forever young at heart

omg!!!! i have found my new love - CANVAS :)....
wow...where have you been all my life....ha ha ha....
i took a class with connie at TM on saturday - creating a 2 page layout on canvas.
this has to be my most favorite class!!!! connie is an EXCELLENT teacher!!!! if you havent taken class with her before, you are totally missing out!!!! in addition to being a great teacher, she is a great designer with phenomenal photographer!!!! i love her pics!!!! THANKS AGAIN CONNIE FOR AN AWESOME CLASS AND LAYOUT IDEA!!!!

when i signed up for the class, i new that i was going to do a layout with old photos - but i was having trouble choosing which ones to use......i went with some pics of my dad in his younger days, who just celebrated his 59th birthday yesterday....

to make the layout "your own", connie laid out several embellishments to choose from to match each participants pics.....i love the jenni bowlin buttons and the webster pages.....i used the left over scraps of book print to cover the bird and the heart....and i even used a discarded ribbon of canvas on the heart as well....i added all my style touches...and i absolutely love the way it came out...this is probably my fav layout....

me and my bff

hello again.....well i finally did a layout that is totally out of my style..in my opinion....but i love the way it came out..... i guess that since i am so use to always "over doing it" - this layout was very fun...and it didnt take me a thousand hours to complete.....i love the colors...very bright.....i used some paper from sassafrass lass , basic grey, and dotted swiss ....i also used crepe paper ribbon for the embellishment flower i made....i added flower stick pins, did some hand stitching....and lots of pop dots....i think i need to invest in pop dots!!!! ha ha ha....

dirty dancing:)

my fav movie????? what a tough choice......there are SOOOOOOOO many good movies out there....and to narrow it down to 1 - hmmmmm....has to be...dirty dancing.....

i love watching dirty dancing.....it think i know all the words by heart.....i had a dirty dancing canvas bag that i had picked up on clearance at target a couple years back......soooo i got alot of use out of it....and i decided to display the bag - scrap book style...while it was still in good condition.....so that was my inspiration......i did some beading on the clothing and i made some hearts too out of wired beads,hand strung.....i added cardboard pieces in a few places.......in addition to tan colored cardboard, i also used a hot pink cardboard from inside of a perfume box to make the 2 flowers.....i pleated some paper to make ruffles....and added tulle and pins and gawd...ha ha ha....i decided to write out a verse to the song in words that are made up of individually cut letters from an old storybook......ribbon,buttons,and lots of hot glue later...and my fav movie layout was complete....

childhood memories

finally.......i have finally finished the shawdow box i have been working on for like 4 months.....ha ha ha....4 MONTHS!!!!! to finally get it perfect - the way i want it.......now , keep in mind....i didnt work on it everyday for hours for the last 4 months.......but it felt pretty dang close to that....ha ha ha.....nah....actually......when i was pregnant for abigail, my mom gave me the most perfect gift......at my surprise baby shower, my mom handed me this beautiful package..... i still have the wrappings......ha ha ha....my mom made this big bow from paper that looked like real ribbon.....a remember openning it up to find my very own baby clothes, socks and shoes, and my dolly.....

she told me that when i was born, my dad was soooooooooo excited, that he went down to the hospital gift shop and bought me this dress (and shoes and socks to match - that will be featured in an upcoming shadow box :) ......i was sooooooooooooooo overcome with emotion......i realized right then and there that i was gonna become a mom soon.......WOW!!!!.... i did make a very (amatuer ) shadowbox....but here it is, 10 years later...and i have decided to re-vamp it....and voilia....there you have it.....soooooo thats the story behind some of the items in the layout.......

it took me FOREVER to get it the way i wanted it.....i had been anticipating working on the project more than any other...i purchased the shadow box frame in april...and i started to work on it immediately......and then i came to a road block.....i couldnt get the items positioned and i would step away from it and come back to it....and finally....just when i thought that i had lost my creativity......it happened.....almost like magic...ha ha ha....it had been about a month since stepping away from it...that i came back to it this past week....and the pieces all fell into place.....i was so into finishing it that i lost a lot of sleep this week...ha ha ha....but it was well worth it....

so here, 4 months later......i can breathe easy....and get ready for round 2......then 3...then 4......

i love hydrangeas part I

i love hydrangeas - part II

so the next challenge that i undertook was to choose your fav flower......

i love hydrangeas......i think they are beautiful...plus they remind me of when i was a little girl and we would make trips to visit my grandparents and family living in alabama......in the house in which we use to live, we had lots of hydrangea plants....i can remember picking them and bringing little bouquets of them to my mom and both of my grandmothers.....such a great memory..... so when i heard about this challange...... i knew instantly what i wanted to do.....

so ....i had this picture i had recently taken of my niece....and she was actually smelling some wildflowers in the picture...but i covered them up with hydrangea petals....that i got from some flowering bushes when i worked at old american like a gazillion years ago as a floral designer.....

sooooo i hd been saving them all these years and so i finally put them to good use.....and i think that i proudly displayed them in this layout......i wanted to make the flower petals show a transformation from petals, or blossoms...to butterflies......

i add a piece of cardboard as mat.....and finished it off with buttons, tulle, and a few other touches...now it is ready for submittal ......

mexican fiesta

i have been super busy lately......working on so many fun projects...and not slowing down anytime soon..... so i decided to make a birthday shadow box for a friend of mine......

every year she celebrates her birthday at her fav mexican restuarant - which just so happens to be my fav too - Tampicos!!! yum yum.... so in the spirit and tradition of her birthday- i used my creativity and turned an ordinary take out menu into a spicy background.....i added flowers made also from remnants of the menu, as well as napkin rings bearing the resturants name for the flower petals.....to put my special touch, i added a fleur de lis drink stir that she actually gave me to use to scrapbook-since she knows i love using extraordinary pieces in my layouts...and i found it most suiting to use it in the gift i was preparing for her....i added a few (yes just a few) gawdy touches....and voilia!!!! there you have it....i had fun creating this shadow box......check please????? :) ha ha ha

PiNk Is My FaVoRiTe CoLoR

okay........so i was browsing different blogs...and i came across the blog "these are a few of my favorite things"..... what a great idea....doing different layouts based upon your favorite things....

sooooooo i decided to play along and submit my layout.....

so here it is..my favorite color - PINK :)

i love pink.....and when i started to work on this project i was finding a hard time narrowing down all the pink things that i wanted to include.....lucky i have gawdy taste,right...cause i jammed as much as i could possible on this one...ha ha ha!!!

i had gathered all the things and i was ready to go.......but time not being a good friend of mine...i had to put off my project til the very last minute.....and i do mean last minute..... at 11:59pm on the deadline date - i made my submittal.........what a rush!!!! BUT- i was NOT completely satisfied with it - so after having a little more time...i jazzed it up to my taste....

i have already started to work in my next fav thing project.......hmmmmmm... :)