Practical Scrappers DT Challenge: Use a white pen

This week Practical Scrappers wants you to get out your white pens/markers and use them. They will have a Grand Prize Winner again that will get two digi stamps from The Stamping Boutique.

My personal favorite white pen is Inkssentials Opaque Pen (I use them quite often) and this week I had a lot of fun doodling with it.

Here's my DT submission for this week - "Snow Day"


I have to thank my boyfriend Tom's Aunt Ann for sending him some spectacular winter photos from her home in New Jersey. As soon as I saw this photo, I knew I had to scrap it. Growing up in southeast New Hampshire and moving to northeast Massachusetts as an adult, I remember storms like this well and to be honest, I was never a big fan of snow. I remember always thinking as a child that my parents were living in the wrong part of the country. Watching Rex Trailer's "Boomtown" every weekend and hearing all about the wonderful February Vacation trips to Florida with Rex that our family could never afford (one of the show's sponsors was a travel / tour company) convinced me that I should have been born in Florida. 30 years later I finally made it "home" to Florida where we never have to shovel snow. I've often said scenes like this photo are perfect - in a postcard or a calendar, but now I think they're best in a scrapbook layout!

Back to my layout... The cardstock I chose to use is Core'dinations Black Magic Amulet, Whitewash Cellar Door, and Core Essentials Marine Blue.

Starting with the black magic, I sanded the edges to reveal the "Amulet" blue core color. I matted the photo on white CS which I then placed on a larger piece of Marine Blue that I had added torn and layered peices of whitewash cellar door. I love how the blue torn edges give the effect of piles of snow! I decided to overlap a torn piece of the whitewash on top of the photo to tie it all together.

After adhering the oversized photo mat on to the black magic CS, I doodled icicles on the top edge of the mat. When I was happy with their appearance, I added some Ranger Glossy Accents (LOVE THIS STUFF!) to give them more of an icy look. Because I didn't want the icicles just dangling there by themselves, I anchored them by applying Ranger Liquid Pearls in White Opal above them, replicating the snow on the roof. Below is a closeup of how that looks. Notice that the Liquid Pearls is on both the mat and the background CS because I wanted a bumpy edge - just like snow drifts:


I used the white Inkssentials pen for my journaling on the right of the photo. I'm not thrilled with the way it came out, but because of the texture in the CS, it really couldn't have been much better. To add to the winter scene, I doodled random snow flakes on the black magic CS and added some doodled white dots to create the illusion of falling snow in the distance.

The large snow flakes were cut using the "When it's cold outside" seasonal Cricut cartridge and the title was cut from Winter Woodland cartridge. I added Distress Stickles in "Rock Candy" to the snowflakes, including the small one in the title, to further the glistening snow effect. I like the way Distress Stickles aren't as glitzy as regular Stickles...they have a subtle appearance yet offer a dramatic impact - well done Tim Holtz / Ranger! I added the large snowflakes to the layout using 3d foam dots for dimension:


Make sure you share your white pen / marker projects with us at Practical Scrappers. We'd love to see how you use these tools! And leave a comment here on my blog to let me know what you think of my icicles - it's been a while since I've seen real ones :)

Thanks for visiting my blog and...

Happy crafting,
Barb