hoppity hop hop

Welcome to the last leg of the Paper Issues Altered Items Blog Hop! You should be joining me now from Christina's blog. If you came here through another venue or just stopped by my blog because you like me (::wink::), perhaps you'd like to join in on the fun of the blog hop! If so, please begin on the Paper Issues blog: HERE.  There are a lot of prized to be had along the way!

Over the past week and a half I have been working on this beautiful shadowbox using Graphic 45's Hallowe'en in Wonderland paper collection and a whole lot of Tim Holtz yumminess.

Could Alice be any cuter than she is here with her witch hat and broom?  She is standing among the Queen of Heart's roses before they got painted red.

The Cheshire Cat glows!  I love that about him! 

This shadowbox will be offered up in my shoppe for sale soon, so stay tuned! 

In the meantime, you can shop at the Paper Issues Etsy shop. Cassie is offering a coupon for 25% off your entire purchase through Sunday, so swing by.  Just enter the code HOP25 at checkout to get your discount. 

Now I know I mentioned prizes earlier, so let's get to it!

Shown above is the prize I am offering.  Included is:

• Echo Park's The Apothecary Emporium 8 x 8 paper pad
• My Mind's Eye Lime Twist twine - 20 yards
• Studio Calico stamp
• Pink Paisley Mistables
• Two packs of Owl Carnival Tickets (from my shoppe)
• Three extra large shipping tags (coming soon - from my shoppe)
• Three small shipping tags (coming soon - from my shoppe)
• Two Corky Cloud Die Cuts (coming soon - from my shoppe)

Several of these items are coming soon to my shoppe, so the winner will get these exclusive not-yet released notions from Whimsies Cottage!


There are multiple ways you can be entered to win this prize.  And you will get ONE entry for each one of these that you do:

• Follow my blog and leave me a comment here letting me know
• "Like" my Facebook page and leave me a comment here letting me know
• Add my Etsy shoppe to your favorites on Etsy and leave me comment here letting me know
• Tell a friend to do any of these and get an entry for each referral -- let me know your friends name and if they do any of the above, you will get one entry for each of your friend's entries

Now for another surprise!  I am also offering a coupon code for my Etsy shoppe!  You can get 25% off your entire purchase now through Sunday just by entering the coupon code FALLHOP at checkout.  How great is that?

So there you have it!  Thanks again for hopping along with us at Paper Issues!  Wasn't it fun?

See you next time!

.

tantrum

As mentioned in a previous post, I finally finished a layout! It's been a long while since I've actually done some layout work, so it felt really nice to complete one.

These photos have been printed up for nearly a year waiting to be used. And they were actually taken four years ago in 2007. Yikes!

It felt a little strange doing a layout again (even though I love doing them) and so this layout didn't come together all that smoothly. Even still, it feels as though it's missing something.

This was the first time I used acrylic paint on a layout (besides using it on an embellishment). I used Ranger's Adirondack Paint Dabber in Pitch Black to "ink" all the edges of my papers and some of the embellishments. Having acrylic paint in a dabber makes it so easy to apply paint... I guess that's the point! ::laugh:: I really don't think I would have used paint in this manner if I didn't have it readily available in a dabber.

The following embellishment was created by layering different elements together. I started with some Tim Holtz tissue tape (I changed the color with Distress Ink), added a starbust punched shape, followed by a Tim Holtz gear, a punched star, a Tim Holtz game spinner, and finally a brad to hold it all together. Then I trimmed the tape with some pinking sheers.

This was the first time I tried splattering paint on any of my projects. Maybe a layout wasn't the best place to do this for the very first time? It was a lot harder than I had anticipated. Perhaps because I wanted the splatter in specific places... not sure.

The splattering didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, but I'm OK with that.

I'm definitely loving those American Crafts Thickers and I think my supply of those needs to grow significantly. ::laugh::

Something that I learned through the process of creating this layout, having it be so difficult for it to come together, and me not being entirely happy with it is this: I love this process and it's really OK if it doesn't turn out the way I had planned. Hopefully this message will stick with me.

The patterned papers I used in this layout came from several collection of Sassafras and Bo Bunny's Block Party collection. The cardstock is Bazzill.

splash!

Well, that was a super fantastic weekend and truly awesome class with Tim Holtz! I'm still recovering. I will be able to tell you more about it later this week.

For now I'd like to share a layout that I did last year. I'm linking it up over at Paper Issues and want to share it with my fabulous readers!

BoBunny's Sunkissed collection was used in this layout and it was produced for a challenge over at ScrapFit while I was a part of their design team. I was a little out of my comfort zone for this, but I pushed myself and came up with this:

The photo of my little guy was taken on a camping trip when he was about 2 years old. Oh how I miss those days...

more life is sweet

I'm linking up another project over at Paper Issues for their Life is Sweet party.

For this project I painted an unfinished wooden plaque light blue and then added chocolate brown stripes.

Banners are a favorite of mine right now, so this project simply could not be complete without a few of those. Buttons are another obsession -- these are antique buttons that I scored at a great little shop on Main St.

Crafty Secrets has some wonderful vintage images. The little girl and cupcake are cut from one of their Heartwarming Vintage sheets. I made the crown out of some old Sassafras papers, a Prima flower, and puffy little circle sticker. The whole thing was spritzed with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and protected with Mod Podge. I finished off the project with some seam binding that I dyed to match the rest of the creation.

There are more than 100 projects linked up at this party so far! You should join in on the fun!

Here are a few more of my favorites:

A juicy round watermelon card over at The Polka Cabana

A fantastic rainbow card by Mandy

Some sweet tags by Carol over at The Answer is Chocolate

This fabulous card by Diana



This adorable card by Peggy

These are just a few of my favorites. Hop on over to Paper Issues to see more fabulous-ness!

life is sweet ... yes it is

The theme over at Paper Issues now through July 30th is Life is Sweet. I am so excited over this theme. I love scrappy things that are sweet-themed: ice cream, cupcakes, fruit, popsicles, the list goes on.

Here is my sweet layout, Lunch is Served (a layout of my little guy eating strawberries):

Fantastic projects have been linked up so far! Here a just a few of my favorites:

Melissa's Happy Shabby 4th Album



Lowri's Springtime Cupcake Flowers



Chris' Cherry Garcia layout



Cathy D's Birthday Card

Joanna's Ice Cream Card and Gift Bag

Don't forget to link up your project before the 30th.

Remember, your project doesn't have to be new to be linked up at our party. You can link up to older projects as well.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll see you next time!

Linked up here: