Copic In The Craft Room

Posted on August 15, 2014August 15, 2014 by Michelle — 1 Comment

We are up and running!

School has started here at our house and the girls are both loving their new classes. Lori is in 4th grade this year and Sara is in 6th, which around here means middle school! They are both having fun and were ready to go back so the world is a happy place!

On Monday I got to share a layout at Get It Scrapped featuring a Venn Diagram. If you are not sure what that is I’ll bet you will recognize it when you see it! We learn all about them in early grade school as a way to organize stories and ideas. Circles interlocking and overlapping showing how things interact.

who knew…by Michelle Houghton | Supplies: cardstock; Tim Holtz by Ranger, acrylic paint; Dina Wakley by Ranger, fabric letters; Studio Calico by American Crafts, ink; Sharpie, vellum tags; SEI, buttons; an old favorite shirt

I have told tidbits of how John and I met through several layouts over time and this seemed like a great opportunity to share a little more. I used acrylic paint and a cardboard ring to create my Venn Diagram and I love how loosey goosey it turned out and the fact that I could place it right on top of the photo as well was a bonus. I just realized that in the photo the vellum tags do not look the same as in real life. The big navy looking tag above the photo is actually a teal color that is similar in hue to the ring and both orange tags are considerably darker in the photo as well. Hmmmm… not sure why that got thrown off so much but oh well. I loved how the Creative Team explored different styles of diagrams and uses for them. Take a peek at all the inspiration HERE

Get It Scrapped is currently running an amazing deal! You can get a 25% off discount to the monthly subscription through next Friday HERE and check out this sneak peek at what is coming up in early September!

In the mean time I am crazy busy trying to catch up on the house design team and Copic work and writing a few new classes and a few appointments I was holding off to do. It is all keeping me out of trouble that is for certain!

Happy Friday!

Posted on July 30, 2014July 29, 2014 by Michelle — 1 Comment

RubberMoon and Copic

Welcome RubberMoon and Copic fans! Officially this is my last post for RubberMoon, but I am not done yet I have more beautiful stamps to share so over the next few weeks I will continue to share them. I realized when I put this card all together that I did not plan all my colors very well and that the image clashes a bit with the red hair BUT I do love the pieces separately. I like the card and I love the image just not sure about them all together. The beauty is I have never claimed to be a master card maker and the person I extend to send it to will love it all the same!

I used Bazzill Swiss Dots cardstock and cut it to 5 1/4″ x 10 1/2″ then scored and folded it. The patterned paper is by Prima and is cut to 5″ x 5″ the mulberry paper is also by Prima. I stamped the “alter ego” image by Marylinn Kelly 3 separate times, the first in white on a Prima paper then in brown twice on a cream cardstock. I colored over the white lines with a Sharpie paint pen, and then colored the two other images.

I colored only the wings on the first image and used E21 and my colorless blender. Then on the second image for the skin I used E21, E11 and E13, on the lips I used YR14, R20 and R22 (the YR14 I used as a base coat changing the rosy reds to a shade with more flesh tone to it) I used YR31, YY35, Y38, YR16 and YR18 for the hair.

A special Thank You to the entire RubberMoon stamp team! I have LOVED working with their beautiful stamps. You will see more from me! This is not goodbye just see you later.

Happy Wednesday!

Posted on July 28, 2014July 27, 2014 by Michelle

Making your own stencils

My next tutorial posted at Get It Scrapped this past week. I had several Creative Team members join me to show off their stencil making skills. It actually is VERY easy to create your own stencils and there a lot of things around your house that can already be used as stencils. I just get you pointed in the right direction and the Creative Team shows you how to put them to good use. On my layout I hand cut a stencil to make the waves and I die cut the sun shape, easy peasy!

Good Eats by Michelle Houghton | Supplies: cardstock; Colorbok, spray ink; Ranger, Tattered Angel and Heidi Swapp, sequins; Jenni Bowlin, buttons and gold letters; American Crafts, blue letters; Bella Blvd

I would encourage you to stop by and take a peek at the rest of the Creative Teams work they did a spectacular job with this assignment! Read more HERE

Happy creative week to you all!

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Michelle

Colorado Beauty

Here is our view from the top of Mt. Sneffels the girls, John and I hoofed it to the top and John did this panoramic shot of the view in ALL directions. It was amazing as you can see. If you look really close the girls and I are perched out on the rocks smack dab in the middle of the photo.

Yep the best to hikers around!

Happy weekend!

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Michelle

Back Again and Catching Up

Well we are back from our adventure in Colorado. I will try to upload a few photos and share later this week. Traveling trough some of the most beautiful country in the world in Jeeps and hiking produced more than a few amazing shots.

In the meantime while I was traipsing about I had layouts appear in 3 articles over at Get It Scrapped that I thought I would share quickly. The first posted before we left, but I just did not have the time to get my post together and share:

Posers by Michelle Houghton | Supplies: patterned paper; SEI, ink; Sharpie and Ranger, letters cut on a Brother Cut and Scan.

The article is all about Adding Layers Behind Cutaways. I decided to use photos from a museum visit and thought it my make a good connection to try to imitate what the saber tooth cat might do to my scrapbook paper. I laid my photos on top of my paper then marked not only the corners, but the diagonal lines where I wanted the “claw marks” to travel along. I did all of the marking very lightly in pencil so I be able to erase those later. Then I used a kraft knife to cut a line along my diagonals and tore the paper outward from those cuts by hand. I would hold the photos up underneath the tears periodically to make sure the holes were large enough to see the portions of the photos I wanted to feature. I then attached the photos to the back of the torn patterned paper and finished the layout. I have to say it was fun to see how the rest of the team tackled this particular assignment, I am thinking I will use one or two of their ideas on future layouts! Check out all the layouts HERE.

Next I created a layout for an article about 2 Page Layouts With a Cluster Foundation.

Who’s Watching Who by Michelle Houghton | Supplies: patterned paper, canvas tags, buttons, butterfly brads and feather; SEI, sticker letters Bella Blvd., ink; Sharpie, twine; American Crafts, kraft speech bubble; Maya Road

There is not much more to say about this layout then what I shared in the article, but I can tell you that I used 5 different animal photos in my central cluster. I love taking animal photos at the zoo and this is a great way to include a lot of them on a single layout, especially since we are zoo goers and end up with so many photos every year! Check out the beautiful pages from the other Creative Team members HERE.

Lastly I did a layout using pocket pages encompassing our entire Hawaii trip last summer. I am a “newbie” at pocket pages and had so much fun putting this one together. It worked perfectly for this particular layout!

Hawaii by Michelle Houghton | Supplies: pocket pages; Project Life by Becky Higgins, patterned cards, stickers, chipboard and date tags; My Mind’s Eye, twine ; American Crafts, ribbon; unknown, ink; Sharpie

I used my “memory book” daughter Sara to help me as we travelled home from the trip to write a few notes on every day that we were in Hawaii. Between the two of us we managed to remember the primary events to all 11 days. I would recommend doing this during your trip or immediately afterward before you forget! Somehow I managed to NOT get my complete supply list in the article so I have added it here and I did add small sticker letters and numbers saying Hawaii 2013 on the brown ribbon in the very first journaling card slot. I loved the creative way the other team members tackled this assignment, you can see all of their work HERE.

Woosh! As always the list of things to catch up on upon coming home seems endless but I am getting there slowly but surely! I will post some photos of our trip later this week!

Happy scrapping and coloring to all!