DH is a genius! He came in and saw my Bear layout and his first suggestion - well, actually his second- was to use Norbert's muzzle.
It worked! The BAA bear is now a bear in my eyes.
As for the white-paint bear, I was able to use LOTS of tan paint and paint him all over, thus totally rectifying my mistake. Lesson learned.
Oh, and DH's first suggestion? Give the bear round eyes....
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
So Beary Frustrated!!!
Okay, this was supposed to be a quick layout, whilst I ponder how I want to do DS's China layout from Epcot. It has been rather frustrating, instead!
See, I have this portrait taken of DD when she was one with lots of bears (it was a background at the portrait studio), and I just got my Build An Animal die that can be made into a bear, so off I went.
No offense, but that BAA bear looks nothing bear-like in my hands. It looks more squirrel-like. Why squirrel? I dunno, but it reminds me of a squirrel. Of course, I decided this AFTER I glued it down. Then I put a Norbert down, further squirrelifying the other bear. It occurred to me that it was the eyes, so I got out my trusty animal-eye-maker (the QK Willow Buds) and proceeded to get rid of the round eyes that came with the die. Now I am torn: is is a tail-less squirrel or tail-less mouse?
(And on a side note, I really hope I can work with this die. I am going to have to try making several of the animals :duck, panda, cat, etc - and the mouse. Wonder if I mean to make a mouse, will it turn out to look like a bear? I love the idea of this die, but right now the reality of it bites.)
Determined to save this layout, I proceeded to cut out two bears from a design I purchased online. Mistakenly, I used a marker on the face crease of one of them. Looks really bad. REALLY, REALLY BAD. I have been using white paint to go over it so that it disappears enough to be able to put some tan on and cover my mistake.
The other bear I painted straight away - and I left his crease alone! He turned out the best of all, except for his eyes....
You know, I really need to think things out next time, so I don't end up so BEARY frustrated!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Frank-Inspired Layout
I cannot figure out why the whole layout is not showing. I guess I need to tweak my settings!
Creative Juices at Full Blast!
So last week Frank (GypsyBear) posted a Disney layout using the new Silhouette bookends. He used Laugh Often with his pics of Chip & Dale. He also used the Sil acorn and some leaves.
I fell in love with that layout. It inspired me. It inspired me to spend most of last Sunday afternoon on the couch fiddling with my RoboCraft software. I decided I wanted to do something similar to Frank's masterpiece, but using a Disney-esque font. Took some time. Counting 1/2-inch squares when you need glasses is a real headache-inducer! Finally I got the bookend section done, then it was onto the words.
Luckily I had the font I wanted, and the welding ability of the software. What I didn't have was the software and welding's realization that I wanted the letters to just kiss the edges of the bookends. The software is NOT intuitive, it does what it should. Thus, the bottom part of the 'N' could disappear if overlapped. Same with 'R', 'M' and a few others. Capital letters were necessary or the 'g' would become an 'o' and 'y' a 'v'. Not quite what I had in mind.
I kept welding and undoing the welding until the bookends looked like the idea in my mind. Then, on Monday, I was finally ready to cut. The first one was a disaster - the cutting mat is no longer sticky and it moved around too much. So, I switched cutting mats and tried again. Success! Then I tried the second set. The letters were too thin and tore as I was removing them from the rest of the paper. I had to fix it.
For some reason I had the text set up as outline, so I switched it to bold and the set cut out beautifully! Now, not all of the letters are connected to the bookends due to the the disappearance of certain sections.
The next hurdle was gluing the letters down. That is why thin glue pens were created! Just my luck: the glue ran out. GRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then, the photos and bookends were on the pages, but something was still missing. Debating on that took a couple of days. I settled on paw prints and bones. My QK bones are smaller than I wanted and I cannot remember actually buying the pawprint, so it was back to my Silhouette. I downloaded them and tried to cut them out. The bones were fine. I used a whole sheet of paper.
However, I decided to use a partial sheet for the pawprints. BAD IDEA. The paper moved around so much that most of the pawprints were a mess. I rescued what I could ( glad I had tried to cut out 10, I got 4) and put all the embellishments on the paper. On went the journaling and they are done!
Oh, and while I was doing all of that, I was using the SIL to work on DS's Disney book. I am going to make him a storybook using photos and things we did. First I am going to do the layouts and then go back and journal. He is a very creative child, and is quite happy with the first two pages. I will post those when I have more done.
One of these days I need to use my metal dies.......
I fell in love with that layout. It inspired me. It inspired me to spend most of last Sunday afternoon on the couch fiddling with my RoboCraft software. I decided I wanted to do something similar to Frank's masterpiece, but using a Disney-esque font. Took some time. Counting 1/2-inch squares when you need glasses is a real headache-inducer! Finally I got the bookend section done, then it was onto the words.
Luckily I had the font I wanted, and the welding ability of the software. What I didn't have was the software and welding's realization that I wanted the letters to just kiss the edges of the bookends. The software is NOT intuitive, it does what it should. Thus, the bottom part of the 'N' could disappear if overlapped. Same with 'R', 'M' and a few others. Capital letters were necessary or the 'g' would become an 'o' and 'y' a 'v'. Not quite what I had in mind.
I kept welding and undoing the welding until the bookends looked like the idea in my mind. Then, on Monday, I was finally ready to cut. The first one was a disaster - the cutting mat is no longer sticky and it moved around too much. So, I switched cutting mats and tried again. Success! Then I tried the second set. The letters were too thin and tore as I was removing them from the rest of the paper. I had to fix it.
For some reason I had the text set up as outline, so I switched it to bold and the set cut out beautifully! Now, not all of the letters are connected to the bookends due to the the disappearance of certain sections.
The next hurdle was gluing the letters down. That is why thin glue pens were created! Just my luck: the glue ran out. GRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then, the photos and bookends were on the pages, but something was still missing. Debating on that took a couple of days. I settled on paw prints and bones. My QK bones are smaller than I wanted and I cannot remember actually buying the pawprint, so it was back to my Silhouette. I downloaded them and tried to cut them out. The bones were fine. I used a whole sheet of paper.
However, I decided to use a partial sheet for the pawprints. BAD IDEA. The paper moved around so much that most of the pawprints were a mess. I rescued what I could ( glad I had tried to cut out 10, I got 4) and put all the embellishments on the paper. On went the journaling and they are done!
Oh, and while I was doing all of that, I was using the SIL to work on DS's Disney book. I am going to make him a storybook using photos and things we did. First I am going to do the layouts and then go back and journal. He is a very creative child, and is quite happy with the first two pages. I will post those when I have more done.
One of these days I need to use my metal dies.......
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