Friday, November 16, 2012

Mixed Bag of Projects by Vicky Alberto

Hi, Vicky blogging today with a bit of everything from Halloween to Christmas and even a Heritage layout to share. Let's start with the Heritage layout made with my November Swirlydoos kit and 3 pieces of gorgeous 2Crafty chipboard. This is a layout about my grandfather (my dad's father). He immigrated to Canada from Portugal when my dad was 7. He sent my grandma, my dad and my aunt a year before and sent money for them to live with relatives until he could join them. I adore this new Creative Imaginations IOD "Gallivant" collection for Heritage layouts!

Here is a close-up of the chippies. I used taupe ink with splattered gesso on the TITLE and the CORNER SWIRLY for an aged look. On the ROXY's FLOURISH (around the flowers), I used teal Silks paint and splattered gesso on that one too.

For my second project, a Halloween layout made with my October Swirlydoos kit leftovers as well as I used the OUAS (Once Upon a Sketch) November sketch. This is my attempt at doing a negative space layout - a bit difficult challenge for me! The journaling on the back reads: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you'll never know dear how much I love you, so please don't keep my sunshine away". My son adored this song as a baby - so I sang it to him every night. This is a picture of his first Halloween. 


Here is a close-up of the pretty flowers in the kit and my reverse faux crackle finish on the CORINE's SWIRL (chipboard from my 2Crafty DT stash). To achieve the reverse faux crackle: I first stippled with gesso and once dry stippled on white acrylic paint. This created a nice bumpy surface. Once all dry I gently dipped my finger onto my chalk ink pad and gently rubbed the raised surfaces - therefore being a reverse crackle look.

Here I simply put some diamond dust on the TITLE I had painted in white, using some Helmar acid-free glue - to give it some texture and sparkle.


Lastly for today, a Christmas layout. This is a picture of my boys a few years ago posing in front the of the Christmas tree. The funny thing is that my own tree is decorated in a similar style as the graphics on this paper - dark red, white and gold (and a touch of pink). I instantly wanted to design with this particular paper from Meg's Garden "A Musical Christmas" collection. I actually used mini papers from the older "A Vintage Christmas" line for the photo mats since the collections blend so seamlessly.


I added a beautiful title and santa sleigh chipboard and limited the flowers since it is a boy layout after all. On the chippies I dabbed texture paste to give it a snowy effect and then added some diamond dust (glitter glass would work wonders too). I actually clipped the third snowflake off the TITLE and added to the top of the tree. For this one I simply used gold glitter glue on top of the clear diamond dust to give it extra gold sparkle.

Here is a close-up of the mini SANTA SLEIGH that I primed with gesso, added texture paste and lightly inked the edges. Look at that beautiful hand stamped feel of the papers behind!


Thanks for joining me on the blog today!
Vicky Alberto