Card, and Layout Catch-Up (no fries, though)

Ha, ha ha ha.

Ok, here's the card. I made the background for this at the same time as I was making one for my art journal, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out:



Supplies: Paints: Gesso, Fresco reinkers, Torn Asian-language newspaper, Mizuhiki Stamps: Art Neko (ginkgo branch), Hanko (single sakura blossom), Asian Image (umbrella), Hampton Art Stamps (women's faces) & Stone House Stamps (calligraphy). Inks: Versacraft black, Colorbox Fluid Chalk green, lavendar, orange, Brilliance coral and purple. Embossing powders: Ranger clear. 2nd layer: red & yellow acrylic paints. Cardstock: shimmering lavender.

And now, the layouts:

Today's:



Credits: Shell: Katie Pertiet (Designer Digitals, Shell PNG's). Button: Vinnie Pearce (Pixel Canvas, My Pet Elephant Kit). Pebble: Vinnie Pearce (Glass Pebbles). Sea star charm: Vinnie Pearce (Paradiso Kit). Tag: Katie Pertiet (Lil Bit Tags). Font: Hobbes. Journaling reads: "Here, you don't see the dog who has just used her awesome and terrible hunting powers to shoo a mass of seagulls into flight. Here, you don't see a small boy forever drawn by whatever insignificant empty shell or puddle running in the most circuitous fashion as far from the return path as possible. Here, you don't see the mother whose soul has spread itself wide open to the sky and salty wind, while her heavy body traipses ageingly across the beach and her camera catches memories in its digital skeins. Here, all you see is simply a moment endlessly repeated striding across time, briefly frozen."

Yesterday's: I was inspired by a color palette of Kris's, at Kris's Color Stripes.



Credits: All Designer Digitals. Background paper by Kellie Mize (Winter Surf Kit), with overlays by Anna Aspnes (top: Hipster Plumes Korners N Edges No. 2, bottom: Floral ART No. 2). Frame by Katie Pertiet (In A Strip) with papers by Lynn Grieveson (Chat Freebie 09-13-08) and Mindy Terasawa (Sunday Morning Papers). Gold accent paper by Anna Aspnes (Ad Challenge 07-27-08). Tree and buttons by Katie Pertiet (Love Grows No. 1, and Once Upon A Time Kit). Font: 1550. Journaling reads: "Nothing better than a Grandma cuddle on a windy day."

Oh wow, I just realized I have *lots* of layouts I haven't posted, so ok, just a couple more...

On this day, I was glad I'd brought my camera along when we went to change our oil, because we ended up sitting there for almost 20 minutes. So I amused myself by taking surreptitious pictures of the back seat in the rearview mirror, until he caught me out =).



Credits: Almost everything from Vinnie Pearce's Engines kit (Pixel Canvas). Alpha for "back there?" is by Rob and Bob (Designer Digitals, Sanctuary Alpha). Fonts: Splurge and tweed. . I had fun with the perspective tool... ;)

And finally, a scraplift of Denise at Designer Digitals, for the Saturday Scraplift a while ago. We don't do Halloween--after all, Allen doesn't like candy, and he doesn't like costumes. But we did drop by Daddy's office, only to find a couple of gruesome witches, and a Hulk (which he'd never heard of before--we don't have TV). But he could handle the cowgirl, and even consented to model her hat!



Credits: Stuff by me. Fonts: Digs My Hart and 3rd Man.

I guess I'd better get to the Friday Illustration before the next one comes, too--I've had a punnish idea for it, as usual...

Variations On A Theme

Timounette gave me the great honor of selecting one of my pages for a challenge scraplift on the Digiscrapub forum--some amazing lifts there! It was really idea-sparking to see what some people had done. Awesome job, ladies!

Pensive

This is a scraplift of Designer Digitals' Designer of the month, VShalini Pearce (in particular, "A Boy's First Hero"). I have long loved all of her stuff, so I encourage you to check out her elegant layouts. Everything's mine in this layout. Font: Garamond Premier Pro Bold, Semi-Bold Italic, and Regular.



You would not *believe* how much time I spent on this sucker. =) The background has an immense amount of layering (the more layers, the more I was convinced that it looked awful). Those brown blocks behind the paper (which is based on a scan of wallpaper) are a whole separate texture file that took me at least an hour to feel comfortable with.

At least I finally discovered the difference between setting your opacity lower, and setting your flow (or fill, in the layer palette) lower. If you're trying to make marks in white on a black background, for example, setting the opacity lower means you get varying shades of gray. Adjusting the flow, however, means it's still white, just variations on faint--so if you "scrub" with your pen/mouse you'll eventually get a fat white line instead of just a faint one.

I'm also pretty pleased with my colombine stamp, too.

Ok, off to play with my little pensive boy... isn't he gorgeous?

Lifted!

I can't believe I was scraplifted... and in a big way! Designer Digitals wizard designer, Lynn Grieveson, chose my Winter Day layout to be featured as the Saturday Scraplift challenge. Whoo!

Happy Moments

Well... I'm kinda pleased with this one! Why did it work? I think partly it was because I followed (more or less) a successful scrap to begin with, and partly because I used other peoples' stuff. Guess that's another area I need to work on...