My Hero ~ by Tracey Sabella

I so appreciate my dad and am so blessed that he has always been there for me. He's also a wonderful grandpa for our children. This candid shot was taken during one of our family Memorial Day gatherings at my parent's lakeside home. He served in the photo mapping division of the Air Force before marrying my mom. If you look closely, you can see he is wearing his Air Force cap. Not only is he a hero in my eyes for his service to our country, but for being a wonderful dad over the years. 

"My Hero"

Tips and Techniques:

I tried to keep my embellishments masculine for this page, but a girl's got to put some flowers on her pages, so I created more of my Grungy Gear Flowers. Scroll down to find my tutorial for these flowers. 

I've used Donna's Want2Scrap Corrugated Board in several different ways including the gears, Grungy Gear Flowers, and torn strips to help frame my photo. 

The glitter on my charm needed toned down a bit, so I rubbed it with Donna's Clearsnap Stormy Mix'd Media Inx. I just adore this new color in Donna's MMI collection, a perfect grungy gray!!  

Above is a shot of my smaller cluster including a Grungy Gear Flower. I created the rolled twine and burlap ribbon flowers using twine from Really Reasonable Ribbon, then grunged them up by rubbing with MMI.

I've used the Donna Salazar Designs Art Gone Wild Chicken Wire stamp next to the photo and on the outer page border. 

Donna's products are just amazing for adding texture and dimension to my pages. Here I used molding paste with her Want2Scrap Houndstooth Stencil. I wanted to add some pewter/grey mist, so I rubbed Clearsnap Stormy Mix'd Media Inx onto a craft mat, spritzed with water and placed the solution into a misting bottle so that I could mist the houndstooth design and drip it down my page. Once dry, I lightly rubbed Jasmine MMI onto the peaks of the houndstooth design. For the photo mats, I stamped the outer mat with Dear Sir and the mat next to the photo with Ruler overlapping the Woodgrain stamp. Of course I used my favorite scrappy tool, the DSD Zutter Distrezz-it-All on all my edges. 

I used Donna's GCD Studio's Family Jeans Chipboard Alpha's here for my title. I just rubbed some Stormy MMI across the letters to grunge them up. My papers are from the GCD Family Jeans and Natural Beauty Collections. In the corners I also added strips of dictionary paper from the Mixed Media Stax2 which you can see in the full shot of my page. 

Grungy Gear Flower Tutorial

Supplies List:
Want2Scrap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Corrugated Board
Spellbinders - Artisan X-plorer
Spellbinders ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Sprightly Sprockets Dies
Colorsnap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Mixed Media Inx, Jasmine
Colorsnap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Mixed Media Inx Embossing Powder, Black
Vintage gears/hex nuts - my stash
Heat Tool - not pictured

Step 1. Cut a gear from corrugated board using the Sprightly Sprockets Gear die shown in the Supplies List photo, then trim the outer section into petals as shown below. 

Step 2. Lay the die cut gear onto the Jasmine MMI pad and press it randomly down into the ink, allowing some of the natural cardboard to show through. 

Step 3. Lightly sprinkle black MMI Embossing Powder across the inked gear. Sprinkle fairly heavily in some areas and lighter in others to give a grungy texture. 

Use tweezers to hold the piece for the next step.

Step 4. Heat with a heat tool, just until the embossing powder melts.

Step 5. Curl the "petals" and add vintage gears or other elements of your choice to the center or even leave it plain.

A side view:

Here's a Grungy Gear Flower from a previous project using black cardstock rubbed with Viva Inka Gold:

As you can see, you could make these flowers with a variety of materials and change up the grungy inking and effects to go with the page you are creating. I hope you will try some out on that next grungy guy page you create, or a girlie grunge layout for that matter!! 

~ Blessings ~
Tracey

Product List:
Paper
GCD Studios ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Natural Beauty, Wall Vines B
GCD Studios ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Natural Beauty, 6" x 6" Pad
GCD Studios ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Family Jeans, Denim Stipe B
GCD Studios ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Mix'd Media Stax2
Want2Scrap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Corrugated Board
Chipboard
GCD Studios ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Family Jeans, Alphas
Stamps
Art Gone Wild ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Chicken Wire
Art Gone Wild ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Ruler
Art Gone Wild ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Dear Sir
Art Gone Wild ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Woodgrain
Colors/Inks
Clearsnap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Mix'd Media Inx, Jasmine, Stormy
Clearsnap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Mix'd Media Inx Embossing Powder, Black
DecoArt - Renaissance Brown Acrylic Paint
Lumiere - Metallic Bronze Acrylic Paint
Stencils
Want2Scrap ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Houndstooth Stencil
Dies
Spellbinders ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Sprightly Sprockets
Punches
Fiskars - 1 1/2" Circle Punch
EK Success - 1" Circle Punch
Embellishments
Vintage gears/hex nuts/screw/button - My stash
Art.i.cake by Amy Labbe - Charms with Glass Accents
Ribbons/Fibers
Really Reasonable Ribbon - Jute Rope, Natural
Really Reasonable Ribbon - Jute Ribbon, Natural 5/8"
Really Reasonable Ribbon - Burlap Woven Ribbon 1.5"
Adhesives
Helmar - 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
Helmar - Fabric Glue
Helmar Premium Craft Glue
Tools
Zutter ~ Donna Salazar Designs - Distrezz-it-All
Spellbinders - Artisan X-plorer
Darice - Heat Tool
Ranger - Craft Sheet