Star Spangles and Ruffles.

For ages I have wondered what to use the pictures from two calenders by the artist Gil Elvgren.  Although I love the style of painting and the era they come from, some of the girls are quite scantily clad.  I was pleased to find a use for one of them here and after adding a royal blue ribbon ruffle and a few red star spangles (ooh try saying that after a few beers), it gives quite an all American girl look.

The art journal page is for week 4 of Q52 which had the question 'When I look into my eyes I see....' 

Q52

After a trip to Paperchase I managed to finally start a new project called Q52 (52 Questions)hosted by UK Scrappers for a year long weekly Art Journal.  Prompts are given every Monday, asking a question that you can then answer in  the form of an Art Journal page. 

So here are week 1 and week 2, asking the questions: What are your hopes for 2011? and Are you frightened of change?  For week 1 I have used Seafoam Embossing Powder, Cosmic Shimmers and Stardust Stickles on black card.  Week 2 narrowly avoided disaster when I started to stick down an old dictionary page with the definition of 'change' the wrong way up.  It ended up a happy accident that the resulting paper and glue residue actually enhanced the shabbiness of it.....phew!  For this one I used distressing inks, colouring pencils and sepia glossy accents.

I'm finding the prompts really help with that creativity block and of course there is the UKS gallery to help with ideas too.

Short and Sweet

Short and sweet eh?  Well you know me I do like to waffle so it doesn't mean this post.  The post title is from a girly layout all about my short hair as a toddler.  Recently I had a look through some of my mum's photo's and found these great photo's of me rocking a pixie cut.  When I asked my mum why she had my hair cut so short she replied that it just hadn't grown and didn't do so until I was three. 

 Made up for it now though, if it's not tamed with serums and conditioners I resemble a 70's children cartoon character called Crystal tips....remember that, she was groovy in a mad hair sort of way.  I did in fact ask to get my hair chopped short when I was 5 and my mum let me....what was she thinking?  Anyway apparently I liked it until every time I visited my Grandad he asked who the little boy was. 

You would of thought this would teach me a lesson, but no.  In the early 80's I had another crop a-la New Romantic, swished over look.  Keep checking in and you may see an appearance of that look.  Every so often I long to have my whole wild bird nest of hair cropped off, but apart from being a little scared, I don't think Nigel would talk to me again.  (although we did get engaged when I had said New Romantic look).

I just want to reminisce for a moment longer with you all  I love how girly and happy I look in the first photo, clutching my bag of popcorn while at Butlins.  There's my mum, wasn't she clever to get just the right shade of pink dress for me (us redheads have to be careful of pink).  Then the next photo on the left I am in my parent's back garden, they still live there and the three popular trees are still there.  My in-laws now live in a bungalow behind those trees and like to pop over to see my mum and dad.  See the groovy skirt I had on, it was groovy because it had a gold chain belt (so up to the minute).  Then we go down to the bottom left photo.  Look at me trying to climb the fence to stroke the pretty fawn....I still love nature and animals.  Then we have the first (and only) topless photo of me.  I certainly look like a little boy there.  

 Cricket, Paperchase stickers, Basic Grey sticker alphas and some sparkly brads where used in the layout.  I made a couple of windmills in the same Cosmo Cricket paper to enhance the childhood memories.

So thanks for indulging me and reading about my memories, if you have a bag of photo's like me and my mum....go on scrap them and release all those treasured moments.

In the 80's

I have been having a bit of a sort out recently, trying to clear clutter and keep things tidy.  While doing so i found some old Polaroid photo's that where just stuffed inside a carrier bag.

They where taken on a New Years Eve party, I think in the late 80's, we were fairly newly married.  Nigel's Gran and Aunt used to live in a large three storied house in Finsbury Park.  Every year they had a New Years Eve celebration, with family and a few friends.  We had lots of laughs as the oldies where very young at heart and they appreciated my barmaid skills behind the bar in the front room (I gave large measures).  It was a cold old house that didn't have central heating,hence the cardigan over my party dress.  If you stayed the night you used to wake with a frozen nose and you certainly didn't want to use the bathroom in the night.  There are many more photo's that capture the fun of the party, but quite frankly they had to be censored.

For the layout I chose just two photos that captured the evening and the decade.  Here I am with permed hair, slimmer and younger (sigh).  Now i don't need a perm as my hair curls on it's own.  Maybe that's an age thing?  Nigel is in full party regalia with mask, party blower and streamers.  I like how the photo's show  the net of balloons that where released at midnight and the 'bar' wallpaper.....sweet memories.

I used some of my favorite papers, Cosmo Cricket, Studio Calico and Ocktober Afternoon.  The pinwheel flower was made by folding a strip of 12x12 paper and then gluing together.

How to lose weight and other crafty ideas....

OK, OK, what am I going on about.  Losing weight?  That's got nothing to do with crafting.  Well, here's how you do it......

Take one biscuit tin left over from Christmas and empty out the biscuits.  At this point either scoff all the biscuits in one sitting and then you don't need to worry about THOSE biscuits anymore OR make some  Rocky Road out of all your old chocs and biscuits from Christmas.  Or make a Key Lime Cheesecake with said biscuits and share with friends and family (this is the weight loss bit).

Next, clean out the biscuit tin of all the crumbs (oh look it's me with my little red camera). 

After that, cover the outside of the bottom half of the tin in your favourite paper (Cosmo Cricket). 

Then cover the top, again with your favourite papers (Studio Calico) and decorate.

Fill with sewing supplies (notice my little red polka dot needle book that I made.  It's not going to win any prizes but it's still cute).

And voila!  Not only have you made something pretty and functional out of your tin but you didn't gain weight from eating all those biscuits........or did you scoff the lot?

Create Things

Do you ever have that moment when you have the urge to create something wonderful, sit down at your desk or table and then think....'Hmmm, what can I make?'.  I have these moments quite regularly.

Quite often I want to print some photos for a scrapbook layout or pursue some blogs for a bit of inspiration.  This is usually when I find that the Teen is on the laptop, laughing himself silly at some banal clip on You Tube.  Any thoughts of printing or browsing is then immediately lost unless you have the energy for 'The battle of the the laptop'.

So, this creative moment had loomed last week and I was wondering what to do when I unwrapped a canvas that I had brought long ago.  I began to paint and stamp, punch and stick, sand and smear, to create a decorative canvas, with the simple message of ..............

'Create Things'

Go on....Create!

I see the light....

........at the end of the tunnel.  I bet you thought i had given up on the Document 2010 Project didn't you?  Oh you of little faith.  I spent the last couple of days finishing (well almost) four months worth.  I know, I know,  once I got behind one month I sort of gave up. So here is a few of my favourite layouts you haven't seen yet. 

 

Would I do this project again?.........Well.....yes, but differently.  For a start I would......

• Use all the 'nice' papers in my stash.  I tried to use older ones that I had gone off a bit but they either didn't fit colour wise with the photo's I had or I just didn't 'feel' the vibe with the finished layout. 
•  Although keeping your receipts etc is a great idea for you to look back at in years to come, it drove me crazy keeping those bits and pieces until i could use them.  (Probably if I kept up with each month that wouldn't of been a problem). 
• Stick to one layout or double layout per month.

So it's a new year and with that comes a new challenge.  I think I maybe trying the Project 12 challenge as described here.  I would love to hear what crafty challenge you will be attempting completing in the new year.