Video Friday!

This time I am showing you a funky technique on how to create a background for your art journal and your craft projects with Gesso and acrylic paints!
Enjoy...

Wednesday Extra: Family Mini Album by Irini

Here is a mini I made as a tribute to my family......

The difference with this mini is that I have not documented

what happened where and when in the photos.

I decided this mini would be more about words,

feelings and information about each member of the family.

I decided to fill tags each member of the family's

likes and dislikes, fun facts

and on the actual pages I have added quotes about daughters, sons,

generally anything related to the family....

 

I used a chipboard mini from Sfragidomania

and these gorgeous Webster's pages

which are perfect for family themed projects

 

After dressing the cover, back and front I added some ice stickles (Tim Holtz)

for added shine, the scalloped chipboard heart was painted and then covered

in crackle paint and a touch of glitter!!

For the tags I added word stickers and more information about each individual

 

Bling was added!!

 

I covered the two chipboard hearts in WP paper then covered them with crackle paint and glitter hung them on a chain and attached them to the mini

the back page is dressed in the same paper as the front!!

 

Have a wonderful day!!!!!!

Sunday Card Challenge

Hi Everyone - hope you are having a wonder Easter Sunday! We've got a sketch for you today for the card challenge and we sure hope you will play along! Here's our sketch:

 Need some more inspiration? Let's see what the design team did with this sketch...

Valerie

I stuck to this sketch pretty closely because I liked the clean grid. I cut up a single sheet of paper and turned the pieces and rearranged them to make a sort-of patchwork. I embossed the sentiment and airplane so they would stand out against the busy background.

 

Brenda

This sketch is perfect for using scraps!!

Natalie
This sketch is so versatile!! A great opportunity to experiment with colour combos and textures. Keep it simple or just keep adding!!!
Rossella

Every little piece of paper is a piece of my preferred collections - purchased this year!

Now it's your turn - link up your projects on the side bar for a chance to win this month's prize provided by our sponsor Scrap With V. Can't wait to see what you create!

It's Video Friday !!!

This week learn how to create a background for your layouts or mixed media projects with the use of gesso and alcohol inks!

I am wishing you all Happy Easter!
See you next Friday...

Wednesday Extra: Three Banners by Tessa

I have a new favorite color palette, one that I am decorating my home in for Spring: yellow, ivory/white, apple green, and gray.  Gray is my new favorite neutral, and I love the way it offsets yellow.  To freshen up my living room, I created a trio of banners in these pretty colors and I'd like to share them with you today.

First, the pennant banner.  Using papers by Pink Paislee, DCWV, and Lily Bee, I cut out my pennants.  Each one is three inches wide and five inches tall.  An index card makes a great template. Measure three inches down from the top on each side and draw a line.  Then find the center of that line.  Make a mark. Cut from each of the bottom corners to your mark.  Use the template you just made to make the rest of your pennants.

To embellish each space, I began with a doily.  I cut circles of wool felt and glued them to the center of each doily.  Then I added Prima flowers to some, butterfly punches to others.  I added leaves to a few of the doilies and then adhered the doilies to the pennants.

I cut a length of jute twine.  You may want to do this first so that you can measure your banner and determine how many pennants to make - I just winged it :).  I attached each pennant with a mini clothespin.  I love that when I want to put the garland away, I can simply unclip each pennant and safely store the banner.

Next, I made a doily banner.  I cut a length of jute twine then folded several paper doilies in half.  Spacing the doilies evenly as I went, I secured the twine to the inside of each folded doily with glue.  I used hot glue, but any liquid glue should do the trick.

Lastly, I punched circles and sewed them together with a sewing machine.  This delicate little banner is a great way to use up scraps from the pennants and very easy to make.  Just feed each circle into your machine as you sew, trying to space them as evenly as possible.  If you're using double-sided paper, you may want to take into consideration the possibility that both sides could show (note my hot pink circles!).

So there you have it, three banners that freshen up my Spring decor.  If you give a banner a try, I'd love to see it! Upload a photo to the gallery or leave a link in the comments.  Have a wonderful day! Tessa

17th April - Layout Challenge

Time for another layout challenge!
Today's challenge is: Play! Create a page that focuses on 'play'. This could be in the form of photos of your kids playing or you could 'play' with a new technique or colour combo on your page. Use your imagination!

Anna

I had a play with a new technique to go with my photo! I poured a bit of shimmer mist into a shallow bowl and added a little water and some washing up liquid and blow bubbles into it like in the photo! I then laid the cardstock over the bubbles so they popped onto the paper! I love how it turned out!

Heather

I chose to focus on several things "play" related.  The most obvious is my daughter playing dress-up.  My journaling reads "I don't know if you were playing dress-up with Rheagan's shirt or if you were playing football or if you were playing "kitchen". Either way, you were having a ball!"  I also chose to play with mists to alter the alphas so that they would POP against the cream bracket.

Lisa

My page is all about Louis' room. You really don't know what you are going to find when you go in there to check on him before you go to bed. On this particular night there was a whole army of lego men across the room as you enter. I just wonder how on earth he manages to get up for the bathroom in the night and not fall over!

Nadia

Teresa
One day last summer, I could hear my three little monkeys giggling and having a wonderful time. When I stepped outside to see what they were doing, the older two ran off and this is what I found:

My innocent Elouise was at the stage where she could write some letters, but not quite read words.  Well, you can imagine the fun the older two had!  Here's a close up of the board:

I hope you can read at least some of the words - they don't really bear repeating LOL.

Julie joined in with us again this week with her take on the challenge.

I hope you have fun playing for this challenge! As always link you creations up, we would love to see them! 

Video Friday

This Friday I will show you how to create a beautiful super fun and easy gift box out of scrapbooking paper, or any paper you like!
Enjoy it, have fun and leave a beautiful comment!

See you next Friday!!

Wednesday Extra: Desktop Stamp Storer by Nic

I *heart* stamps and more often than not include stamping of some form on my projects.  I tend to find I have some stamp sets I will use over and over, and decided I'd like to try and make something I could keep on my desktop to store the sets I use the most.  I wanted a storage system where my favourite sets are visible and easily accessible, but also portable, and this is what I came up with:

A desktop stamp storer.

To make this project you will need the following supplies: 
2 pieces of chipboard sized 6.75" square
Patterned paper - you will need 2 pieces of the same pattern.  I used papers from Cosmo Cricket - Delovely and Magenta.
Matching shades of Cardstock, I used a number of cardstock scraps
Variety of Stamps - I used sets from Inkadinkado, stampin up, HOTP, Prima, Basic Grey, Paperartsy and Technique Tuesday
Co-ordinating coloured Inks
2 book rings
ribbon and jems to decorate

Tools:
Cropadile and eyelets
laminator and laminating pouches
tab punch
Double sided tape

Step one:

I began by making the page inserts which will store my stamps using a laminator.  I cut a piece of white cardstock and stamped the image from each stamp on the page in black ink.  I then used a tab punch to make a tab, stuck this to the edge of my page, placed in a laminating pouch and ran it through the laminator. 
   

The stamps then adhere to the laminated surface on the other side of the page.

Step two:

I then made the covers, you can adapt the size of your stamp holder as you wish, my covers are 6.75" square as I wanted to leave enough room to make different sized inserts, some of which will be larger than the ones shown.  I used two pages from a board book for my covers, but you could also use thick cardboard as an alternative.

To cover, I used double sided tape and placed my chipboard on the reverse side of the paper, mitring the corners for a neat finish.  In order to get a neat finish, I folded the paper around the chipboard, using a bone folder to ensure sharp creases.  Once this has been done on all four sides, it leaves you with clear fold marks - I then cut along the outside edge of the folds as shown on the picture below:

and attached each fold with double sided tape. 

Step three:

Once covered comes the fun part - decorating the cover!  I used some of my favourite stamps to embellish the cover.  I began by creating the heart shape, I stamped a canvas patterned onto a scrap of blue cardstock and cut a heart out of the inside.  I then attached a ruffled ribbon to the inside reverse.

I repeated this process with a darker shade of cardstock stamping with a lace stamp from Prima, which I then cut out and used as a frame.  I cut out the inside of my heart from a piece of patterned paper from Magenta and stamped one side using a basic grey swirl stamp.  

Step four:

I created the frame and letters for my cover using a scrap of blue cardstock.  I covered the cardstock with a flower stamp from Prima, then made the frame using a scallop stamp from HOTP.

I then stamped my title letters by stamping a harlequin pattern image from Paperartsy and stamping the letters over the top.

Step five:

I stamped the bird shape from an image by Inkadinkado and pieced the cover all together.  I then used my cropadile to make holes in the cover and inserts and set the eyelets to secure and bound together using two large book rings. 

The beauty of this storage method is that I can add and remove inserts as I wish in line with my favourite sets, it takes up very little space and is portable to wherever I am working -very easy to take along to crops :-)

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial, thanks for reading!

Sunday Card Challenge

It's a card challenge week at the Studio - and we've got another fun one for you. This week, we challenge you to use a recycled item on your card. Our design team has some great inspiration for you:

Valerie
I don't know about you but cute packaging gets me every time. For this challenge I decided to recycle some of that cute packaging for an element on my card. Can you see it? It's the neutral grid pattern in the center.

That paper is the backing from a package of  K & Co. embellishments and I used a die cutting machine to cut it into the bracket shape. Here's a close up: 

Brenda

What looks like kraft paper is actually a paper bag on this card!

Fabi

My "recycled" card was done using kraft cardstock and the package of prima flowers...its a quick ans easy card to do, not fancy....but i liked the "clean" style of it.

Natalie
My card uses a clothing label that was on a Wiggles shirt that my son was given a few years ago. Can you tell I don't throw much out...lol.

Rossella
To make the flower I used a paper handkerchief.  I took the vintage image from the site "Vintage Papergoods" .....there are fantastic pictures to use in our works!

So now it's your turn!! We'd love to see what you recycle for this fun card challenge.

It's Video Friday

Hello girls!!
Today's video shows you the coolest ever technique on how to create a background for your layouts using glimmer mist, glimmer screens (or stencils) and LACE!! A tutorial I was taught by Wendy Senger, the inventor of Glimmer mist!
I hope you'll enjoy it...

Wednesday Extra: Altered Frames by Julie

Hi everyone, Julie TW here with you today and I wanted to share a fun way to alter some frames I found at the dollar store! Here are the frames I started with...

Next, I tore one of the frames apart so I could trace my papers to fit the frames....

The papers I used are from Prima's new line, "Sweet Fairy"...

 

Tracing on the papers for the outlines of the frames...

 

Next, I made sure the papers lined up for the frames...

 

I used Mod Podge to glue the papers down to the frames...

 

I also added a layer of Mod Podge to the top of the papers to protect them...

 

Then I painted the edges of the frames with my Claudine Helmuth's Studio Paint...

 

I also painted the edges of the papers to add some texture....

 

Next, I took the paper that comes with the frame to use to trace for the inside of the frames...

 

Some of the embellishments I used from Prima and Maya Road...

 

I used Tim Holtz's Distress Ink to add color to the Maya Road chipboard pieces...

 

Now to put it all together!

 

And now for my finished projects! I made a total of four frames, using three pieces of paper, four Maya Road chipboard pieces and two Prima flowers! 

 

Such a fun project to make! I am going to place these in my new home on my new craft desk! Thanks for stopping by today, I really appreciate it! 

~~ Julie TW ~~