simply me

for this weeks inspiration wednesday i played with crackle paste.
this is one of those things i have had in my stash because i wanted to use it and just hadn't gotten around to it. what the heck was i waiting for it is cool as hell!!!

one of the prompts in my new favorite book, "the crafter's devotional" (see July Creative Playground for more information) was to reuse old photographs. so instead i photocopied a photo and used it as the focal point on the page.

• i painted the background of the journal page blue and yellow ochre around the edges
• adhered a paint chip so that it extended beyond the page
• adhered the photocopy of the photo to the page
• brushed on a layer of crackle paste with a popsicle stick (it takes like 12 -24 hours for it to dry and crackle)
• brushed on a water-downed coat of turquoise paint over the crackle
• inked the page using antique linen distress ink and blending tool.
• sealed it with a couple layers of gel medium (i was worried it might just flake off the page)
• added the quote and a final layer of gel medium over the text.

to add a splash of color i stapled on the dried flowers and adhered some yellow paper flowers...makes me really happy!!

and just in case your wondering the chinese symbols on my arm say "inspired" (at least that's what they told me, LOL!)

what did you create this week?
what do we need to see...share your inspirations!

 

and the winner is...

Alicia Sharp said...

Love those colors!! I would have a ball playing with that! Thanks to you both!!

way to go alicia! email me and we will get your kit  to you ASAP!!

Dixie Pieces offers monthly scrapbook kits that include a selection of fine papers, cardstock, and striking embellishments to make your layouts, cards, or other items attractive. These kits are available by subscription to be mailed to your front door each month or can be purchased online each month individually.

AND CHECK THIS OUT, they are hosting a contest beginning August 1st with a grand prize valued at $200 in scrapbooking product.  The last day to sign up is July 31st, so dont miss this awesome chance to win!. 

here's the details...

August is approaching and summer is starting to wind down - doesn't it always seems to go by so quickly? Join us at Dixie Pieces for a summer contest and let us help you drag summer out just a little bit longer! We are excited to announce our first - "Big Bummer - It's the End of Summer" Contest! It's going to be SENSE-ational! That's right! It's all about the senses of summer! Each week starting August 1st one of our fabulous designers will offer up a challenge based on one of our five senses. Challenges will be given on Saturday morning and you will have until the following Friday at 11:59 PDT to get your entry uploaded into the Dixie Pieces gallery and posted in the forum. The fifth and final challenge will have an extended deadline of September 7th at 11:59 PDT due to the holiday weekend.

Guess what else? Each week of the contest - the challenge designer will share some tips on how to use her favorite technique on your layouts! So, you can expect tutorials on stitching, doodling, hand cutting, painting & more!

How do you win?
The contest will be based on a point system - the one with the most points at the end of the five weeks will be our Grand Prize Winner. Points will be offered for weekly participation in the challenge, capturing the vote of our secret panel of judges (including design team members, Sherry and Brenna, and sponsor representatives!), participating in random weekly trivia games, using secret items on your layouts, and completing all five challenges. In addition, there may be surprise points along the way - so keep an eye on the forums starting July 13th!

A spreadsheet tracking contestant points will be updated every week and posted on Monday afternoons.

What do you win?
The Grand Prize Winner - A Scrapbooking Prize Pack full of Goodies (more info to follow)
The 2nd Place Winner - The October Guest Designer Spot
The 3rd Place Winner - Your choice of a past Dixie Pieces Monthly Kit

How do I play?
This is the easy part! Just head on over to the sign up thread http://dixiepieces.com/forum/topic/4564?replies=1#post-43085 and put your name in! We will take sign ups until July 31st at 11:59pm PDT! Your first challenge will be posted Saturday, August 1st by 10:00am PDT. Hope to see you there!

Look for more details coming soon regarding contest specifics and the prize pack!

Now for the fine print:
--Layouts must be created new for this contest and may not be used in conjunction with any other challenge or contest.
--Layouts may be posted on your blog and/or in other galleries during the contest timeframe as long as you give credit to the contest and provide a link to Dixie Pieces Kit Club.
--Points awarded from Secret Judges will remain secret.
--The stated deadlines are not flexible with the exception being if the site has server problems --- computer issues on the part of Dixie Pieces.
--What qualifies as a secret item is up to the discretion of the DT member providing the challenge. We will be as flexible as possible!
--International contestants are welcome and encouraged! However, winners will be responsible for the additional shipping expense.

and just for my fabulous blog readers today, Dixie Pieces will be giving away one of their FABULOUS august kits! whoohoo!!!!

just leave your comments today by 10 PM (EST) to be entered to win!!

 

heading to florida for workshops and cha!!

i am about 10 minutes from leaving for the airport.

july has been admittedly too crazy with travel.
bill fly's with the kids to grandma and pop-pops today and returns tonight.
then heads down to florida tomorrow!
CRAZY!!!

i am excited to be teaching to sold out crowds in florida this weekend!
if you are in the area, stop in and say hello, there is going to be some fun things happening all weekend long!!

• July 24-25 Scrapbook Central
  Coconut Creek, FL
  954.247.0020
• JULY 26 - gemstone & bead imports
  Orlando, Fl
  407.249.2409

also just got on my new t-shirt designs yesterday!!
so excited about them and the message.

be the first get one!!
and wear them proud!
i will be wearing mine this weekend too!

and just to let you know all of dd, llc will be in florida this week orders placed early today will ship out today, orders placed after noon today, will ship out as soon as we get back next week!

snapshots - yesterday @ 10 AM

i decided to stop,
get the camera,
and document the moments yesterday.
mid summer and the house was fairly calm and quiet.
i attribute it to the paint.

paint makes kids happy!


makes mommy happy too!

bill and kandi hard at work, couldn't do anything with out them!
somehow i think they re happier they are not painting, lol!!

i will be painting again for most of the day today and then payton and i are off for some "p + m (payton + mommy time".  basically these are random special days where each child gets some alone time with mommy payton's will involve pedicures, lunch, a walk, window shopping and a trip to target for a new dress (but shh, she doesn't know about the dress yet!)

for this weeks inspiration wednesday i am still playing with my watercolors.
i created the tag using tattered angels patina colored mist and the large flourish screen from this set.
i tied a ribbon through the top and adhered the tag to the page building layers of color on top of it.
Next,
i painted the background of my journal page with several layers of an apple greenish watercolor and allowed it to pool and collect on the page as it warped from the wetness.
when it dried i coated the tip of my paintbrush with a mix of orange and red watercolor and touched the tip of the brush to my page repeatedly and repeated until i had filled the bottom section of the page.
when that dried,
i painted in stems and black dots in the flower centers,
added my quote text and inked the page using antique linen distress ink and blending tool.

what did you create this week?
what do we need to see...share your inspirations!

   

EDITED - whew, the whole jetlag thing caught up with me last night and i fell asleep about 9PM, sorry.

so lets make this easy, the winner is...

email me (donna@donnadowney.com) and we'll get you all your dgital goodies!!

Patty Debowski, a digital scrapbook teacher, began as a paper scrapbooker, but calls herself more of a hybrid scrapper now. She answers all of your digi-scrapbooking questions and more making learning digital easy without being techie. Patty offers the ultimate, color illustrated, reference guide that will never leave your side when you digi-scrap. Whether you are new to digital scrapbooking or you are a pro, Digital & Hybrid Scrapbooking & Card-Making with Photoshop Elements  is the only tool you will need.

below are some of the products she is offering this month and you can use digital photos or digital papers & embellishments to fill in the squares. But be sure and check out her website for her full range of digital products that make blending the computer and scrapbooking a cinch!

and as a special offer just for my blog readers,
use coupon code DONNA and receive $5.00 off your purchase!!
(coupon expires 7/30/09)
Digital Template #E- digital templates are like using a sketch in traditional scrapbooking. You can make a page in about a minute. It will take longer to pick out the photos, paper & embellishments than it
does to make the page.

2009 & 2010 Calendar scrapbook page digital templates
both sets are on sale right now for $19.99.

leave your comment today by 10 PM (EST) and be entered to win all 3 of these downloadable templates!!

see you tomorrow for inspiration wednesdays!!

they scrapbook in Israel?

if i had a shekel for every time i heard that before leaving for israel.
not only do they scrapbook they are amazingly talented and inspiring!
this was the view from just outside my hotel.
i don't know what i expected to see but i certainly didn't expect palm trees and the beautiful beach hugging the Mediterranean. i guess it is fair to say i am geographically challenged anyway, but man was it beautiful...and HOT!
i taught workshops with Birgit Koopsen from Holland

keren scubach, einat kesler, anat divir from israel

the ladies just took all the ideas i presented and ran with them...
and the best part, the israeli's all made their albums backwards...well i guess i was teaching it backwards to them really because they read right to left so all of their fabric albums opened the opposite way...too flipping cool!
here are some of the snapshots from the workshops.







check our birgit's altered inspiration journal!! wow!
on the last day of my stay i traveled on a tour to jerusalem. not being particularly religious myself, i went really just wanting to see the birthplace of religion.
it is filled with an amazing history that one day simply does not do justice to, but i wanted to share the highlights of amazing pieces of history i saw.

the city of old jerusalem is surrounded by a wall and broken up into 4 quarters.


this is the excavation within the walls of old jerusalem...what your looking at is a piece of history buried beneath the current floor that is 2000 years old, the original city.

this is a distance shot of the wailing wall. do you see the barrier running vertically from the wall? that divides the male section from the female. both may not share the same wall space and the woman's side is significantly smaller.

i also added my own message into the cracks of the wall.

because it is a sacred place you must  cover your shoulders...thus the reason for the turquoise shall.
this is the outside of the church of the holy sepulchre, where in the new testament it says where jesus was crucified and buried.
this is supposed to be the stone that jesus was prepared for burial on
and below the tomb of christ

and these are just some detail shots that made me happy.






thank you so much alice for a wonderful opportunity to meet so many talented israeli woman and to see and experience such a diverse and magical country.

i left with "inspiration" all over me!

Happy Birthday Label Tulip!

Hello from Israel!!

Join Me as I Help Label Tulip Celebrate Year Two
Label Tulip celebrated their birthday on July15 and I couldn't have been more pleased when they asked me to be this month's guest designer.

I have been working on a few layouts for this very special occasion - using beautiful pieces from the Label Tulip July main kit, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!” and three add-on kits: “Boarding Pass,” “Port of Call" and “Tourist." i could hardly wait to share them, but today's the day!



 

check this out!
* 20% Off Previous Kits Sale. Ends: 7/31.

Visit the Label Tulip blog or join their Facebook group to get up to date.

Please join me in wishing Label Tulip a happy birthday!

 

for this weeks inspiration wednesday i worked on the back of last weeks journal page.
to be honest, the page was kinda ugly with the wire before i painted the background and now i love it!
i painted first with white acrylic paint,
stamped the numbers (and another one of my favorite tim holtz stamps) using resist ink
then a layer of water-downed turquoise acrylic paint over it.
i drew the heart and wrote the word "together" in black sharpie
and colored in the heart and added another layer of color to the background using cheap watercolor paints (like the kids use in the pallet).
adhered the quote and inked the page using antique linen distress ink and blending tool.

what did you create this week?
what do we need to see...share your inspirations!

 

congratulations to Cindy, Heather, Jenny & Christy!!!! you win "kits de somni's" july kit.

email me (donna@donnadowney.com) ASAP with your address and i will forward it to Mireia and have your kit delivered to you!

3  Cindy McDannold said...
Beautiful juicy colors in her kit and who wouldn't love the fabric components. Looks like an up and coming artist to watch. Cindy McD
Reply July 14, 2009 at 07:15 AM

42  HeatherC said...
beautiful kit --- I know that my love of patterened paper began with my love of fabric
Reply July 14, 2009 at 08:36 AM

123  Jenny Alfonso said...
Such beautiful kits! Wow - total eye candy!
Reply July 14, 2009 at 10:51 AM

203 Christy said...
Could definitely use some inspiration this month! This would be great!
Reply July 14, 2009 at 03:27 PM

this is my beautiful friend Mireia Carbonell's kit company Kits de Somni. We met when i was teaching in Spain and she was just starting up her company. Mireia has such an eye for color, texture and design and i am so proud to share her and her company with you. this assortment is from her july kit . isnt is pretty!


and the really cool part about her kits are the add ons like the whole fabric component. now i might be biased, but she coordinates fabrics that go with her kits too...

her site is in spanish, but scrapbooking really needs no translation! we understand paper and pretty things! she will have her site in both spanish and english in the next couple of months and the ladies that chat on her forum do speak english. (Also, if you want to convert euros to $'s you can see her prices here.) She will ship internationally and that means europe gets the better deal on shipping, yeah!!

Mireia is so awesome she is giving awayone of her july kits today to 4, yes 4 lucky blog readers that comment to todays post by 10 PM (EST). dont miss out on this, leave a comment!!

whoo hoo!!