I "Adore" My Mind's Eye

I tend to jump around a bit and use a variety of paper collections in the vast world of scrapbooking.  But lately I've been gravitating towards My Mind's Eye, the Lost & Found collections.

The papers are so versatile...elegant, classic, yet can suit almost any type of photo...

...even a photo of a teenager!  And that ranks high with me :)

Here is a layout I taught as a class at The Urban Scrapbook last month, created with the beautiful My Mind's Eye "Sunshine" collection.  This gorgeous distressed Prima wood frame was included in the class kit.

I "Adore" my daughter!

Here sits the lovely DramaQueen (DQ) ...and I snapped this during my annual fall photo shoot with the kids in front of our house in October.  Miraculously, she approved ONE photo from the many many that I shot.  And this was it!

I should add that this is probably the only photo she has given me permission to scrapbook in the past six months.

The feature technique for this layout is working with canvas, mainly the Prima Resistant Canvas (the clock, bird, foliage, and corner scrolls).  I coloured them in two ways:  Distress Stain and Distress Ink. (If you're not familiar with Prima Resistant canvas, they are sold in packages, and all these pieces and MORE came in one package! This particular set is called "Printery"...but there are about 5 other sets)

Here are some of the individual pieces out of the Printery set...a little hard to see the white embossed details on them.

A closer look...the butterfly is so beautiful with an embossed resistant script on it.

The tree trunk and branches are cut from Sticky Back canvas (Claudine Hellmuth) ....

 These pieces are inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, embossed, then inked again and backed onto chipboard.   I wrapped the tree in black tulle as well.

Canvas pieces on left are then attached to identical chipboard tree on right.

 The tree and branches are in pieces because I wanted to emboss them at the same time in the embossing folder (which is called "Burlap" by Tim Holtz).

 Here are some more close ups and details...

I handmade the spiral roses.  Just cut a small circle into a spiral, from the outside in, and roll around a skewer.

 The white details on the bird and clock are the "resist"....they will remain white when you ink the canvas.

The bird is painted with Broken China Distress ink.  This is a technique often used by Tim Holtz and Jennifer McGuire. Stamp the ink pad onto a piece of plastic or your splat mat and mist with water.  It becomes a watercolour.....then I painted the canvas bird with a fine tipped paint brush.  The legs and beak are painted with Frayed Burlap Distress ink.  Keep in mind that the watercolour bleeds...and will spread easily, so take care in painting the ink colour where you want it.

The canvas clock is altered with Vintage Photo Distress Stain.  The stains are a more concentrated colour and you just rub them onto the canvas pieces directly.

This corner flourish originally was white!

I coloured this canvas corner flourish with Black Soot Distress Stain.  Now, I should tell you that all these canvas pieces are adhesive backed....however, I learned that when I stained and inked them, the adhesive backing wasn't easily removed.  So I left the backing on and just adhered them to my layout with Fabri-Tac (a fast-drying liquid adhesive).

Leaves and foliage ....with some gold Stickles.

I coloured the flower/foliage canvas piece by painting it (the watercolour method described above) with Vintage Photo Distress Stain.

The dark brown polka dot leaves are coloured with Vintage Photo Distress Stain....see the difference?  Same colour...different application. 

The second technique I used on this layout are the tulle and wire elements:  the flower and the knotted border.  Super easy!

I discovered this tulle flower in a book called "Scrapbook Workshop"(edited by May Flaum) which was just published, and features a number of fantastic techniques by some very talented crafters.

This tulle flower is the handiwork of Iris Babao Uy...she is an artistic genius!

Tulle flower close up....with wire and beads centre.

 Simply gather about four pieces of tulle, 3 inches long and bind them in the middle with a piece of wire.  Leave one end of the wire longer for the front of the flower to make the beaded centre.  Add a few beads, bend the wire, add a few more, bend the wire...and so on.  Then fluff out the tulle into a round flower shape.

Knotted tulle and wire border.

The knotted border is also really simple to make.  Take any length of tulle (mine was about 12 inches) and tie it into knots at 2 inch intervals.  Then wrap small pieces of wire around the knots, securing the wire behind the knot.  When I tied the knots, I left the tulle in between the knots a little loose, not pulled tightly.

These leaves/branches are cut with a Sizzix die and inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Some of you might know that I have a thing for trees.  This is one of my favourites I've designed....with the textured canvas trunk and branches....and I love the leaves cut from the MME music sheet paper.

GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!
Because I ADORE all of you and your comments, I'm offering my 3rd GIVEAWAY....in the spirit of giving during this wonderful Christmas season.  If your name is drawn, you will receive a kit that has everything I used to make this layout (The frame, stains and inks are not included).

To be eligible to win, become a Follower and leave a comment.......the winner will be announced next week!