Great article about Hobby Lobby

Yes, I know they're technically "competition" but I thought some of you scrappers out there might like the read.

http://www.chron.com/business/sixel/article/Sixel-Retailer-boosts-its-own-minimum-wage-3493182.php

Ok, I should back in action some time next week. It's been crazy at home and being a one-man-band is not fun.

Freda

Real Live strikes again!

Yeah, I know it's been a while. I will be back soon with the rest of the smash book pages. And photos of what's been going on in real life. You'll like! I promise :-)

Freda


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Smash Book part 19

This first one may look familiar and that's because there is a similar page, but not with the dictionary paper. I definitely like it much better with dictionary pages. Inked with distress stains, heat dry, and gesso. Sprayed a yellow tinted glimmer mist (very lightly):

More dictionary pages with my tropical colors: pink, yellow, orange and lime (all distress ink colors). I also did it the "old fashioned" way: ink my craft mat and spritz with my mini-mister. Finally, inked the edge of my page for a cool distress look. Your project isn't complete unless you have an inked edge:

Just a page with a bunch of flowers and inked edge. However, stay tuned for another flower surprise (tomorrow) inspired by a man's shirt (of all things!):

First I sprayed the center with brown tinted glimmer mist, then an orange, red, green. Next I took a can of vienna sausage and pressed into my ink pad and then pressed all over my page:

Come back tomorrow for some  more fun! :-)

Freda

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Smash Book part 18

With this first page I attempted some clear UTEE with stamping. The base is acrylic paint. Sorry about the glare but it took me so many attempts with the camera to get a shot that wasn't completely blinded by the flash and it would not come out without a flash. Sigh!:

You might recall a couple of days ago that a table top at my favorite Mexican Restaurant inspired a similar page. Well, Steak n' Shake inspired this one:

With this page I colored with distress stains, crumpled up the paper, unfolded, then rubbed distress ink over the raised parts, spritz with my mini-mister, and iron to flatten and dry:

With this final page for today, I rubbed distress stain on my craft mat, took my paper and did a sloppy accordian fold, and let the paper soak up the ink. Next, I used a craft iron to flatten and dry, sprayed with a brown colored glimmer mist color, heat gun dry:

We're getting there! Just a few more days of photos and techniques!

:-)

Freda

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Smash Book part 17

I'm loving this first page! Acrylic paint with gold embossing powder:

I took an embossing folder and rubbed black soot distress ink using my ink applicator. Then spray gently with a red hue of glimmer mist:

With this one, I went for the plaid look with my distress stains: 

Distress Stains, crackled paint, and distress ink:

Come back tomorrow for more! :-)

Freda

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Smash Book part 16

Are you ready for some more? This one I used my choice of Distress stains and sprayed a little with Glimmer Mist while the Distress Stains was still wet so it would all blend in a little. Then I tore strips of paper and laid one over the other to use as a mask. Next, spray with a darker color in Glimmer Mist. Dry. Stamp (with the paper still on as a mask) with a script stamp of your choice. Finally, give it a good coat of Glim Glam:

I have these Fleur de Lis stamps in my collection so I decided to do something French. The colors are from Distress Stains and acrylic paint. Unfortunately the White Picket Fence Distress Stains did not coat the paper well enough for the look I wanted. So I used acrylic paint instead for the white:

Ah! This one, believe or not, was inspired by a table top at a local Mexican Restaurant. Done entirely with acrylic paint and stamps. Basically the process was paint, dry, stamp, dry, stamp. This photo looks better in close up and even better in person:

I also have a ton of flower stamps. Distress Stains was my background:

Tomorrow I have a couple of surprises for you!

Freda

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Smash Book part 15

Today I played around with my embossing powder a little bit. The photos don't really do the pages any justice;  you really need to see them in person and feel. The first one is with acrylic pain, inked stamp, and using a stencil on the edge with embossing powder:

Remember the bubble wrap? This time I used it with embossing glue and sprinkled with black embossing powder: 

Glimmer Mist and gesso. This was meant to be the "negative" version of a page from yesterday, but it did not come out as well as I hoped. I'm going to try something similar soon, but with dictionary paper. So don't think you're seeing double :-):

Hmm...this one did not come out as well as hoped either. Sigh! :-(: 

Ok, since I had two bummers in a row, I decided to include a bonus page. This one is Distress Stains, my Tim Holtz Stamper's Anonymous stamps, and Distress Ink. I kept the stamps on the card in their original position since the card is almost the same size as the paper I was working with. Remember, Distress Ink is reactive. So I decided to make this page interesting by using my mini-misters to spray water on it. See how the ink bleeds through the paper? It also created some water spots where the Distress Stains are. Dried with heat gun (carefully! The other side has embossing powder, lol) and inked around edges with some more Black Soot (Distress Ink): 

Come back tomorrow for more! They just keep getting better :-).

Freda

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Smash Book part 14

Ooh! do I have some goodies for you today! The first page in today's series I took some more dictionary pages  I used one of my favorite stamps inked with emboss glue. I used white embossing powder, and heat gun: This created my resist. Then I sprayed with Glimmer Mist:

Glimmer Mist and Gesso:

Glimmer Mist and Gesso:

Acrylic Paint, favorite script stamp and inked edges with Distress Ink: 

And you get a bonus page today because I messed up with picture taking. This page belongs between 1 and 2 in today's series. On the page below, I used several Distress Stains to create a plaid look:

Come back tomorrow for more! Thanks for looking!

Freda

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Smash Book part 13

I love these pages! :-) This one I started with Glimmer Mist, then took a piece of lace fabric, and rubbed Distress Ink in there:

Comic page of the newspaper, with Distress Stains to age the paper itself, then inked the edges with Distress Ink:

Distress Stains, then stamped with Distress Ink and used my mini mister to spray water. Remember, Distress Ink is reactive; so the ink bled into the paper. Then I inked the edges with the same color in Distress Ink:

Distress Stains with a glue (Mod Podge) resist: I also stained the newspaper clippings with a very light yellow color of Glimmer Mist:

Come back tomorrow for more! Even better looking pages!

Freda

Smash Book part 12

And we're back!

Sorry folks, but sometimes real life takes over. But I promise, it was worth the wait! Below are the next 4 pages in this series. The first photo is basically ripped and distressed paper:

Masking tape and Distress Ink:

Distress stains, Glimmer Mist, and Distress Ink: 

Distress Stains, a stencil, and Distress Ink:

Please check back tomorrow for some more! Thanks for looking!

Freda

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Another sorry!

Sorry all! but life has been happening here at home so I probably won't have anything for you until some time this weekend.

Today I had to deal with Animal Control. See, last summer our house had a rat problem. Yuck. But if you live in Houston, you have rats. Even in the city proper. They come in from out of the heat. Last summer was pretty bad because of the drought. They even chewed our A/C line which shorted out something and took out the A/C to upstairs where my scrappin' magic happens.

It was so bad that our next door neighbors were also having a problem. Ah! such as life living on the Golf Course; yeah, we look out into the backyard and there's the Golf Course. You see every type of rodent trying to get into the yard. Skunks and possums dig under the fence; racoons climb over the fence and trees.There are some mornings I wake, get the paper, and can tell there was a skunk in our car port during the night. Or, from what I learned when Animal Control came out here to trap a family of possums living under our deck, skunks dig these tiny holes in the mulch looking for these teeny tiny worms to feed on. That, and they love citrus and other fruit. Great. We have a lime tree and a pear tree in the yard. And we can forget having a foot garden in the backyard. Guess I'll get some space at the co-op place at the local Interfaith church.

 Anyway, the dog will occasionally go out to investigate when she smells rodent. And yes, the dog has been sprayed a few times by a skunk. She even had to spend the night outside one time because she really got up close and personal with one and we weren't about to give her a tomato juice bath at 11PM. By the way, tomato juice doesn't work, at least not on dogs (don't know about humans); we will only use it to help take the edge off so we can tolerate the smell long enough to get the dog to the groomer.

She also had a close encounter with a raccoon which really scared me. I didn't want the raccoon to rip up the dog; they have sharp claws. But I think the dog scared the raccoon because that thing hightailed it to the nearest tree and jumped into the neighbors yard...who also have a dog.

Then there are the squirrels. The dog LOVES squirrels. I even found a squirrel toy for her at Wal-mart. She loves to chase after it when I throw it down the foyer hallway. She picks it up, walks briskly away with it, chews on it, whips it back and forth with it in her mouth...I wonder what she would do if she ever caught a real one? There are times I think the squirrels are playing with the dog in the backyard as they jump tree to tree and the dog tries to run and jump up at one.

So we trimmed our trees and made sure nothing was within 4 feet of the house, called Animal Control, and got rid of the rats. Everything was fine throughout winter. In summer of 2010 we had bees (FYI) in the attic - a lot of them! Now it's Spring. No, the rats aren't back; but we very badly wanted to rodent proof our house before they could have a chance to come back. Apparently, that is a reality because March is the time of year that rodents are having their babies so they're looking for a place to nest.

I feel better now knowing the house is rodent proof. It's a 3 year warranty. So if we get a rodent up in the attic (can't control the yard), Animal Control will come out and take care of the problem, meaning they will trap the rodent, fine its point of entry, and seal that up. It was expensive, but I have some peace of mind.

Actually, I take that back about controlling the backyard. It's not 100% fool proof because some rodents can climb a tree, but we can control the diggers. Buy a bag of lime and some sand at Home Depot. You make a mixture of the two, dig a small trench along your fence and pour. Now take a watering can and use that to water the mixture. Wait for it to dry. It will be like cement. That is what we did for the deck. We covered it up with dirt afterwards.

But along the fence we have landscape timbers. So before it gets really hot outside we need to do the same along the fence and put the landscape timbers back in place after the lime-sand mixture dries. The digging rodents don't like the feel and if you do it well enough, they will get discourage and leave. It's mainly skunks who dig. Possums are lazy and won't make much effort; they're more like opportunists and will climb through a hole if it's already there. So if we get rid of the skunks we can get rid of the possums.

Freda

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Smash Book part 11

Oh do I have a discovery to share with you! While heat drying my Gesso on the first page, it started to bubble up. I *LOVED* the result and the texture! just get the heat tool up there close without touching and it will bubble for you. It might even pull up on the paper and start to force the paper to crinkle up. That's ok! If it's too sticky after it's dry then spray with a matte finish.

I sprayed with a brown and a red in Glimmer Mist and then went over my page with Gesso before the GM could dry. Then I took the heat tool to my page:

I thought since the other page worked out so well I would try something similar but with Distress Stains. I covered my paper with Distress Stains (Walnut) in sections and went over each section with Gesso before the Distress Stains could dry. Then I did the next section and repeated what I previously did. While the Gesso was still wet I managed to get a few pieces of scrap ribbon in place; however, I ended up gluing the rest of the scrap pieces: 

This one I tried an old Tim Holtz trick. First I covered my paper with Distress Stains, then I took some red tape and put "stripes" on my paper. Sprinkle some embossing powder, heat, and voila!:

Ok, by this time I had to go tame because I was afraid between the Gesso and embossing powder, if I did anymore heating before my matte finish spray arrives that my previous 3 or 4 pages would start sticking together! so I took 3 bright Glimmer Mist colors and sprayed! Then I went around the edges with a brown:

While doing the above page I realized there was some dried Gesso on the paper which reminded me of something. Come back tomorrow to see what it reminded me of...

Freda

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Smash Book part 10

Sorry about not having anything for you yesterday. I thought I had it set up but I was wrong. Below are the next 4 pages. The first one is Glimmer Mist, Glim Glam, Gesso and Acrylic Paint:

This one did not turn out as well as I hoped. I think it may be one of those things where it looks better on card stock. I took a piece of lace, sprayed over it with Glimmer Mist, removed the lace, placed a paper towel over the paper, and used my brayer to soak up the excess. Then I carefully sprayed around the edges with Chocolate Covered Cherries Glimmer Mist but during the process I decided I liked the splattered look:

This is fire brick Distress Stains with Chocolate Covered Cherries Glimmer Mist: 

On this one I used Gesso and acrylic paint blended together and sprayed around the edges (and lightly in the center) with Chocolate Covered Cherries Glimmer Mist. It's rather sticky, even after drying so I'm waiting for some fixatif and matte spray to come in and hope that will solve the problem:

That's it for today. I have a wonder selection and discovery for you tomorrow!

Freda

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Smash Book part 9

Welcome to part 9! This began with a composition notebook I thought it would be festive to use a composition notebook cover stamp. The background is  Distress Stains:

Co'ordinations paper and cardstock: 

This is so far my most favorite! I used acrylic paint on the background, then adhered black tulle to the paper. While waiting for the glue to dry, and getting practically nowhere with the heat tool, I decided to add another element: embossing powder! Plus, the heat tool melted the tulle a little in some spots. Doesn't it look awesome?:
 

Smash Book part 8

Ooh! you're going to love, love, LOVE this! Below is a page from an unwanted legal magazine that was heading to the recycling bin. Fortunately I found a few phrases that seemed sentimental:

Remember the page with acrylic paint, bubble wrap and distress ink? This one is completely acrylic paint:

 Here is the bubble wrap itself. I can wash it off and reuse it for another mixed media project:

Acrylic paint and grosgrain ribbon. Yes, I ran out of ribbon (it was re-purposed from a packaging) and yes, I purposely left the end sticking out for a tab and page marker: 

This one is a favorite. Distress Stains and embossing powder. I used my stencil and pressed it in the adhesive. Then sprinkled embossing powder over it and brushed off. It looks like gold foil:

Come back tomorrow for more!

Freda

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