Dusty Attic at the Beach...

I had the weekend to play with my Dusty Attic laser cuts and decided to do a beach layout....can you tell I'd like Summer to be here already? I used the DA laser-cut shell designs along with the French scrolls and a large corner scroll design to make up the above page.

For the shell's I simply painted them white first and then inked the edges with some brown chalk inks, I used a pink chalk ink here and there for a little bit of highlights. On some of the shells I added a row of 3D pearl paint to add a touch of dimension to the shells....here's a close-up pic....


For the large corner scroll and the hinge designs on the right side of the page (I cut a French Scroll in half to make the hinges) I went for a rusted iron look. I got this by inking the pieces with a red/brown colorbox ink first. Then I dabbed on some Pearlex (this is a shimmer dust you can find at Michaels) in a variety of colors. I then used some Folk Art Papier Glass Finish (also from Michaels) to seal the Pearlex in. I dabbed on the Glass Finish with my finger so that it doesn't look perfectly smooth but rather has a rougher finish like rusted iron would have. Here are a couple of close-up shots....

I got a lot of the papers I used courtesy of Scrapbook Dreamer for whom I was doing some Guest Design Team work this month. The Cream color background Paper is Bo Bunny "Paradise Collection" the patterned paper behind the Photo is from Scribble Scrabble.....these can be found at the online store at Scrapbook Dreamer.

Thanks for having a Peek!!

~Gabrielle xxx

Dusty Attic DT and Color Room Palette #5....

I always enjoy the beginning of the month when I have a little time to play with my Dusty Attic laser cuts. This time I decided to give colour #5 a go from the Color Room as I was making up this layout. The color palate for this week at The Color Room is a Dusty Pink, Light Moss Green, Creamy Chamois and Dusky Mauve. I had recently bought these pretty Prima Calcutta blooms in a Dusty Pink and a Dusky Mauve and I had been itching to scrap with them. I picked up the creamy Chamois and moss green in the papers. I used a Dusty Attic flourish border on the right side of the photo as a page accent. This I painted with a soft green, inked it with some brown chalk in and added some Stickles (Waterfall color) on top. Then I stuck on a few Prima e-line pearls in a mossy green to accent the lasercut piece. I want to thank a sweet friend (a member at My Creative Scrapbook) Virginia Abshire for the pretty super wide sheer/gold ribbon I used behind the photo and the pretty vines! She sent me a package of such pretty embellishments and I'm so happy to have some time to put them to use!

Here are a few close-ups of the above l/o....

You can find The Color Room challenge by clicking on the highlighted link above if you'd like to join in the challenge, there is a whole lotta inspiration to be found at this fun site! Dusty Attic is composing a Retailer's List that should be up to date soon so that you can order some of their beautiful products for your scrap pages, in the meantime I had started up a thread on 'Where can you find these products online and a number of online stores have listed their links Here

Thanks for having a peek!!

~Gabrielle xxx

May Reveal for My Creative Scrapbook!!

Well you should have heard the excitement when I was opening the May kits from My Creative Scrapbook a few weeks ago! ...most of it coming from me! The girls were ohhhing and ahhhhing over all the pretty things and there I am clapping my hands and doing the happy dance as I'm pulling up each of the papers and embellishments. My dear husband calls out from his office, "I don't think you'd be this excited if you won the Lottery!!" ROFL! ..... I'll Start with the Limited Edition kit this month. I was just crazy for the beautiful 'shabby-chic' look of this kit! The blooms were among my most favourite of the New Prima releases!! and the papers! Fancy Pants Designs! Love them! ..... The above l/o was made using this beautiful kit!...love the cute distressed frame paper, ...it's actually a chalkboard design but I added the cool pink toned paper for the background of my l/o. There is a wonderful sheet of grey flocked transparency in this kit, I cut a bracket design with it and outlined it with some pink Stickles. One of my favourite embellishments in the kit is the cute little Mellissa Francis resin frame, well, that and the adorable Prima blooms!...and the awesome rub-on's! Here are some close-up pic's.....



A second l/o I made using this kit, I went with the soft aqua colours with a touch of pink. I recently saw a beautiful l/o by Lynn Biermann in which she did some fancy machine stitching around her l/o 'A Young Woman' ...It made me take a closer look at my sewing machine to see if it had any fancy stitch settings, AND IT DID!! so I gave it a go! I was really happy with the results!

Here are some close-up pic's of the design elements on this page (you'll find the pink/white bloom on this page is a bit on the tall side for a scrapbook page, I snipped the center down and folded the petals back more to flatten it down more....

For a third page I made up using this kit I did quite a bit of layering. I layered a frame transparency page over the clock design paper, layered the flocked transparency paper over some soft pink paper and for the scallop edge piece I used the background from the Prima packaging (white words on transparency) on some black paper.....The photo is one of my favourites of my husband and youngest daughter.....

Here are a few closeup pic's to show some of the kit details (I cut a few of the clock designs out from the background paper directly behind the photo to use as embellishments on the page, add a little chalk ink and gold/bronze paint to the edges for a nice masculine embellishment)...


And finally I made a 4th page using this kit (there were so many beautiful papers and embellishments I just had to keep going!) I used a favourite photo that my nephew took of my dear husband and myself on a walk last summer (I'd scrapped a similar photo before but it didn't come out quite like I wanted so I've re-scrapped it).....

Again, so many pretty blooms and embellishments to play with (loved all the fun rub-on's!!) For the ruffled edge I did a little tutorial on how to make this, you can find the video/tutorial here Ruffle Edge Here is a close-up pic of this l/o.....


Now for the MCS Main kit for the month of May! This one had so many wonderful paper combinations in it!! I did 3 l/o's with this kit and managed to get 3 different looks! The first l/o I made with this kit I went with the soft blues and whites. There was a package of these wonderful Prima fabric blooms in the kit, so I thought I would create a big branch design with them for my l/o. The branches were cut from brown cardstock using my Quickutz Revolution machine. These could easily be cut by hand too. Here is my first l/o with the Main kit....

This page was put together quite fast (at least for me who can spend hours on one page!) I tried to keep the lines simple to make the design have a fresh clean look. Here is a closeup detail of the page....

A second l/o I made using this kit I went with the pinks in it. I used a few different design elements on this page. I used the Torn Paper Flower technique I shared with you a couple months back (you can find the tutorial HERE), and I also did a bit of masking too. I hand cut out a simple butterfly shape and then chalked around the edges. Then to make the butterflies stand out more I used a white gel pen to draw in a little detailing. I want to say I first saw this done a few months back by a Canadian friend of mine Tara Orr, I loved the effect and gave it a try here. And finally I made the 'belt' embellishment by cutting a long strip of brown cardstock, trimmed one end to a point and then machine stitched the edges in white. I added a few eyelets and a chipboard circle design (included in the kit) and used it for the 'buckle'.

Here are some close-up pic's of the page details (remember you can find a lot of the design techniques used on the DT pages at the month thread at MCS called 'How did they do that').....



And a third page I made for from this kit I went with the pretty butter yellow/grey papers in the kit and combined it with the cornflower blue papers. Both my girls talked me into getting them these funky looking sunglasses with a design printed on them, ....and YES! they can actually see through them! :) .........

I made the paper roses by hand using the 6 Petal Punch method I shared with you all last year (although in this case I wanted larger blooms so I hand-cut larger base blooms rather than using a punch.......you can find the tutorial I posted HERE) Here are some close-up detail photo's of the page...




And finally I also got to work with the awesome Album kit this month. So many rich beautiful colours in this one! I went with the purples & greens for this l/o. I loved the floral vine design on one of the patterned papers so after I matted the paper with green cardstock I cut out some green flourishes (Quickutz) and added it to the outer edges to mimick the paper design.


A second l/o I made using this kit I did a whole lotta machine stitching. I have to admit the l/o doesn't translate well on the screen and looks a lot nicer in real life where you can see the detailing better. The photo is of my youngest daughter and one of my girlfriend's little girls having a little 'girl talk'.....

Here are a bunch of close-up details on this page.
TIP: I added some Stickles glitter glue (Platinum colour) over the stitches to give them a metalic look....



And finally a 3rd page I made using this fun colourful kit! I used a few different design elements on this page. A little bit of corset lacing on the left side of the page and I also created 4 pockets along the bottom of the page with journaling tags stuck into each of them.

My husband Steve is such an awesome Dad, even though he is very busy with work every day he alway makes time for his girls. So I wanted to make up a page to remind the girls of all the wonderful things he does for them, from taking them skating, swimming, feeding ducks, to the park....even clothes shopping!! They just have to say they need something and he pops them into the car to pick up something new!...yes, a wee but spoiled aren't they! :) Here are some close-up pic's of the page details....


So that's 3 of the 4 new kits available this month from My Creative Scrapbook. (there is also a wonderful Creative kit too! Be sure to check out the beautiful pages the DT girls made up with this one!) And be sure to see the work of all the rest of the DT members with these amazing kits I'm sure you'll have enough inspiration at a glance to keep you going all month! I've noticed some questions about the products used in the kits in the blog comments. You can find all products used (other than cardstock) in the kits each month and you'll find an itemized list of the product names/manufacturers at the My Creative Scrapbook site, listed with a photo of all the kits.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read through my lengthy reveal blog post!! I know this is a long one each month! LOL!

~Gabrielle xxx

I'm a Guest Designer for Scrapbook Dreamer!!

I was asked a couple of months ago to be a Guest Designer for Scrapbook Dreamer. Let me say, how much fun is that!! I got to do a little shopping in her amazing store and pick out some pretty things to scrap with! Above is the first l/o I made for my May Guest spot! ...And no, I wouldn't really let Meagan climb steep rockwalls with sandles on! LOL!... We were on a picnic a few weeks back when we had unusually hot weather for April and I had Meagan posing by this rock bridge, she started climbing up the wall (just a couple of feet) and asked me to take a pic that would look like she was climbing a sheer wall)..... Here are some close-up pic's (I was so thrilled to get these BasicGrey Origins papers from Scrapbook Dreamer)....

(the flower is Fleur Danseur by Prima, the papers, letter stickers and weed rub-on's are BasicGrey, the butterflies I got at a local thrift shop)

A second l/o I made for my guest spot I used some lovely distressed papers I found at Scrapbook Dreamer by Paper Loft, I added a couple of blooms by Prima and a pearl flourish by Zva Creative. I did a little stitch work (seems I'm doing a lot of that lately)......

If you're looking for a great online store with lot's of pretty things and a reasonable shipping rate check out Scrapbook Dreamer! They have a lively gallery and Forums too!

Thanks for taking a peek!

~Gabrielle xxx