Plant your Dreams

It has been such an honour for me to be included on the FabScraps Design Team for 2018/2019 and I have been enjoying creating for the team for the very first time.  Thank you to FabScraps for having confidence in me and I look forward to a fun, creative year with the company.

Below is my first project for the team ... a mini album using the C105 Memory Lane collection.

For this project you will need:

➤FabScraps Memory Lane Collection paper range C105:  005 & 006

➤FabScraps DC105 001 Die Cut Album

➤FabScraps DC105 007 Die Cut Word

➤FabScraps Stencil DS090

➤FabScraps ST105 002 Stickers

➤Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Vintage Photo)

➤Prima Color Bloom spray (Sunshine, Peony)

➤Nuvo Mousse (Fresh Copper)

➤Tsukineko Delicata ink (Celestial Copper)

➤Ranger Liquid Pearls (Copper Pearl)

➤Treasure Copper Wax Gilt (Copper)

➤Copper Embossing Powder and Embossing Ink Pad

➤Texture paste

➤Water colour paints

➤Stamp:  Chicken wire

➤Flowers, leaves, pearls, ribbon, lace, twine, gauze, resin flower pot

Instructions:

➤Using the Die Cut Album, trace around the edges of the watering can onto the 005 and 006 papers and cut out until you have enough to cover the chipboard pages as desired.  Only cover the back of the first and last pages. Glue these down.  Note:  Remember to make the holes in the handle as you glue each piece of paper.

➤Raise the sticker “I smile when a new day begins” onto some paper and cut a border around the edge.  Raise the sticker and secure it in the centre of the back of your cover page.

➤On one page (that you haven’t covered with paper), using texture paste and your stencil, add some bird feet onto the top left of the page.  Once everything is dry, add some of the Sunshine spray over the bird feet and allow the ink to run down the page.  Using watercolour paints, paint some branches and leaves and then, when dry, add some leaves as well as a bird and some small flowers cut from your paper.

➤On another uncovered page, stencil leaves in copper Nuvo Mousse and leave to dry.  Add some of the two inks to your page, allowing the inks to run down the page and through the leaves.  Leave to dry.  Cut two circles in different sizes and raise these in the centre of the page, adding some lace around the edge of the bigger circle.  Add the sticker “you are my home” onto the smaller circle.

➤On the last uncovered page, using the stencil and texture paste, stencil the window into the centre of the page.  When dry, lightly paint some brown watercolour paint around the window panes.  Spray the gauze with some of the ink sprays and leave to dry.  Cut paper to cover the top of the window as well as curtains for either side of the window.  Cut the gauze to fit behind the curtains and secure all of these to the page.  Cut flowers as a “window box”.

➤Distress around the edges of the front and back of each page with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

➤Using your stamp and copper ink, add some stamping to each page.

➤Press the FabScraps DC105 007 Die Cut title into the Embossing Ink Pad.  Dust the words with copper embossing powder and heat through until all the powder has melted.

➤Arrange all embellishments as per the picture to complete the album.

➤Thread some ribbon through the holes in the handle and tie loosely so that it is still easy to turn the pages.

➤Lightly splash some green watercolour paint onto your pages and allow to dry.

➤Add some liquid pearls to the album as you desire and leave to dry.

Your album is now complete!

A moment lasts forever

I loved these Kaisercraft papers when I saw them.  I love the colours and the designs, especially the beautiful roses on the papers ... very different to their previous ranges.  In fact, I liked them so much that I bought them all!

This is the first project that I did - a canvas with a pic of my daughter twirling around in the garden. Once upon a time, she used to do ballet and I loved to watch her dance.  But who needs an excuse to put on a tutu and dance around the garden, right?! ;-)  We still laugh when we see these pics because a moment, no matter how silly it might seem, is always remembered and really does last a lifetime.The title has been inked in a navy ink, lightly embossed with Ranger "Rose Gold" embossing powder and then lightly dusted with some white gesso to soften the look.

I love micro beads! and add them to just above every project.

Resin embellishments seem to be very popular at the moment.  This was a beautiful frame which I bought locally.  I sprayed it with some inks, painted it with a bit of white gesso and then used a Finnabair rose gold wax over the edges to make the detail stand out.  Love how it turned out!

I also did some stamping on the two opposite corners with a lace stamp and then heat embossed it with the rose gold embossing powder.

Our little kitty, who has just turned one, always comes to see what I'm doing when I take pics of my projects.  I'm sure he approves and loves this range too! ;-D

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Products used in this project:  Kaisercraft "Misty Mountains" papers, Ranger "Rose Gold" embossing powder, Ranger "Faded Jeans" and "Seedless Preserves" Distress Spray Stains, Finnabair "Rose Gold" Metallique wax, clear and white gesso, texture paste, resin frame, flowers, Finnabair art stones, gold micro beads, some Prima "Lavender" embellishments.

The best things in life are not things

If there is anything in life that I love more than creating, it's my family.  We do everything together, which, more often than not, involves a lot of (loud) talking and (lots of) laughing.  Unfortunately, the busyness of life can sometimes get in the way and then family life suffers, but when we make up for it, we make up for it!

The photo's in this double layout are of an impromptu photoshoot on the beach and I just love them.  I've used them on more than one project and might just use them again ;-) These ones are of my daughter and I trying to be serious and strike a pose, as hard as that can be.  We are like two peas in a pod and when we are together, we encourage each other with loads of silliness ... life is too short to be so serious, right? :-D

For this layout, I mixed some Nuvo Mouse in different Gold and Aquamarine on my craft sheet with a little water and painted the chipboard pieces (birds, title, flags).  I also did the same with some lilac ink for some of the birds.

I used gold Nuvo Mousse and a Celebr8 Dandelion stencil on the left and right hand sides of the layout and used some watered down mousse to make splashes around my layout.

Happy scrapping.  Until next time!

Products used on this layout:  FabScraps paper, Nuvo Mousse (Gold and Aquamarine), ribbon, twine, metal birds, stickers, wooden embellishments, pearls, Tsukineko VersaMagic (Spring Pansy) ink

Beautiful

Lately it really does feel as if my craft room has become home for me, but I am enjoying doing some creating just for myself.  There's a liberty that comes when there is no pressure to create something that others will like or buy and I can honestly say ... I like it!

This is a single layout which I created recently with a pic of one of my beautiful nieces.

I used paper from a recent FabScraps range and added some inks, dies and flowers etc to give it a whimsical forest feel.

I wrapped the beautiful 49 and Market flowers around and under the photograph to almost create a frame.

I did a little script stenciling here and there with gold Nuvo Mousse.

I hope that you like the layout.  Until next time!

Products used included:  Prima Color Bloom sprays (Iris and Deep Teal), Nuvo Mousse (gold), Prima art stones, melange and metal trinkets, 49 and Market flowers, resin butterfly and other embellishments to make up the layout.

Learning to Fly

I am a scrapbooker at heart, but I do love to get my hands messy and do a little bit of mixed media every now and then ... ok, more often than not, mostly because I love all the textures and colours as well as getting to play with the myriad of products available to create these projects.  Hence this wooden canvas, using texture paste, crackle paste and ink sprays.

I used a piece of wood for this project, first running quite a thick layer of texture paste through a stencil in order to create height and lots of grooves for the ink sprays to run through.  Once the texture paste was dry, I placed the stencil back into the grooves and ran a thin layer of Distress crackle paint through the stencil on top of the texture paste.

I made sure that these products were dry before spraying with Prima Colour Bloom sprays and water.  Once these were dry, I added a copper rub over some of the texture paste, especially into the cracks.

The chipboard cogs were given an "old" look with Finnabair rust pastes (brown, turquoise and copper).

I did add a bit of turquoise paint at accent points (under some of the metal embellishments), spraying it with water so that the paint with dilute and run down.

If this is not something that you have never done before or perhaps have even been too petrified to try it, I hope that you will also get a chance to step out of your comfort zone and get your hands a little dirty.  Give it a try - it can be a lot of fun!  Till next time.

Remember to breathe and relax

I am not really a beach person, in that I won't go and lie on the beach in the heat, getting sand everywhere.  I am more of a "walk along the beach with my feet in the water" kind of girl.  That relaxes me ... but, I sure do love creating beach and sea layouts.

I created this layout with pic's from an island holiday a few years back, using a recent local sea range.  When I saw the papers, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.  I saw an octopus on the www recently and thought it would go perfectly with the seahorses, sea weed and other sea and beach life in this range.

I love how the tentactles curl and extend across the side of the layout.

This was fun! So much fun that I couldn't help myself and created

an additional single layout as well ....

 This range includes some wording on acetate which is perfect for overlaying a photograph.

Hope you enjoy these layouts and the next time your're walking along the beach .....

just breathe and relax and live for the moment.

Capturing everyday moments

It's been so relaxing creating a layout for myself these holidays and what a different layout it is, stretching me beyond what I'm used to doing.

I love creating mini albums but have never really wanted to do flips and flaps on a scrapbooking layout because I'm always unsure how I need to store it so that whoever is looking at it, can use it to it's full potential. Having said that, I decided to try my hand at one of these "interactive" layouts, being inspired by some very beautiful ones that I've seen lately.

I absolutely love all the cacti as well as the colour combination of these papers.

I created a large flap on the right hand side of the layout.

This large flap lifts up and over to reveal a smaller flap with space for quite a few photographs.

There is another large flap on the left side of the layout which lifts up and over to reveal some smaller flaps beneath it, as well as a pullout on the left side.

I heat embossed some elements on both pages and coloured some chipboard elements as well as made some splashes using Tim Holtz Distress Oxides.  I hope you enjoy this layout and feel inspired to create something similar.

With love 💙

Create and Inspire

  

I finally did it! My very first blog and it has only taken me about a year to do so. Blogging is not something I ever envisioned doing (because of time), but we'll see how it goes.  And to celebrate my first blog, I thought I'd share a little mixed media project that I created recently using some of the amazing Finnabair products.

I do like to scrapbook, but I love to play with mixed media.  And if I can combine the two, even better! I created these two mini canvasses to go alongside each other - CREATE and INSPIRE - because, as crafters, that's what we hope to do ... to create the things we love and to inspire others to do the same.

I love using Prima and Finnabair products on my mixed media projects.  The make mixed media so easy and so much fun.

I also love the combination of these two colours ... jade and purple.  I highlighted some of the elements with Finnabair gold wax to bring out some of the amazing details.

And micro beads ... who doesn't love gold micro beads?!

I added a bit of  Ranger "Mermaid" Liquid Pearls to the texture paste and I love the colour!

I do hope that this little project has inspired you to get creative and to go get your hands dirty ... who knows, you might just enjoy it!