20th March - Layout Challenge

Hope you've been enjoying the spring sunshine where you are, it's been lovely here lately!
This week's layout challenge is to use this sketch...

There is a twist though, we would to see you add RUFFLES to your page!

Here's what the design team have come up with this week.

Anna

 For my ruffles I used fabric and pushed the material though the sewing machine so it bunched up to make the ruffles.

Heather

I loved this sketch and I plan on using it again and again because it's so versatile!  Lots of fussy cutting here you can see but the flower/doily paper just screamed "fussy cut me". To make my ruffle I just punched the paper with a lace punch, gathered it together and stitched over the top. I shaped it a bit to resemble a smile. I incorporated my title into my journaling to help keep more of the black space around the rest of the layout.

Lisa

Nadia

Teresa

This is a photo of my youngest Elouise on a fine autumn day last year. The sun hit her blonde hair, making her look just radiant. Plus she was out to lunch on a weekday with Mum and Dad while her brother and sister were at school. That alone was enough to put a huge smile on her face!

Papers by Prima, resin heart from Websters, My Favorite Things scallop die, Making Memories sticker letters, ruffle ribbon by Bella and butterfly punch from Martha Stewart,

Our guest designer Pati

On the page Little Girl, I used a photo of me with 6 months on the porch of the house where we lived. In the tags under the photo,  I was say the first daughter and granddaughter of the family, which meant that our house was a special place, where I have great memories! It seems it was another day that I was just a little girl! How time flies!

A few of the other ladies from the other design teams have joined in this week to give you even more inspiration!

Jules

Julie

Tessa

Valerie

I love a great, simple sketch and knew exactly what photo I wanted to use for this one. Then I saw the 'ruffle rule' and had to think of a way to make it work on my boy page.

To make my 'boy' ruffle, I used twill ribbon and simply bunched it up on a piece of super sticky red line tape:

Isn't it amazing how different all these layouts are but all made from the same sketch?! We would love to see what you do with it, don't forget this month you could win goodies from Scrap with a V.

Wednesday Extra - Altered Monogram by Tessa

Happy Wednesday, all!  My ever-growing love of yellow has now infiltrated my decor, and my boys happily don't mind.  While doing a little redecorating, I realized that my large, "americana" style "B" was not going to work any more.  My solution?  Tear off the paper and start from scratch.

This papier mache monogram is about 3 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide.  In its naked state, it is a kraft color.  I could have painted my monogram, but I wanted to cover it in papers from two of my new favorite lines - For the Record by Echo Park and Portrait by Crate Paper.  I also used some vintage sheet music from Scrap Rat.

I started by dry-fitting my pieces.  Sometimes I used my ruler to guide my cuts, and sometimes I just made a crease in the paper by pressing it against the monogram.  If you're too nervous to freehand cut, you could trace the letter onto your papers first.  I wasn't too worried about perfect edges as I planned to ink all of the edges in the end.

Once I was happy with the arrangement, I grabbed a bristle brush and my bottle of Mod Podge.  I chose glossy Mod Podge for this project, but any similar product or finish would work just fine.  I worked with one piece at a time, applying the Mod Podge to my letter, laying the paper down, pressing out wrinkles, then covering the paper with more Mod Podge.  I only ran into a few bubbles, which I easily fixed by pressing into them with the handle of my paint brush and adding more Mod Podge.

As you can see in this photo, I edged some of my seams with a piece of punched cardstock and patterned paper.

When the front was dry, I applied papers to the inside and outside edges.  I left the back bare.  While waiting for the Mod Podge to completely dry, I made my embellishments.

I made rolled fabric flowers in gingham and mustard yellow, as well as a lace and felt flower with a pearl center.  I altered several flowers from K and Company (canvas and tulle) by scrunching the centers.  Before adding my flowers, I took a walnut stain ink to the edges - the ink blended beautifully into the Mod Podge and was soaked up by the kraft papier mache.  I really love the effect.  Once the monogram was dry, I arranged my embellishments and adhered them with hot glue.

I plan to create a collage of the letter B in my livingroom, this one being the largest and most detailed.  As my collage progresses, I'll post photos in The Studio's gallery.

Thank you for stopping by today!  If you have any similar projects to share, or if you give this one a try, link me to your altered alpha here in the comments or post in the gallery.  We'd all love to see. Have a great day! Tessa

Sunday March 13 Card Challenge

Congrats to all you winners on the blog hop! How great to read all your comments and see all your takes on that great Pencil Lines sketch! This week at The Studio we've got a fun card challenge for you. We challenge you to make a card inspired by your favorite song.  Here's some inspiration from our design team to get you started:

Valerie

One of my all time favorite songs is and your bird can sing by the Beatles. I let that inspire this card. The birds, the sun and clouds...all remind me of the cheerful melody of that song.

Brenda
My card is based on the song "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves.  That song always makes me happy!

Natalie
I recently watch the movie Easy A and loved the scene where Emma Stone is singing the Natasha Bedingfield song 'Pocket full of Sunshine." I now have that song on my brain...hehehe...and when this challenge came up I knew I would use it.
The denim pocket is from a pair of my daughters jeans she had as a baby...perfect size for a card!!

Rossella
My favourite song is "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. This song has been dedicated to me from my love at our first appointment! Will be always my love song!

Fabi

I loved this card challenge as Im a music person. I listen to everything so its not easy to say I have a favorite music. But when i read this assignment one music poped in my head, so I needed to scrap about it: I need you now from Lady Antebellum. So here is the card...

Its an envelope like card, and I think the result was pretty romantic, isnt it? :)


Now I want to see your take on this one! Cheers

We also have this beautiful card from our March guest designer, Pati:

I chose the song "What A Wonderful World", of Louis Armstrong, what I love, to wish a wonderful world for my nephew who will be born next week!

I am an optimistic person, so I sincerely hope he finds a more just and more loving world to live in!

Now it's your turn! We'd love to see your cards so be sure to link them up in the sidebar!

Winners!

I have 2 winners to share with you today!

Firstly, the winner of our February challenges was entry #14 - Rachael! Congratulations, you win a 3 month subscription to the Masterful Scrapbook Design series!

And the cybercrop winner of the kit from Scrap with V is..... elenigratsia!

Thank you so much to all of you who played along with us last month! I love seeing everyone's takes on the challenges!

The cybercrop was a lot of fun and I hope to organise another one later in the year! Thank you also to the DT girls for all their hard work and generous prizes, too :)

Rachael and Eleni, email me at amanda@scrapbook-101.com and I'll sort you out with your prizes :)

And for those who didn't win this time, Scrap with V are also sponsoring our March challenges, so you have another chance to win!

Wednesday Extra - "Handmade" Collage Frame by Nic

Look no further for some mid-week project inspiration!  Today we have a fabulous collage in an altered frame brought to us by the talented Nic Booth.

 

Over the years, I've enjoyed having a go at a variety of different crafts, cross stitching, quilting, painting and drawing, card making and of course scrapbooking.  Whatever medium it is I'm working in, I get a lot of enjoyment from the actual process of creating something handmade, so decided to create a picture using collage principles detailing some of my favourite crafting pastimes, that I could then hang on a wall in my home.

As I enjoy a number of different crafts, I wanted my collage to reflect this and used a variety of different materials.    The supplies I used for this project were: 8" x 10" wooden frame, acrylic paint in two shades, crackle glaze, aida material, thread, jillibean journaling sprouts in different sizes, corrugated flower, pin, maya road chipboard sewing images, bakers twine, brads, cardstock and patterned paper.

I began by altering the frame for my collage, I wanted to create an aged, distressed look so decided to use crackle glaze.  I used a cheap wooden 8" x 10" frame from Ikea and gave it several base coats with a duck egg blue acrylic paint.  When dry I then painted a crackle glaze medium (from my local DIY store) over the top and left this to dry overnight.  I then painted a layer of white acrylic paint on top to finish.  I found the appearance of the crackles can differ - the thicker the last layer of paint, the wider the cracks will be.

I then created the collage itself, using an offcut of cross stitch aida fabric as a base, which I handstitched around the edge and frayed slightly.

I used several journaling squares alongside corrugated cardboard and patterned paper for the individual pieces of my collage - each piece representing a favourite craft - paper, cross stitch, painting etc.

This type of project is great for using up all those odd bits and pieces left over from other projects.  I've had a packet of chipboard pieces full of sewing images in my stash for a while, so these were perfect to use on this project!  I heat embossed a couple of the chipboard images and painted the others.

Once I'd created all my individual pieces I then pieced them all together in an arrangement I liked and stuck them down onto the aida.  I then finished my project by backing the aida onto cardstock and a co-ordinating piece of patterned paper.

 

Thank you, Nic, for sharing such a fabulous project with us!  If you have a go at a similar frame, leave us a link in the comments.  We would love to see it :).  Have a great day, everyone!

6th March Layout Challenge

I hope you've all been hopping mad with the blog hop! It great to see all the comments and new followers on everyone's blogs, hope you've been enjoying it!

On to this weeks layout challenge, this week Amanda challenged us to Scrap your age! Come on, don't be shy... scrap a few things about you and what it's like to be you at age...whatever.... :)
Here's the Layout Team's take on the challenge to inspire you!

Anna

I love this challenge as it made me scrap about myself, I always think there's other people to scrap about before myself! Even getting a photo of me is difficult as I'm always the one behind the camera! I should scrap more about myself and doing a age page is a good place to make, I would love to do one every year but we'll see how I get on!

Heather

Lisa

I'm turning 36 this month...time to journal some thoughts...

Nadia

This is me at 32 years old. This challenge got me thinking that this is roughly the same age that my girls will be when they have young children too. I wanted them to know, and me to remember what my life was like in my early thirties ...my personal fears, worries...issues, thoughts..the way I see my self etc. At the back of this layout I wrote a "Note To Self.." type of journalling, where I am talking to my self. I'd like to think that leaving these messages for my girls through scrapbooking will help them understand their mum better....maybe see the reasons for some decisions we made etc. I only WISH I knew these things about my own mum when she was my age now.  She tells me, but its not the same as being able to read it through her own words.

Teresa

I found this challenge both difficult and rewarding. I'm not really photogenic, so it's hard finding a photo to begin with. This particular photo must have been taken by one of the children - although I'm smiling, I can tell I'm worried about something - probably that said child will drop the camera!

Our Guest Designer for March is the very talented Pati, here's what she came up with.

I've never had a problem with age and the passage of time! For me, aging is a natural process that is part of life. I have a grandmother with over 90 years and aunts with almost this age, most of them are lucid and active, I model myself on them to live well every stage and enjoy the experience we gained over the years! I'll be 40 years old in June and this definitely does not worry me, I'm always grateful for all these years and other a lot more yet to come!

This week Julie from the design team has joined us with her take on the challenge.

My journaling reads: "39 ... I know most people say that life begins at 40 ... but I am not sure how I feel about that yet ... by the end of 2011 ... I will be 40"

Look forward to seeing what you make of this challenge, have fun creating and don't forget link up your creations!

Wednesday Extra - Altered Shadow Box by Julie

Hi everyone! :)

Today I wanted to share with you a Tim Holtz shadow box that I altered! :)  I know that Tim has "Distress Crackle Paints" on the market, but I wanted to share with you the way I create the "crackled" paint look! :):):)

Here are the products I started with....

And here is what I created with all of these goodies (and a few extra that you will see in the end!) :):):)

First I started by painting the shadow box with my Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Blue Paint! :)

After painting all the pieces, I then painted the pieces with my "Crackle Medium" paint! :):):)

After that is dry, I added my Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Pink Paint as my top coat. This paint will NOT go on solid, as I have used the "Crackle Medium" paint as my second step, it will cause the top coat to crackle against my blue base coat! :)

Here is the result of my Blue Base Coat, the Crackle Medium Paint, and then my Top Pink Coat! :)

Using the three different paints, you can see it gave my Tim Holtz shadow box an antique feel to it! :):):)

And here is my FINAL project!!! I used the Tim Holtz "Distress Ink - Rusty Hinge" around the edges of the shadow box, to add a little bit more rustic/antique feeling to it! :):):)

 The trim added to the side of the shadow box! :)

I added an antique milk cap in this box, and also a 7gypises ring to the front of it! :) Tim Holtz's examples for his shadow box showed all the squares placed inside - I decided to "go out of the box" and place one of the squares on top of the shadow box! :)

 I love the antique keys by Tattered Angels! :)

The Bingo Numbers I used from Maya Road, all have a meaning to me! The "14" and "4" are how old my kids are when I made this project, the "3" is a special number for me and Hubby, the "5" is how many we have in our home (counting the dog too!), and the "30" is the date we are moving this year, starting a new adventure in our lives! :):):)

 

 Really LOVE how this turned out! I can see me making more of these in the future! :)

Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it! :)