Rooted Love!

Hi everyone!

I'm really excited today to share with you, a layout, that I have done as a Guest Designer for Wild Whisper Designs.

Wild Whisper is a new Canadian company in the scrapbooking and papercrafting industry that just launched last November, 2016.  Heather and Suzy design their products and have them manufactured in Calgary, AB.  I fell in love with the rustic, unique flavor of their papers instantly... pure Canadiana at its best!

A new collection comes out every month and I'm really happy to share "Rooted Love", the new February collection, with you today!

This paper was great to use as a base for a mixed media layout.  It is very thick and strong.

I started out by designing my layout around the theme of a challenge that I wanted to enter it in.  Over at More Than Words this month, the theme is "Together" and you are also asked to use the ampersand "&" on the layout.  

I  used several of the journaling cards, to fussy cut images and sayings that I wanted to put on the layout.  I totally fell in love with the one that says "The greatest gift our parents gave us was each other".  This really fit the photo of my grandchildren that I wanted to use.  

Knowing that I wanted to title this "Roots and Wings" made the selection of paper easy. 

If you know that you're going to put a lot of layers of ink and mists on your layout, I would cover the top sheet in a coat of clear gesso to help the paper stand up to all the water.

Once the gesso is dry, ink or mist a stencil over top.

Next, you want to mat your photo with a variety of journaling cards that enhance it.  (The girls make it easy for you, because everything goes together SO well.)  A piece of scrap cardboard does an excellent job of lifting the mats up to give some depth to the layout.

At this point you want to choose paint and mist colours that are going to complement your layout and your photo.  

My photo had a lot of browns, yellows and greens in it, so I wanted to add more of that to the layout.  

Make samples of any embossing powders you are going to use.  It helps later on when you're trying to decide where to add it.  These two that I used are also Wild Whisper products:  Fractured Ice and Verdigris Sparkle.  You can see in the second photo above, that I also used a scrap piece to try out the colours I was thinking of using.... some of them got tossed once I saw them down on paper!

When making flowers that you want to coordinate with a mixed media layout, use some of the coordinating papers, such as this journaling card above.  Spray it with the same inks that you used in the body of the layout and cut out the flowers.  (This Spellbinder die by Donna Salzer called "Rose Creations" has always been one of my favorites.)

Glue some Fractured Ice embossing powder on the flower petals to take them "over the top"  (a versamark pen really makes this job easier).

These flowers are SO pretty in real life.

Making your own embellishments is very satisfying.  Wild Whisper has both chipboard pieces and wood veneered pieces.  These wooden feathers came from the Nature Mix.  

If you are going to paint them, put a base coat like White Crackle Texture Paste on first.  Then add your colour medium... Gelatoes were used here.  They are applied dry and then you smooth them out with a little water on a brush or your finger.

To finish them off, add some of the Verdigris Sparkle embossing powder here and there.  Other embellishments used on the dream catcher, were wooden veneer hearts and cork heart confetti.

I'm going to show you the layout again, while I briefly explain how you can create a background like this.   After you ink a stencil over top of the paper, add different layers like another stencil using texture paste.  (I used a heart stencil from Heidi Swapp.)  Things like the border of cork hearts add another layer of visual texture.  Glue down your photos and embellishments.  Add colour with mediums like gelatoes, mists, watercolour paints.  Glue down art stones and cork hearts for texture.  Add some Fractured Ice embossing powder over and around the art stones.  Spray some coloured mists over the whole layout... alternate between misting and shaking droplets on it.   (Protect your photo first!)   Water down white gesso and using a paint brush, splash the whole layout . 

Doing a mixed media layout can seem intimidating, but just have fun with it.  If you don't like something, you can always paint over it with white gesso and start again!  Making yourself sample cards of the materials you are thinking of using, really helps to prevent errors in colour choice.

I hope I've inspired you to check out Wild Whisper Designs, and maybe try a mixed media layout too!  I will be back later in the month with a second project for Wild Whisper... and you never know I might sneak some cards in too this month.  :)  Hope you'll check back to see more.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Linda

Can you do a Layout in 30 Minutes????

The challenge that I did today, was fun….TOTALLY fun….even though I had to prepare for it like I was going to attempt to climb Mount Everest! 

Sherri, our SGC host at Swirlydoos this month, felt we too often use the excuse of “no time” to not do any creating, and she wanted to show us that we CAN create something in only 30 minutes.  Yes… you heard correctly… we had 30 minutes to create a layout!  Now if you know me, this was a HUGE challenge!  I’ve been known to dither over flower arrangements for over an hour… let alone all the other elements of a layout. 

Disclaimer:  After each layer of gesso and painting, I DID stop the clock while I threw the layout in the oven at 200 degrees to dry.  Once it was dry…the clock was re-started. 

I mulled this challenge over for a long time before attempting it.  LOL.  My first step was to study a video done by one of the designers at Swirlydoos, Cindy Brown, who claimed to love doing layouts in 30 minutes.  If you’ve seen Cindy’s work, it’s awesome… so that’s where I headed first, to see how she creates her magic… and yes… I might have watched her video 4 or 5 times before I felt confident enough to begin!  

My second step, was to use all the leftovers from the layout I made a couple of days ago.  You can go here to see it.  I figured I was being pretty clever with this idea… because I already had practiced putting the flowers together in clusters on the other layout.  Oh yes… I’m a sneaky one!

So I gathered all my supplies close to my craft mat, set the timer on my phone, and began.  Cindy has a very cool technique in the video for creating a layered mat under your photo and I began with that.  In her video she also uses some circle stickers on the background, so I used a punch to cut out circles from my scraps… oh such a time consumer that was!  I kept glancing at the timer, watching the seconds steadily ticking by.  Be still my pounding heart!

When circles and mats were glued down, the fun began.  Cindy creates an awesome effect with watered down gesso (which I had already prepared) and I couldn’t wait to try it.  I grabbed my brush and flicked and waved it with gay abandon… I loved watching the big white splotches explode everywhere!  To my woe though, I discovered when I was done, that my craft mat wasn’t big enough to contain ALL that gay abandon, and watered down gesso really FLIES through the air AND I hadn’t covered my wooden dining table.  More precious seconds ticked by as I grabbed baby wipes and frantically scrubbed down splatters of gesso that were everywhere!  

To get the soft peach look on my layout, I used my CTMH watercolor paints.  I find that #10 from the top is the perfect shade for the Charlotte paper pack.

Time was now running out on me, so when I got to the flowers, I threw the glue on them and smacked them down anywhere… it didn’t matter if two orange colored ones were side by side, it didn’t matter that I got a little extra glue on the journalling chippy and it looked sloppy, it didn’t matter if they didn’t look totally “balanced”… I just needed to get those suckers down there before that clock stopped ticking!

And you know what????  I did it!  I did it and I had great fun doing it.  (I mean who doesn’t love a little adrenalin rush???)  Not only that… I LOVE this piece…. And I feel like an artist!   

This is why I love scrapping challenges… they take you outside your comfort zone …. And they teach you something new!  

If you would like to see how some of the other girls handled this challenge, go here.

Much thanks to Cindy for the time she takes to put tutorials together, and the inspiration that she shares so readily!  You can see all of her videos here.

Thanks for coming on this adventure with me…. I hope I have encouraged 

you to try one of your own!

Linda