risk with the biggest pay off so far. We both decided to take the risk and rise up above any challenges that the long distance relationship might throw our way.

So when I chose to scrapbook this long-distance union, I decided to use a quote that I recently heard and love..."Take the step. The bridge will be there." I thought it worked perfectly with the photos of my husband and I at Montmorency Falls in Quebec.

So now that we've crossed the bridge, we look at our future risks as a couple, and look for the opportunities in life, rather than the possible hardships.

Why not visit SFTIO during our month long Online Crop? You may find a few challenges there that will make you think more about making your pages meaningful.

My week's round up

What a week it has been! I would say for the most part, this week has included some extremes in a lot of aspects of my life. There's been frigid temperatures, which would freeze your face, with accompanying frost bite warnings on the radio, and in the same week, temperatures that had the snow melting, and had us thinking about whether or not we actually needed winter boots that day.

There have been moments at work filled with laughter and fun, and days that have been very hard and stressful, and quite honestly had me thinking about throwing in the towel (we've all had days like that, right?). I've had nights with no sleep at all and nights where my slumber was so sound, I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

So with all these extremes, I needed a stress-reliever. Something to bring me back to centre from the effects of this swinging pendulum. So of course, that meant scrapbooking.

I got my design team kit for Scrapbooking from the Inside Out this week in the mail, and was absolutely thrilled because I had arranged to go to Auntie Em's Scrapbooking this weekend with some girl friends, and that meant I could work on my assignment, but also be assured of some crazy good fun. We had a blast. I managed to get three layouts done, and I even tried some different styles for my layouts. I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Then we headed off to a friend's for a lovely dinner with family and friends around the long table, with stories that had us doubled over laughing, crying, shrieking with laughter. The food was amazing, as was the company, and it was just what I needed. And I wasn't the only one that had a hard week. Many of us did, but you wouldn't have known it unless you asked. At the end of the evening we offered our listening ears, our compassion, and our shoulders to cry on, if they were necessary.

It made me think more about harmony, which is the theme of this week's Scrapbooking from the Inside Out kit, and I think that's something more that I need to explore in my life. What brings me true harmony in my life? When do I really feel in balance? So this week I've decided to do a couple challenges at SFTIO based on that theme, which I think will lead me to finding some answers. There are great prompts, quotes, a Pinterest board, and challenges to help you think about what brings harmony in your life.

I hope you'll join me and tackle one or two challenges as well.

Zany to Zen in the same day? I don't think so!

Just a quick post for tonight dear friends. Have you had one of those days where the pendulum of life was swinging from one extreme to another and back again. I've had quite a few of those more recently. So why not scrapbook a page about it? With Scrapbooking from the Inside Out's January kit Harmony, it just seemed to fit. After all, most times I'd love to have some peaceful harmonious moments in my life. But that's not how life works. A lot of the time, we have the more zany moments.

I really enjoyed doing this layout. I tried to use a little more symbolism than I normally do... the embellies on the zany side are more playful and whimsical, while the embellies on the zen side are more elegant.

I really had fun making this layout. It's a crazy picture of me, but I'm glad someone took it because it really shows off part of me.

Snow boots and more fun!

Hi all! Hope you are enjoying your weekend. We finally have resolved the leaking water issue, thanks to the January thaw, which totally threw us for a loop this past week. Once the problem was dealt with by the rental company, I could relax and find some time to do a couple layouts.

I started one last weekend but hadn't finished it before the end of the evening, and the same really goes for the second layout too I guess. I started using this amazing paper, and then realized that I had no snowflake embellishments. Tragic! So of course I had to take a trip to my local scrapbook store and get some.

 Originally I hadn't thought of scrapbooking this photo because it was blown out a bit. They I decided that it was too cute not to. So I started scrapbooking this onto some kraft-coloured paper that I stamped for some additional texture, and filled the right side with some border papers. I like how it offset the cluster in a simple way.

The next layout made me realize that I really like dark backgrounds. They just really make your page pop.

We bought our dog Nanouk some booties for the winter, because he injured his foot on some ice we had a few weeks ago. Once he had them on though, he didn't want to move. I practically had to drag him into the backyard to test them out. Made me laugh! I really loved this paper collection that I picked up at Tina's Scrapbooking  and of course, I had to go back there to get the additional embellishments. I found some white snowflake buttons, and some gorgeous Studio Calico wood snowflakes. I touched them with some Prima chalk ink edgers for added punch.

But the real story that I'm excited about is this Liquitex glass bead gel I used through a snowflake stencil. It added subtle texture and then once dry I hit the beads with some Prima chalk ink edgers in light blue and white.

I love how they just add something extra to the already complex design on the page.

I also bought some crackle paste this week, and I'm definitely going to be posting the results of trying that out. I'm thinking that might go into my art journal first, to experiment.

So I'm heading into the craftroom today to do a little organizing and also play a bit with my new mediums. Have an amazing weekend and remember to link me up to your galleries so that I can leave you some love.

Let's get an exchange going!

Morning everyone! How's 2013 treating you? I'm trying to make a point this year to not only gather a file folder of inspiration that I can use at any time, but also commenting on the layouts, blogs and websites where I find this creativity. I've always been a bit of a lurker in forums, galleries and other social media.

I figured that it's time to get working on being more social, more grateful, and more appreciative of the creative pieces that others have made that provide me with more creative mojo. So I'm starting in January, with galleries, like the one at Scrapbooking from the Inside Out, and I'm going to leave more honest appreciative feedback so that other KNOW that they've inspired me.

I'm hope that you'll let me know where you post your creative works, so that I can show my gratitude to you as well. Leave me a link to your blog so that I can follow you, and hopefully we can exchange some creative juices for 2013!

A Peaceful Walk in the Park

I've been playing more and more with paper layering, and having a fun time of it with the Harmony kit from Scrapbooking from the Inside Out. For this layout, I stuck with a fairly simple background paper, with some coloured splats, ink and some stamping. There are some very fun border strips that come in the kit, so I used those in a couple areas, and then layered a chipboard embellishment, and some paper strips, along with the word art title. I love the fun chipboard pieces, and made a few glossy circle accent pieces to add some whimsy. But my favourite part of this layout has to be the shabby handmade flowers made from the papers.

Walking in the park as a family definitely brings me joy, so I used that theme using the Harmony kit. If I'm feeling out of sorts, what has always worked to bring me a sense of peace and harmony is getting back to nature. 

I've posted a tutorial on how to create your own flowers from paper scraps to complement the kit, on the bulletin board at SFTIO. Make sure you visit today to check out the tutorial and while you are at it, catch all the inspiration.

Looking for some inspiration?

I'm always looking for new sources of inspiration. I use the typical sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, but most times that's provided a cursory boost to my mojo. I rarely get anything of depth into my layouts by checking out those sites for help. Sure they provide you excellent resources for techniques, sketches, etc. but I need more. I get a wealth of sketches from Creative Scrappers blog.

If you visit the Scrapbooking from the Inside Out message board, you'll find a whole sub-forum dedicated to prompts, challenges, and ideas for how to use this month's kit. I particularly like the quotes that they find. I'm a big user of quotations or lyrics in my layouts and art journal pages.

I love the Pinterest board that the design team uses as well to give ideas for how to scrap using this month's theme. Go check it out, and let me know in the comments what you found that inspired you.

Have a great weekend!

Tiptoe through the tulips - in January?

I'm absolutely thrilled to be posting my first layout for Scrapbooking From the Inside Out! This month's kit is a delightful mix of fun patterned papers and whimsical embellishments. The theme for January is Harmony. 

I've always been known as a nature lover. It's where I feel most happy and at peace. My husband is also a nature lover, and it's part of what makes us work. For our anniversaries, we always head outdoors, to the Tulip Festival, to celebrate our favourite flower and the great outdoors...here in Ottawa, it's also a sure sign of spring. So this layout celebrates the harmony I feel I have with nature, but also with my husband, because we both have this love as a core value.

I used a lot of green accents on this page, not only to balance the yellow, but also because it really feels like nature to me when you use green embellishments.

Make sure you pick up this wonderful kit this month, and visit SFTIO to check out the prompts, challenges and design team layouts for inspiration. I already love this team because it's making me take a deeper look at scrapbooking and why I do it, but also putting more meaning on my pages.

What a lovely evening, spent reminiscing

It's been a gloriously quiet night here at home so far. I don't think I can remember a night this quiet in our neighbourhood in a long time. It got me to thinking about some of the simple things in life, like a beautiful sunset, the songs of the crickets, and a sweet song that I used to sing to my niece when she was a baby.

It's a wonderful tune by Natalie Merchant that I heard once on a talk show. I instantly fell in love with it -- its simplicity, its melody, its whimsy. I bought the children's CD and listened to that song over and over. And when my niece was born, it was the first lullaby I ever sang to her.

I hope one day to teach her the song so that she can sing it to a special little girl as well.

Here are the lyrics:

I once loved a sailor, once a sailor loved me,
But he was not a sailor, who sailed on the wide blue sea
He sailed in an airship, sailed like a bird on the wind
And every evening at midnight, he would come to my window and sing:

Come take a trip in my airship, come sail away to the stars.
We'll travel to Venus, we'll sail away to Mars.
Noone will see while we’re kissing, noone will know as we swoon.
So come take a trip in my airship, and we’ll visit the man in the moon.

One night sailing a-way from the clouds
We passed through the milky white way.
While idly drifting and watching the crowds
he asked if I’d name the day.
Just by the dipper I gave him my heart. 
The sun shone on our honeymoon.
We swore to each other we never would part
And we’d teach all the babies this tune:

Come take a trip in my airship, come sail away to the stars.
We'll travel to Venus, we'll sail away to Mars.
Noone will see while we’re kissing, noone will know as we swoon.
So come take a trip in my airship, and we’ll visit the man in the moon.


Have a listen, and have a great weekend!

Inspiration Saturday

I've survived my first week of work after vacation. I don't remember it being that hard, but at least it went by quickly. While I'm fighting with a miserable toothache, which is killing my creative mojo, I thought I'd share with you what has been inspiring me lately. I hope that you'll link me up to your inspiration in the comments so that I can get a creative boost from you as well.

From Craft Attack

By Czekoczyna

From 2gypsygirls

What I want for my next manicure

I am also trying to complete a mini album using the Scrap'n with Flair July kit and add-on. I'm so inspired by what the design team has done so far. Take a look at these blogs to see their awesome projects:

• Stephanie Stanton's art journal canvases
• Yvonne Gebauer's art journal page
• Jessie Bank's layout
• Elysia Lebedoff's ATC swap
• Tamara Renneberg's altered jar

I know that they inspire me to try new things, so I hope that you'll take the same inspiration from them.

Link me up with what's been inspiring you lately. I'd love to see what may challenge me in the near future!