Please Respect My Work...

All of the cards, layouts, handmade items and art work displayed on this website are copyright to me, Lynne Mizera. Of course I hope to inspire and encourage you and would be morethan happy for you to use any of my work to that end; however, please respect me and my work and do not directly copy any of my projects without crediting me or enter any of my work into any magazines or competitions without my express written permission. All my cards, layouts, projects and art work are not to be used by any commercial enterprise for any financial, marketing or commercial gain.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Weekend of Creativity!

Yes, that's ME and Donna Houston (my lovely daughter and owner of Inspired Designs Scrapbooking Boutique, Ft. McMurray, AB) and Leica Forrest (Saskatoon, SK) and Trisha LaDouceur (Edmonton, AB) two of my favorite designers and scrapbook friends.  And this was just one of the great moments I had this weekend at the Memories Wholesale Retailers Event in Edmonton, Alberta this weekend.  One of the things I love the most about this crazy scrapbooking world in Canada are the people I have met and continue to meet.  What amazing, talented, and just genuinely NICE people they are!  Leica and Trisha are two of my favorites and if you ever have the opporltunity to take one of their classes - RUN to register!  Here we all are in the "Good" photo - don't let it fool you!


This was my first Retailer event (supporting my daughter's store) and what an experience it was!  I attened 90 minute workshops with representatives from all the great companies lik Bo Bunny, Ranger Industries (Tim Hotlz) Clearsnap (Cathie Allen), We R Memory Keepers, Copic Markers, Graphic 45 (Diane Shultz)-  all of my very favorite lines!  The following are just some of the amazing things I got to create and the people I got to meet and talk to... Enjoy!

this is Diane Shultz, the owner and designer of all that Lovely Graphic 45 paper, and she is just a lovely in person! And below, standing beside me is her lovely Daughter Aimee, co-owner and Director of Operations of Graphic 45... Can you see the new PAPER line behind us?  It is FANTASTIC!

The following is the paper tag I made using the new paper line - Curtain Call
Then there was the Ranger Class with Tim Holtz (yes in person!)

When I dragged Donna up to get a photo of the two us with Tim Holtz, I asked him if he "had a Mother?" and his repsonse was.... "Not like YOU!"  giggle - too fun!
Here are the tags we did in the two workshops we took:
I learned sooo much in his classes that I will have to do a blog just on these techniques!

Now I have been a follower of (and in love with everything by) Cathie Allen for years!  So being able to take a class with her in person was a personal milestone for me. I don't have any good photos of what I did in Cathie Allen's stamping class, but if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from this Wonderful Woman... DO IT!  she has been in the industry for 20+ years, and here love of, and passion for stamping is contagious.  NOBODY stamps like Cathie and her techniques, (which she shares with everyone) are somthing that will change how you look at your stamps and how you incorporate stamping into your scrapbook pages.  Here is me with her and a photo of one of her stamped cards... just remember that that was a piece of white cardstock when we started!


Here are some of the other projects that I got to start creating in our workshops and will continue to work on over the next few weeks... Enjoy!


This is a photo of the cover of a portfolio we created using Little Yellow Bicycle's new line "Twig" that is totally sold out all over north America, but don't worry we were told that Twig II is coming!

Open and not yet embelished. We started with two pieces of cardboard, paper & hockey tape! WOW!

Now one of my favorite classes was with the lovely ladies from We R Memory Keepers

Here they are, Jennifer Garry & Laurel Mitchell.  I loved both their teaching style and the wonderful tools we got to play with.  watch for the new Brad setting tool - You NEED one! And if you like to stich on your projects you need to try out the Sew Easy! I am getting one for sure!  In our class we used the Cinch to create this wonderful book from just some old cardboard, their new Mexican paper line and some looseleaf with the holes removed...
I will definitely be using this book for my next journal, or maybe Receipts?  We added four divider pages that have pockets to hold stuff and that created sections in our book... LOVED IT! and done in 90 minutes!


Now have you heard about the new Vagabond Die cutting machine by Sizzix?   Well I got to use it!  (and yes, I am ordering one!)  I am a Quickutz Revolution girl, not really a Cricut girl; me and electronics just don't get along, but this baby does all the great things my Revolution does, but you push a button instead of crank a handle!  AND it cuts chipboard exactly the same way.... here is our little project made out of 1/4 inch chip board, and it took about 10 minutes!

Well that's it for now except I did want to share with you some of the layouts that they allowed me to photograph from the Prima Booth.  I just LOVE Prima... Sigh....

Sunday, February 27, 2011

2011 and New Beginnings

This is a transition year for me... I will be 49 in May... I NEVER thought I would live this long - Really!  My Dad died when he was 43, his sister a year later when she turned 43, do you see a pattern?  At some point I decided that I too would probably never make it passed 43... and then I did?!  But really, 44 was still too close, and 45 was just practicing ... and I kept telling myself that each year after 43 was the probably the last one, until now... 49 this year!  I guess I'm going to make it after all (LOL), and 50 is just around the corner, so now I have decided that I am probably going to live a long, long time and that I'd better get my personal "house" in order.  So I am spending the first part of 2011 working on ME; reflecting on the past and just celebrating the process that got me to this point in my life.  I have found a couple of quirks that I am working on changing so I can be a really interesting and entertaining "Old Woman" but otherwise I have discovered that I kinda like who am right now.  I am attaching this layout as a little challenge to you:

This is a  VERY different style for me and I allowed my "inner voice" to direct the entire process while I was creating it.  I don't usually cut out my photos or have this much dimension on my layouts, but my rule of thumb for scrapbooking is "There are NO rules, do what YOU like, do what YOU think looks good no matter how weird or different that may be."  And now I am adding a second line.... "Listen to your inner voice!"   I love the whimsical effect of everything on this layout and I especially love the richness of the Stampendous velvet leaf sticker next to the BoBunny's ruffled, satin ribbon, in contrast with the shiny Dewdrop pearls, glossy accents and stickles.  I used foam tape to raise the center 6x6 page off the main layout and and I used stacked pop dots on the frogs and photos to raised these elements off the page at higher and lower levels for even more dimension.  The frogs are from Copic Marker Scrapbooking's new Fantasy line of digital stamps which I colored using my copic markers and the center 6x6 paper is from DCWV's "Once Upon a Time" stack.

I LOVE the ribbon detail on my wedding dress.  To get this effect, after cutting out the image, I actually cut through the middle of the photo skirt and pop-dotted the photo with a split between the two pieces, then I used glue dots to add the already ruffled ribbon and tucked the pearls in to hide any edges. 
So I my challenge to you this year  is to create one layout where you listen to your inner voice  (you know, the one we usually suppress or ignore)  and try something totally new to your style, you might just surprise yourself!