Altered Canvas – Helmar December Challenge

31 Dec 2011 Comments Off on Altered Canvas – Helmar December Challenge

by dlwidder in Cards and Projects Tags: , , , , ,

Most Monday nights, Tracy hosts a Ustream show for Helmar and demonstates the different Helmar products. During this process, she’s also sharing a bit of herself, her favorite techniques and we all have a blast. Her vivacious personality and creativity have been an major inspiration to me in 2011 and I’m sure will continue to push me out of my comfort zone in 2012. 😀 For the Helmar December sketch challenge, I decided to create a canvas…my first…using Melody Ross pp and chipboard, watercolor crayons, Tattered Angels glimmer mists and glimmer glam and a touch of acrylic paint, along with some Helmar Decoupage paste and a few dabs of 450 Quick Dry. It’s an adaptation of a no-photo layout I’ll be posting here tomorrow. Here’s what I came up with based on the December sketch:

To see the awesome sketch by Lydell Quinn that I used for inspiraiton, CLICK HERE.

TFL!

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The Local Wildlife – Mini Album

01 Jul 2011 1 Comment

by dlwidder in Cards and Projects Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Paper Secrets manufacturer challenge this month is American Crafts. Lucky for me, Kristi (owner of PS) sent me these fabulous Campy Trails AC papers in my dt pack! Unfortunately, we’ve never been camping, and the most outdoorsy things we do are go fishing and take the kids to the playground. Hmmm…no pics of either! Yes, I know…I’m horrible at remembering to take the camera with us outside of the house. Well, July is the last month of my term for PS, so I thought I’d make more than a card with it. And since Kristi was nice enough to go out of her way to make sure I had AC product to work with, I wanted to use as much of it as possible for my last project with them. So, I decided to go with a mini album. I used a Kaisercraft Beyond the Page album as my base. I tried to minimize the other products I used so you can really see the AC papers well. After taking the photos I’ve since added some ribbons to the rings that hold the album. Here’s the mini closed:

Here’s the first open spread. Taten, like a typical 11 year old boy, thinks it’s hilarious to fart audibly at any time. The louder the better in his opinion. Which earned him a dubious nickname this last school year…which he is unfortunately proud of. Stinker.

Next it opens to Alex wearing deer antlers. It was the second time that year I received a photo of him wearing antlers since he came home from school with another photo of him with more realistic ones on, but that photo was too big for this album. This photo was taken at Larry’s huge annual family Christmas party. Opposite that page is Madison who was chasing Matthew around the living room growling like a bear. 😀

On the last spread there is Christian with his little chipmunk cheeks. I think that cutout image is actually a squirrel, but I figured it was close enough? What do you think? On the last page is Matthew…our little Imp. 😀

Sorry the photos aren’t clearer. They were taken on a hot, hazy and overcast day earlier this week. TFL!

Materials:

American Crafts Campy Trails papers
Kaisercraft Beyond the Page Album and rings
The Beary Patch cutout sheet
Alcohol Inks
Distress Ink
Maya Road Alphas
Jillibean Soup Journaling Sprout
Fancy Pants rubons
trims and twine from my stash

Adhesives:

Helmar Acid Free Glue
Helmar Adhesive Runner
Helmar Zapdots
Helmar 450 Quick Dry

Check out the PS manufacturers challenge and post your American Crafts layouts, cards, tags, altered item or other projects for an entry for this month’s prize…a $25 gift certificate to the PS store!

Inspirational Journal Challenge for Tracy/Helmar

24 Jun 2011 6 Comments

by dlwidder in Cards and Projects Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Soooo, back at the beginning of May, Tracy Weinzapfel of Helmar USA threw down a challenge to join her in creating a personal Inspirational Journal. You can see the recorded Ustream video clip on her blog here along with further details: Tracy’s awesome blog. The challenge was from the beginning of May through the end of June, to complete this album. Well here it is with less than a week of June remaining and I finally finished my COVER. Yes, my cover. lol So, here we go…

I knew that I wanted to use this one perfect image off of the Webster’s Pages diecut paper from the Spring Market collection. I knew I was going to use this specific quote with this image from the first moment I saw the paper months ago, so when Tracy announced the Inspirational Journal project, well I already had an idea in mind…but how to make it look like I imagined? Not a clue. Here’s what I ended up with instead. This is a 2 part cover here’s the outside/cover of the entire album (the quote reads, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s about learning to dance in the rain”:

When you lift the acrylic cover, this is the inside page/second part of the cover which actually illustrates the first part of the quote (the fussy cut image from the WP diecut is coated in iridescent medium, but you can’t see it in the pic):

So as you can see, it’s a bit backwards, but so am I…so I think that’s about right for me. 😉 If you’re thinking hmmm…that acrylic looks kinda hazy…you’re right! It’s not your eyes and it’s not me trying to get a photo on a castover day, it’s diluted acrylic paint that I coated on the backside of the cover to make it look like a hazy, rainy day. TFL!

Materials:

Webster’s Pages Spring Market diecut
Winsor & Newton Iridescent Medium
Folk Art Acrylic paint
Strathmore watercolor paper
Kaisercraft large square acrylic album
Stazon ink
Stamp by Victorine Originals

Adhesives:

Helmar 450 Quick Dry (make sure to test before use on acrylic)
Helmar Zapdots
Helmar Acid Free Glue