It's Friday Friends with Flair!

Yup It is FRIDAY! and I have done up two  more tags especially for Unity Stamp's "Friends with Flair"... using tags they sent me with my last order  - how cool is that?

I am using a stamp that I fell in love with two years ago which I have been Hoarding (grin) and I am finally using it to create these Birthday Gift Tags for presents.  And I hope they inspire you to use something that you have  been "saving for special".

Now for those that want to know I used my Unity "Matching Socks" Itty Bitty stamp, some pre-colored tags I was gifted in my last Unity Stamp order and my favorite paper piecing technique (stamp the image on several different cardstocks and cut and piece as desired) you can see more detail about paper piecing on THIS blog post.

I stamped with my Aqua Blue Stazon ink and used Ranger's Liquid Pearl and some coordingating ribbon to accent the tags.  BTW (by the way) this is also a great technique for using up those scraps of paper.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I am up to and please do leave me a comment if you like what you see.

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

WOYWW#282 (What's On YOUR Workdesk Wednesday!)

It's Wednesday again so I am linking up to the Stamping Ground's What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday #282! Here is snap of my workspace - un-edited and un-tidied up - Are you brave enough to join in and reveal what your workspace REALLY looks like? Grin

I am in the middle of finishing up 30 Prima Doll tags - all sporting either an empowering and uplifting saying or a sarcastic and slightly insulting one... (depending upon whom you want to gift with that tag) My theory is Why make one when you can make 30?! First I create all my figures, dressing them up like when I played paper dolls; then I create all the backgrounds... then I mix and match and add the sentiments... finally I finish off each tag with embellishments and a color coordinated brad and ribbon for hanging.

I am hoping to have a post highlighting my favorites and posting them all for sale soon - so if you like what you are seeing... Keep in touch!   

Cheers from Canada

Scrapbook Lynne

The Wonderful Colors of Fall in Alberta

This is blog post all about Fall on the Prairies where the colors of fall are all yellows and golds and every shade of brown that you can imagine.  

When I first arrived in Alberta from La Belle Province of Quebec I missed the showy colors of my childhood fall memories, the oranges and bright reds of the sugar maples mixed with every shade of yellow to crimson in between.  But the longer I lived here on the Prairies, the more I grew to love the subtle colors of Autumnl in Alberta and this layout is my tribute to Autumn on the Prairies.

This layout is also a tribute to recyling for my friend Teresa who is passionate about it! And almost every bit of paper on this layout was recycled from something else, from the 12x12 piece cardboard I created it on to the images I stamped onto my scrap piece of cardboard that I use to protect my counters from spraying... great colors aren't they!  I even have pieces old music books and pieces of inky paper towels mod podged to the background.

I used some of my favorite oversized Unity stamps on this layout and I also used some gritty embossing powders for texture...

And the final touch was using my white and black gel pens to add some highlights and outline some of those stamped images to make them pop.

I am entering this layout into the Rubber Dance Art Stamps' Monthly Color Challenge for October which is to use these Vintage Tones and you must use stamping on your entry (no digital stamps):

And I am also entering this into Unity Stamps
Thanks for stopping by today to see what I am up to and please do leave me a comment if you like what you see!
Cheers! 
Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

Some Mixed Media Love...

Today I want to share this little canvas I created for my brand new Great niece or nephew due next month.  Because my  niece and her hubby did not want to know the sex of their firstborn before he/she arrives I wanted to create a piece that could be used for either sex and I just LOVE how it turned out....

This is a fairly simple mixed media technique that uses up lots and lots of scraps (always good!) And I have found that the less pre-planning you do the lovelier the piece ends up being. I also find that each canvas tends to take on a life of its own and actually directs YOU, so the free-er and loose-er you are the prettier the effect...

The process is fairly simple:

1. collect up some paper scraps of pleasing colors and patterns to you... I find that the more contrast you have the better.  Now rip and tear and paste these bits all over your canvas, don't get to attached to the pattern because most of it will be covered up.

3. Using stencils and modelling or gel paste, add texture - in bits or all over - let it dry. Note: for those of you that want to know I used my brand new ArtistsCellar stencils by Tamara LaPorte called "Tam's Whimsy")

4. Draw a simple shape on the dried canvas, capturing the part of the canvas you find prettiest, and paint all around it with acrylic paint or white or black gesso... all work wonderfully!

 

5. Add your sentiment - I stamped my sentiment on white tissue paper and used Liquitex Fluid Matte Medium (its like Mod Podge but easier on tissue paper) to glue it over top of the canvas. This way the lumpy, bumpy does not effect the stamp.

6. Now accent away using paint, pens, Stickles, Liquid Pearl, beads, flowers, anything dimensional... the sky is the limit. I was not loving this particular piece until I was "directed by my canvas" (grin) to grab my bottles of Liquid Pearl and start painting... that and the black gel pen to accent and outline just make this canvas for me..

And how can I not also share the home-made wrapping paper I created using stamps and colored inks on brown parcel paper?  And HERE is the link to the post where I already shared the card I made for that wee one...  One of the hazards of having me for an Aunt... It ALL gets Shared.. Bigger grin.
 

I hope you enjoyed this wee bit of sharing... and as always... Please DO leave me a comment if you like what you see!!!

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

Sisterhood Of Snarky Stampers Challenge #19 ... And Now For Something Completely Different....

Hello PEEPS!  It's time for another Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge and this week we are stepping a Little Bit OUTside the Box with Challenge #19

PINK HALLOWEEN!

Yup, In Canada the month of October is all about Halloween and Breast Cancer Awareness so why not combine them? So here is my contribution using a Brand New Digi (digital Stamp) from a Brand New-To-Me Company... CrackerBox Rubber Stamps... and you can choose a Wood-mounted stamp, a un-mounted stamp or a digital stamp how cool is that!  I am using the Witch Glenda stamp in it's digital version. I LOVE digital stamps because I can size them to whatever size I need and I store them on  my computer. And since my 6-foot stamp storage bookcase is FULL this is a really big attraction, but the best thing about digital stamps is that there is usually NO WAITING... you pay, you download, you print, you color... Grin

So here she is - Witch Glenda - a 2014 modern-day Witch with a fashion sense and a Big Personality that won't be kept under her Hat! 

For those who want to know, I colored Glenda with my Copic markers; fussy cut and popped her (using foam pop dots) against the background I created on a piece of black card stock using a mask and gesso.  I created the moon by doing one big Spritz with my yellow dylusions spray after the gesso had dried.

I hope you like my interpretation of this Challenge and make sure you pop on over to the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Blog to check out my Sisters' contributions.  

And don't forget you have until October 31st to join in so why not give it a go? Don't you want that Queen of Snark Stamp for your Blog? (grin)

Cheers!
"Sister" Lynne Mizera
 

It's Friday Friends with Flair AND Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

Here we are Friday Again... already?  And I have yet another submission for Unity Stamps "Friends With Flair"... this one is a quickie... Lots of Photos but not so much writing because I am flying out the doooor..

I am linking up to Friends with Flair in Honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I created these two lovely little tags using one of my favorite paper piece-ing techniques:

Stamp Your image on several colored pieces of cardstock, this time I used four shades of Pink

 

Now stamp your image again that many times on a piece of white heavy stock... I had four colors so I stamped and created four images:

Now fussy cut and fill them in ... that it! 

Not even stickles or liquid gas this time... she didn't need them.

Here they are in detail... I used another of my Unity KOM (kit of the Month) stamps for the background and the tags and jewels were Gifts FROM Unity in my last order.. How cool is that!

By the way, I am using my brand new Unity Stamp... Frazzled...and I can see a LOT of her in my future!

So pop on by the Unity blog today to check out everyone else, and leave me comment if you like what you are seeing!!!

Cheers (smile)

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

It's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday #280 (WOYWW)

This is a quickie post and my workshop is a MESS because Tornado Lynne just flew through packing up for two weeks away 

... house sitting for a wonderful friend who has left me her home AND free reign in her studio while she is away!! 

And in Beautiful British Columbia no less, the warmest place in Canada at this time of year... Whooo HOOOO!

This particular messy bit is all about Truth Cards... I haven't made any for a year now and my soul is feeling the lack... and I'm sure you will be seeing them in a post at a later date.

So Thanks for popping by to see my mess.... How about sharing YOURS (mess I mean)... Grin.  YOu can check out other workspaces all over the World HERE!

Cheers!

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

My Personal Art Journal - Part 4

Today on our Canadian Thanksgiving Holiday, I want to share this very happy, uplifting journal page with you.  I think this is one of my favorite pages ever and every time I look at it I feel uplifted, happier and oh so very thankful! So what a wonderful way to end this series on my Personal Art Journal Series.

There is so much technique on this particular page that it would take FOREVER to describe it all so I will save that for another post where I plan it and take photos along the way, but just let me share that I used Unity Stamps everywhere on this page...

The flowers are a Donna Downey/Unity Stamp, the girl is one of my very favorite Phyllis Harris/Unity Stamp and the sentiments are from my Unity collection of uplifting sayings.

If you are Canadian I am wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday spent with family and friends close to your heart... and for everyone else I am wishing you the same... lovely time spent with family and friends close to your heart...Happy Thanks-GIVING.

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

My Personal Art Journal - Part 3

This is the third installment of a journey into my Personal Art Journal and I am sharing a page that I created almost like a scrapbook page... well actually it created itself... I just came along for the ride - grin.

This part of my journey is called "No Man's Land" and creating this page helped me to realize that if you never allow yourself to grieve you end up in a place where you cannot go back but you cannot move forward either, so there you are... STUCK in No Man's Land...

I love that my hubby said, when he saw it, "It looks like a desert."  because that was how I felt about it all - Dry, Barren, Hot winds blowing across the prairies, and Alone... oh so Alone...

Fro those who need to know, I created the background using my Tim Holtz Distress stains in Broken China, Mustard Seed and Walnut Stain, and used my Tim Holtz Alpha Die Strip as a mask to break up the too intense colors.... I added torn paper, and finally got to use my Quickutz Tree with Crows Die that I bought EONS ago, because it just added to the overall desert feel.

I spent a lot of time with my black and white gel pens on this page, doodling and writing whatever came to me... not worrying about how it looked, only about how it felt... and when I was done it felt GOOD!

Thank you for stopping in to share this part of my journey with me and please do let me know what YOU think about all of this... smile

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

My Personal Art Journal - part 2

As promised, here is the second installment of my Personal Art Journal... As I mentioned in the previous post, I don't usually share this part of my world because for me art journaling really IS about using Art to heal or to work through something difficult, and I don't want to taint my process worrying about making pretty pictures.  But because this process has had such a huge impact on my life I just HAVE to share some of it with all of you in case one of you is searching for something.  This process has helped me when nothing else did...

This particular page is pretty dark, but you will notice not ALL dark... because for this exercise, called "Ground Zero", I was directed to create a picture of how my heart felt at the beginning of my healing journey... My initial thought was to create something all Black with a crack of Red running right through it like a river of  lava... So I sat down with a pile of red paper that I RIPPED and TORE (part of the healing process) and covered the entire page with all that RED... 

but when it came time to to paint the page black I just couldn't... because to me this page represented my soul and I just could not paint my entire soul BLACK, because it wasn't all black, so the idea evolved and strips of of black, and bits of  shiny, sparkly silver and the soft glow of gold added themselves to the page.

And then right in the middle of the page I saw the Heart shape, and as I pulled that shape out with my pen, a second smaller heart appeared to me... 

This page is THICK with Mod Podged texture and bumpy and smooth at the same time and I find that every time I look at it I have to touch it, stroke it... but this page, and the process of creating it has helped me to heal so much...

Thank you for allowing me to share this powerful, healing part of my art with you... and please do let me know what you think about it all...

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

Art Journaling is for the SOUL...

It's Friday and that means Unity Stamps "Friends with Flair" and it also means with this post I will have posted for three "Friends with Flair" in a row... now THAT's a follow-through for sure!

Today I am sharing a journal page I created this week of my "Happy Place". 

Now, I don't normally share my personal art journaling, but as I work my way through a very intense, very personal journey I am on as I mourn some losses, my art journal has become the polysporin and band-aid that is covering up the holes in my heart and finally allowing me to heal...

This page shows with uncanny reality how I see myself in my head and expresses almost exactly how I feel when I am on my wooden swing under "My Trees".  

I use this visual when I am feeling very fragile and don't think I can continue on with my journaling... I stop and imagine myself on my swing...SOARING... and it gives me that little bit of time to "catch my emotional breath" and then continue on through the pain to the healing... Happy Sigh!

Now for those of you that want to know, I created this background with my inky paper towels I use to blot my dylusion spraying, they are so pretty I cannot bare to throw them away, so here they are again! I used Mod Podge to apply them righ tovertop of some paint splatters and stamped images already on the page and the paper towels did  not cover up the images, but just faded them back, Cool Huh? So if you haven't tried Art Journaling yet, give it a go, it's not about making pretty pictures, it's about creating to make YOU feel better...

Note:  This is the first in a series of Art Journal Pages that I will be sharing with all of you this coming week... So if this interests you, do stop by next week.

Thanks for popping in to see me again today, and as always, leave me a comment if you like what you see!

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

PS: I linked this up to Unity Stamps' Friends With Flair Today!

A Girl And An Empty Coffeemate Tin

Today I have created a pictorial "How-To" showing you what happens when you leave me alone with my imagination and an empty CoffeeMate tin ... Grin

Yes, I admit it - I LOVE CoffeeMate and I buy it in the biggest tin it comes in and refill my four plastic CoffeeMate containers over and over.  But have you ever seen the Tin?!  They are so BIG and so solidly made that I just cannot throw them away, I just KNOW there must be something I can do to "re-purpose" them ... And then it came to me - My NEW Halloween Candy bucket and future Treasure Holder: TAAA DAAA!

And Here's How It's Done:

1. Start with an empty tin

2. Paste on paint chips (taken from the hardware store to re-purpose) which have been run through an embossing folder to create some texture, and add more texture using modeling paste and some stencils - let dry

3. Cover completely with white Gesso - let dry and then paint background with Silks enamel paint which allow you to layer the color without mixing- let dry

4. Spray 140lbs water color paper with a variety of Dylusion sprays, stamp Multiple Dyan Reaveley images and cut out

5. Paste cut out images to tin using matte ModPodge or multi medium,layering as you go

6. Add details with black and white gel pens

7. finish off with Stickles, Liquid Pearl and Liquid Glass

8. Fill with Candy and share with your friends!

I am sharing this on the Dylusions FaceBook Challenge Site for the October challenge of using Orange and Lime and Toadstools

And with Altered Eclectics - an Anything Goes Mixed Media site that is currently doing a Design Team Call!
And with 2 Creative Chicks, Challenge #19- Use any Tin Can (how could I NOT) grin

Thanks for stopping by to share my creativity and don't forget to leave me a comment if you like what you seeee! Grin
Scrapbook Lynne Mizera