Paper Hoarders Design Team Challenge (Guest Designer) - Love/Anniversary Layout

Howdy there! Omgosh! It's been over two months. I know I've been busy, but... yeah. I've been floating around the internet, on Facebook, and my newfound time waster addiction, Pinterest!  So many ideas and so little time... Time has flown!  Then, there's the usual busy-family-kids-everyday-life things. And I got taken away... overwhelmed... You know...

But, Tanya, at Paper Hoarders, pulled me outta my funk and let me be a guest designer. Um... because of the shortened week, I'm a day off. I thought today was 2/22... and I was gonna be on time and everything! But... as we you can see, today is 2/23!!!! And so, I'm posting it a bit late. Silly me! It was done and everything! I was just taking my time loading it all and writing about it!

Alrighty. Let's get down to buswhacks! First... I don't have very many pics of me. And I most certainly don't have very many pics of me and the hubster. But... since Photoshop wasn't working for me all this week (it wouldn't save, wouldn't print the right size, and was just plain acting wonky [yes, that's a word... at least to me, it is!]), I switched to my trusty-ol' Fuji program and found THESE pics you see posted here.

I decided to do something a little different. I was looking for that edgy-distressed-type look... so... I printed them (via my own printer) on pearlescent textured paper, to get a silvery sheen. I love the way the pics turned out!!!! (Can YOU see the texture and the sheen?)

And me? I love playing with textures and mediums of all sorts. So... I even made my own vellum lace. I border-punched two different strips of vellum (two different punches - Fiskars Threading Water and Martha Stewart Embossed Snowflakes), one was white, and the other ecru. I sewed them together with a navy thread (to accentuate the background paper), crumpled them all up really tight!!!, sprayed them with Walnut Ink Stain, then misted with water, mashed them around a bit more... and

here's the REALLY good part! Hey! you know how you "lose" things or "forget" you have things, and then you find them, and they're all dried up (we're talking baby wipes I bought for my stamps... years... ago...) and you think that the only way you can do something with them is to either throw them away or re-moisten them and hope for the best? (Whew! THAT was a long sentence!!! My English teachers wouldn't be too happy with that!) Um, yeah... Guess what? I used those old, dried-out, newly found baby wipes to blend the stain and water and move it on down to semi-saturate my homemade vellum lace and "squeegee" off the remaining amount of stain. Woohoo! {flips hair over the shoulder, because I know I'm good now!}

And so... I adhered my pics to this awesome blue-ish toned and distressed paper with flourishes, painted a little Robin's Egg Blue around the bottom pic, cut the strips of the vellum lace (so it would form better to the curves of the heart I was gonna adhere it to), and adhered it all around the pics in the shape of a heart.

The Heidi Swapp Ghost Letters (LOVE) are painted Robin's Egg Blue on the back, then adhered with (get this) silicone glue, to add dimension, since pop dots would have showed through. I love the use of silicone glue (aka: silicone caulking - found in your local hardware store) to add a "ghostly" dimension. It's awesome!

And then, as a finishing touch, I stamped "forever" (a Studio G stamp) in the bottom left corner. I was going to add more... but... thought with all the pics (yes, I used FOUR of the same-type pose... because... well, we can never seem to get them right. but the point is... we do so many other things GREAT together!), that it was busy enough. Simplicity is key.

Anywho... I hope you like it. I had a blast making it. And thank you, Paper Hoarders for letting me join in again. I missed you so!

Tomorrow is Design Team day, and YOU can join in the challenge, too! Just go on over to Tanya's Blog and check out each of the DT members. Comment on them... please!!!! And you can link to your challenge result.

Oh yeah... the challenge was... Um... Love/Anniversary, using NON-traditional colors (no red, pink, or silver). I think I made it! Woohoo! (and this makes me first layout of the year! um... I've never even scrapped a pic of me and the hubster, so... that's a whole heck of a lot of challenges for me today!)

oh, and... PLEASE! don't forget to leave a comment for me, too! I'd love to know what YOU think about it!