CSI #91 - Guest Detective

TGIF!  It's been a busy week around here with extra hours at work getting dogs bred, getting all the data together to load into a new database next week and preparing for the annual graduation ceremony of our assistance dog teams at PADS this weekend, an upcoming conference, two sick kids at home, and lots of late month scrapping going on for beginning of the month reveals. I wish I could say things will slow down soon, but it doesn't seem like it LOL.  As I write this post, though, all the kids are quiet and content, the sun is shining and I can't complain.

I am happy to be back this week as a guest detective at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration, along with my fellow Flying Unicorn CT members.

The way I solved the case this week is totally outside my normal wheelhouse, but the layout just evolved the way it wanted to and I have to say at the end of the day I'm really happy with it.  The colors seemed absolutely perfect for a nature layout, and I had this adorable photo of Elliot and Brennan from several years ago just begging to be scrapped.

Color challenges can be quite a challenge for me, but sometimes things just fall into place, like when I discovered this piece of Prima Lifetime paper was perfect for this challenge.

I fussy cut my boys out of the picture to remove the distracting background, and needed something to anchor them in my scene.  This chipboard circle is an off-cut from an old Dusty Attic clock face pack. I traced it on my page and filled the area in with a light coat of gesso to create the illusion of a bubble; I created some subtle shading along the inside edges of the circle with chalk inks.  The chippy itself is coated with some Shimmerz Dazzlerz in Spun Sugar.

The adorable little toadstools have been in my stash for awhile, and I couldn't resist using them here.

The chippies are Blue Fern Studios.  I colored the stalks with chalk ink.  The pink blooms are Lindy's Stamp Gang embossing powder with acrylic paint on top and the yellow blooms are Lindy's embossing powder with Lemon Drop Dazzlerz on top.

I created my pond using the oil pastel sticks from the August Mid-Month Muse kit from Flying Unicorn.  I wanted to create the illusion of ripples on the water and grass, and did so by applying a thin layer of the Spun Sugar Dazzlerz to a script stamp and stamping it on top of the pastels. A little gauze in the background adds a mossy feel.

The raindrops were made with molding paste through a Prima mask, but they were getting lost in the background.  I solved this by coloring them with a paintbrush dipped in mist and then outlined them in pencil for added definition (a black pen was too bold, but pencil was just perfect, here and for my journaling).  

I also added some "bubbles" of Spun Sugar Dazzlerz throughout, similarly outlined in pencil.

Here is this week's Case File:

Evidence (at least 2) from the list: Leaves, Wet medium, Something Iridescent, Bubbles

Testimony (at least 1 from the list): Write a love note to someone or something

I hope you will play along with CSI this week!

Supplies:

- Prima Lifetime Grazia paper

- Oil Pastels from August Flying Unicorn Mid-Month Muse kit

- Pencil

- Lindy's Stamp Gang Embossing Powder: Cosmic Pink Blue and Scotch Broom Yellow

- Adirondack Paint Dabber: Mountain Rose

- Shimmerz Dazzlerz: Lemon Drop, Spun Sugar
- Colorbox Chalk Ink: Warm Green, Rose Coral
- Colorbox Pigment Ink: Banana Custard
- Blue Fern Studios: Garden Daisies Small, Spring Iris Large
- Prima Resins #890766
- Prima Chalk Ink: Summer Field
- Vibez: Jeni B Bleu
- Prima: Raindrops 6x6 stencil
- Molding Paste
- Gesso
- Crafter's Workshop: Microbial 12x12 stencil