Wednesday extra - 28th September 2010

You'll need to get your paintbrushes and paints at the ready for today's extra feature, as this time, we have a 'just for fun' mini challenge for you :-) 
You can load your brush to splodge, flick, drip or dry-brush your paint.  Use acrylic, water colours, oils - we're a-freestylin' and anything goes!  The only criteria is that you use paint in some way, shape or form on a LO. 

And here's a few LO's from several of the DT girls - each of us has used varying paint techniques to achieve contrasting styles and effects on our pages.

Amanda has used H2O watercolour paints to create a wonderfully vibrant background for her page:

Amanda said:
The background was created with a few brush strokes, some flicking and some splodging. Yes, those are the technical terms ;) I also added a bit of stamping, as I noticed my little pile of acrylic stamps that I collected in my old Kenner Road kits, some of which I've never even used. This page came together very quickly. There's something liberating about making a mess and literally throwing things at the page! I didn't overthink this one, which is something I tend to do too often, and it was a lot of fun :)

Fabi has created this gorgeous page using a mixture of masking with watercolours and dry brushing with acrylic paints:

Nic has used white acrylic paint to highlight a small section of her background, then painted crackle glaze over the top to achieve a broken distressed feel.  The two border accents have also been coated in a thin layer of watered down acrylic that has been mixed with perfect pearls to achieve an irridesent glaze.

So, how will you use your paints???  We'd love to see your LO's, so if you'd like to play along, please upload your painty pages using the link tool in this post - you have until 6th October to upload and we'll choose one, maybe two of our favourite pages from this challenge to showcase on the blog :-)  Have fun!

September prize!

OK, this has been a long time coming! I was hoping to post this a couple of weeks ago, but it's taken longer to get up and running than I hoped.

So, finally, I can tell you about the prize from Scrap Rat for this month. I will hopefully have a photo to share soon, too, but my son is sick today so my attention is somewhat divided!

The prize package includes a whole load of vintage book pages, buttons, game cards, trims and more. Enough goodies to create several vintage inspired projects :)

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for our Wednesday Extra!

Sunday Challenge

Are you ready for a challenge?

Fairy tale challenge! This week I challenge you to scrapbook a perfect day... that hasn't happened yet! If you could spend a day doing anything, what would it be?

Andrea:



My perfect day would be with these two girls . . . my family . . . and a beach house along with our dog Benji! I started with my favorite background medium . . . kraft paper . . . I misted the background so in real life, it's really sparkly! I wanted to keep the page kind of simple because this is one of my favorite perfectly imperfect photos of my girls! A day at the beach would be so wonderful. The cool thing is is that in 5 days, I will be at the beach, although not with my entire family because my brother is stationed in Bahrain right now! Enjoy this challenge . . . I can't wait to read about your perfect days!!

Anna:

If I could have a perfect day I would spend it with African Elephants! I have always loved them, there's something magical about them. I would love to see them in the wild and maybe help out in an elephant orphanage. I'll get there one day .

Fabi:

I used the inspiration of this challenge to create the cover for my 2011 album. The picture doesnt show our family face and this is to indicate that this day didnt happened yet.

I thought about all the good things Id like for us for next year and create a fun and colorful layout with paints, emboss and glimmer. This was a lovely challenge! Now let's see what your mojo creates.

Lisa:

I went to New York years ago. Before I was with my husband. I'm always telling him that I can't wait to go with him one day. I know he would just love this city. The sight seeing, the coffee shops, the shopping. I would just love this kind of day. Us two together.

Nic:

The responsibilities and long hours that go hand in hand with my day job can sometimes impact upon my leisure time and mean I spend less time doing the things I enjoy and that help to keep me grounded, so when considering my perfect day, this influenced my theme.

I chose to create a LO that concentrated upon some of the simple pleasures in life - the day to day things I really enjoy doing outside of work hours. My journaling reads: My perfect day would be spent doing the things I love and spending time with the people who are special to me. Round the edge of the page I listed the components of a perfect day ie: a lie in, a full english, sunshine, a family get together etc...

Rebekah:

I'm planning the perfect wedding day right now so I decided to scrap that. The photos are mostly from google. I used the July kit from Cleo Crafts with MME 'So Sophie' papers and cocordinating embellishments and the journalling is printed on to safmat.

Sara:

My perfect day is pretty simple. To spend the entire day with my little family, without any negativity from naughty children or tired words. Hubby works long hours and by the end of the day, my patience wears thin hence the negativity and we are both tired. An ideal day would be without all of that.

Sue:

We're in to rainbows at our house right now and we were so lucky to take a photo of this rainbow across the sky in Aberdeen last Friday.. a perfect photo for the 'perfect day' layout.

Journaling says: Sunny skies and sunshine. A slight breeze to make sure the air is cool. To be greeted in the morning by hugs from Lara and cuddles in bed. Simple breakfast with sweet smelling coffee. Preferably outside at a cafe. Sitting with my book till nearly lunch time. Lounging on the sofa. Listening to music. Watching a movie with my sweetheart. Listening to Lara’s stories from school, about her friends, about her games, about her lunch. Watching her work on her homework. Listening to her practice her piano. And seeing her progress. Scrapbooking loads of scrapbooking. Photo-taking as well. Eating a home-cooked meal, not cooked by me. Playing a board game with my lovely family. And listening to Lara read to me before her bedtime. Watching her enjoy her book. Life’s little indulgences.

It may not be as perfect as spending the day at a warm beach, swimming and taking in the sunshine. Or scuba-diving. Or with a big picnic with friends in a park. But the perfect day is what you make it. While my full days may never be ‘perfect’ I look for perfection in the little things. And in the little things are perfection.

Tessa:
During my perfect day the forecast will include sunshine, blue skies, and the occasional fluffy white cloud. I journaled a stream-of-consciousness list of what my fantasy day might look like and ran out of room! As you can see, other than a maid and endless income, my perfect day includes simple things like a happy family and healthy kiddos.

Val:
I'm not hard to please - for me a perfect day could be as simple as an impulse buy at the local Ikea or a little roadtrip with my family. For this layout I focused on just 5 things that would really make a perfect day for me.

My journaling reads:
1. The sun is shining
2. My children are happy
3. My husband is off
4. We just won a decent sized lottery
5. Pretty cupcakes have no calories
= a perfect day

I let the numbered border sticker guide me on this page. I cut it apart and used it to number my journaling list. I then cut apart other border stickers on the sheet to make the flowers to mimic the flowers on the cupcake. The layout for this page is based on a Kelly Purkey sketch from her "Sketchbook 2" class.


supplies: Patterned paper, border stickers, letter stickers: Sassafras Lass; journal sheet: Little Yellow Bicycle; frames: banner stickers: Jenni Bowlin Studio; Maya Road; tickets: Tim Holtz; string: Martha Stewart; spray ink: Studio Calico

Wednesday extra - 22nd September 2010

Today, our Wednesday extra designer is the lovely Andrea Tuttle. 

Andrea has used both her creativity and scrapbooking supplies to design this unique piece of artwork to be displayed in her new home.

Isn't that quote just fabulous!  Andrea has found the perfect method to display some of her favourite words of wisdom - to view further photos of her project, along with her instructions on how to create a similar inspiring art piece, please click on this link which will take you straight to her tutorial.

Sunday Challenge

Good morning! I'm really delighted to welcome a special guest challenger to 'The Studio' today. Take a helping of Rachel Ray, a sprinkle of Martha Stewart, and a dash of Ellen DeGeneres, shake well until blended, and what do you get? Lain Ehmann, scrapbook lover! Lain is a fast-talking, fast-scrapping human dynamo with three kids, tons of ideas, and more books than she could ever read in this lifetime. The author of several books on scrapbooking, including "Snippets: Mostly True Tales from the Lighter Side of Scrapbooking" and "20 Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers" (co-authored with Stacy Julian), Lain helps women make their scrapbooking fun, fast, and fabulous. Download her "Super-Secret Guide to Fast Scrapbooking" at http://www.getscraphappy.com.

Lain has set us quite a challenge today and I hope that, like the design team, you'll embrace it :)



If you're like me (and I'll bet you are!) you can't resist the adorable themed holiday products that come out each and every year. But the number of holiday-themed layouts just don't keep pace with the mounting supplies. So what's a scrapper to do? My challenge for you this week is to think outside the box -- the calendar box, that is! Use holiday-themed items on a non-holiday page. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
For this page, "Caught in Your Web," I chose some fun Halloween embellishments from My Mind's Eye (die-cut spiders) and Little Yellow Bicycle (letters ). Going against my usual scrapbook regulations of never spending more than 30 minutes on a page, I hand-stitched a spider web using DMC floss. I won't be doing that again any time soon! I love the look, but talk about time-intensive. I sat through at least three "What Not to Wear" episodes on iTunes! But hey, it was a sacrifice for a good cause. :)

So just incase you missed the challenge in Lain's description:
Use holiday theme stuff on a page that's NOT about that holiday. I have tons of holiday stuff (Christmas and Halloween in particular) that only makes it out once a year - I'd love to use it in some creative ways and see what other people can do.

Amanda I decided to go with halloween themed product from Echo Park as I thought the colours worked for a 60s themed layout. I like how it turned out, but think maybe I should have skipped the 'sun' (aka spooky moon) and 'tree' stickers as I think they look a bit too spooky! The purple paint was added to help my title stand out and cover the bats flying across the moon!

Andrea
Oh wow . . . this was a tough one for me! I definitely only use my themed papers for themed layouts or projects . . .I thought that the red on the trees and the other papers went good with the giant red shoes! My brother actually wore these when he was last home . . . I thought they were hilarious and just had to snap a photo of them! I tried to make it look like the snowman was saying this . . . have fun! Can't wait to see your creations!!

Anna

This was a interesting challenge for me as I don't really buy themed papers! The only themed papers I had was some Christmas ones left over from my Christmas journal last year so I used those! Luckily there weren't too Christmassy! This is my little nephew waving at the ducks!

Lisa


I've used the Scenic Route - Lynden Easter- Collection for my page. This is my daughter using her first ever face mask in preparation for her school disco. Seeing as it was a chocolate face mask, it went well with the chipboard and sticker sentiments from this Easter collection. I decided to change the photo to black and white so that the papers really stood out.

Nic

Wow, this was a great challenge! and one that really got my cogs turning. I knew I wanted to use some of my christmas themed papers as these tend to sit in my stash more than other 'themed' collections. I chose a variety of papers from Luxe's candy cane collection which I received in a kit a couple of years back and got to work!

As I was making the page, I kept thinking to myself, umm, not sure if this is going to work....not sure about using these papers....hhmmm, not sure I'm going to like this. But, as it evolved I've ended up with a LO that I'm really pleased with, so just goes to show - it's good to be challenged! Thanks Lain! :-)

RebekahI recently got a publication call from a UK magazine for their Halloween issue. I don't do Halloween and I never have, but I found that I had one piece of halloween paper in my stash and I had the odd scrap left from the LO for the magazine. Since I live with two little horrors and one of them has been particularly horror-ish recently the link was quickly made. The nail was put in my idea coffin when I came home from dropping Connor at preschool to find that Bailey had been attacking my stash which is now homed in the conservatory, where we leave Bailey when we go out. I wasn't sure how it would work, but I like the LO and think that the papers work pretty well .

Sara

I knew that I didn't have too many 'themed' items in my stash as I don't find them easy to use hence don't buy them but this layout came together quite quickly. All the themed items are from a Cosmo Cricket Xmas line from last year. The papers and music strip were non themed enough for it to be easy to stick them down. The journal block had a Xmas sentiment across the bottom, so I covered it with the border strip. And the gingerbread man are just too cute.

Tessa

After making my sons' lunches for school, which included juicy red apples, I was searching through my holiday papers. When I came to the Christmas paper you see in my layout, I thought the red and green paper looked like the apple seeds I had just cleaned from my cutting board. I knew exactly what I wanted to do - turn a Christmas theme into an apple theme! With my title in mind, I found a photo of my son that coordinated and used my sweet little apple stamp for the first time. To further distance my papers from Christmas, I added the black mist.

Val

Even though it's Halloween paper, I thought this American Crafts paper with the stars would be a perfect backdrop for this photo of my son. I cut out some of the stars and backed them with small scraps of silver metallic paper.

I then took the reverse of the star cut outs (the purple stars) and tacked them here & there. Other Halloween themed items on the layout are the flair buttons and the alphabet.
Materials: Patterned paper, cardstock, metallic paper, flair: American Crafts; journal spots: Basic Grey; letter stickers: Making Memories; stamp: Stampin Up
Upload your LO using Inlinkz in the sidebar by 2nd October 2010. We can't wait to see how you use your holiday paper :)

Wednesday Extra - 15/9/10

Hello all :-)  This week it's my turn (Nic) to bring you a Wednesday extra project and I'd like to use my extra post to share a super cool discovery!  There is so much inspiration and talent out there in our scrappy world and every so often I come across a project that really piques my interest.  A couple of weeks ago at my monthly crop we were treated to an unexpected class - a lean-mean-mini book which had been designed and was taught by one of our regular crop gals - Jemma Sharrock.

I thought Jemma's design was incredibly inventive - it's a super easy to make mini book (size 5" x 3.75") that is constructed using just one sheet of card stock and one sheet of double sided patterned paper.  With a few strategically placed cuts and folds, your paper and card magically metamorphoses into an 8 page mini book where every inch of the original paper and card are put to good use!  There are cleverly constructed pockets, tags and mats and it is all bound together into a little box form with a ribbon tie.  I thought this was such a great idea, and thoroughly enjoyed the class, so asked Jemma if she would mind if I featured her design on our Studio extras feature, so lots of additional scrappers could also be introduced to and enjoy her lean, mean mini book design.  Luckily for us, she said yes!

Jemma has kindly compiled and written a fab set of instructions for the Studio blog readers which can be viewed, printed or downloaded here.  Please also pay a visit to Jemma's blog where you can see a slide show displaying some of the gorgeous lean-mean-mini books she has created.

Here are a few pictures of the book I made in Jemma's class:



I chose to tell the story of my newly discovered love of walking as I felt this book would be the perfect medium to chart some of the individual walks I've completed this year, with plenty of space to add more as I complete them.  The little pull out mats are just the right size to display a 2 x 3" photo and journaling square, so I used these to create individual graded walk guides.  The pocket was the ideal place to store some of my downloaded route maps.

A big thank you to Jemma for sharing her design and I hope you have as much fun making a lean mean mini book as I did :-) 

Drumroll please...

Good Morning! How did you get on with yesterday's challenge? Fun isn't it? :)

We have two winners to announce today.

The first is the randomly selected winner for August, sponsored by Cosmo Criket. Congratuations to Lythan. Congratulations! Email Amanda at amanda@scrapbook-101.com with your details and she'll get your Cosmo Cricket prize sent out to you :)

And I'm really happy to announce that our Guest Designer for October will be Justina. It was really tough to decide which of the wonderful projects was our favourite and it was a close run thing but we loved:

Have a look at Justina's blog for more lovely work. Welcome on board Justina. We look foward to seeing that you do with the challenges in October :)

Sunday Challenge 12th September 2010

How many of you are good in the week and have food and drink treats at the weekend? I used to be a Weight Watches counsellor and I heard so many people say that both during their weight loss and afterwards so I'm sure that there some of you out there who will relate. This week's challenge is appropriate then!

Food and drink - dedicate a layout to your favourite consumables! Whether it's chocolate, coffee or wine, tell us all about it :)

So, like Amanda and I, will you struggle to decide which food is your favourite, or do you already know instantly?? We can't wait to see your challenges linked with the Inlinkz for September in the sidebar.

And if you need a little help getting started, here's the DT take on the challenge:

Amanda:

I love food. A lot. It was hard to choose something to focus my layout on. In the end I decided that my favourite meals were roast dinners, not just because of the food itself, but because it's a time when we're together as a family. Our Sunday roast dinners often include extended family too, so it is a memory of good food and past times with family.

Anna:

To me there's nothing like a nice cup of tea and 2 pieces of caramel as an afternoon pick me up! I had fun being pretty on this layout to match my mug! I used a doily that I secretly put in my bag when I was in a pub recently!!

Lisa:

Anyone that know's me knows that I'm a latte girl. I love my fancy coffee machine that makes fab coffee and fluffy milk. I'm completely hooked and can't get through a morning without it.
This goes hand in hand with my 'thing' for mugs. I was so pleased with this bargain earlier this year.

Nic:

Over the past couple of years I've become so much more aware and tried to learn a lot more about what happens to our food, how it's farmed, processed etc before it reaches our stores. This year, for the first time, I thought I'd have a go at growing some of my own organic fruit and vegetables in my garden, so when I read the details for this challenge, just knew I'd have to create a page about my first 'growing your own' efforts. Not all of my growing efforts were successful but these tomatoes were delicious and our favourites from our first crop :-)

Rebekah:
I love ALL food so when Amanda asked us to scrap about our favourite consumable I had to think a little about what my favourite food is. It actually didn't take too long in the end though. My favourite is a cream tea, so much so that we're having a cream tea as our wedding meal rather than a formal sit down meal :)

Sue:

A twist on the challenge! I've decided to pick on one of my biggest food-related indulgences - those foodie magazines they have at every supermarket here in the UK!

Journaling says: "I love eating good foods - but also good-looking foods. SO I steer clear of the food magazines. But once in a while, I indulge and bake, cook, eat to my heart's content."

I picked a photo from a recent magazine (Woman & Home) and did a sort of photo 'collage' of one of the yummy photos of all the breads and oven bakes. Yum. Who can resist that?? :)

Looking forward to reading your food & drink indulgences!

Valerie:

I'm not sure what they put in this stuff but I just can't get enough of Dunkin' Donuts coffee! So much so that I feel a little pang of relief & well-being when I see the pink & orange "D"s in close proximity. I always order the same thing - Medium Hazelnut Light & Sweet - all seasons - all the time. I know my obsession is a little crazy. I tell myself there are way worse things to be addicted to. Do they have Dunkin' Donuts in the U.K.?

For this layout, I used a really cool coffee ring stamp - which was pretty much made for this project. Also used the wrapper from my straw and stitched the little swirls of 'steamy coffee goodness', also part of the DD coffee cup logo, right onto my page. Hmmm, I think I'm in the mood for a cup right now!

Supplies: Cardstock: American Crafts; Patterned paper: Echo Park, Basic Grey; letter stickers, border sticker, journal block: Basic Grey; yellow journal block, butterfly: Jenni Bowlin; frame: Maya Road; stamp: Studio Calico; string: Martha Stewart; spray ink: Tattered Angels; floss: craft supply

Our final announcement...

...before the big one :) We're still going through all the lovely cybercrop projects to pick our winner to be guest designer for October so today I'm going to let you know the last of the other winners.

Tessa's fabric class prize from Precocious Paper is going to Kelly.

And the Elle's Studio prize for Ania's class goes to PinkPug, INK

Congratulations girls. Please email amanda @ scrapbook-101.com (without the spaces) with your full name and address.

One final thank you to everyone who took part in the cybercrop from the designers all the way up to you, our readers. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. You certianly have some lovely creations as a result of it :)

Wednesday extra from Sue Mylde

We're taking a breather from all the exciting cyber crop info and prize giving today to share another gorgeous Wednesday extra project with you. 

This week it's a pleasure to showcase a canvas painted and designed by Sue.  I think Sue has a real talent for capturing both amazing colour and textures in her work and her canvas is a testament to these skills.   



Sue said:
I have had a long-time obsession with canvases. I love working with them and I wish I had much more space in my house to put all the canvases up that I want to paint! Recently, I came up with the idea that I could still paint canvases and create a lovely piece of work, and then give it away as a present!

My husband's niece had a recent birthday and I wanted to make her a canvas - something unique that she could have in her room that she couldn't buy at any store. And the above is what I came up with.

I love creating layouts with textures, so my canvases can't be any different, right?

For the base of the canvas, I used:
1. Mists (Tattered Angels)
2. Acrylic Paints in different colors (Adirondack Paint Dabbers)
3. Butterfly masks that I punched out from the Martha Stewart punch.
4. Gesso

As embellishments, I used:
1. Bling
2. Ribbon trims (Webster's Pages)
3. Flowers - two types - fabric and paper
4. Die cuts (K&Company)
5. Letter Stickers (American Crafts)
6. White ribbon for the tag.
7. Stickles for a bit of glitter :)

It was a fun and easy to make project, and including drying time, took about 5 hours to create!
I promise I'll be making more of these in the near future!