Watercolour Background

Hi everyone!

I'm playing on the Round Robin team at Swirlydoos again this month and decided to go out of my comfort zone, and create my own background for my layout.  It ended up being great fun!

I was inspired by both my team-mate that I was following, who had done a lot of splatter painting on her layout, as well as a new challenge blog that started this month called Creative Carte Blanche.  Their challenge this month was "to try something you've never done before."

Soooo, taking a big breath.... I began with a piece of chipboard, some molding paste, and a 12x12 Prima stencil.

I added a few areas of crackle paste, then painted all over with gesso.

I picked my papers, "Secret Letters" by 13 Arts and used coordinating watercolours to paint my background.  It looked very grungy and cool.

To finish the layout, I followed the "sketch" of my previous teammates.  We also had challenge requirements of doing things in "twos", using the colour red, and having a heart on the layout... so that determined how I added my flowers and embellishments. 

This bow is a die from Tattered Lace that I painted here and there with 13 Arts Pink Glitter Ayeeda Ink.

The heart is the Spellbinders "Lovin' Diamonds" die.

The pretty doily die is the "Eastern Star" by Cherry Lynn.

The butterfly was cut from the 13 Arts paper and embellished with bling from my stash.

Thank you to the group over at Creative Carte Blanche for their inspiration to try something new!  

I would encourage you to check them out!!

Thank you also to my team mates Hanne, Jan, and Cheryl at Swirlydoos... I was so lucky to get to follow them all and be inspired by their creations!!

Thanks for stopping by today!!

Linda

A Wonderful Moment

Hi everyone!

I'm hosting a challenge over at Swirlydoos this month.... it's all about love... SELF love!

All month I have been asking everyone to concentrate on things that make THEM happy... and for my challenge I am asking you to follow through on that and make anything you desire, a layout, a card, an altered item, a journal page, a canvas... if you can dream it.... it can be in this challenge.... it just needs to make you happy!

The layout I have done for my challenge definitely makes me happy, and has been inspired by several other challenges.  My son was married this summer to a very lovely young lady, and the photographer caught us in a happy moment....

which was perfect for the challenge over at the MoreThanWordsChallenge Blog where the inspiration was the word "Wonderful" and the creative challenge was to add "Sparkle".  I will show some close ups below where you can see the sparkle I added...so much fun because I'm a "sparkle" and "bling" loving girl!!

To get started on my layout, I used Blue Fern's February sketch.. and a couple pieces of beautiful Blue Fern chipboard to anchor everything.

I painted the Chelsea frame with Jacquard Lumiere Turquoise Dimensional Metallic Paint, and added bits of silver glitter paint here and there.

The second piece of chipboard is called Blooming Foliage - so pretty.  I painted it the same as the frame and you can see it peeking out from underneath this floral cluster above.

My colour scheme came from Cindy Brown's monthly challenge at Swirlydoos...

another thing that made me happy.... because I LOVE pink!!

I'm wondering if anyone recognizes the paper I used for this layout?  It is the beautiful Christmas line by Kaisercraft called Silver Bells.  It was in the December Swirlydoos kit "All that Glitters".  To change it into a piece I could use for a wedding layout, I stenciled and painted over the background.  The stencil I used was this one by Prima called "Floral Rose".

I used Raspberry Ayeeda paint for the background and watered it down here and there; then I went over the stenciled areas with a dry brush and gesso.

This paper line included a piece that was full of roses, so I did a lot of fussy cutting to layer the flowers here and there.  

You can see they are tucked underneath the frame above by the carriage, and below I created a corner cluster with them.

The white lacy leaves were made using a die from JustRite called Open Leaf Vines.

I hope you will join me over at Swirlydoos for my challenge.  There is still a week left to create something, and the lucky winner will receive a small RAK with some pretty pieces of the the new Prima line "Tales of You and Me" tucked in.

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

Round Robin Challenge

Hi everyone!  Today I have a layout that I did for the Swirlydoos Round Robin this month.  

To create this layout, I used the Charlotte paper pack from Close to My Heart.  The ladies' club that I host monthly, is using this paper this month, and I wanted to do a tutorial for them... showing how to use watercolor paints and the Springtime Wishes stamp set to create embellishments for their pages and cards.

The challenge requirements for the Swirlydoos Round Robin were as follows:
1)  Use black and white plus 1 color.
2)  Have lots of layers.
3)  Create texture on the layout.
4)  Embellish with flowers, bling or metals.

So let's start with how I created the embellishments.

When I first got my set of watercolor paints, I made a swatch book out of watercolor paper and numbered the paints in the set.  This took a while, but I found it was well worth the effort, because it makes it so easy to match the paints to the papers you are working with.

Here, you can see how I lay the swatches on my paper to figure out which ones I am going to use.  In this case, I used all the greys because I wanted some variations in tone.

This is how I loaded up my acrylic block to begin stamping.

To prepare your watercolor paper for stamping, wet it with water and then touch the paint to the wet surface and let it spread.  You can see that my swatches are "streaky"... that is the way I like them to look.  The variations in color give a more realistic look to your flowers.  By the way, the pieces of watercolor paper that I used, were all scraps that I had saved... so if your scraps are a decent size... DON'T throw them out!!  :)

CTMH has a coordinating die set for the Spring Wishes stamp set, however, because I stamped everything so closely together, I chose to "fussy cut" the images with a pair of scissors.

By stamping lots of flowers in both colors, I had lots of bits and pieces to play with and create clusters on my page.

I made the butterflies from an image I found on the internet.  If you would like the file I created, to print butterflies of your own, just click here.

The gold flower centers, and chipboard pieces are all from the Charlotte Complement pack and the gold Treasured Puffies set.

This picture is from New Year's Eve in 2015.  It was such a fun evening and I love the joy and happiness that was captured in the photo.  

For me, that is what scrapbooking is all about... capturing those special moments in life to treasure forever.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Linda

Wedding Card

Hi everyone!  I can't believe it's been 4 months since I last posted!  I have been side-tracked by other things lately... but I'm baaaaack!!

My son was married this week to the loveliest of girls, and this is the card that I made for them.

The paper collection I used for this card was Authentique's "Faith".  All ink distressing was done with "Antique Linen" Distress Ink.

The poem is by Walter Rinder.

It was a cold day, but their big smiles and happy hearts warmed it up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Linda

Supplies used:

"Faith" 6x6" paper pad

"Faith" Card Making Stack

"Faith" Cardstock Stickers

"Wedding" was die-cut with my Cricut using CTMH Gold Glitter Paper (A new product which will be available to the public on September 1st.)

"Just Married" dove die by Joy!Crafts

"Stately Circles" die by Spellbinders

Wedding embellishments by Dress It Up

Flowers are a mixture of Petaloo and Prima

Lace trim is from Simplicity

White leaves were cut from a Prima vine

Die-namites April Sketch Challenge

I'm still playing with spring colours, flowers, and birds today!  Welcome everyone!

Here is the darling sketch that's up on Die-namites' blog this month, along with a colour dare:

Bo Bunny's "Madeleine" paper fit the dare perfectly!!

I did a few alterations on one of my Die-namites dies, in order to make my basket full of flowers.  I took "Spring Basket" and removed the eggs.  Then I cut off the handle and bow, and flipped the bow over to the other side of the patterned paper.

For the flowers that fill the basket I used the "Pretty Blooms" die and cut them out in green and one of the coordinating patterned papers.

I didn't like the white lines that were showing up on the paper, so I took a copic marker and coloured the whole thing.  I like the effect I got with some of the pattern still showing through but in a much more subdued way now.

Throw in a few pretty embellishments and a little bit of stenciling... and this card is ready to hit the mail!

I haven't played over at Flying Unicorn, in far too long, so I decided to also enter this card in the "Made with Love - Anything Goes" challenge.

Both of these challenge go until the end of the month - so why not check them out!!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Linda

April Tag of Savagery

I'm here today with a tag I created for the April Swirlydoos Tags of Savagery Challenge, and my tag was totally inspired by the gentle breezes of spring and the soft greens that are unfolding all around us.

OVER the Land is April

Over my heart a rose;

Over the high, brown mountain

The sound of singing goes.

Say, love, do you hear me,

Hear my sonnets ring?

Over the high, brown mountain,

Love, do you hear me sing?

By highway, love, and byway

The snows succeed the rose.

Over the high, brown mountain

The wind of winter blows.

Say, love, do you hear me,

Hear my sonnets ring?

Over the high, brown mountain

I sound the song of spring,

I throw the flowers of spring.

Do you hear the song of spring?

Hear you the songs of spring?

Robert Louis Stevenson

For this challenge, Maggi created a video showing us the inking technique she wanted us to try.  Check it out!  You'll have lots of fun with inks, mists, stamps and embossing paste.

For my tag, I combined Maggi's tutorial with Tim Holtz's March Tag tutorial.  So I embossed my butterfly with white embossing powder and I changed the stencil embossing from just using embossing paste, to trying Tim's technique where you emboss through a stencil with regular molding paste and then sprinkle the paste with several different embossing powders. After heating with a heat gun you end up with a really pretty blend of colours.  I used pastel powders and the effect ended up being very subtle.

I also masked my butterfly before applying the molding paste, as Tim did, but I should have placed the stencil over more of the butterfly, because the effect is pretty slight on my tag as it only covered the tip of the tail and a portion of the wing tip.  If you look really closely, you can see it on the upper right corner and bottom right corner.

This challenge goes until midnight MS on May 14, so you have lots of time to make (and enter) a tag of your own!

Thank you for stopping by!

Linda

Supplies used:

• #8 manila tag
• Distress inks:  Dusty Concord and Mowed Grass
• Butterfly stamp is from the Limitations Tim Holtz framelits set
• Kaisercraft Damask Stencil Template (Quarters)
• Lindy's Stamp Gang Moon Glow Embossing Powder:  Cosmic Pink, Weeping Willow and Geranium Coral
• Golden Molding Paste
• Grape Ice Stickles