Scrap for Help - April Challenge.

 Hello and welcome to April! 

I want to share a page I scrapped for the April challenge over at the Scrap For Help Blog 

Here's this months challenge.

.........................

"Book pages!!!!  What a fun recycled material to use on a project, So many uses.

A fun one for sure!!!

You can use any kind of recycled book pages for this challenge.

You can use old dictionaries, maps, atlas' Old books of any kind, ....Just think outside the box and create a page using this material.

You can include it on your work as is, or think of a clever way to incorporate it some how-

You might want to stamp on it.

Paper piece it

Punch it

emboss it

Paint on it

fold it

I could go on and on!!!!

You are only limited by your creative imagination!!!!"

........................

This is the page I created.

I used book pages in three different ways.

Firstly I used an image transfer technique on the background.

Which was quite fun as I'd never tried it before so it was all trial and error.

Yes I knew the text would all come out back to front lol, but I was more interested in trying out the 

technique. 

I also used book pages to matt my photo on aswell.

And the third way was to make these flowers I cut using a die and the bigshot.

Then sprayed them with ink.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you can pop over to the Scrap for help blog to check out the other DT examples for a whole load of inspiring projects. 

Cheers,

Leonie.

Sharing my Masters entries - part 3

Hello, lovely blog readers. I'm back today to share part three of my masters entry.

The directive for this was to create a 'single layout using 3 or more photo's, journalling and more than one piece of memorabilia.'

Well I must say that or all the projects we had to do this is the one that had me stumped for along time.

I must have spent close to two weeks from planning this until the page was complete to my satisfaction.

I think I even left it for a few days and made a start on the double layout because I was becoming so frustrated with it.

I seemed to get stuck at every stage with this one from photo selection and placement to the memorabilia component and paper selection. 

Here are some pictures showing the various decisions I went through.

Lots of paper shuffling went on here!!

Wasn't happy with four photo's it just didn't sit well with me.

Then I added a fifth photo but it still wasn't right! 

Different papers again and different photo's!!

I actually spent ages using various inks and techniques on this

piece of paper but ended up using only a very small portion of it. 

Always the way hey?!

At least I was happy with these particular photo's, things were slowly coming together!

I had a bit of trouble getting the colour right in editing my photos. Mums photo was 

only in Black and White and I wanted just a touch of colour to match the others 

so in the end I printed it out and then used Tim Holtz distress inks to hand tint the 

bouquet she's holding.

Different papers yet Again!! Man, this was frustrating!

Too much grey though, don't you think?!

I did have most of my embellishments sorted at least.

These comprised the memorabilia component of my layout.

When I asked my Mum if she would let me cut a few snippets from her bridal bouquet and head piece, 

I was expecting a 'no' but as she said 'It's been in the cupboard for fifty years and she wasn't likely to wear it again!!' Thanks Mum. :)

My Mum also has her mothers wedding gown which although once a beautiful gown 

unfortunately hasn't stood the test of time.  

I guess being close to ninety years old it's not surprising really.

So I cut several of the fabric buttons from my Grandmothers gown to add to the memorabilia.

Fortunately I have some left over fabric so I didn't have to cut into my own wedding gown.

I used some of this to make some Yoyo flowers.

This is a pic of me using steam to try and bring back some life to the flowers from Mum's bouquet.

That and some liquid pearls worked a treat. 

So after much to-ing and fro-ing I finally came up with these papers and added lots of stamping, machine stitching and coloured texture paste.

I used this cute little Kraft envelope for my journalling and tucked it behind the photo square which was raised using chipboard.

You can get some idea of the dimension in this picture.

So there you have the third instalment, a little later posting than I'd anticipatied!

Next and last up is the Double, hopefully within the next week. 

Cheers. :)

123 March Challenge

I can't believe it but I'm still catching up posting pages I scrapped at retreat at the start of the month!  Life is fairly crazy right now!! This school term has been choc full of activities during and after school or maybe it's just that it's a shorter term?!  

Anyhow I'm really looking forward to a two week break over Easter.

Here's a page I made for the 123 challenge blog which was relaunched this month.

The criteria was to use 'Black' the word 'year' and 'twine circles'.

And another from Retreat -a 'just because' page (wish I had time to do a few more of these at the moment!).

Using the March kit from 'A Piece of Cake Designs', I love that Maggie Holmes script paper!

The background was made using Tim Holtz distress inks and Dylusions white mist (I'm in love with that stuff!). 

Ok that's it for now, I owe a lot of people blog visits and i'm trying to get to them all.

Thank you so much for visiting. It makes me happy to read 

all your kind words and comments. :)

Cheers.

ScrapFriends March Sketch

Hello, I'm sharing a layout today that I did a couple of weeks ago at retreat for the

  ScrapFriends March sketch.

I actually made the background quite a while ago while I was playing around with a mix of Dylusions sprays and Mister Hueys calico cream mist.  I put it aside for a bit and then when I got the March kit from 'A Piece of Cake Designs' I new this background would be a perfect match with the papers and embellishments in the kit.

Here's my layout.

And the super sketch from Scrapfriends. I've turned the two photo's into one larger 5x5" photo.

A couple of close ups of the embellishment clusters. 

I punched some butterflies out of the gorgeous glitter tape from the kit.  

Thanks for popping in to take a look at my blog. :)

Enjoy your weekend. 

Cheers. 

Jasmines' Distress Ink Watercolour background.

Two weeks ago at the 'Scrap and Chat' Retreat I sat next to a super

scrappy lady, Jasmine Shea.  Her layouts are always so unique, she is one very talented scrapbooker.

So I completely made the most of her expertise and got her to give me a step by step on how she creates 

her watercoloured backgrounds using distress inks.  

Jasmine actually has a 'how to' tutorial up on the Scrapfriends blog here if you want to give it a try for yourself. 

Here's the layout I created.

Scrapping a picture of our late dear cat Percy.

No patterned papers just some gauze under my photo and a few little embellishments.  

The satin flowers from Tiddlypeep Designs were a 

gift in our retreat goodie bag, perfect colour match for my page.

So now I've had a 'how to' lesson I'll definitely be trying this technique again! ;)

Lastly, I just want to say a huge thankyou to Linda, Jan and Sandra for each awarding me with the 

Leibster blog award.  Three in one week!! Thank you so much, I really appreciate it and feel very honoured.  It's very gratifying to know that there are bloggers out there who like and appreciate the work I put up here.  I really encourage you to check out their blogs and take a look at their work. Thanks so much to all my readers.  

cheers, 

Leonie.

Sharing my Masters Entries - Part 2

Hi, how are all my blog friends?  I'm here today to share my second masters project and I have lots of close up pictures to show you.  I was so happy with how this canvas turned out and it was definitely a lot of fun to create and that's what it's all about it isn't it?

The Criteria for this project asked you 'Create a 12x12 canvas and to think about how you can add textures using mediums, paint, fabric etc'

This was my entry-

My whole inspiration for this for canvas came from a poem by Nan Whitcomb that I have loved since I was a teenager. 

Here's the poem.

 Poem by Nan Witcomb

(The thoughts of Nanushka)

Johnny's got a pocketful of dreams -
it's patched and there are cakecrumbs in the seams -
to you it may not be a lot
but all the treasure Johnny's got,
he carries in his pocketful of dreams -
a beetle in a match box, a tiny piece of string,
some sealing wax and carpet tacks,
a bell that doesn't ring -
When Johnny grows to be a man,
into a world that's tough,
he'll soon be told his pocketful of dreams
won't be enough -
but if he owns a great big car,
a swimming pool and a yacht,
he'll never be as happy
as the time when all he's got
is a beetle in a match box, a tiny piece of string,
some sealing wax and carpet tacks,
a bell that doesn't ring.....

So sweet don't you think? Helps to remind us that the simple pleasures in life are often the ones that brings us the most joy.

I had a visual in my mind of a multitude of flowers cascading out of a denim pocket, so I sketched my idea and used that as my starting point.  Here's the sketch I made.

I managed to take a few more pictures during the process this time, which is going to make this post a long one, so I should apologise now, but I hope you stick with it till the end. ;) 

 I started by covering the canvas in dressmaking tissue paper and then added acrylic paints in a rainbow spectrum.

As is often the case I could have stopped right here because I really liked how it looked at this stage, 

but I knew I had to keep adding more texture.

                                    

I had an idea of adding some white into the rainbow for some contrast so I used

this metal stylus- I think its a tool you use for paper tole shaping, only i've never used it for that!

Anyhow I used it to dip into white paint and flicked it from the centre of the canvas outwards. I loved how it added some movement.

Even after adding the white paint I thought the base of the canvas still needed more. 

So thinking along the lines of texture I added strips of surgical gauze and random 

letter stickers.  Then of course I needed to colour the gauze and stickers the appropriate rainbow colour!

You see how easy it is to just keep adding more and more layers, well for me anyway. LOL

Next came all the beautiful rosebuds, from D'lish scraps I created a vine with each colour by twisting the wire stems around each other. The chipboard flourishes are from 2Crafty Chipboard. You can see in the picture below all the chipboard is still raw at this stage, I ended up painting the flourishes white and then coating them with clear distress stickles.  I tucked them into a denim pocket I had cut off a pair of old shorts.  I also added some rub ons and texture stamps at this stage as well.

Here's a close up of the rosebuds, did I say how much I love these? lol

By this stage I was almost done but I needed something to cover the gap where 

all the flower stems met at the top of the pocket. Searching through my flower stash I came across this

Prima beauty and all of a sudden it was done!

I added my journalling which I had simply reworded from the poem and then I sprayed the whole canvas with iridescent gold glimmermist so there is a lovely shimmer to the whole thing.

I hope you've enjoyed this post it's been fun to go back over the process I used in creating it.

and I hope it wasn't too long!!

So that's two of the masters projects down and two to go. The first one's here incase you missed it.

Next week I'll share the multiphoto layout which I really struggled with the most!

Cheers. 

Leonie :)

2Crafty Sneak and Finnabair classes

It's the 10th of March so that means it's my turn to share over at the 2Crafty blog today

so I would love it if you could pop over their and look at my layouts.

Here's a sneak of one of the pages.

I also wanted to share about the fabulous day I had yesterday.

I attended two classes by Finnabair at Scrappy Hollow in Melbourne.

As part of her CreARTe tour of Australia and New Zealand.

What a truly fabulous Teacher Finn is and such an amazing artist and a very kind and

friendly lady.

In the Morning class 'Tea for Two we created this layout.

What an amazing and fun process.

Learning to 'Turn off our Brains and Turn on our hands' as Finn said

In the afternoon It was the 'Everyday Treasures' class

and we made this adorable canvas with a mechanical horse on it.

Again I got to experiment with products I'd never before used which 

was a heap of fun!

So many layers and using silks metallic paint and pigments to add colour.

And of course some fan photo's. 

Thanks for stopping by.

 Cheers.

Scrap the Boys and Stuck Sketch

Last weekend I was at a Scrapping Retreat in the Dandenongs.

I had a great time scrapping and chatting with a super group of ladies.

It was so nice to catch up with friends and meet new ones.

So I'm here to share some layouts I did on the weekend.

One of the challenges was to do a layout with Purple as the Dominant 

colour.

This one is for the March 1st sketch over at Stuck Sketches

And this is for Scrap the Boys March challenge.
2 Photos 6x4 or smaller 
Chipboard
Washi Tape
Mists/Paints

Think I've included all the criteria
 I've actually got 3 photo's ;)
Chipboard stars
Glitz washi tape (love that new chevron)
and Red paint and Dylusions white linen mist (which is just awesome).

My boys dressed up for book week last year as their heroes.

I have lots more layouts from the weekend I'll be sharing over the coming days.

Thanks for popping by. 

Cheers.

:)

Sharing my Masters Tasks - part 1

Hello, I've been wanting to share my Masters entries on my blog for ages 

but never seen to find time to squeeze it in. 

I thought I might do a series of posts over the next few weeks and basically go through the 

techniques, planning and just my general thoughts on the layouts I created.

They may not be the most regular series of posts but I shall endeavour to get one done each week over the next month.

............................

Being a fairly methodical person I started at the first challenge and worked my way through them.

So the criteria was to - 

"Create a single layout using a 5x7" photo that must be engaging and have eye contact."

Choosing my photo was easy I took this photo of the boys about six months earlier and has been a favourite since, it checked all the criteria for me.

I printed it in Black and White and a colour version. In the end though the B&W won out 

over the colour because of the colourful background.

I decided half way through creating my projects that I probably should take some 

photo's at different stages. so I don't have too many with this first one 

but there are more for the other projects.

So here's a close up of the background which I created with gesso and a Crafters Workshop stencil.

Once the gesso was dry I used distress inks to add the colour in a very random fashion.

I then used a Tim Holtz mask and the spritz/flick water method on the ink which added the water mark

effect you may be able to see.

I also used another TCW template in black ink and stamps to add more texture to the layout.

Here's another picture taken midway through.

Even though my backgrounds are often heavily patterned and coloured I still

like to use some patterned paper. Who wouldn't with so much and such gorgeous designs and ranges out there?  This can be a problem at times though finding something that will match the background I've created.   I ended up using the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook papers which are a favourite.

The centre of the frames was plain so it actually helped to break up the background before your eyes 

hit the photo.

My Title and Journalling. 

 Often the hardest part for me. I had an idea of the message I wanted to convey to my three growing boys. If you have boys I don't know if you feel the same but 

I often feel the weight of responsibility I have in somehow producing a Man that has 

all these wonderful qualities.  One that is caring and sensitive yet strong, independent and motivated,

emotionally confident and reliable. They are growing so fast and I feel time is against me sometimes 

with them rapidly approaching adolescence it's going to be a scary, roller coaster ride I'm sure!

Anyhow I pulled out a book I'd read years ago 'He'll Be OK' by Celia Lashlie.

I re-read passages of it and then just sat down and wrote all my thoughts down in a notebook.

The subtitle of the book was 'growing gorgeous boys into good men'.

I knew straight away it fitted perfectly with my thoughts. 

So down it went using a mix of Alpha's. Because it was a long title I find using different alphas

help to highlight certain words.

My journalling which I had summarised from the notes I'd made and

printed out. I backed it onto this Little Yellow Bicycle transparent journalling spot.

The flower is from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook range aswell.

The resin roses are from my favourite online embellishment store

D-Lish Scraps.

A close up here of more of the embellishments. 

Three hearts layered on top of each other, one for each of my boys. ;) 

The canvas hearts are from 

'A lil Somethin' ' and I stamped on them.  The chipboard heart which I inked and added Ranger Stickles to is from 2Crafty. 

I made the flower out of leaves fussy cut from more of the 'Sketchbook' paper range.

You can see I've created a second smaller flower the same to the left of the photo and also adding some leaves to the cluster near my journalling.  These three separate clusters created the visual triangle I try to use in all my layouts. 

Lastly I backed the whole layout onto black cardstock to add a border which I thought just 

finished things off nicely.  It also helps to stabilise and flatten out the paper thats been gesso'd and stamped and inked. 

You can imagine it was quite warped by the end!

So that was my first task done and dusted and I was really happy with how it evolved and turned out. 

I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at the close-ups and at the processes I used to create this layout.

Next up was the canvas! 

Thanks for stopping by

I'll get busy with the next post and hopefully share sometime next week.

Cheers.

SUYS - March Challenge

Super easy challenge over at Show Us Your Stuff for March

All you need to do is use the word 'excite/excitement/excited' on your layout.

Here's my layout.

I used some MME papers and the background is done with distress inks and Gelatos.

As with all our challenges at SUYS you need to include at least one handmade item.

I used this flair button from A Piece of Cake Designs.

and another flair tucked under the banners.

Hope you can play along at SUYS this month.

Cheers. :)