Happy Monday!

Today I have a seemingly simple LO, but it took me a while to actually assemble. (I try to tell myself that it is adding all the little details that takes so much time, but I've decided that I may just be a really slow scrapper... oh well, I'm okay with that. LOL!)

I love the look of stamps and ink being used directly on photographs to accent and frame... However, it can be kinda scary to ink directly onto a photo... Yes, I realize that since I print my own photos at home, that fear is obsurd, but there ya go. An easy fix is to cut an acetate sheet, or overhead transparency to the same size as your photo. You can then stamp that and tack it over your photo. This gives you the added bonus of being able to flip the direction of your stamps by stamping on one side and flipping the transparency over and using the other. =)

This cute guy, is actually a LARGE stamp by Tattered Angels. I stamped it on clear polyshrink plastic (similar to shrinky dink plastic), cut it out, and punched a hole. After it was heated and shrunk down, I glued it onto a coordinating paper using Glossy Accents and again cut it out. A few jump rings, and you have the perfect custom charm.

 There's a couple things going on in this photo... first, if you look carefully, you can see a ghost image behind the title. That is a piece of sticky back vellum by Quickutz that I ran through my Cricut. I think I had my blade depth at 6 and my pressure at 3 to get a kiss cut (cut through the velum, but not the backing sheet). I then loosely outlined it with a white pen. 

For the title, I did the normal layering for this cut (the base and the outline), but I wanted the heart to pop. so I brushed on a layer of watered down white acrylic paint to help cover the blue without being too stark. I then painted the heart with Creative Inspirations Paint "Rustic Red" and stamped the plaid with white pigment ink. After glueing the outline to the base, I filled in the heart with glossy accents. It gives it a nice glossy finish and really helps the shimmer in the paint pop when the light hits it right. 

*incidentally, I'm really in need of a quality white pen.... any suggestions?*

This faux filmstrip was so fun to do, but definitely took the most time. If you are looking for a way to get more photos on a page (and not draw too much attention to the fact that some of the photos aren't really good enough to be large prints...), try this technique!

Here's what I did... I used my gypsy to create a filmstrip border using the Mickey and Friends cart.  (YES, it does have a small film strip as one of the icons! It's one of the images I forget I have, but love to use when I remember. LOL). To get my border to be a true 12 inch border, I design it on the 12x24 mat.. This allows me to place my paper in a way that the image can cut off the edges of the page instead of leaving a gap. 

I cut my border out using an overhead transparency. Since the transparency is only 11 inches long, I cut it in half length wise, and taped the two strips together. I then had plenty of inches to cut. (a little tape around the edges will help hold it in place if you don't have a super sticky mat)  I then cut that same border, but used the "hide contour" feature to hide the big inside squares. This gave me 2 filmstrips that I could layer and still have the little square notches line up. 

I added definition and visual weight by swiping my black StazOn pad over the first filmstrip (the one with all the holes)

I then figured out the size I needed to print my photos. Yes, there is probably a very easy way to do it, but I just went with the trial and error way. I figured I was just using my laser printer and cheap copy paper to size it, so I wasn't too worried that I had to try a few times before I had it right.  Once I had the size right, I printed the photos on an overhead transparency made for the laser printer. You can use color photos, but I didn't want to pull too much focus from the main image, so I went with sepia. 

*side note: I realized while doing this that it was a good thing I chose to go small with my filmstrip... my laser printer really doesn't print photos well, so they aren't too high of quality as you can see from the close up. At a small size though, it just adds to the distressed look and isn't too annoying. =)

After cutting out my photos, I stacked my two filmstrips (the solid one on bottom) and used Glossy accents to glue them together as well as glueing in the photos.

*sidenote: journaling was added after the photo int the white space under the filmstrip*

Wow... I know that's lots of detail, but hopefully you can find inspiration in at least parts of it to use in your own projects. 

Enjoy!

~Kassi

Paper: Coredinations, Quickutz vellum, "Spontaneous Delight" by Carrie Stephens, "Muted Floral Grunge" by DLS Designs, acetate, polyshrink

Ink: Markit (Tuxedo Black), StazOn (Jet Black), Colorbox Pigment (Frost White), Inkssentials (Opaque white pen)

Stamps: Tattered Angels "Seaside", Martha Stewart "Patterns"

Cricut: Mickey & Friends, Calligraphy Collection

Creative Inspirations Paint: Rustic Red

Others: Ranger Glossy Accents, acrylic paint