30 Days of Thankful by Cathy Zielske

Well it has been a while since I have posted anything. I have been so busy at work getting ready for our inter-national accreditation (1st time) that I haven't had much time for anything else. The assessors were here all last week and we achieved 100 of the 104 standards (which includes the sub-standards). Yeah!!! Now all we have to do is make some changes and upload them in the next 30 days and hopefully get the other 4. Of course we will not know anything until around April or May 2016. Ugh!!!

But I have plenty to keep me busy and hopefully some of that will be crafty. I have a couple of items I did mange to get done but haven't taken pictures and upload it here yet but I will soon. My first crafty project going into November is going to be Cathy Zielske's 30 Days of Thankful.You don't have to scrap everyday if you don't want to. She has a journal that you can print where you can jot down what you are thankful for on that day. Take a picture each day and when you have time you can sit down and scrap it.  It can be done on your computer, handwritten, and even completely digital. The choice is up to you.

If you are interested in doing her class you can sign up on Cathy's website.

Today I'm grateful for my loving fur babies! No matter what my day is like, no matter if I'm happy or sad, no matter what...my fur babies are always happy to see me and love me. There is nothing like coming home from a hard day at work to the love of an animal. Here are two of mine who happen to be loving on me this evening. The other two were not in good spots where I could get decent pictures.

Hope you join us in documenting what you are grateful for.  #cz30daysofthankful

Hello Waves

For this layout I used a very old picture of my kids when they were a lot younger and of my MIL at hour beach around Thanksgiving time. So it was a little too cool to be going into the water. I love this picture because they were having so much fun with such a little thing and that made me very happy.  It reminds me that the seemingly little things are the things that can make us the happiest.  Happy Scrapping!!!

Who Says You Can't Go Home

A layout that was done for a challenge. I used by Can't Go Home kit from Scraptastic.  The challenge was to use 3 pattern papers, 1 cardstock, use the colors teal and gray, 3 arrows, a chipboard element, something older than a year old, and at least 1 travel themed embellishment.  I got the Can't Go Home kit from Scraptastic because I knew I would be going to Las Vegas in July and well I am just now starting to scrap my trip.  I don't have a ton to scrap because the trip was business but there were times where we could go do some exploring. So since the challenge was to use something travel related I thought it was a perfect time to start scrapping my trip. The layout will actually be the last page of my trip because as you can imagine my the title it is about coming home. 

For the pattern papers I used October Afternoon Moaning Cavern and the others were Scraptastic exclusives. The multi-colored striped paper and the paper with the stars are the A and B side of one sheet of Scraptastic exclusive pattern paper. As well as the 'Who Says You Can't Go Home', the red arrows, and the numbers strip which was one sheet and I cut the different strips from it. The cardstock was from my stash and was a teal color.  I used both the teal and gray as stated in the challenge but I used varying shades of both in different elements. The papers were edged with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Weathered Wood for another grayish element and to makes some of the papers stand out more.  The chipboard elements were AC Thickers Hipster chipboard letters and the geo tag from the Pink Paislee Atlas chipboard sticker embellishments which were both from the kit.  I also used from the kit a tag, the silver airplane punchout, and the globe from the Pink Paislee Atlas ephemera pack, cork arrow embellishment, the orange arrow from MME Hello World travel stickers, and the Hello and Goodbye from the Can't Go Home Scraptastic stamp set. The ink splatters are HS Color Shine in teal and gold and also Mister Huey's Color Mist in Water Cooler.  I used some enamel dots from my stash and I really don't know how old they are so I'm not counting those as older than a year but the travel sticker is from MM words and phrases travel set and then cards, coat check ticket and the chips are from Paper Wishes and all those are older than 5 years.  So nice to use up some of my stash and it goes with the theme of my pictures.  I also used a Freckled Fawn cork calendar sticker and some Freckled Fawn enamel stars.

Rainy Season

Hello my creative lovelies! I have a layout to share with you today that I created using some of Scraptastic kits from a few months ago. I took these pictures one afternoon because the clouds were so beautiful and then of course it came a downpour. Then I seen this saying on Facebook and I had to use it in my layout. It said Run it's a hurricane. Floridians are like...we call it the rainy season. That is so true! So I had to name my layout Rainy Season.  LOL

The background paper is a Scraptastic Club exclusive by Kaitlin Scheaffer called Candy Rain (perfect don't you think). I mounted the pictures on cardstock from my stash so that they would pop off the background paper. I inked the edges of the background paper with Tim Holtz distress ink in Weathered Wood. The acrylic cloud pieces and raindrops are Scraptastic exclusives also. The banner in the top right corner was from Authentique "Playful" Components, the tag piece behind it was from Jillibean Soup Coordinating Label Stickers Summer Red Raspberry South, and the enamel dots are homemade from my stash. The letters are Pink Paislee Bella Rouge, the tag in the bottom left hand corner is another Scraptastic exclusvive I believe while the banner I put on it is from Sn@p!. Both flower clusters were placed on foam adhesive and the small one is also from the Sn@p! collection and the larger one was from Dear Lizzy. The Raindrops came from the kits and I colored it with a Tim Holtz distress marker in broken china. I drew pen lines around the entire layout and the top banner to make it stand out a bit from the background.

A beachside themed pocket letter. I did this a couple of months ago and ...

Hello Waves

Getting very little scrapping or crafting of any kind done lately but I did manage to finally get one done. I used some of my Scraptastic Kits to make this layout. It is an older picture of my kids and my mother-in-law at the beach during the late fall. It wasn't a very sunny day which made the water in the picture have really deep colors. The kids were running from the waves because the tide was coming in and they were laughing and giggling and it just made me happy to watch everyone having so much fun. It reminds me to always enjoy the simple things in life and that in the end that is all that matters.

I did some mixed media on the layout to enhance the feel of the picture as well as using light colors to try and lighten the darker picture. I used some gesso and then some gelatos mixed with water using the cellophane method of applying it to the layout. Did a lot of layering and used some iridescent sequins around to represent the sparkle of water.

Tim Holtz inspired Pocket Letter

It has been a while since I have done anything that I can share. But I finally finished a Tim Holtz inspired pocket letter that I am mailing out today. The idea totally came from Vicky Papaioannou's YouTube channel. She is a very talented lady and when I seen the art journal page she did like this I had to try it. I want to eventually make me a canvas version to hang up so this was a good first run.

I really enjoyed making this. I made the background paper, the leaves, and the pumpkins.  I used the following Tim Holtz products:

Distress Stains:
Walnut Stain
Antiqued Bronze
Tarnished Brass
Distress Inks:
Walnut Ink
Aged Mahogany
Fired Brick
Spiced Marmalade
Forest Moss
Mustard Seed
Tim Holtz Collection Stencil: Dots
Adage Tickets
Mini Paper Clips
Crackle Medium

I hand drew the pumpkins and cut them out and I used gelatos to color them in. I used a baby wipe to blend the colors.

Hope you enjoyed it. Until next time Happy Scrapping!