Song Of Spring

It's April 15 - which is tax day, but more importantly it's The Paper Mixing Bowl's reveal day!  I've been sitting on this project for a few weeks, and I'm so excited to get to finally show it to you! 

First off, some background.  

At PMB, every challenge includes a recipe card, which has the challenge specs, a sketch, and some journaling or topic ideas.  Here's this month's card : 

As you can see, it's all about spring and pastels this month, which was really tough for me.  People who know me well know that I love working in the fall color palettes.  For me, any color, as long as it is rich and dark is a winner.  Pastels - man - not so much.  But I'm all about the challenge of stretching myself and working outside my creative box, so I went rummaging through my paper stacks and found a piece from the Webster's Pages "A Sweet Life" collection, another from the Graphic45 "Once Upon a Springtime, a third from the DCWV "Mariposa" collection, and finally, I found one of my beloved polkadot patterns in a stack of MME "Wild Asparagus" collection.  I'm just not ready to START unless I have a polka dot pattern in the mix! 

Papers in hand, I grabbed the gesso and dressed up a chipboard birdcage, fussy cut the little bird out of the Websters paper, and used my Tim Holtz WordPlay die to cut some title letters.  I strung the title on a piece of cotton string, then went rummaging through my flower box to see what might be lurking and waiting to play with my papers.  

I hit pay dirt with some old Prima Camelot roses in pale peach and pink tones.  I grabbed some mini roses that I'd found in the $1 bin at Michaels and dressed those up with some peach tone stickles.  Finally I used some music paper (not sure what the manufacturer was), sprayed it with some sunflower glimmer mist, and cut myself out some 3-d wind up roses.  I love making those.  They all have individual personalities, and it's so fun to see flat paper become a three dimensional piece of floral wonder!  

All that was left to do was ASSEMBLE.   I did a decorative corner punch with a Martha Stewart Wild Flowers deep edge punch, and then I added some final touches.  I dressed the raspberries with some Glossy Accents, created a hanger for the birdcage with some dimensional paint, gave some life to my florals with some wired jewel stems and silk leaves, and used a couple of pop dots to get that bird up in the air.  I even STAMPED on this project!  It's a creative miracle!  

Here's what ended up coming out of my fingers.  

The photo of the robins doesn't even begin to capture the event.  There were literally hundreds of them in my back pasture.  The ground was damp from a fresh rain (Thank You, God), and the birds were having a grand time scratching for bugs.    

I love Spring - the sun is warm, the breeze is cool, hope is alive, and anything is possible.  

Thanks for stopping by, and if you get some time this month, you should try your hand at the Paper Mixing Bowl Challenge for this month.  Grab the link over on the right side of my blog and it'll take you right there!  

Paper Mixing Bowl - Red Velvet Cake

It's reveal day at the Paper Mixing Bowl.   

Wow, what a great sketch and recipe card this month!  It's a Red Velvet Cake with oodles of gooey frosting, spills, and stains.  I had a great time playing with the sketch.  I knew as soon as I saw it exactly how I wanted my project to turn out.  I'm so excited to show you my February "Valentine," even though the photographs are from last Christmas.  
  




Here's the recipe card.

Utensils I used : 
*Layers - I think there are twelve layers in this project, counting the layer of paint from the Martha Stewart doily silk screen and the title font letters.  
*Frosting - I used a gloss gel medium to get enough sticky for those glass beads to want to stay on my page.  I kind of globbed and smeared it like frosting along the top to look like drips.
*Pairs - Two pairs of photos:one pair looks left, one pair looks right.  Two pairs of small roses in each cluster.  One pair of white tulle in each flower cluster.  A pair of spilled beads, one spill on the top, one on the bottom.  A pair of doilies.  A pair of glitter heart brads. 
*Postage Items - I used a Post Card stamp.  It's stamped in brown and embossed in clear.  
*Spills - I misted my photo mat paper really heavily and then stood it on end so that it would run down the paper and look like a spill.  I spilled mist onto my craft mat and used it to wet my paper so that I could crinkle it up and then dry it out flat to create all those beautiful creases.  I spilled the glass beads all into the gloss gel.  And I tried hard to create a look of spilled frosting along the top margin of the paper.  
*Hearts and Flowers - Large and small roses, metal and glitter heart brads.  
*Multi-Photo - My muse is my beautiful older daughter, being herself, last Christmas.  

I went with the journaling prompts of "love letter" and "poem."  The mat and post card papers are word prints.  And the poem -- well, it's kind of a subjective interpretation, but I kept hearing the theme song from Lady In Red with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts...It inspired my title and that swinging red dress charm.  

Paper Mixing Bowl Debut!

I've been sitting on this layout for a month now, and I'm so excited that I can finally show it to you.  It's my first design team project for the Paper Mixing Bowl - an online challenge forum which is open to anyone.  It's so creative and fun!  Each month Sarah and the DT put together a recipe card of technique, color, and sketch specifics, and then you get to put a layout together.  Submit it and you could earn a spot as a GUEST DESIGNER for the site.

Here's this month's recipe card.

And here's my DT project.

And a few detail photos as well.  I'm not instinctive about these close up shots yet, but if you'll bear with me, I'm sure I'll get better.  

I'll be more than happy to tell you what I did and how I did it if you'll just leave me a note in the comments section.  Thanks so much for stopping by my little blog.  Check out the other DT projects and then get your play on and join us!  I promise, you'll have more fun than you can possibly imagine!

The Paper Mixing Bowl!

Wheeee!  I'm so VERY excited!  I've been selected to join the design team over at the Paper Mixing Bowl.  I've stalked this site for the past year - the challenges are so creative and fun, and the ladies who share their creations are so very talented.

It was with a little hesitation that I threw my hat into the ring, but I found out just today that I made the grade and will be sharing my own little creations with the world from this fun little challenge blog.

Check it out.  It's delicious fun!  Use the button link on the right - it'll take you right there!