Back at it!

Hi friends and followers. I cant believe it's been so long since I've updated here. Right at 6 months! What can I say? Life has been pretty hectic. Since July I have changed positions with the company I'm currently working for 3 times, and I've changed locations 3 times as well. It seems now though that things are finally starting to settle back down and that couldnt happen soon enough for me. I've been really working my butt off lately. 

Along with work craziness comes stress and I've been dying to get back into the studio. I finally got the chance last week and completed an arf journal page I've been wanting to do for a while, inspired by the Sundays with Sandee series over at the Frosted Designs blog. Here is the inspiration page created by Sandee Setliff:

Here are a few photos of what I created. I did a 2 pager and added a vase to my table. I used patterned paper for the table top that reminded me of tile. For the flowers I used brown coffee filters. 

This is the whole page:







I hope to have much more to share with you soon. I'm officially #backatit in the studio creating. It feels so great to get some fun time in. I have lots of things planned for the summer so stay tuned! Here are some sneaks of my ideas:

Dollar Store revamped wedding cards for all those weddings you're attending!
Mermaid drift wood beachouse sign
Tim's Tags of 2015, I've got to catch up!
More art journaling
Bottlecap windchime
Scrappy pages
Father's day shadow box
Mixed media canvases

That is about all for now! Thanks for reading!
Until next time- VV

Ladies Own the Night*******

Hello everyone!! I hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend & are looking forward to summer! I know I am!!! I'm here today to share a fun layout I did using lots of goodies you can find in the Frosted Designs store! If you know me at all, you know I like to mix and match collections, and that is what I did today!! I used pieces from Basic Grey, Carte Bella, and Bo Bunny to come up with this  layout! Here are some pictures:

  

 Here are a few close ups:

 I used the creme brûlée dauber from my Lindy's stamp gang try me set to pearlize my background for the 'night sky' . 

For the title & other elements on my page I used stickers from the Bo Bunny Zip-a- Dee-doodle combo sticker sheet. I also anchored some of the elements to my page with some Trendy Tape in black chevron & the steampunk gold one. I love how they look together!

I colored the Um Wow layered clouds with a combo of Faber Castel gelato in gold & some more creme brûlée. The tiny stars are wood veneer by Studio Calico, also colored with gelato & a wet brush. I love how it turned out against the pink! 

I hope you have enjoyed this whimsical layout. Here is the list of products I used that can be found in the Frosted Designs store. Happy shopping!!!

Product Used:

( background paper) Wildflower collection by Carte Bella

Bo Bunny Zip a Dee Doodle combo sticker sheet

Studio Calico tiny stars wood veneer

Um Wow layered clouds

Faber Castel gelatos gold & silver

Lindy's stamp gang Creme Brûlée 

Prima everyday vintage sugardots

Trendy tape- black chevron

Trendy tape- steampunk gold

Thataway travel stickers 

All about Mountains!

Hi friends! I hope you've had a good start to your week. I have been off for the last 2 days and have been super busy...cleaning house, getting ready for showings, going to check on our new place that we get to move into in less than 2 weeks! I did get a little time to myself too, yesterday I went for my first solo hike since we've been in Oregon, just a short easy one in Mt Tabor park, but it was very refreshing and renewing, felt good to get some sunshine on my face! It has been super wet here latley. I also got a little free time today to start my next art journaling page. I was once again inspired by Sundays with Sandee over on the FD blog, if you haven't had the chance yet to watch her videos, you have to check them out! As soon as I saw  her pipette painting tutorial I knew I had to try it. I ordered a few more supplies from the Frosted Designs store, and in less than a week I was on my way! I also challenged my Aunt Vicki, who is my lifelong creative inspiration (very much like my mom!) to try it out. We are supposed to share our creations next week when we do our monthly facetime chat. I couldnt wait till then to share cause I was so proud of how it turned out, so here it is:

Also it doesn't hurt that this is probably my favorite Dr. Seuss quote of all time....

"Today is YOUR Day, Your Mountain is waiting, so GET on Your WAY!"

I used basically the same technique as Sandee did for my rough lines. I didn't remember to gesso the paper first or anything though so intial ink colors spread a little more than I hoped. At first I didn't think I would like it, it took a long time to try and I think I used too much water, but after I went back over the lines several times with a fine tip marker it grew on me. I also gesso'd the back of the pages cause they were worn so thin from me painting and smearing..that also took a while to dry and i tried my heat gun...needless to say I'm not a super patient person! LOL! I had to cover over a few places on the back too with tissue tape just to make sure the front wouldn't tear through....not really sure what I will end up doing with those pages, but I will know next time to gesso first!!

This is what the back of the page looks like, the inks bled through even after I gesso'd. It kind of made a need look but for functuatlity purposes I had to add the tissue tape.

It was good to experiment and try a new technique. It really gets your mind going. I have a few more projects to finish before I can start packing up my scrapping stuff. So excited for a bigger place where I will actually have an entire room to myself again instead of a dedicated corner of the laundry room. Plus I will have a large window above my desk!!! I am soooo excited for that, I just hate packing. The only good thing is that we hardly have any stuff compared to what we had in Alabama, we did a major purge before our 3000 mile trek so it should be easier this time. We get the keys on March 14th. Guess I better get going since I'm under a deadline.... see you next time! Thanks so much for stopping by todayI love all your comments!!!

Here are just a few pics I took on instagram during my hike, it was absolutley gorgeous yesterday and I am glad I got to enjoy it for a few hours outside!!! These are all from the base heading up to the 'summit' of Mt Tabor which is just a few miles from my house. It probaby took me about 1.5 hours to get to the top and back down on the easy trail which has partial stairs. It was alot of fun and I can't wait to go again on my next day off if i am not up to my ears in packing!!!

Happy Tuesday Y'all!

Punctuation Challenge at Frosted Designs

Hi there friends and followers! Its Friday again and you know what that means- its a new Fabulous Friday Challenge over at Frosted Designs! This week we are challenging you to use any type of punctuation mark on your card or layout these include: *&%^$()#@~!<> except periods, those are too easy- they are circles! The sponsor this time is Deep Red Stamps which is a great company with some great products, I already own the heart swirls stamp and the steampunk sparrow which are both made in the USA!!!

So here are a few pictures of my layout, I started with some of the fun, funky & vibrant papers from the Bella Blvd 'Snapshots' Collection. I then played with mists, inking and distressing as always, and more fun coloring my wood veneers with gelatos. I am loving this technique lately, I am thinking I may need to do a mini tutorial here on the blog soon about all the ways I have discovered how to color my wood veneers!!! The possibilities are endless...hmm that's an idea.Ok, on to the good stuff:

I entitled my layout #carmietales because everytime I take a photo of our sweet kitty who has TONS of personality I hashtag it with that on my instagram. It makes it easyto go back later and get all the pics together plus I could tell a friend or family member to search #carmietales on instagram and all my pics would pull right up! Gotta love technology!!!

That is all for today, short and sweet for ya. I would love to go around and give everyone some comment love, I will be off again Monday & Tuesday but I have alot to do, which includes starting to pack for our move on the 15th as well errands...but I am hoping to squeeze in studio time. I am dying to start my next art journal page now that my goodies from the FD store arrived:

Ok friends, have a great weekend and don't forget to link up your puncuation project to the FD blog by next Friday!!! Have fun & get scrapping!!!

'Captured'

Hi blogland! I am here today to share a fun layout I did using the Carte Bella Wildflower Collection from the Frosted Designs store as well as some other fun embellishments! I am loving the new influences of metallic gold that everyone has been going mad over lately in scrapbooking, and for this layout I really wanted that to be a main color. This collection is perfect for mixing fun patterns and some pretty golds, corals, teals, whites, and natural tones.

This is what I have created :

And a few closeups:

I had some fun coloring the wood veneer cameras using something I wouldn't normally use, gelatos! In the past I have used distress markers, ink sprays and mists on them. This time I used 2 colors of gelatos from the 50's diner pack, then misted a little water over them to let the colors blend slightly. After that I dried them with my heat gun and I love how they turned out!!! It was the perfect pop of color for my page.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, you can get your hands on some really good deals right now in the Frosted Designs store, including the Wildflower Collection pack which is on sale right now! I always love to hear feedback & what everyone else is working on...share with us on the Frosted Designs facebook page!

Items from the Frosted Designs store:
Carte Bella Wildflower Collection pack
Um Wow Chevron Confetti
Studio Calico wood veneer cameras
Faber Castel Gelatos 50's Diner pack
Mini Misters
Gelly roll pens
MME Cut & paste - large chevron paper teal & white

Be as a Bird...

Hi friends! Happy Hump-day! I hope you are enjoying your week so far. I just had 2 days off so I was able to get in a little bit of crafty time. I had hoped we would also get to visit the park again one afternoon but it's been really windy here and rainstorms coming thru. Better comparativley to the snow we had about a week ago, but still yucky out. I did enjoy some time in my studio, the more time I spend back there I realize even though its small it's a place that makes me so totally and completly happy, surrounded by all my fun stuff, usually a cup of hot tea or iced coffee depending on the time of day, my pandora blasting away and plenty of inspiration from friends and fellow DT members. Today I wanted to share my 2nd ever art journal page that I did last night. I haven't tackled all of them and the million ideas that I have yet, but I am going to make it a goal to do one layout + one art journal page per week for the rest of the year. I think I can do it. I think it's nice too to go between the two, art journaling loosens up your mind and helps your creativity flow better, which in turn helps you scrap a page faster when you have good ideas!!! So the one I worked on last night was inspired by Sandee's " Out On A Limb" post on the FD blog a while back, like I said I am still catching up, hopping around here and there, I don't have as much free time as some, but this page probably only took me like 2.5 hours. That's about how long it takes me to do a layout too, I'm not sure if that makes me a slow scrapper!

Here is the inspiration photo:

And if you want to read more about how Sandee created her page, you can visit the FD archives here: sundays-with-sandee-is-out-on-limb. She has a great video & pictures.

Here is my page:

I did use the understamping for my page like she did, however I stamped directly on to my art journal then used some tissue paper that I misted with inks & water then dried. I found a great quote that I did on the side after drawing straight lines, then I started coloring in behind it with gelatos. I wanted some texture so I later added the chipboard flowers and washi tape.

The birds in the tree actually came from some old Basic Grey paper, I fussy cut them then decoupaged it onto my page. I went back over it with various pens and markers then stamped my other musical notes and did some doodles around those. I went back in with 3 different colors of stickles: christmas red, fruit punch, and tiara.

I dont know why but I felt like I needed something else at the top of my page, so I stamped this decorative frame and stuck a puffy sticker inside it. It's kind of random but I feel like it gives visual balance to the page, so much for WHITE SPACE, ha!

Thank you so much for stopping by today. i hope to have at least one more layout and art journal page to share this time with you next week! Maybe even some stuff for challenges coming up....who knows. The crafty bug has bit again and I am so glad!! It makes me happy to share and get feedback! I would love it if you followed my fb page here. Also on instagram @khhollister. Peace Yall! ~VV

Tuesday Night Music Club & The Monday Blues

Hi friends! The page I am sharing today was inspired by the mood  board challenge we have going on right now over at Frosted Designs. The challenge was to use the colors, photos or overall theme from our mood board to inspire your project! Here's a a peak at the board, entitled " winter blues"

I was mostly inspired by the overall color scheme of the board, the dark blues, the greenish blues, the teal-greenish blues in the blue bird and leaves, the brown from the branches, the warm pinkish hue from the latern, and the white for my background from the snow. I also really don't have alot of 'snow' pictures yet since we really haven't gotten any this year and I took the idea of the coffee cup and was inspired to use a pic of another type of drink. You could pretty much say I loosely intrpreted the mood board but it immediatley made me think of these very funny pictures that bring back alot of memories for me from August 2013. Here is a little sneak of me in mid-process... cup of cammomile tea on my desk! I took this one on instagram last night, I would love it if you'd follow me @khhollister

So here is a pic of how the overall layout turned out. I didnt originally intend to be so 'messy' last night but I was feeling inspired and had fun with some inks, mists, gelatos, and masks. I also didnt want to cover up my 'white' background too much so I ended up cutting up the other paper I wanted to use into hexagons and distressing all the edges.

I also covered the Um wow chipboards with dylusions spray in white linen. After I had them in place I doodled my rain drops. I added a few random embellies from my stash and to finish off my clusters some mini pearls and Prima Everyday Vintage Sugar Dots.

This lovely little lady was made with modge- podgeable shapes and some G45 paper. Ive had her in my stash for a while along with about 40 other shapes I decorated to sell at a convention I was working 2 years ago. I thought she was just perfect for this page & fit my blueish-green color scheme.

Well everyone, that is it for today! I hope you have enjoyed my messy page. It was alot of fun to make, sometimes going into something without a plan is actually better. I can't wait to get back in the studio and start a new art journal page as well as some other projects. I hope to have another share for you soon, maybe some birthday cards!!! Enjoy your day & don't forget you have plenty of time to join in our 'winter blues' challenge over at frosted designs. Link up your layout, project or card for a chance to be in our Top 3 or win a fabulous prize from our sponsor, which is a gift card to the fabulous frosted designs store!!!. Until next time, peace y'all~ VV

Products Used from the Frosted Designs Store: Fab Scraps 'shabby chairs' striped background paper, Bella Blvd Snapshots- dark blue cloud paper, Um Wow Chipboard layered clouds, Dylusions ink spray- white linen & calypso teal, Faber Castel Gelatos- teal & white, Faber Castel Gesso, Heidi Swapp Honeycomb stencil, Mini misters, Prima Everyday Vintage Sugar Dots, stickers from Carte Bella Wildflower collection pack.

Other: Tim Holtz distress ink in broken china, Crate paper- blue scalloped paper, mod podgeable shapes, mini crochet doilies Michael's, mini pearls Michaels 2 styles of Thickers by American Crafts, Tim Holtz distress stickles faded jeans.