Challenge YOUrself Scrapbook Challenge For June: Summer Dreams

It’s time for this month’s theme challenge from Challenge YOUrself Scrapbook Challenge!  June’s challenge is Summer Dreams!

I’ll be honest…I didn’t see the word summer.  I thought the challenge was about dreams…as in setting big goals and dreaming big!  My husband and I just realized a dream we’ve had that has been 12 years in the making!  We retired and moved to Florida to our little canal.  We bought the property in 2008 (just before the crash), and finally built a little cottage on the property during 2019.  It took 11 months to build…crazy, right?!  It’s just a little place on a tiny piece of property, but it was our retirement dream.  We moved in to the house in January 2020.

Here we are on the porch on May 1!

 

So this might not be your cup of tea with this crazy background.  I just participated in a Friday night Facebook Live with Vicki Boutin and her Mixed Media group.  We created celestial backgrounds with mixed media.  I loved the background, but it was on a 12 x 12″ page and I am making my monthly challenges on 6 x 8″ pages for my 2020 One Little Word album.  So I recreated the background on 6 x 8″ mixed media paper.

It’s busy and I loved creating these pages.  Here is the original:

It felt like a hot mess as I was creating it, but once the white was added it felt all pulled together.  The Live lasted for almost 3 hours!  It was a great Friday evening activity for me because I actually felt like I was at a scrapbook class with friends.

I added my picture on a stack of Simple Stories papers from this month’s Simon Says Stamp card kit with the butterflies. The paper is beautiful, although…I did grunge up the edges.

The embellishments are Vicki Boutin Wildflower and Honey embellishments from American Crafts.  I used my little Tim Holtz grunge tool for the edges.  I also used a Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamp set called Flights of Fancy.  The title sentiment is from an American Crafts Thickers set that I got when I purchased a kit from Vicki Boutin.

The background is created with Vicki’s Art Crayons.  I used them with the smoosh technique using a piece of acetate.  I did one layer at a time and dried each layer in between.  I did several layers of each color before finishing with one of Vicki’s stencils and gesso.  I used the gesso because I did not have here molding paste.  It took a bit of time to create and then to dry.  I piled clear blocks on top of it for a couple of hours to flatten it out.

I never used to make such busy pages, but I’ve been experimenting with art journaling and mixed media.  I love experimenting with products like art crayons and texture paste.

Art crayons are oil pastel crayons like the Distress Crayons or Gelatos.  Perhaps you bought the Watercolor Wonder crayons from Stampin’ Up! years ago.  Same thing!  I bet you have some version of this in your craft stash.  If you don’t, you can just do the smoosh technique with your inks!  I will put the week 1 Technique-a-Week video below in case you have never tried that technique.  You can check out that video.

We would love to have you join us at Challenge YOUrself for this month’s scrapbook challenge.  You can win prizes for participating!

Here is one more look at my page:

I have found that my scrapbook style changes over time.  I have no doubt it will change again.  Maybe I’ll try some clean and simple pages next!!!

Supply List:

Are you interested in the products I used?  To make them easier for you to find, I have linked them below. (Affiliate disclosure ) Your purchases help keep my blog running at no additional cost to you and I thank you for the support!

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope you have an incredible day.  Consider joining us for this challenge and check out one of Vicki’s Live events on Wednesday or Friday!