School Picture Dilemma

We have a relatively small family and there were usually lots of leftover photographs especially the wallet size photographs. The quandary is always what to do with the leftover photographs. Three down! : D.

 Another dilemma was the alphabet sticker. I really wanted to use this retired (?) Pink Paislee Old School Glitter set, only I was missing a lower case m and an o. So I used an upper case m, and the inner circle from two o's (with extra sticking power from Tim Holtz' Collage Medium).

  Originally I had used this stamped die cut from Papertrey Ink's Be Mine, Valentine. But I felt it was out of scale.

 So I restamped it on some Shrinky Dink and shrunk it down : D.

It also serves as the slide indicator for the pull out journaling. (I LOVE pocket journaling).

One of the most ingrained lessons of my childhood is that photographs must be handled carefully, held at the edges. So I challenge myself to alter photographs. If I have many, I'll alter an original, otherwise I alter copies. In this case I used a poker to scratch a halo and "smile" and then added a rub-on from a Three Birds kit purchased in 2010ish.

Supplies:
My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy papers
Pink Paislee Old School Glitter Sticker Alphabet
Tim Holtz Tape Postal (grid and ruler tape)
Tape Works - polka dot
Rub Ons from a very old kit by Three Birds
Shrinky Dink 
Papertrey Ink stamp and die: Be Mine, Valentine
Wendy Vecchi Inks: Orange Blossom, Coffee, and Rose Mader

Plaid will always be my favorite color.

I'm taking a Book Art class on creatvebug. I had so much fun working on this. Plus stitching on paper and photographs is one of my favorite things. I used printer paper colored with Distress Paint (Squeezed Lemonade, Tumbled Glass and Antiqued Bronze).

Then I wrote the text with a marker, and poked holes along the letters for the stitches. The paint might have kept tearing at bay. It doesn't show in the photograph, but I used a lovely variegated embroidery thread from DMC.

 I attached the photo with a little ATG in the middle and then stitched around the outer edge with some handspun merino tencel 2-ply embroidery thread.

The grass and bow are colored with Distress Markers. The dress and teddy bear were painted with Distress Oxide, but it really only whited them out because I used a water brush to apply them. The dress was colored again with Distress Markers and a little Squeezed Lemonade Distress Paint. I poked holes around the teddy bear and stiched over it with some two tone handspun embroidery thread.

WOYWW 96

Things have been galloping out of the drawer on back to my craft table lol. But there isn't much I can show you here. I haven't used a single stamp all week though, and I'm starting to go through withdrawals lol. There will be a post another post today from my Guest Designer spot at TheBugBytes about making shadows with the Gypsy and a quick way to make eyes for embellishments. I'm not sure why the turntable looks so askew in the picture though lol.

I've also been working like mad on submissions for a design team. The problem is winnowing it down to three projects. For these projects I've been digging through old photographs and it occurs to me how much digital photography has changed the way I scrapbook. I can scan those Polaroids and old photographs and fearlessly cut, glue and embellish the digital prints. I can print photographs out at 3 am if I have a mind to do so. Now I just need to start weeding through the 89,000 jpegs on my computer lol.

If you are wondering what's all this WOYWW, then head on over to Julia's Stamping Ground and take a gander. Better yet, snap a picture and join in the fun :D.

Phun with Photos

This is my cat Dilly who loves to sit in observation places (like the shelf I was assembling) where she can watch everyone in the room. I captured the essence of her, but the quality of the photograph was minimal so I used one of the artistic filters in Photoshop Elements.

Then I used the watercolor effect on the Christmas Quilt picture.

And the poster edge effect on this picture of a gnome in my garden (the effect should be more pronounced if you click on the picture).