My Daughter's Wish

Ugly Paper Challenge

Come on, you know you have some, stuffed away in a drawer or the back of your paper stash. We all do. Now is the time to take it out and let it see the light of day! Paint, ink or stamps (or a combination of) can transform that ugly paper into a unique layout! This simple tutorial will help get you started:

Tape pieces of patterned paper to background with masking tape (I glue sticked mine, too)

Gesso over all of it.

Apply distress inks over gesso and heat set.

Dry brush acrylics over the ink.

You have fabulous new paper for your layout!

So here's the challenge: Transform your ugly paper with paint, inks, crayons, or anything else you can think of. You can try to technique above or create your own. Post a link to your result here, by Sept. 6 to be in the running for this RAK:

Now go forth and turn the ugly into the beautiful!

:)Casey

Are you up for a Challenge?

*EDITED by Sheri*  Laura had some technical difficulties so I reposted her challenge hoping to enable you guys to post your replies!

So, it's my turn again!!  I love reading about challenges, seeing how people can challenge themselves to do new things!  Notice I said reading about new challenges.....sometimes I don't always have the time to do the challenges!  This week though, I am up for it!! In fact, I am ready to get busy!

The challenge is to use OFFICE SUPPLIES!  I keep seeing all of those back school ads in the paper and drool over all that stuff at Target. I love the back to school time of year, especially since I am not going back to school.  Office supplies can be anything from staples to notebook paper to post-it notes to highlighters and graph paper!  I love the way that office supplies can add some fun and texture to a page or project! 

Please post your challenges back to the blog.  At the end of the week, I will pick a winner for a fabulous prize!!!

The challenge is to use OFFICE SUPPLIES!  I keep seeing all of those back school ads in the paper and drool over all that stuff at Target. I love the back to school time of year, especially since I am not going back to school.  Office supplies can be anything from staples to notebook paper to post-it notes to highlighters and graph paper!  I love the way that office supplies can add some fun and texture to a page or project! 

Please post your challenges back to the blog.  At the end of the week, I will pick a winner for a fabulous prize!!!

Back from Vacation!

I am back from Tahoe and didn't scrap a thing!!! Just took tons of pictures and I can't wait to print them out and get to work!

Congratulations to JenR for winning the $20 gift certificate to the store! Hope you find lots of inspiration to fill up your basket!

Lydia

Online Ad Inspiration Challenge

I dug up one of my old advertiding books from college and found a chapter on facing a "designer's block".  This book The Design of Advertising 7th edition by Roy Paul Nelson, offered some great advice.

After some preliminary work on the project, forget it for awhile.  By giving your mind something else to think of( I like to play with my kids and or even run an errand) this process gives your subconscious a chance to work on the problem. 

Work on more than one project at a time. Moving from one acivity to another provides a change of pace that feels better than to be completely withdrawn from the creative work.

There are so many different ways to get out of a slump... or in otherwords a "designer's block" and what I find useful is to search through magazine articles or online ads that spark somekind of interest.

So don't worry if for some reason you layouts are not going they way you like or you just can't think of a design that flows right... leave it to the experts.

Here is the online ad site... click here. Design a project (layout, ATC, whatever you please) using this ad as inspiration.

Post here by Saturday, June 12th for your chance to win this RAK prize...

Just wanted to add a free journal block  for you to enjoy...

Download life_journal_bit.jpg

Good Luck and Thanks for participating.

Rebecca Harper

Oh and if you are still looking for some inspiration, check out the MDW class calender for Sheri's 7 Gypsies Trunk class and Lisa's Little Black Dress book scheduled for Saturday, June 12th.

Daniela's Challenge!

Ok so I am a few days late in getting this one up.  Lets do a layout or something similar about yourself.  I don't think we do enough pictures of ourselves or document our lives.. only the ones around us.  So, turn that camera around, stand in front of the mirror and click away. 

Self Portraits

1. In a mirror

2. Hold it out in front of you

3. Your Shadow

4. In your side-view mirror of your car (try it.. it turns out really cool)

5. Take a pic of the most favorite part of your body (I took from my knees to my ankles)

Post a link to your challenge and win a fun package of vintage goodies from The Art Life my little store within My Daughters Wish.

What Dad Gave Me Challenge

Happy Father's Day! It's Casey from the design team, and I thought we'd honor all the dads out there this week (or grandfathers, uncles, godfathers, or anyone else who played a meaningful role in your life) and the impact they've made on our lives. The theme is "A Gift My Father Gave Me." This could be an actual object that has meaning for you, or a quality or lesson passed down to you from dad. This challenge is open to any medium - you could scrap it, make a card, ATC, 4x4, or even just a written entry on your blog! Get creative and play in any way, post your creation on your blog, gallery, picture trail, etc. and then post a link to this challenge. Leave a link to your work in the comments below by Saturday, June 21. One random, lucky player will receive a RAK page kit filled with paper and lots of fun embellishments!

As an added bonus, I'll also be giving away a RAK on my personal blog in honor of Father's Day and my first challenge, so you have two chances to win! Here are a few examples to get you inspired to pick up that tape runner!

Are you ready for a new challenge??

Hi Everyone!

Recently I was given a bunch of pictures of me as a baby and young girl. Seriously, how many goofy pictures could one girl take?? Let's just say my Mom wasn't a scrapbooker. As I looked through them I made stacks of all the real winners, like major mismatched clothing, plants and things behind my head and my personal favorite - smiles so big you could count my teeth. Anyway, I decided to pick one at random and make a funny ATÇ out of it. My challenge to you is to do the same. Here's lookin at you girls!!

Lisa Super
Wishchick and Former Fashion Victim

Lydia's Twist

Look at this great album cover using the embossed acrylic painted chipboard technique by Lydia, one of talented MDW Design Team Members, her use of artisitc materials impresses me grealy... beautiful mini book Lydia!

This is what she did...

Painted chipboard with a mixture of white acrylic paint, gloss gel medium, and fine silver glitter. Let it dry and adhered a piece of patterned paper with gloss gel and painted over it with the same paint mixture further thinned out with more gloss gel medium. Added lime acrylic paint to the mix and coated some bubble wrap and pressed the chipboard on top of it. Stamped butterfly, painted chipboard letters with silver acrylic paint and adhered. The 2nd "B" was not painted and already had the paper on it. Brushed over the letters and the area around the letters with gel medium. Sprinkled on a heavy coating of UTEE, tapped off excess. Heated/melted with heat gun. Maybe because I used gel medium, the UTEE was initially very bumpy and grainy and I could rub it off, so I heated it again and it melted more--smooth but still a bumpy texture which I like and definitely can't be rubbed off now! :D

Check out Casey's take on this technique here... her work keeps me wanting to take scrapbook art to a new level.

This is what she did...

Instead of using naked chipboard, as in Rebecca's example, I used covered chipboard letters and painted them. When I was embossing, I overheated the powder in an attempt to get more bubbles (I wanted that really textured look). Unfortunately, the color from the letters bled through a little. A decided to ink over the whole square with marigold distress ink, and overall, it came out pretty well. I am definitely going to play with this technique again, but with naked chipboard!

There has also been some great work from a few other scrapbook artisit out there...

Check out Kelli's work here...

and Abby's work here...

you can also see what Uberburber did here...

Great job ladies...

embark on embossing...

I think I have fallen in love with heat embossing again, I recently finished a  mini album about me and my 29 years. This 4 x 4 maya road album is about my name... legally Ruth Rebecca (Garza, maiden name) Harper, and how I go by Ruth legally, but I am known as Rebecca or even Beckie.  This album was very fun and creating the cover gave me more inspiration to heat emboss on acrylic paint.

Rebecca's MDW Challenge/Contest

Heat emboss on chipboard covered with acrylic paint and add a commnet/link to your creation by Friday, May 16th and the MDW team will pick a winner.

Here is what I did...

Adhere chipboard to desired cover and paint over completly with arcylic paint.  For this demostration I used a white background with clear thick embossing powder.

Supplies used: Basic Grey Chipboard Alphas, Fancy Pants Chipboard Flourishes, acrylic paint with a gel medium mixed in.

After the second layer of paint, I use a light layer of the same paint on top so that the embossing powder would stick.

Watch out for small spaces between the letters and/or chipboard decorations, the powder seems to get stuck in those places.

Time to heat things up... if you have a large area, I suggest to seperate the heating process into smaller sections. 

Here is the fron and back cover for the mini album that is still in the process of being finished for Mother's Day.I had so much fun I decided to make the front and back cover using this chipboard covered with acrylic and thick embossing powder technique.

Here is a close up picture of the front cover.

Try this MDW Challenge and post a comment/link by Friday, May 16th  for your chance to win this....I had one kit left of my reusable box mini album and would love to share this with you.

If you don't get a chance to embark on embossing this week, check out the awsome classes on Saturday, May 17th.  Laura has a great class on gettting that graduation mini album ready to gift or check out Lisa's paper mache dress form class that is sure to enhance your creative skills.

share your life all day, everyday....

R.Harper

challenges and contests

Watch out for new and excited challenges and contests from the MDW Design Team.  Casey, Daniela, Laura, Lisa, Lydia, Nanci and Rebecca will be posting every week to challenge YOU in an artistic way.  Join them by leaving a link/comment to your blog for everyone to see.

Check back tomorrow, May 11th for the exciting adventure.

Make sure to stop by the MDW class schedule to sign-up for classes.