Scrapbooking

You Make Me Smile & My Heart Soar

on October 3, 2009

Playing with a different kinda style today!

I had never heard of Webster’s pages until I found some in the stash of goodies that Leslie Ashe sent me, and now I see them everywhere – i guess I was just being blind before. Funny how that happens, huh?

But how could I resist this page with hot air balloons, sitting amongst the oodles of pages Leslie sent me. It jumped right out at me and it started begging to be scrapped.

Websters Pages – Postcards from Paris Collection – 12 x 12 Double Sided Paper – Tres Magique, BRAND NEW
Scrapbook.com

I was immediately drawn to the page, which surprised me a little, because i don’t normally scrap in this style; but always up for a challenge, I was determined to use it. First, I cut out the balloons and then turned over the page and fell in love with the blue background paper. SO much so that I really wanted to use that as the background page – but oh no, of course I now had holes in the page. That didn’t stop me. I rustled through my craft stash and picked out some embellishments and lace, and I got to work layering and sticking items….

… then, I had a brainwave…

A few weeks ago we got some marketing material through the door, advertising for a restaurant or something. It was folded up like a newspaper, when I opened the spread, I gasped. The style was simply beautiful, printed with old rustic frames, chunky text and flourishes- almost like an old poster for a carnival. I didn’t care much for the product being advertised, but I kept the paper with a view to cut out the pieces and use them on my projects.

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It was the frames in particular which caught my eye, and most were very similar to some products in the craft industry right now, for example, the ‘House of 3’ Frames by Heidi Swapp:

and the glitz designs rub on frames; both of which products give sense of rustic elegance.

I knew that this was going to be the perfect occasion to cut out one of the frames printed in the paper and use this as part of my layout. I think it looks great!

It’s always a good idea to remember that craft products and scrapbook papers are all specifically made to be acid & lignin free, which means that the papers won’t yellow or fade with age. So when we use other papers, it is likely that the pH levels are different and this could mean that years down the line, the page will look different from what it originally was. If this is something you worry about, you can buy a spray from Krylon which neutralises the pH of paper, thus making it safe to use for scrapbooking. Unfortunately I didn’t have any of this spray to hand, but I am ok with using it as it is….at least for now.

So here is the finished project

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Making this page has made me want to buy this photo frame for our wedding photo. What do you think?

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Hello October

on October 1, 2009

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Geez, where did September go?

Life has been busy over here. A Last week my brother Roger, Shelly and little nephew Josh were over to visit. Lots of fun, especially our trip to legoland (lots of layouts coming soon) but I never had much time to blog unfortunately. Then the week disappeared before my very eyes- Monday ran away with Friday and the days in the middle got lost somehow. Next was a weekend in the Isle of Wight, which was really good fun, but it felt really horrible to be somewhere where there is no mobile phone reception and no internet access. It’s funny really because it was just last week that I was commenting on how my nephew Luke (11yo) had to do homework online, and i was reminiscing that when I was 11 we didn’t even have a computer in our house, never mind the fact that it was years later before the internet was introduced to our household. Now i can’t go three days without a little bit of web-surfing.

When I did get home from my trip away, I was greeted by the most wonderful thing. HAPPY MAIL!
A few weeks back the wonderfully talented Leslie Ashe was kind enough to give a away a RAK on her blog and I happened to be the lucky number that came up. Well, the delivery arrived and I nearly fell over with shock. Jumping up and down from excitement I cannot even begin to tell you what all was stuffed into that box. I wish I had taken the time to take some photos but i was so excited I couldn’t stop to grab my camera…

A stack of paper piled about 2″ high, chipboard, a zillion packs of American Crafts thickers, lots and lots of journaling cards, some ribbons, printed acetate, maya road mini books, rub ons galore, and lots of acrylic stamps. I pulled out each item and spread them all out on the floor around me, with a smile that reached from ear to ear.

So Leslie, thank you soooo much, and to everyone else – you better watch out cos there will be lots of crafting and lots of blogging to show you all that I make with all the goodies I got.

Here’s a quick sneak peek of one layout that I made – You’ll get to see it all this weekend! Until then, have fun!

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'Grow' – An Autumnal Layout using a Household Object

on September 27, 2009

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It always amazes me that distress inks can make such a dramatic transformation to a humble page.

During my anniversary trip to London, I picked up a cute and whimsical jewellery stand which I simply adore. I saw it in the shop window and I grabbed Craig’s hand and pulled him inside the store and batted my eyelashes until he took out his credit card. Of course I don’t really care if its for jewellery, its just so pretty it stands in my craft room as a piece of home decor, but…. a confession I must share….

Well, I couldn’t help it. I had to try and replicate it onto a scrapbook page because the design is so beautiful, so I decided to try to use it as a mask.

One word – AWESOME!

It totally worked and gave a brilliant result to my first autumn layout of 2009. Do you like it? Here’s how i did it.

I picked out a ledger style piece of 12×12 scrapbook paper as the starting block of my project, and surrounded myself with Tim’s famous and fantastic distress paints by Ranger. With a tape runner, I put a few strips of removable glue on the back of the jewellery stand and laid it down flat unto the paper. Whilst holding the tree in place with one finger, I tapped the cut & dry foam onto my Peeled Paint distress ink, and rubbed this in circles over the tree which was serving me as a mask. By building up the layers of ink, it is easy to create beautiful multi-tonal effects. I didn’t quite know how well my experiment would work until I pulled away the tree and was astonished by the result. I love it when a plan comes together.

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Although it looked fantastic, I did decide however to use a brown fine line marker pen to draw the outline of the tree as the little birdie at the top faded away into the background of the paper, and was difficult to identify (poor birdie).

Happy with my tree, I then set to work on the rest of the layout.

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I decided to make a collage effect around the edges of the paper to create a sense of a frame or border to the project, which would help anchor the tree to the page, and also create a sense of cohesion to the elements that would eventually lie within. So I took a piece of scrap paper and tore out a square that was roughly 7″x7″ and using my removable tape runner adhesive once again, I stuck this to the centre of the scrapbook page. Next, using the distress paints again, I began stamping along the edges with a few classic rubber stamps from my collection: A brocade stamp from Anna Griffin, Text stamp from HeroArts, and an acrylic spots stamp from Prima. Whilst the ink was still a little wet, I used the foam applicator to smudge the ink slightly, and to build up the colour around the edges. Then, for a rustic feel, I inked the edges of the paper, and distressed them with the edge of a craft knife.

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As the tree was quite large, this formed a large focal area on the right hand side of the page, so I decided to create a little bit of balance by using a grid format to introduce more patterned papers and a few photos – of my nephew Joshua of course.

Inspired by the rustic vibe that I was rockin’, I reached for my crackle paint and chipboard letters. There is a lot of talk in the industry just now about Tim Holtz’s Distress one-step crackle paint, and I have been wanted to get my hands on it for quite some time, but then I remembered that I had a bottle of crackle medium somewhere that I had bought when I was at Uni. I hunted it out and figured out how to use it. Its pretty easy really: apply a layer of acrylic paint, let dry; apply a layer of clear crackle medium, let dry; then apply a layer of another colour of paint on top and once again let dry. The finished product be mostly the top colour, but the cracks will be the colour that was first applied. In my case, I painted brown first, then crackle medium, then green. Lets say I can certainly see the appeal of the one step process. Another great tip when using this crackle technique, is that you can use your foam ink applicator and distress inks over the top of the project to enhance the crackles as the ink will seep into the cracks making them more defined.

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After playing with all that ink and paint, it was time to embellish: a few flowers, buttons and brads as aways, mixed with a rub on or two and I was practically finished. As a finishing touch I cut up some prima flowers to look like little leaves and scattered them over the layout to create an autumnal effect. And look how wonderful those metal embellishments from the Idea-ology line look with this layout. Yumminess.

Hope you like it, and don’t forget that this layout all started because I repurposed a household item (which by the way was as good as new after I wiped it with a baby wipe), so why don’t you take a look around and see what things you have in your house that could be a unique tool to use in your next crafting session.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Journaling reads
I’m sorry I’m not there to watch you grow.

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