Lisa Crafts Too

Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge - Anything Goes - Happy Anniversary

Yesterday, on July 4, 2014, my husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary! I made him a super cute card and mini-album full of photos of highlights from our special day.

I'm entering the card into the Paper Smooches SPARKS Anything Goes Challenge.

 

I actually used a bunch of scraps that have been sitting on my desk from previous projects to create this card. The dinos were colored with Spectrum Noir Markers and the paper is from Doodlebug Designs Stars and Stripes line from 2013. 

 

Just for fun, here are the pics of the accordion-folded mini album I made for his gift (first year anniversary it's traditional to give paper.)

 

 

 

 

 

SUPPLIES USED:

Paper Smooches WORD SALAD Clear Stamps	Paper Smooches GOOD GAB Clear Stamps Kim Hughes	Paper Smooches PRETTY PHRASES Clear Stamps	Paper Smooches CUTEASAURUS Clear Stamps Kim Hughes
Lawn Fawn HANDMADE WITH LOVE Clear Stamp	Martha Stewart SCORING BOARD Score Craft Tool	Martha Stewart Precision Scissors	Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two Applicators
Zots 3D YELLOW BOX Clear Adhesive 200 Dots	3M Scotch PINK ATG ADVANCED TAPE GLIDER 1/4" Adhesive Glue Gun	3M Scotch ACID FREE 1/4" x 36 Yard REFILL Advance Tape Glider Rolls	Copic MINI PACK 70 LB Marker Paper 4.25 x 5.5
Tsukineko Memento Ink Pad NAUTICAL BLUE	Glitz 8 x 8 UNCHARTED WATERS Paper Pack 10144 Nautical 2013	Doodlebug STARS & STRIPES 6 x 6 Paper Pad	Doodlebug RED WHITE & BLUE MINI PEARLS
Crafter's Companion REDS Spectrum Noir Markers	Crafter's Companion BLUES Spectrum Noir Markers

InLinkz.com

'Choke' - my awesome homework project involving aliens and pigs

Last weekend I had a fun homework assignment for my Phenomenological Approaches to Music Analysis class at school (yeah, it took me a while to pronounce the class title, lol.) Anyway, I got to play with my art and crafts supplies guilt-free! Our assignment was to listen to a piece by Anna Clyne for bari sax and tape called "Choke" and to present a representation of it, which could be anything as long as it did not involve using musical terminology to describe the piece. This turned out to be very easy because it did not sound like a typical musical piece at all. Actually, Bryce and I decided that the piece sounded like aliens gathering together to cook live pig and eat bacon! Seriously, you should listen to the piece (I don't want to post it here because that would be stealing from the composer) - I bet it's probably available to listen to through Spotify or itunes or somewhere for free or maybe just a small fee.

Ok, so I decided that I would create a picture book as my representation. I got out some size 10 manila tags and my Dylusions spray inks  and created ten backgrounds. I heat set the inks using the Heat It Craft Tool and then got to work stamping images from some of my favorite stamping companies: Lawn Fawn, Paper Smooches, Dylusions by Dyan Reaveley, and a few others. I used pipettes to fill Tim Holtz's water brushes with the same Dylusions spray inks I used for the backgrounds and colored in the images. I then cut them all out and started playing around with them to see which images I wanted to use on which backgrounds. To add a bit more to the background tags and give them more dimension, I did some border stamping in black archival ink and used a white gel pen to add some highlights. Then I used the Inksentials collaging glue stick to adhere my images to the tags. To finish, I added some glossy accents and stickles for added interest, texture, and dimension.

What a fun project this was! This was the first time I've made something of this nature, and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out (and so did my professor!) I can definitely see myself creating similar projects in the future. Now it's time to show you the pictures! I'll give a brief explanation of each scene and what I was hearing in the music.

 

The title of Anna Clyne's composition for bari sax and tape.

 

Pigs, hanging out innocently in a field before the aliens come. I imagined this would have been a scene just prior to the music starting.

 

The aliens are coming. I heard the sounds of space ships and UFO's.

 

The aliens are eyeing their prey. I heard a clanking sound near the beginning of the piece which I imagined to be the pigs trying to escape. The pigs really aren't as happy as they look here, lol.

 

This big moster guy represents the bari sax playing in the low register of the instrument. The squealing pigs are what the bari sax sounded like in the high register. The monster is taking the pigs to the fire to cook them for dinner.

 

The music sounded like aliens conversing, so this is a scene of some pre-dinner conversation.

 

Monster dude is cooking the pigs and creating the bacon. There are a lot of sizzling sounds in the music.

 

The aliens are enjoying eating their bacon dinner. The little guy is in a bacon coma.

 

The aliens return home to their planet. The music settles down.

 

The music ends.

My First Mini Album - Gus

Over the summer I created my very first scrapbook album, which also happens to be my very first mini album. The subject was my friend's beautiful new baby boy, Gus. I refrained from posting the pictures for a while because my friend, Alex, and her husband, Tamas, both live in Ireland and I wanted them to see the album in person before I posted it online. Well, now it's been months since I gave the album to Alex and Tamas, and I've only just posted them to my Lisa Crafts Too Facebook page (go like me there if you don't already - I'm slowly getting things organized over there!) So, I figured I should go ahead and do a blog post about it!

I started with a small chipboard album by Maya Road. It has a plain canvas cover and comes with two canvas pockets, which are absolutely adorable! I used some Adirondack Color Wash in Sunset Orange and Tim Holtz alphabet masks to spell out 'GUS' for the cover and 'love' and 'dream' on the pockets. The misting was super fun!

For the pages, I covered the chipboard with papers from a really cute paper pad I found by K&C Company called Itsy Bitsy. I chose this one for both the colors and because the paper featured hippos, one of Alex's favorite animals! I pretty much matched the papers to the different outfits Gus was wearing. I cut Gus out of the pictures, which I had first shrunk down a bit, and then used YES! paste to attach him onto the papers.

I used some rubons for the phrases that you see throughout, although I can't for the life of me remember where they are from - sorry!

I also used THE MOST ADORABLE little canvas Alphabet Stickers by Prima. LOVE THESE and they come in so many beautiful color combinations! Although I chose to leave them plain here, you could totally mist these, too.

So, now that I've told you how I created this album -which I happen to be very proud of, especially considering it was my first one! - sit back and enjoy the photos - Gus is a total cutie! And, Alex totally loved this album, BTW!

 

Spring Crafts and Some Scrapbook Pages

Wow, it's been weeks since I've written a blog post. It's amazing how quickly time passes by. In fact, since the last time I posted, spring has arrived! Even though I am posting these crafts late according to when spring started, the season is here to stay for a few months, so there is definitely plenty of time to create a whole slew of crafts on this list, which can be found here.

I've had time to scrap a few more layouts during the past couple of weeks and am excited to show them to you! I can already see, as I scrap each new page, that I am trying different things and styles. Since these are my first layouts ever, I don't necessarily have a scrapbook style yet, but I definitely see myself and my style in general reflected in these pages. All papers used in these pages are from My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Two collection.

This page here kinda took me a while to figure out, but I really like the finished result. The focus of this layout was on using Tim Holtz filmstrip ribbon. I had a bunch of really tiny photos that I had originally printed for another craft, which didn't turn out the way I envisioned, so I decided to use them underneath the filmstrip. I then decided that the three larger photos needed something more, so I used this same ribbon to frame each of them. Once I did all that, I decided I needed to sleep on it for a few days. When I returned to it, I decided to try out a technique I've seen of pleating the paper, and I added a few layers to the left of the filmstrip of tiny photos. The rest of the layout still needed something more: I stamped a few quotes around the page using Tim Holtz stamps and then, for the final touch, used some Tim Holtz Distress Ink (I think it was Walnut Stain) to ink the edges of the page.

The following page was very simple: All I did was use two different papers to frame a couple of pictures. I also cut out a smaller picture out and stuck it at the bottom near the flower - I liked how our clothes picked up the colors nicely.

The photos from this next page were taken in the car upon arriving at a family wedding last May (Bryce's side of the family.) Bryce sometimes will intentionally make funny faces - I called this one Mr. Bugeyes. Overall, this page was also simple. I used some gold letter/number stickers to mark the date and the title.

I had a bit more fun with this last page: I left the photo as is. This photo is one of our favorites. It was taken in the church at the same wedding (Andrew and Christy's.) We both look good :) I decided to create a banner out of some chipboard hearts which I covered with coordinating papers along with a Tim Holtz ticket that reads 'Adore,' which is aso the theme of the paper, and layered them on top of some embroidery floss. That's pretty much it :)

Another Scrapbook Page

I promise this is mostly a craft blog and not a blog on my car adventures. It's just that so much has happened these past few weeks (old car died, got new car, got engaged...yeah, still have to blog about that last one!) plus, this week I have a gig 2.5 hours away to play Bach's St. Matthew Passion, in addition to my normal teaching job, so crafting has, unfortunately, had to be put on hold. I did, however, finally manage to scrap another 12 x 12 layout page yesterday for my Lisa & Bryce album, which, for my first album, is really coming along quite nicely - in other words, I am in love with this album and the lovely papers from My Mind's Eye's Lost & Found Two 'Sunshine' collection. Hmmm...these might even make lovely wedding colors?? Not sure about that yet, but I am sure that I love the color scheme of this scrapbook album.

As I said in my last scrapbooking post, I am very new to this. This is only my third 12 x 12 layout ever. I've made two mini-albums for friends' babies, but that's it. Scrapbooking is so relaxing (if you can keep the kitties off of your table and supplies) and the photos really do look so much cuter when surrounded by pretty papers and coordinating embellishments.

For this layout, I used a 12 x 12 sheet of paper from the Lost and Found Two Sunshine collection as the background. I then used a variety of papers from the 6 x 6 in. paper pad (from the same collection) to create a patchwork pattern to lay on top of the background paper. I selected two pictures of Bryce hugging my kitties (the big grey tabby is Samson, the tiny calico is Dalilah) and also one of the two of us that my mother-in-law-to-be turned black and white (I think using Instagram - oh, how I need an iPhone!) I cut away the background from the two kitty photos so the colors were better matched to the papers. I added two tickets from Tim Holtz collection (Love and Play) and, finally, added a few matching My Mind's Eye brads to give it a bit of a special touch. I completely love how this layout turned out, don't you?

Check out this article that I wrote on scrapbooking:

Scrapbooking: A Fun Way to Preserve Memories and Photos

 

My first real blog post...!

So, here we go... my first real blog post. As I sit here writing this, the superbowl is on (not that I am watching it!) I guess the NY Giants are winning, but, whatever. I'm not into football AT ALL - just keeping my boyfriend company. Of course, the commercials are fun to watch...like the Dorito commercial where the grandma slingshots the baby forward to snatch the bag of chips from the brother in the treehouse? Funny! But really, what better time to blog than during a football game?

For this first post, I've decided to show you all a little bit of me - through a craft, of course. Since I don't have a real photo of me on my profile I thought I'd start by showing you my very first attempts at scrapbooking. I've made a couple of mini albums for a couple of my friends who have new babies, but never a full 12 x 12 layout like these, which I put together last week. 

These layouts are nothing fancy, but I am in love with them because, well, I am scrapbooking photos of me and my boyfriend and, well, we are so cute together, what can I say? And I say that because we are happy, and I like that we are happy. Happiness is important, and I know because I've been in relationships before where I've not been very happy. Those weren't so good, but we're not going to talk about bad stuff. Not today, anyway.

So, I used these:

My Mind's Eye scrapbook paper (Lost & Found TWO)

Lost & Found TWO brads

Tim Holtz tickets

and combined different bits and pieces with a few of my favorite pictures to create these layouts:

Here's a closeup of the journaling box:

(By the way, now the New England Patriots have pulled ahead and are winning 17-9. Madonna's halftime show was good...)

See? We're cute, aren't we? Told ya so. I would never lie about such things. So, that's me. I am a real person and not just a cartoon drawing. My friend, Victoria, did the drawing - she is very talented. Not only as an artist (check out her fb page, Paint Me Senseless)- she's also a gymnast-turned-circus girl. She's pretty much awesome.

So yeah, pretty simple layouts, but I still like the way they turned out. Looking at them makes me smile. Basically, my boyfriend makes me smile. He's not afraid to be a complete goofball, which I totally love. I love him. I am so lucky.

(P.S. Giants back ahead, 21-17 with 5 seconds left. Good game.)