Birthday Cake

I was asked by a friend of mine to make a birthday cake for one of our mutual friends last week!  I was so excited about it because it's the first time anyone had actually ASKED me to make a cake.  Usually I just take it upon myself to do them every now and again.  I was nice to be actually asked!  I was pretty happy with the outcome of it, even though I think it was far from perfection, it worked!  Especially since the recipient and the rest of the group were a bunch of military vets and bikers...lol.  They just wanted it to taste good, and hoped that it went with whatever "beverage" they were drinking at the time!  None the less, I couldn't help but try to make it "pretty".  They loved it, and it tasted great!  I managed to steal some great shots as well, and wanted to share them!  Hope you enjoy!

I was astonished by how well the food coloring I used dyed my counter tops in this process....

 I couldn't help but giggle at how the little beaded molds looked like red caterpillars before they were finished!

 I tried to "emboss" the black fondant to make it look like a leather vest... I actually used a leather vest to do this...lol.  Ingenious, I know.  ;)

Here's a decent side view.  The fondant was still wet, so it unfortunately has a shiny glare to it in this photo.

 Another close up of the sides to show how I tried to emboss and wrinkle it a bit to simulate the leather vest.

Gotta have the birthday boy with his cake of course!  He loved it!

 But then, just like a man, destroyed it with hi own "special" touches!  Yuck!  Candles...in fondant!!!!

And of course, what biker birthday bash ins't complete without spiderman and rainbow colored party napkins!!!

 At least he actually lit the candles and was able to blow them all out quickly before the cake melted!  Yay! Go Max!



LO of the Month!!!

I'm so excited to announce that one of my LO's has been featured as LO of the month over on the Scraps of Darkness blog!  I was so excited to see the announcement!  I'm extremely flattered!  I want to extend a HUGE thank you to the lovely ladies over there at SoD!  You ladies are too sweet!  Thank you soooo much! 

You can view the announcement here on their blog:
http://scrapsofdarkness.blogspot.com/2011/10/september-layout-of-month.html?showComment=1318361773208#c4425149653575071152

If you're not already a follower of their blog, you should definately check it out some!  It's a fantastic blog and a fantastic kit club!

Here are some photos of the paper bag album that I'm working on.  I'm making it for my future MiL!  It's a little different than what I usually do, but I really wanted to give this a try, and so far, I love it!  I'm using the Mariposa paper.  I picked it up at Hobby Lobby!

Here is the outside cover

The first two pages with tags

One of the smaller pages with a zipper pocket that I made.  Still have to make tags to put in it.

 One of the other smaller pages that I did with one tag in it already.....

This is definately a work in progress, but definately enjoy doing it!

Here is the LO I did for the Skeletons in the Closet challenge over at Scraps of Darkness.  For this month, it's Who are you when no one is looking?  When I asked Aaron about it and wanted to know what he thought, he laughed and said I was terribly messy!  It's definately something that I would've never chosen!  I don't think I'm all that messy, but when he laid it all out for me, it really did make perfect sense.  I can take store bought cookie dough that's already cut and ready to put on a cookie sheet and bake, and destroy the kitchen with it!  LOL!  I did it last night in fact!  My scrap room is always tornado alley whenever I complete a page.  So, after all that being put into perspective for me, Messy was the perfect title for me!  I wanted this LO to depict my messy-ness, so I took some Tim Holtz distress ink refills and "threw" them all over the page.  I also tried to make my masks and stamps as careless and messy as I can be sometimes.  After finishing with this one, I was really happy with it.  It's very simple, but depicts me perfectly! 

 Here's a quick close up of some of my embellishments and the brick masking that I did with the distress ink!

 Here are some of the chippies I received from a RAK from craftysprinkles a little while ago.  I altered them with some mixed media ink and some Shimmerz Paintz Enamelz.  I love the way they look!

 And, here is my title.  I took the letters from my stash and then "messied" them up with some mixed media ink and some glimmer mists.

Scrap that Title Challenge!!

Over at Scraps of Darkness, the lovely Lisa has put together the Scrap that Title challenge for this month.  The title is "Souless".  I had a little trouble with this challenge because the first thing that came to mind was things like demons and such.  I couldn't quite bring myself to scrap something like that and put it on my wall, so I googled it to see what would come up.  This picture popped up and I knew instantly it had to be mine!  The photo was perfect for this challenge I thought because it expressed what the title asked for, and it wasn't too creepy or off the wall.  It fits my style perfectly, which is more an elegant, grungey darkside.  The photo is a very beautiful, elegant darkside photo.  Hope you enjoy it!

Here's a close up of a chippie that was sent in the kit.  I altered it with Shimmerz Paintz Enamelz and then added some cinnamon stickles with some pumpkin smooch accent ink!

A close up of the flower cluster I did with some of the awesome prima branches that were sent in the kit as well.

I used some of the letters from the Sept. kit and sprayed them with some yellow glimmer mist and red smooch ink mist.

Oct Ugly Paper challenge

This month's ugly paper was hideous...lol.  I really can't stand pink paper, which is funny because I usually love pink stuff.  I'm kinda weird that way! 

I had to figure out something to do with that pink paper!  I saw a tutorial on how to make this awesome "Panties in a bunch flower".  Many aka craftysprinkles made a fantastic tutorial on these which you can view here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcpEq-j-i-U  She did an awesome job with this, so making the flower was a cinch!  Thanks girl!

So, here's the LO that I came up with.  It was completely out of my element to do it this way.  I hardly ever use misting this much and I've not barely "doodled" on any of my LO's.  I wanted to use this LO for the doodle challenge this month as well over at sb.com.  The background started out as just plain piece of cream cardstock.  I misted the crap out of it and used a Tim Holtz mask as well.  I doodled the "flying 'A's" in sharpie and the coils with pumpkin smooch accent ink.  I like how it turned out even though it's a little out of my comfort zone!

Here's a better look at the doodles.  The inspiration came from my right arm.  I have a partial sleeve tattooed and the stars and dots are a very old school style of tattoos which I have.  They are also known as flying 'A's'.  Love the look of them.  That skull stamp just above is one that I picked up in Germany at one of the museums! 

Here's a shot of that oh so ugly embellishment that I received!  I really didn't know what to do with it, so I misted it as well and added some stickles on it here and there and then ran it under a heat gun to kind of grunge it up a bit as it dried...It didn't come out too bad actually!

 Here's a shot of my super awesome flower!  I threw a hanger paperclip on it for a little extra something!  Those tickets are just some Tim Holtz stamps fussy cut.  Had to have them to go with the photo that was taken at the carnival earlier in the year!

 Here's a piece of that other ugly paper that I received.  I misted the crap out of that too.  lol.  Pretty much everything on the page got a good coat of mist! 

TFL!!!  Have a great day!!!

What a fantastic night!!!!

It's been such an amazing night!!!!  I met my boyfriend's son for the first time tonight!  We've been dating for about 2 years now and his ex wife has been so forceful about me not being a part of his life.  We finally just said screw it and I met him!  It was such a fun night.  When Elijah found out that I was daddy's girlfriend, he attached himself to my hip all night!  We had a blast!  I tell you what, I've never seen such a smart 4 year old that wanted to help out with every little thing!  We made Halloween cookies!  They were absolutely horrible, but he loved every second of it!  I did too!  Aaron was so good too, he took pictures of it and just sat back and watched the relationship between his son and I blossom in a matter of hours!  I'm so thrilled to have had the oppurtunity to spend so much time with him and I can't wait until I get to do it again! 


And the fun begins with rolling out the cookie dough and cutting them with some awesome Halloween cookie cutters!

I decided to play and put a little flour on his nose to watch him giggle..... 

That little flour turned out to be a big ol' mistake.  The 4 yr old declared war and I ended up with half a pound of flour on me !!

Of course, no Halloween cookies are complete without some awesome sprinkles to go on top!! 

The artist was hard at work when it came time to decorate....

True artists are so passionate about their work, there are no boundaries as to where the mediums end up...

Some even become their own pieces of art... This one is titled, "Le Cookie Monster!"

And, of course, help from assistants is always appreciated!

Alrighty!  So, I have finally completed my LO for this month's Round Robin Challenge over at Scraps of Darkness.  Luckily for me, I was also able to do my "Ugly Paper" challenge in the same LO.  This challenge is over at scrapbook.com.  The papers and embellishment that I got were pretty ugly, but, versatile.  I made them work with the fantastic September kit!  This month I was part of week 2 on the round robin.  I had to follow Jrabs(Jen) who is extremely talented.  Her LO is fabulous and I had a hard time coming up with something to follow.  I decided to try and see how much I could actually copy and I think I like the outcome.  Usually I try and do something a little more outlandish and see how far I can go from the origianl lift.  The LO came out with lots of yellows and reds, browns and oranges scattered throughout.  I hope you enjoy. 

The flower I made is with one of the papers I received from the Ugly paper challenge and the giraffe was a bright yellow die cut that I received from the challenge also.  I soooo didn't like it, so I altered it to fit my style. 

The chippies are from craftysprinkles.  I received them as a RAK from her for winning the August round robin challenge over at Scraps of Darkness.  I thought they were really cool and embossed them, inked 'em up and sprayed them.

Bug Swap!

I hosted my first ever swap, and it was over at Scraps of Darkness!  It was a bug swap.  Each participant had to create their own bugs and then swap with their given partners!  Here are the cute bugs that I got!  They're cute little spiders from Jrabs... Thanks girl!!! Can't wait to use them!

Always & 4Ever

Here is my first LO done with the amazing September kit from Scraps of Darkness.  What an amazing kit with so many awesome goodies!  I had a hard time getting the page done, but am happy with it and think it depicts what I was going for which was to make the photo the star of the page because it is such a great and moving shot....The picture is of Aaron and Elijah while at the barn.  Elijah wanted to ride Jesse, so daddy got him up there and led him around.  Those are my two little cowboys! 

The boot was made with some awesome corkboard that came in the kit.

Made this using some of the "book pages" that came in the kit with a butterfly punch, my xyron and some sugar coating.  Thought it turned out really cute.

And just wanted to show what I did with the cute butterflies I punched out from the pic above.

Tutorials

Well, I'm thinking about doing some tutorials.... One especially on the butterflies I make, but I'm not sure if it will get enough traffic for me to take the time to do it....  Let me know if you are interested!  If I get enough responses, then I will do it.  Here is a pic of one of my butterflies made completely by hand!

What a week!!!

Wow!!  Talk about a looong week!  I got nothing done this past week.  Oh well, I have plenty of time this week to work on some stuff and knock out some of the LO's needing to get done with my fabulous kit from Scraps of Darkness.  This month's kit is off the charts awesome!  Very rugged, rustic, etc...  Never disappointing!!!  Can't wait to get started!!!

My Splurge for today!

So, we made an unexpected trip to Williams-Sonoma today and I got to splurge a little!!!  I got the Le Nez Du Vin kit for white wines!!  I'm so excited about it and have been playing with it since I've been home!  Sorry scrappy stuff, have to push you aside for this tonight, but I will be back tomorrow!!

Close-Ups

So, here are some close up shots of the altered grungeboard and the ribbon roses.

Altered TH grungeboard using one of his texture templates for the Sissix, Adirondack paint dabbers, Distress ink and Stickles.

More grungeboard, some TH distress crackle paint and some paper weaving.

Here are my ribbon roses that I inked a little.  Most of the other flowers came in the Envy kit!  Fabulous array of embellishments are put into each kit every month! 

Latest LO with the Scraps of Darkness August Envy Kit

So here is the latest LO that I've done.  I used the August Envy kit from Scraps of Darkness which is absolutely amazing!  The colors are fantastic and so versatile!  I used a few different techniques on here for my embellies.  I altered some TH grungeboard and made some ribbon roses.  I plan on doing a tutorial on the roses soon. 

A very big thank you!!!!

So, I finally have a blog set up!!!  I'm very excited to start using it and sharing all my work and ideas!  I have to give a huge thank you to my friend Lisa for making it even possible for me to do!  Without her, I don't think I would've gotten this far...lol.  Thank you very much Lisa!!!!!