The flyness of flair (buttons)

Guess how long I've been dying to add the word "fly" (as in AWESOME) to a post title?
Forever!
WOOOOT!
Today I want to share a couple of pages that will be going up over at the A Flair For Buttons blog.
I. LOVE. Flair Buttons.
Thankfully mine come with no strings attached.
Unlike:

How NOT to use flair. Jennifer Anniston in Office Space. 

Guuurl I KNOW how you feel- work place MADNESS!
But that was then- this is NOW. (Now is ALL the awesome AND some sauce on the side).

First page up:

Sunday Sunshine Baby- that's my nephew Kaine when he was just a year old.
Materials: A Flair for Buttons woodgrain Days of the Week, Gauche Alchemy corrugated board, woodgrain punchinella and sequins, Sassafras Lass paper, stickers and die cuts, Crate Paper alphas and a Prima newsprint vine- oh and chevron and mini banner dies from "My Favorite Stamps".

How about this one?:

Capture Happy.
This was  a page I made for Gauche Alchemy last year and I remember thinking how I wish I had some plain white
word buttons- funny how life works out huh?
Materials: Gauche alchemy White mixed media color kit and clear punchinella, A Flair For Buttons Cameras flair pin and Word flair button, Happy pin from Joann's, Maya Road corrugated clouds and straight pins. 

I think you should swing by A Flair for Buttons blog and check out what the new Design Team (me included!) has come up with.
There is something for everyone- clean and simple scrappers, retro or altered item makers, romantic style scrappers, graphic designers of all types- Shelley has something for everyone.

Some project detail shots:

Mono chrome pages- I need to make more! They are FABULOUS.

I liked the plain wood print on the back of the letter "K" so I flipped it over but had to cut
parts off. It looks wonky but the color works. Sassafras!!! I MISS YOU! Come back! 

Brown cream and yellow together- it was by pure chance but I LOVE how the
girlie flower stuff got layered on there and the page is still pretty gender neutral.
Those A Flair For Buttons woodgrain days of the week? TOO AWESOME!

You go on and have a great weekend you hear?
My sister is in town- YAAAY!
We are gonna paint the town several shades of sunny yellow! I will take ALL the photos! And make ALL the happy sisters together pages. (woot!)

Keith Haring exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. This was my favorite piece. Someone
ripped the black subway poster backing right off the wall and took it home- smart cookie!

MuChOS SmOoChEs!
Michelle

Time for a Punk Sketch!

I love the Punky Scraps sketch challenges!

Trying to come up with fresh design ideas is the hardest part of the layout process for me so I gladly hand the responsibility over to Marie who is able to provide something beautiful for us Punky Team members to work with at least 1 every month! Thanks Marie!

Here's the resulting page:

Keith's Playground (FDR Dream)
Materials: Scenic Route paper, Studio Calico exclusive radar stamp (LOOVE!) Studio Calico exclusive woodgrain alphas, Basic Grey Alphas, Tim Holt'z waxed kraft paper, Basic Grey brads, Prima heart button. Fiskar's arrow punch, K & Co arrow die cuts, Smash polka dot tape and tag. Canvas Corp tag baggie. That "T" pin is AWESOME! Got it from a pair of men's pants at Banana Republic. Looks like something Tim Holtz would package at 12 for 4 dollars.

I've always wanted to visit Keith Haring's "Crack Is Wack" mural. He painted it in the late 80's. Ever since his death from AIDS in the late 80's,  folks in the neighborhood have volunteered to touch it up to keep it from disappearing. When I arrived, 3 people had just finished retouching the orange side to erase some punk kid's silver tags. They thought I was Park Police and showed me how they stayed away from the outlines to preserve the original design. Gotta love NYC!

Here's the sketch:

Now please feel free to swing by and add your page!
http://punkyscraps.blogspot.com/

MuChoS SmOoChES!
Michelle

When your mojo goes on vacation- shoot photos!!!

The wall- I've hit it.
All my former "no mojo" fixes are out the window.
I'm supposed to be working on a page for Punky Scraps that is due by thursday- so I will TRY to eek something out tonight- it might be hideous.
I'm determined to work through this dry spell!!
Here is an attempt to stamp my way out:

Foiled AGAIN by the ipod's low resolution camera! 

THANK YOU to Adele H. for recommending I check out Nat Kalbach's Creative Jump Start. I joined up today and was rewarded with a GREAT video from fave artist Louise Nelson (YAAYYY!)
If you guys are also hitting a wall, I suggest you swing by and check it out- it's free. (best price ever!)
Today I took photos at a place I have ALWAYS wanted to visit-

Keith Haring's "Crack Is Whack" mural in East Harlem. This is a DREAM COME TRUE! I've been wanting to go for YEARS. It's right next to the FDR so it's hard to get there via public transport but we managed it.

The 80's in the Bronx were like the wild west- with zombies. Burned out apartment buildings, crack vials littering the playground, junkies with half closed eyes walking in circles on the sidewalk. Our neighborhood is actually one of the better ones in the area and my parents did their very best to shield my siblings and I but we still saw a lot. So this mural has a lot of meaning for me. And it's freaking AWESOME.  Can't you just HEAR "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash playing softly in the distance?

I have to keep reminding myself that there are many ways to stay creative. There's no need to panic. Creativity ebbs and flows- the ebb part sucks.
I also finished my December Daily! YAY!!!

12/24/11 My brother treated us all to the Christmas Ever performance of
The Nutcracker Suite at Lincoln Center- AWESOME!

BY this point the pages had stopped matching- I just grabbed the prints I liked best.

My FAVORITE image from this year's holiday take. I didn't have space inside
so I added it to the back cover.

There's 4 more pages but these are the best bits. Years from now I will look through it and laugh at the first pages being so beautifully detailed and the last so obviously slapped on quickly. I did make sure to take time to journal. I really enjoyed the process of making a holiday mini book. I see many more in my future- if for nothing else- to have a reason to buy KEUUTE holiday themed stash.

MuChOs SmOoChEs!
Michelle

80's child

I was born in 1974 so really I'm a 70's child. I have many cherished memories of those early years but it was the crazed era of the 80's that really influenced me. I wanted to use some images I took while visiting the meat packing district in Manhattan last year.  On this particular day, ads for an art show were plastered on the walls and Madonna's face was EVERYWHERE. I simply went MAD with photos. I'm in LOVE with this page.

Written on the side are all the things I remember from the 80's Yuppy prep, E.T., Sea Wees Dolls, Atari, Pac Man, Menudo, New Edition, Prince and those black rubber bracelets I wore by the armful. I tried to attach one to the page but it didn't make visual sense.

 Since my parents had us watch the news, I remember lots of current events- Ryan White and AIDS, The Space Shuttle Explosion, Baby Jessica and Mary Lou Retton. Then there are things specific to growing up in the South Bronx: Graffiti on subway cars, using rubber bands and safety pins to make the bottom of your jeans "skinny", artist Keith Haring, pervasive use of crack cocaine (NOT BY US), Electric Bugaloo, Soul Train, Grand Master Flash and break dancing which STARTED in the South Bronx and spread everywhere.

My parents were VERY good at shielding us from the drug scene but it was so pervasive in the Bronx we would regularly see hundreds of empty crack vials spread out on our school playground floor. They glittered in the morning light. Their tops came in red, white, yellow, blue, purple, light blue an I remember wondering if each was a different flavor! My brother, 2 sisters and I were so naive we would pick them up and collect them. Then our Mom found our cache and FREAKED OUT. David has a similar story about growing up in Brooklyn with the SAME freak out coming from his grandmother. And in Brooklyn, boys would fold up the hem on the jeans to make them skinny.

Here are a couple of detail shots. But really, I just liked how the photos looked.

I just love how GEOMETRIC this design came out. The photos dictated everything. Those walls are now totally different- maybe I'll go shoot them again.



For this layout I used Bazill kraft paper, a bingo card, blue circle tape from the August Kreatorville Kraft Kit, strips are from a New York City street map and some AMAZING Autumn Leaves letter stamps which you can check out here. Oh and Smooch spritz in Midnight and Silver Foil. Alphas are from American Crafts and I got them on Artfire.com.

This was so fun I'll probably be doing some more layouts on "wall art" Williamsburg has so many amazing graffiti walls! I wish I had taken photos of the subway trains and Keith Haring murals we used to see all over the place when I was growing up. I had a Kodak Disc camera and used to shoot all the family events- yes even at 12 years old. Holy canoli!!! I can't believe I forgot to include that in the page!!!! I LOVED my Kodak Disc camera!!!

Let me put an end to this trip down memory lane- Miss Lola needs her Mommy...

Muchos SmOoChEs!!
M.