sharing my craftiness

This week we are focusing on getting crafty.

The truth is, I used to be really crafty.

I would sew a little and crochet and do cross stitch and embroidery, I would paint and do scrapbooking.

Now with my kids and their various activities and other demands on my time, I really don't do any of that any more.

One thing that I enjoy, one hobby that I have continued since I was a kid, is photography.

So, I chose to base my project on that today.

I started with a plain white cardstock canvas and poured some acrylic paint and some of the Ranger Liquid Pearls from the kit onto my paper and then used a popsicle stick to spread and mix the paints. 

I used one strip of patterned paper and tore the bottom edge. 

From there I added my photos and journaling spots.  

It really is a simple page design. I just added the scalloped chipboard border sticker, a piece of flair and some other little embellishments to finish off the page after adding my title using the black Thickers in the kit. 

Thanks for stopping by Noel Mignon today!

{BRR, it's Cold} Layout with the "Gingerbread & Peppermint" Kits

Hello friends, it's Meridy here with you, sharing a layout I made this weekend with the "Gingerbread & Peppermint" Daily Diary and Paper Add-On kits.  There are still a couple of these beautiful kits in the store, they are great for documenting winter and Christmas.  Today, I used some of the supplies from the kit that are not typically "classic" Christmas colors.  The colors worked great with my photos though.  

I started with the black and white background paper, and knew I wanted to add a little water color to the design to brighten it up a bit.  First, I laid out the photos and a few of the paper embellishments to get my approximate placement.  Then I removed those items and started painting the background.  The faster I painted, the better it turned out.  So I tried not to overthink my brushstrokes or color blending. 

Next, I decided that I wanted to paint the "BRR" and "Cold" wood veneers white, so they would pop against the background of the layout.  I used white acrylic paint.

Then I adhered all of the photos and paper layers that I had so far.  It looked a little bare in places, so I dressed everything up with some of the adhesive chipboard from the kit.  

Last, I sketched a double line around each piece of paper and added my journaling.  I left a small bit of white cardstock empty, just to journal in.  I try to plan my journaling as I am creating the layout, so it fits in and looks like it belongs on the layout.

And that wraps up my layout for today!  Thank you so much for stopping by.

{Hello, My Love} layout with "Weekend in Paris" Classic Kit

Hello all!  It's Meridy here with a layout I made using the "Weekend in Paris" Classic Kit.  I went for a bit of a monochromatic black and white look with a little touch of aqua.  I thought that the black and white picture of my son from last year would go perfectly with this color combo.

I layered a piece of black cardstock with the "b" side of one of the Maggie Holmes papers from this month's kit and topped that with the heart print paper to create the base of my layout.  Once I had that set up everything else layered together pretty quickly.

I knew right away that I wanted to use the "hello" wood veneer and paint it white to match the layout.   As I was going through the rest of the embellishments from the kit I found the word "LOVE" on the puffy sticker sheet.  I thought that the "hello" and "love" were perfect for a title, and I decided to add the word "my" with the mini alpha stickers for the final title of "hello my love".  

I added the cute clip with hearts on it right above my title, a sprinkling of dark grey enamel dots and the self adhesive gold sequins,  2 banner die cuts, a bit of the gold washi tape, the date, and a couple of label stickers to finish off my layout.

Thank you for stopping by today!  I would love to see what you have created lately with your Noel Mignon kits on Instagram #NoelMignon.  Have a great week!!!

Two "Adventurous" Layouts using the {Let's Get Lost} Classic Kit

Hello Noel Mignon Friends!!!  This week the design team is working with the "Let's Get Lost" kits and creating "adventurous" layouts.  I am working with the Classic Kit. 

Today I'm sharing 2 layouts of pictures of my son back from 2011.  We were playing and fishing in the mountains.  I have quite a few layouts from this day, and I have so many pictures, so I didn't need to include jounaling on every single layout.  But I did want to try to fit as many pictures as possible on a few pages.  The "Let's Get Lost Kit" was perfect for these photos, this is what I came up with...

For this first layout, I used the Fancy Pants "Teal Dot" paper as the background.  I only used one more scrap of patterned paper on this layout, the chevron patterned paper by Pink Paislee.

I used a combination of an arrow stamp with blue ink,  a "+" stencil with watercolors, and some of the Heidi Swap "Ocean" Color Shine splattered on the Teal Dot background paper to create an interesting canvas.  I also used a little white acrylic paing under my title and the date to allow those to pop and not get lost in the background.  

I created my title with a combination of the glitter Thickers and a few stamps from my stash.  I added a few cork stickers to the title as well. 

I used one of the flair pieces and a cork sticker from this month's kit to embellish the 4x6 photo on the page. 

I used the canvas banner, a date stamp, another cork piece, and one of the glitter Thickers to embellish the bottom corner of my layout.  

The second "adventurous" layout that I made with the Let's Get Lost Kit is also packed with photos.  I used a "We R Memory Keepers" patterned paper as my background, and matted the entire layout on another "We R Memory Keepers" paper.

Again, I had so many photos, that I didn't need to use much more than a few scraps of the patterned papers from the kit.  I did pull the green gingham scraps from an older Noel Mignon kit. I matted all of the photos with the Kraft paper that came in this month's kit.

I used a glitter Thicker's phrase for my title "Let's Go!".

I fussy cut a few shapes from some various patterned papers in this month's kit to create embellishmnets.  I loved the Bingo card that came in the kit, so I made sure to use it here too!  My favorite part of this layout was when I realized our city "Tucson" was on the map paper!!!  It was very close to the edge but I HAD to stitch a little red heart around it.  It still looked a little bit lost, so I added some blue ink all around the heart to bring a little more attention to it.  I absolutely love this little area of the page! You can see the heart in the photo below.

Thank you so much for visiting today!  Check back on the blog all week to see other "adventurous" layouts by the rest of our creative design team.  We would love to see your work on Instagram #NoelMignon

{Valentine's Day 2016} with the "Happy Together" Classic Kit

Hello friends!!!  Meridy here today with a double page layout using the beautiful "Happy Together" Classic Kit.

I was excited to use some of the "love"-ly papers in this month's kit!  It's a good thing I took a picture of each of my kids last Valentine's Day with their class Valentines and the baby on his 1st Valentine's Day in his car seat---hey, at least it's red!  

The quote on the Simple Stories paper was perfect for me to use!!!

I made one embellishment cluster on each side of the layout.  I used a combination of fussy cut hearts, a tag, the amazing fringed paper heart, the branding strip, and wood veneer words from the kit.  I painted the wood veneer words white so they would coordinate better with the layout.    

For this embellishment cluster I used a few of the die cuts, some of the cut apart words, the pink alphabet (number) stickers, and again some of the wood veneer words-painted white.  I finished off the layout with a journaling card from my stash.

Thank you for stopping by today!  I would love to see your creations with the "Happy Together" Classic Kit over on the Noel Mignon Members Facebook page or on Instagram #noelmignon.  Have a great day!!!

Getting messy with paint and ink: Sea Spray Cruise Crop Challenge

Hey there, cruise mates!

Are you having fun yet?

I am Becky, your ship carpenter, and I have a new challenge for you today. 

Since my job is to keep things in tip-top shape around here, taking care of the paint and other such fun things, my challenge to you will be to use paint or ink in a fun, creative way on your project. 

I actually really like using paint and spray ink on my pages but for some of you it might be a bit of a stretch out of your comfort zone. Maybe try just a little bit to start and then add more. You will love the result!

I started out with some streaks of paint on my page like this: 

I spread the paint around with a scrap of paper and then added some spray mist to that painted background. 

I let it dry and then added my pictures and other bits and pieces and came up with this:

Here are a couple of closer looks:

So, for your Sea Spray challenge you must create a project using paint and/or spray mist and upload it to this album on our Noel Mignon Facebook page. Come back every day for a new challenge. Complete all of the challenges and add them to the corresponding album by the end of the week for your chance to win some fun prizes! 

Happy scrapping!