teleroblog;

into the wild, 8.5x11 

not in kit:

• alpha: studio calico documentary cardstock stickers, ek success sticko label lingo red abc
• brown & black cardstock
• acrylic paint
• pearls
• jute cord
• blue fabric banner/pink striped tape
• thread

being on the magpie club design team is a bit of a new start as one, the kits aren’t traditional, and two, i am dabbling in 8.5x11 for the first time! i have to admit, it was difficult at first; i was so used to the 12x12 format that i really had to think about the placement of each element on the page. but practice makes perfect, right? ;) so i kept at it and into the wild was the first layout completed.

i remember reading where the wild things are in third grade. actually, it was read to us — picture books are always great for an eager audience! the idea of running away to this fantastical wild land is appealing in a lot of ways, especially if things get crazy sometimes. march was a weird month for me. on st. patrick’s day, the fam went for a walk in the woods. wow, how calming! it was a perfect day, albeit a bit windy, and the sun wasn’t too bright or hot. looking at the photo in my layout, a self-portrait i took with my blackberry, i feel a sense of renewal, and i think i felt it at that moment, too.

anyway, on with the specifics of making the layout!

working on kraft paper is my favorite, hands down. after spending forever deciding where to place things (i knew i wanted the photo in the upper lefthand corner and the embroidered image of the woman in the lower righthand corner), i got to work adhering things and doodling an abstract geometric design at the top — which started out with my fingerpainting random lines of sea green acrylic paint. i traced over them with my trusty sharpie pen (um, hello new favorite pen! why didn’t i use this thing before?).

the headdress initially started out as a kind of diagonal line of embellishments until it struck me that it could be on the embroidered girl’s head! speaking of the girl, i drew her profile by hand and stitched over it. i dig the feathers in this kit, so there was definitely the inclusion of one in the headdress, and there’s an elephant cameo in the center which i created by cutting out an image of king louie from the jungle book (also included in the kit in the form of an old playing card!), flipping it over, and tracing it on the back of the beautiful textured paper. i then cut the textured cameo out, adhered it to the patterned felt, punched holes around the edge, and weaved jute cord through. i also created a few feathers out of the sheet of felt provided by tara. :)

artifact., 8.5x11 

not in kit:

• alpha: american crafts typo thickers in peacock
• black shimmer cardstock
• acrylic paint
• thread

artifact. is about the tile i designed which resides in the children’s garden in my town. in fourth grade, all art students in four elementary schools were instructed to design a wildlife scene on a small square. i drew a zebra standing under a starry night sky with a huge moon and tree in the background. and i was really dang proud of it! i still am when i look back on it; i couldn’t believe 10-year-old me drew that! in any case, a few students’ work was selected to be included in the upcoming children’s garden, a small patch of land dedicated to the kids in the community. i was lucky enough to be one of the artists featured. :D so i got to work tracing my artwork onto tile and painting it.

i still remember the unveiling of the children’s garden so clearly — we took a bit of a field trip there and listened to the mayor speak and got to look at our work cemented in the ground on either side of the small path which runs through the garden. unfortunately, for whatever reason, the tiles weren’t coated with laminate, so now, thirteen years later, many of them have faded and/or cracked and crumbled. :( back when the children’s garden was brand new, it was a time before digital cameras, so it wasn’t quite as easy to take a quick snapshot to save forever — film cost money and old school cameras don’t allow for a peek at the image after it’s snapped. nonetheless, i wish i had taken a picture sooner. i honestly don’t know why neither my family nor i did… i think it was just one of those things that didn’t occur to us since we’d already seen the tile. and back then, i wasn’t a scrapper yet! so, this is what remains of my tile. at least i have this.

obviously, the theme of the layout is a path (just like the one in the children’s garden), and i was thrilled to use the where the wild things are images for this page. the elements were perfect! the background is composed of the shiny cardboard backing paper shipped with the kit, which i painted over in large, quick brushstrokes using black acrylic paint; i left the edges uncovered, however, for a “faded” look. i then mod podged the zebra vellum paper (which is very light by itself) to the painted cardboard. after that, i drew a path out of some shimmery black cardstock i had in my stash and stitched it down under the pretty zebra ribbon which i cut in half. lastly, i simply added the rest of my embellishments.