Shadow Box Frames...

have always been a favorite of mine.  I love the layering and visual depth they create when you use them.  While going through my stash of frames I keep on hand in my craft room I had forgotten just how many shadow boxes I had aquired. They were all styles and sizes and I stopped counting at 17.  But then like any good crafter always be prepared and if one is good then three is better.                            

I guess there is a little (bordering on a lot) of shopping OCD in all avid scrapbooking crafters. I have long ago stopped denying that I have enough supplies to craft through my life time and well into that of my granddaughters. But then an afternoon spent in my craft room with my granddaughters reminds my just how much joy this indulgence of mine brings to all of us.  It will create memories for them like it did for me when I spent time with my grandmother baking and canning in her kitchen.

Last week while in Joann's Crafts I found Spellbinders Grand Nestabilites on clearance for 70% off.  I have a number of smaller dies and the Grand Calibur but had never tried the larger dies. Much to my surprise I have the feeling these will get used more than I first thought and the price was just to good to pass up. Nostalgic stamps is another favorite I have collected but none of them are big enough to fill a 6x9 die cut so I scanned the stamped image and enlarged it to fit.  Printed on vintage color cardstock and a touch of mica watercolor I was pleased with the effect. I added a couple of glittery gilded ferns and this was the end result. Now to find the perfect place to hang them.

Brown and Cooper Accents

Green and Bronze accents.

A Little Motivation (or maybe a lot) ...

 What does it take to get those creative juices flowing enough to actually start being creative again? All those good intentions I have to spend the day or even an hour in my scrap room more often than not seem to  get side tracked. That is not to say I haven't done cards, school projects or baby shower props but not a single scrapbook page has crossed by table.  How sad is that.  My laptop dying was a real wake up call.  When I went to reload all my programs on the new one it brought it all home how much I had been neglecting my craft.  Reloading my favorites Make The Cut and Sure Cuts Alot  reminded me how much Provocraft doesn't play well with third party software.  But checking out another new cutting machine will become a whole different chapter.  Provocraft customer service was more than pleasant and helpful with reloading and updating a new Design Studio though.  Inkscape was like riding a bike, a little rusty at first but you realize it all comes back when you start peddling. Inkscape is like having canvas and paints where the end results are limitless. I can think of so many new things I want to turn into cut files.  

Photo editing and desktop publishing programs were next.  Up date the old standards and/or try new ones? I did add another photo editor, Corel Paint Pro X4 (it has a fantastic easy use plug-in for some great filters) plus I had used a much older version in the past and liked it.  Serif Page Plus X6  Desktop publisher  is another I added (I still have to make time to play with this one). Now I still need to replace my old font viewer with a new font manager to access the growing collection of almost 4000 font files I don't want to actually install in windows.  All said and done I now have a new scrap room laptop ready for business. Here we go again!

This is of course my granddaughter Jayla 

who has always been one of my favorite scrap page subjects

I Can't beleive it'a been so long...

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 months since my last the last post and the last page I scrapped.  Not sure how I got so side tracked or so uninspired to create anything new. It's not that I haven't taken new pictures,  heck I even bought a new Nikon D3100 digital SLR camera last fall.  2010 seemed to be a year of changes and checks and balances, some subtle and some not so subtle, LOL. Then last week my daughter brought me a project she wanted me to make.  She was going to a baby shower for her friend we have known since they were kids.  The baby's name is going to be Noah and the nursery theme is Noah's Ark.  She requested I make a shadow box of the Ark to go with the bedding she had bought from Baby's R Us.  She brought over a shadow box that was 16x20 showed me the picture of the quilt to get the basic idea of colors and style.  With help from my daughter on what colors and animals this is what I came up with. The ark and Noah are from SVG's I made in Inkscape and cut with Make the Cut.  The animals were cut with Cricut using Animal Kingdom. 

I cut individual planks for the bottom of the ark and layered them on a solid piece. I raised the pieces of the top and bottom of the boat off the mat to give depth to the inside of the port holes and windows.

The animal heads were raised with foam dots to give them some depth as well. All but Noah and the whales were cut with the Animal Kingdom cartridge. The ark, waves and cloud were done with MTC.

Well I may be in trouble now.  I found myself in Joann's picking out paper stacks and found a few new EK punches. Did I mention K & Company has some gorgeous embellishments I couldn't resist.  OMG I think the scrapping bug has returned!

Side tracked again...

My grand daughter spent the night last weekend and we rented movies. Twilight just happened to be one of them.  I have seen all the cut files and heard the buzz but had never seen the movies. We enjoyed the movie and  then of course we had to watch New Moon. I find if I enjoy a movie I always end up reading the book as well. Four Twilight books later I am waiting to see the new Eclipse movie in June, go figure.  Well I finally got back to putting together the Alice in Wonderland layout I had spread out on my scrap table for more than a week. I made the White Rabbit about three inches and it was a bit tricky to work with so  many small pieces but he turned out OK after I finished I think.  I want to try a larger one so I can get more detail on it. I did end up removing most of the scrolls on Alice's leaves for the smaller cut version as well. The links for the cut files for the Rabbit and Alice are below for anyone that would care to use them.

Alice

White Rabbit