On Hugging Dogs...

Another "3 Hearts" Journal Page for you today my friends!  I'm finding that random ideas keep popping into my head for this journal, and I'm just going with it - it's fun!  Here's another page about part of my heart that I share with the world - my love for dogs...

 The base of this page is handmade paper (the red and orange geometric pattern).  Layered on top is gessos, distress stain (stenciled), tissue paper, washi tape, scrapbook paper hearts, magazine image of a sweeeeeet dog, white sharpie and black pitt brush pen.  The heart by the word "hug" is actually a hole cut in the paper.

Happy weekend to you all!  Thanks for visiting and I will be back tomorrow with new Scrapping The Music pages!

Two More "3 Hearts" Journal Pages...

I'm really enjoying thinking about the subject of the 3 Hearts workshop I'm taking.  It's so complicated when you think about it - what parts of yourself do you share with the world, what parts do you only share with close friends and family, and what parts do you keep to yourself?

I can see myself adding to this journal, page by page for a long time to come.

Here are my latest two pages...

 This one is a title page for the first section of the journal.  The background is layers of acrylic paint over gesso.  I made the shadow of the woman by cutting out a figure from a magazine, and using it as a mask. The scallopy border is a Tim Holtz stamp; the hearts are a handmade stamp, and the "heart I share" words are written with a fine paint brush and india ink.

 Thinking about the heart I share with the world, this line from "Losing My Religion" came to mind...

It's an ode to relationships that I have jumped into too fast (in the past - this is not recent), and then realized that I shouldn't have opened myself up to that person so much.  Ever have that feeling? It's not about putting walls around your heart or anything, it's just that I've learned over time to take it slow with new friendships, until you know what you are getting into. 

The background on this one is gesso; then turquoise and lime shiva paint sticks, with a thin piece of napkin collaged over the top in places.  Then I placed the word stickers on top and covered it all up with black gesso.  I pulled the letter stickers off right away to expose the background layers. Super fun and easy!

If you want to check out the "She Had Three Hearts" workshop, click here for more info.

Alrighty, I guess that is about it for today.  I wish you a wonderful Wednesday my friends!  Thanks for visiting, and I will see you back here soon!

Project Life Tuesday: August 20 - 26, 2012...

I've got a new Project Life spread to share with you, but first I want to mention that...

The Scrapping The Music Anniversary Challenge slideshow is up at the STM blog, and it is so cool!  Come on over and check out the beautiful layouts and journal pages that our participants submitted!!! Click here to see the slideshow!

Okay - on to Project Life...

This was a fun week to document because it was my birthday! I turned 53 on the 21st and it was an awesome day. All three kids (Tony, Becca and Steve) were able to come for dinner, along with Becca's boyfriend Chad and Steve's girlfriend Rita. We had veggie burgers on the grill, and Michael baked me the most delectable vegan cake - chocolate with cherry filling and yummy vanilla frosting with sprinkles!

Here's how my layout turned out...

Closeup of Left side...

 Ephemera on this page includes a packing slip for some computer-related happy mail that Michael got from China this week.  Also, I scanned in his new certificate and shrunk it down to 4x6.  The 3x4 with the book text is a thought for the day for my birthday.  It's from Michael's AA book.  And okay - those sheep!!!  Oh my goodness they are so cute!!!  Michael has the rotating desktop wallpapers from bing, and one day this week those sheep came up and we both just LOVED them!  I just have to share a bigger photo so you can see them better...

Aren't they the funniest, cutest things ever???!!!  I looked them up, and they are from an Island in Ireland called Achille.  I guess they are all over the place there.  They are dyed bright colors for identification purposes.  So cute, I just had to include them!  

On to the right side...

Ephemera included here: The packaging from one of my new Woodland Park goodies from October Afternoon (I'd been waiting for months for that collection to be released!); a BEAUTIFUL handmade card that was sent to me by my friend Linda Phinney, along with some awesome happy mail last week.  (Thanks again so much Linda!!!); and packaging from a new stapler and Moleskine that I purchased.

I'm still reeling with excitement about all of the new Project Life designs that are appearing!  Along with the Seafoam edition that I mentioned yesterday, I want to mention two other AWESOME ideas for next year...

Heather Bailey's Olive Edition of Project Life:  Beautiful colors, and I love how she marries florals with graphics!  And besides, Heather also designs beautiful fabric!  (I'm envisioning making some sort of coordinating tote bag for PL supplies???)

And also, this isn't official Project Life stuff, but the OH Sn@p Line from Simple Stories.  They have lots of brightly colored 3x4 and 4x6 card designs coming out, along with coordinating labels, stickers, etc.

Put all of this together and next year's Project Life is going to be COLORFUL and FUN!!!

Thanks so much for visiting and I will see you soon!

Project Life Catch Up...

Have you seen the new Project Life designs?  Which one do you like best?  For me, it's the Seafoam Edition!  Love the colors and all of the matching dividers - so cute and fresh!  Click here to go to Becky's blog and check out all of the new stuff coming for 2013.

I got a little behind, but here's my catch up week...

August 13 - 19, 2012...

 Left side closeup...

 Ephemera includes the packing from my new Tim Holtz Stamp Storage Binder.  I've been wanting one of those for awhile, and finally used my 40% off coupon to get it at Archiver's.  Also, the logo for the Wildlife Rehab Center (cut from their brochure). 

We were on our walk that week and saw a (sadly) dead shrew on the side of the trail.  Don't know what happened to the poor thing, but we stopped to look at it, and there, a little ways away was a teeny tiny lump of fur.  When I looked closer I could see it breathing, and realized it must be a baby.  Long story short, I called the Wildlife Rehab Center, and they told me to bring it in and they would help it out; so I did.  I thought it was a mole, but when I got there, they told me it was a short-tailed shrew.  The photo is actually off the internet, as I didn't think to take a photo of the little guy we found.

 Here's a closeup of the right side of the page...

The journaling card on the far right is from the Clementine kit.

I'm starting to ponder what to do next year to keep things feeling fresh with this project.  Are any of you thinking about that?  There's still a wayyyyys to go til the end of the year (thankfully!); but it's fun to think about.

Have an awesome Sunday my friends!  Thanks for visiting!!!

She Had Three Hearts...

I'm having so much fun in the "She Had Three Hearts" workshop!  And I just found out, Christy has extended the access to the class from 3 months to one year!  Yeayyy!  That is so awesome! 

The basic concept behind the class is that every woman has three hearts -- one she shares with the world, one she shares with her family and friends, and one she keeps to herself.  I decided to dedicate one of my handmade journals to this subject.  This is the one I'm using...

 and here's the first completed page...

My love of color is something that I share with the whole world.  I think pretty much every one who knows me knows about my passion for bright colors. When I was part of Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's stencil hop, she referred to me as a "color enthusiast." Thank you Julie!  I just LOVED that!  In fact, I sorta wish I could put that after my signature on all documents "Michelle L Rydell, Color Enthusiast."  HA.  That would be awesome!

Page includes:  a kraft paper base, with gesso, neocolor II crayons, white and black doodling pens, Balzer designs Fragmented Flower stencil (6x6), washi and fabric tapes, Melody Ross' Unity Stamp, vintage packaging, miscellaneous papers from my stash, alpha stickers, and my own handmade heart stamp. The doodled paper lanterns in the upper left corner are inspired by someone that I saw on pinterest, I think?  I'm sorry I can't remember who.


 Also, Dawn had asked to see a photo of my Scrapfest Smash Book from the side.  It's really not as thick as you might think!  There are lots of pages, but not alot of thick embellishments (except for the Island of Misfits - ha). Here it is just for you Dawn...

To see the rest of the book, click here.

Thanks so much for visiting!  Take care and I will see you again tomorrow!

A New Page and Dealing With a Creative Slump...

Hi there everyone!  I'm feeling really good tonight, because I have an art journal page to share with you!  I've been in a bit of a creative slump lately.  When that happens I tend to start buying supplies - ha.  Somehow I feel like I'm still creating if I'm buying stuff.   Not a good plan, I know; and it doesn't really help me get unstuck, but that is what I tend to do - lol.

Anyhoo, I'm back feeling inspired and I couldn't be happier about it!  Yeayyy!!!

Here's a page that I started when I was anticipating going on my Door County road trip with my girlfriends.  I finished it tonight by adding three photos from the trip...

The stamp on the shipping tag is really only two women. I wanted four women to represent our group, so I stamped once, then masked off the first stamp and stamped again.  The colored stripes are done with neocolor II crayons, and the background of the whole page is done with acrylics.  I turned the book upside down to do the orange dripping, then turned it rightside up to do the green dripping.  The hot pink splashes are cut from a magazine and glued on.  I've been loving using old school silver star stickers lately.  Note to self: get some more of those.

Another thing I do when I'm in a creative slump is take some more workshops, and I have been doing that like crazy! This, however, is a much healthier way to deal with a creative block, and it actually DOES help!  Right now I am part way through Shimelle's "Cover to Cover" class; and Christy Tomlinson's "She Had Three Hearts" class; and I'm LOVING them both! 

Cover to Cover is all about looking at your scrapbooks as more than just individual pages.  Giving them continuity so that they make sense as a "book."  It's helping me think not only about my scrapbook pages, but also my various art journals!

I signed up for "She Had Three Hearts," because it was on sale for over 40% off (still is through Friday); and boy am I glad I did!  I am LOVING it!  It's packed full of information, and I love Christy's laid-back style of teaching!  TONS of videos!  Tomorrow I will share my first completed "3 Hearts" journal page.

What do you do when you get in a creative slump?  I'd love to hear about it!  Maybe we can all learn from each other?!?!

Just Thinking About Teaching...

Had fun building this page over time, as my brain percolated the subject...

Supplies used include black and white gesso, Shiva paint sticks, gelatos, acrylic paint, butterfly and balloon rub-ons, miscellaneous scraps and stamps from my stash, and washi tape.

I hope your weekend has been fabulous so far!!!

Thanks for visiting, and see you again soon my friends!

Scrapfest Smashbook...

Scrapfest is on my mind because it's coming up in September!  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!

I realized that I never shared last year's Scrapfest smashbook with you!  It's about time, right?  Here it is...

I didn't do anything with the cover, except for labeling the spine with alpha stamps...

This is the inside front cover.  I put the advertisements for Scrapfest here...

 

It was fun taking the Smashbook pages and making them work for this project!  This title page originally had an illustration of a cake, which I covered up with the pink circle, and added my own title...

An envelope holds our hotel reservations, and a pocket holds all of our miscellaneous schedules, etc...

I ended up doing quite a few fold out pages.  I just tore out a page from the back of the book, and taped it on to the right edge with some paper tape.  This one has my packing lists...

 

A page about the kick-off crop on Thursday nite. The little kraft envelope holds the game pieces from our scavenger hunt...

Here I taped on an envelope to stick my receipts in; which folds out to reveal my workshop schedule...

For each class I did a fold out page.  On the left is the class description (the little character on the right is a chipboard embellie from my stash)....

and when you fold it out, you see photos, journaling, and a pocket to hold class handouts...

Here's a random note page, and a page about meeting April, Nicole and Kelly from Studio Calico...

Amy Tan's Class was so much fun...

The Ditto Album class had tons of freebies...

Some pages were reserved just for journaling, which I did each night before bed...

Here's another fold-out page.  This one is about the My Mind's Eye crop on Friday night...

This is the class that all of my scrappy girlfriends and I took together...

I had to include the cute napkin from Caribou coffee...

This page has a little story, and it makes me giggle every time I see it.  No offense to Archiver's, but we noticed that times must've been hard last year, because the prizes they were giving out were, well, let's say, not the greatest.  Alot of the stickers were so old they weren't even sticky anymore, and some of them were all crinkled up like they had literally been pulled out of the garbage.  The girls and I got to talking about them, and I started to feel sorry for the poor, sad embellishments.  That led to a discussion about how the embellies couldn't help it that they were old and crinkled, and they wanted to be used on a page too.  This led to the idea that we could create a little island for misfit embellishments right in the Smashbook!  It ended up being one of my favorite pages!  I especially like all of the little bunnies... 

On the left is a pic of the little trinket jars I made for my girlfriends.  On the right are ATCs that Lynn, Anne and I traded...

Michelle Hill's Epiphany Crafts workshop was so much fun, and she is really nice!...

The October Afternoon workshop foldout...

The 7 Gypsies workshop...

And, finally, the inside back cover, which holds a photo of the girls and me in the largest Scrapbook page in the world! 

I must say that the Smashbook was the perfect choice for documenting Scrapfest!  I worked on it a little each evening in the hotel room, and by the time Scrapfest was over, I had a lot of this book already done!

Now, to get busy preparing for this year's festivities!!!

Thanks for visiting my friends!!!

Scrapping The Music Layouts x6...

Today was the start of the second half of our anniversary month over at Scrapping The Music!  We revealed who chose which song, and made the corresponding layout. I chose one of my faves by Keith Urban...

Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me by Keith Urban...


and here's the art journal page I did that was inspired by the song...

I totally love the picture of that little dog that I saw in a magazine.  Doesn't he just look like he would be thinking those words?  So sweet!  It's a pretty straight forward page - acrylic paint over a collage of different types of papers; lightly outlined the sun rays, drew in the clouds and added the title.


And now that the designers have been revealed, the design team had a chance to create layouts for one or more of the other songs if they wanted to!  I was super inspired by everyone's choices, and  love how they reflect the designer's personality!  I decided to create something for each song.  Here's how they turned out...

Bina's Choice was "Summer Paradise" by Simple Plan, featuring Sean Paul...

 I chose a twist on the lyric "I'll be there in a heartbeat."  The journaling reads:  When we visited the Rocky Mountains we fell in love.  We started our plan to go back, before we even left.  Can't wait to be there again this year."  I remember standing in the spot where I took that photo, thinking "I could definitely live here..."

Frauke's Choice was "I Have a Dream" by Abba.

I did this art journal page in honor of my mom; who I really feel is watching over me now.  It's a crayon resist with pink and orange watercolor.  Then I masked the angel wing off and saturated the page with tons of spray ink.  Love you mom.

Linda's Choice was "Sound of Winter" by Bush...

 I chose the lyric "You've got to hang on to yourself."  It made me think about when I was going through hard times (during my divorce).  The image represents my old life going up in flames, and my new life emerging as the raven.  I got to use my new Tim Holtz border stamp at the top!

Patricia's choice was the super fun "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye...

 I love the line in this song where he goes "have your friends collect your records and then change your number..."  I don't know if they still do this kind of thing (with today's CDs and itunes), but it made me think about the old days, when the sure sign that you were breaking up with someone was taking your records back. Ha.  That in turn, made me think about my own record collection, and my attachment to it...

 Last but not least, Sharon's choice was "Surfin Usa" by the Beach Boys...

I'm not a surfer (LOL I can't even imagine), but I do have lots of pics of Californ-i-a!  I decided to scrap one of my faves from Michael and my honeymoon in 2007.

I encourage you to head on over to the Scrapping The Music site and check out the other design team members layouts for all of the songs!  It's inspiration overload - a total of 25 layouts in one post!!!  And EVEN MORE FUN would be if you play along with us and create something for one or more of the songs!  There is a separate prize drawing for EACH song that you play along with!  The deadline for submissions is August 27th at midnite!  Check it out here!

Thanks so much for visiting!!!

Project Life Tuesday

I feel like all I've been posting lately is Project Life stuff, but that's because the other things I've been working on are for Scrapping The Music and I can't show you quite yet!

Anyhoo, I can show you last week's Project Life spread!  Here's how it turned out...

Week of August 6 - 12, 2012:

Closeup of Left Side...

Monday was the last day of our Door County trip, and the rest of the week was filled with nature walks with Michael.  I was absolutely THRILLED to catch a photo of the unusual bird we've seen a couple of times on our walks!  Last time we saw him he flew by and then was hidden by the trees, but this time he was sitting right out in plain view.  It is hard to tell the scale in this photo, but he is pretty big.  I did some research and found out he is a green heron.  Very surprising since he looks blue and purple.  Anyhoo, the only ephemera this week is a sticker from some Amy Tangerine fabric paper that I used in a layout.   

 Closeup of right side...

Edited to add:  The Owl Calendar is a free printable available from The Owl Barn.  Click here to get one for yourself!

The biggest thing I've documented on this page, is all of the classes I'm taking at Scrapfest, which is coming to the Mall of America in September.  I'm super excited about them!  I used the Grab program on my mac to take screenshots of the class descriptions, and then saved them in iphoto, and resized to fit in my pockets.

Tomorrow I will be back to share new Scrapping The Music layouts.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Project Life Update and Questions answered...

 Before I share my latest Project Life spread, I want to answer a question that was posted in my comments last time.  Debra asked:

Hi..I'm not sure that I understand the little cards are they suppose to be about anything on each day or do you create them based on what your day was like? Are they made out of any type of paper? Do I treat each card like a journal page in my journals? sorry so many questions? just want to understand better. thank you, Debra

Debra, those are all great questions!  Project Life is a system designed by Becky Higgins, and the idea is that you can use it to document your life in any way that you choose to!  It's super-flexible!

What I do is try to make one two-page spread to document each week in my life.  I don't necessarily have a photo per day, or even have every day represented.  I just do an overview of some of the things that happen each week.  Sometimes I use the journaling cards that are designed (and sold) by Becky, but lots of times I just use bits and pieces of my stash.

Beckys offers a video that explains it all really well.  She also sells the pocket-style page protectors, and kits that include different designs of cards that fit into the slots.  If you click here you can go to her Project Life Website, which will give you lots of info.

I hope that is helpful!  Please feel free to leave any more questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

Now - onto my latest Project Life pages...

I can't believe I've been back from my trip to Door County for almost a week now!  Doing Project Life for the week of July 30 - August 6 was extra fun because so much happened!  It was quite a challenge to fit it all onto one 2 page spread.  I know I could do inserts, but I enjoy trying to get an overview of my week onto one layout.  Here's how it turned out...

July 30 - August 6...

Closeup of left side...

 I used one 4x6 pocket to journal about the week in review.  It works pretty well for me, and I am able to mention things that might not have a picture to go with them.  This week I wanted to document the huge pain in the butt that trying to register for Scrapfest was on Wednesday and then Friday morning.  Ha.  Ephemera used on this page includes the business card for The Good Earth Restaurant (where we had dinner with Michael's mom), and the return address label from a scrapper at 2Peas that I bought a super nifty set of stamps from.  I just loved the little mouse picture on her label! So cute!


Closeup of right side...

 You've probably noticed by now that I don't put things in chronological order on my pages.  I just put them where ever they fit nicely.  We did so much on our trip that I only touched on a few highlights here, but I figure I can go into more depth in my travel journal, right? 

 I've got this week's Project Life spread almost done already, which feels great!  I will share either tomorrow or Tuesday. 

I've also been working on alot of stuff for Scrapping The Music, which I can't wait to share!  That post will go up on Wednesday.

I've also been doing a lot of background work for the art journal workshop.  I still hope to have it start shortly after 2013 begins.  New year, new journal - sound like fun?  I hope so!

Thanks so much for visiting and for your comments!  You really make my day!