Faimly Time ~ Scraps of Darkness

I truly hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families & friends.  I myself had an ongoing 3 days of never ending "excitement".  I really crashed afterward.  I am hoping for a relaxing New Year and wish you all the same.

I made this page for my family Christmas party that has been skipped the past 2 years due to my mom's passing on Dec 20, 2010.  Shame on us kids for skipping it last year!  Finally we came through and had one.  This page was my white elephant gift, which I did frame.  I wanted to see my siblings fight tooth and nail over this, since it is a very special memory of my mom's last Christmas in 2009, and of course because I made this lol.  My SIL is the one who unwrapped this and ran down the hallway to hide it, so no one would "steal" it from her.  Great reaction, right lol?

 

The papers, burlap and the Artisan swirl for used for the title are from previous Scraps of Darkness kits. 

I made this bow embrace the page, letting it flow some for 3D effects.  I tried to add different elements for 3D effects, since this was going to be framed, I had no worries of bulkiness.

Altered Bird Cage

 So today, I am sharing with you, my first altered project I have ever done.  I altered this bird cage to match my niece's baby room which is decorated with Jill McDonald's Lullaby Breeze collection.  I made a video tutorial on all the steps I took to make this cage, as well as adding closeups of all the details.

 (This is how the cage looked before it was altered.)

(This is how the cage looked when I was finished.)
I turned the cage into a diaper holder to give to her as a baby shower gift and it was a big hit. So please watch my video, if you are interested:

If you are interested in how I made the long bow,  I made a tutorial on that as well.  Here is the video:

Hidden Deep

 It has been too long (half a year) since I have made a page.  I have had many friends ask why?  Well, it is time for me to come out and explain my absence.  I was diagnosed with auto immune disease and fibromyalgia at the beginning of the year, which has also put me in a massive depression since then.  For those of you who aren't familiar with what I have, the best way I can describe it it is chronic wide spread pain all over the body.  It is hard for me to sit and concentrate on anything when my body is constantly screaming at me, even just the normal day to day things.  Therefore, I just haven't had it in me to scrap.  I started the idea of this page in July, so you can see it has taken me a very long time to put it together.  I take one day at a time, many of which I am bedridden so I have taken to reading novels again.  I have been trying different treatments and meds.  Nothing has helped yet.  Because of this disability, I lost my job as a massage therapist, which was really hard to endure.  So as you can tell by now, I am in pain in many different ways.
Hence, the reason behind this page...I had my dd1 take this photo of me, in July 2012, on top of a large cage, for the cold hardness of being trapped.  I darkened the photo and used some flames coming out of me to represent the burning pain.  I used a functioning zipper to hide the title and journaling since I have been in hiding and am now coming out with my disease.  Of course the severe distressing and punched cracks are for the all anguish and suffering I have been going through.
I did this page, not for sympathy, but just for my own therapy as well as wanting to share what is going on with my friends.  I greatly appreciate all of you who have inquired about my pages over these past months.

 This is the zipper up and covering the journaling.

Here the zipper is all the way down, revealing the journaling.

Journal:  "Hidden Deep within my own shadows...there is no escape from all my pain."  The paper which holds the zipper was only one sided, so I had to glue a different piece behind it.  I added the fibers to cover the part that was still exposed at the top.

The red net was from a popsicle bag.  I glued it down in certain areas using mod podge.  Instead of using one punch around the page I used two.  I even used some of the cracks that were punched out here and there.

(Not pictured here) is the black circle next to my photo and that is a CD protector that I nabbed from my dh.

 

                          Hugs to you all and always, thank you for your support!!!