Stepping out of my scrapping comfort zone

I really stepped out of my comfort zone when I created the following layout. I had a lot of fun creating it and using lots of old embellishments.  I was inspired by the wonderful Finnabair who uses lots of different embellishments on her layouts and then sprays them so the colours blend and match.

I must say it was a bit daunting when I first started but I soon found I was really enjoying myself and just kept adding different bits & piece.  The real fun part is you don’t have to worry about what colours the embellishments are as I covered them all with Gesso before spraying them.

On this layout I added lots of lace & ribbon, die cuts, embossed card, metal frames and of course flowers.  Once all the embellishments were stuck down I covered everything with gesso, then sprayed various colours of pink and then some black.  I found the black was a little too dark for my liking, so I added some silver rub-on to lighten it.  Lastly I added the photo.

I’m not really happy with how I did the title, so I might change that!! 

If you’re like me you keep all the bits & pieces that are left over from other layouts because I always think they might come in handy one day. Then this style is the perfect way to use some of them. 

I really enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something totally different.  I’m actually book to do a couple of classes with Finnabair (Anna Dabrowska) in March 2013 and I really looking forward to learning heaps more about how she creates her amazing layouts.

I think a good News Years resolution might be to step out of our scrapping comfort zone occasionally and try something totally different.  I know I learnt a lot and had a lot of fun with this layout so will definitely be trying different things in the New Year.

 

 

Hi,  It's been a very busy few weeks and I haven't been very good at updating my blog.  I have been doing a few layouts though, so I thought I'd like to share some of them with you.

Bucket List -
This layout was created for the Ideas for Scrapbookers website with the theme being Our Bucket Lists.  I have a lot of things I would like to do sometime in the future and some things that I like to remind myself to do.  Some of the one off things including doing a roadtrip around Australia and one of the things I like to remind myself is to have fun and not take life too seriously.

For the Layout I layered some punched papers behind the double layered circle.  I added the prima butterflies and flowers, which I sprayed with various pastel colours.  I've then added some sparkle to the flowers and butterflies.  The photo was taken at the beach while I was climbing a sand dune, which explains my funny pose!!

Happiness -
For this layout I tore a hole in the paper and placed my photo behind it.  I curled the edges of the paper around the hole and placed ribbon around it.  I used the beautiful Birdsong range from Graphic 45 which matched my photo perfectly. 

The photo was taken in the gardens at the Osaka Castle in Japan.  We were wondering around taking photos in the main area when a local Japanese man came and took my hand and started leading me into an area just off to the side.  In broken English he explained it was a beautiful spot where they take the wedding photos.  He even positioned me to side on a rock on the edge of the pond for my husband to take the photo with the castle in the background.  It was one of those special moments that happen when your travelling. 
This photo is just of a portion of the lake with the lovely rock structure.  It was so peaceful and tranquil. 

I have a few more layouts to add which I hope to do in the next couple of days.

Thanks for looking

Using Patterned Papers

I create this layout as a submission for the patterned paper theme on www.ideasforscrapbooking.blogspot.com where I am a contributing artist.

I found it a lot of fun but also challenging to use lots of patterned papers on the one layout.  In saying that though I must say the Prima papers are so beautiful they made it so much easier to coordinate everything.

Some of the elements to this layout include

• cutting the centre out of the Prima tag and using it to frame the photo
• rolling separate sections of the pattern paper and alternating them to form the border
• creating the bow from the floral paper to add dimension to the title

I must admit this is probably one of the brightest coloured layout I've made, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Found it!!

I've finally found the video I watched before I made the handmade flowers.  I watched it one night and made a few notes but didn't get to make the flowers a few days.  When I went back to add the link to the tutorial I just couldn't find the video again.  After a bit of searching I've now found it and would like to give credit to the creator as this is what got me started making the flowers for my layouts.

The video is by Gabrielle Pollacco.  She is an amazing artist and has lots of fantastic videos and tutorials on her website.  Please drop by and check them out. 

This is a link to the video on the hand made flowers -

http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/paper-flower-tutorial-websters-pages.html

Making your own flowers

Hi,  I've had fun lately making my own flowers.  The following layouts both have the handmade flowers on them.  They are really easy to make and I know I'll be making more as I was really pleased with the results.

 

Here are the steps I used to create the flowers -

 

To create the flowers I used 3 punches, 2 circles and one small 5 petal flower punch.  From white cardstock I punched one each of the circles and from a light pink cardstock I punched 5 of the 5 petal flowers.

Next I inked the centre of the smaller circle with the ink coming out slightly towards to end of the circle.  I then cut some V shapes into both the circles to form 6 petals.  These don’t have to be perfectly even.

Spritz the circles with water and crunch them up to get some creases on them.  I found it worked better if I crunched them up twice, so I just carefully opened them up and crunched them up again and this softens the cardstock and the creases seem to hold better.  Do this for both the circles.

For the smaller flowers give them a light spritz and crunch them up as well.  Make sure you have one which is crunched really tight, this will be the centre of the flower.  I found if I pressed the centre of each petal with my finger nail to give it a fold and then crunched it up, it held the shape better. 

Leave the petals to dry. 

Once dry gently open up the two larger petals and curl over the corners.  This gives the flower a more realistic look.

 

For the smaller petals, gently open the four other petals.  Leave the tightly crunched centre petal as is.

Put a dot of glue in the middle of the four opened petals.  Pick up the centre petal and put into the glue in the middle of one of the petals, continue until you have all the small petals stacked together.  Then add glue to the middle of the two larger petals.   Pick up the centre stack of petals and place them on the glue on the smaller of the remaining petals and then put that onto the glue on the larger petal.   (I hope that makes sense!!)

The end result should look like this -

I hope you try making these flowers as they are really easy and fun to do.

Using masks to make very individual backgrounds

Hi,  I would like to share a layout I’ve done where I’ve used a mask to create some dimension to the background.

For this Layout I used the Prima brick mask.
To create the background I started by white washing an area where I was going to use the mask.  Then positioned the mask and inked over it.  I repositioned the mask a number of times to cover the area I wanted to have the showing the brick pattern.

The church window was cut using SCAL on my cricut and then embossed on the Cuttlebug using a brick embossing folder.  I then rubbed some gold rubon onto the frame. 

It finished up like this –

I positioned a photo behind the church window and also cut around the photos I’d taken of the tomb with the children and the statue of the lady and positioned them in front of the window.  There is a hidden tag with journaling behind the children’s photo on the right of the layout. 

The border on the top and bottom is a Martha Stewart punch and I used different colours to give the layout a bit more dimension.  To finish the layout I added the vines which were cut on the cuttlebug and some flowers which were from a punch.  The final touch was the butterfly which is from the Collections range.

FYI the tag says –

“On our tour of the Cotswolds we stopped at this beautiful church in Burford.  It had a lot of interesting features inside including the 16^th century memorial to Edward Harman, the barber/surgeon to Henry VIII.  The monument included carvings of his family of 6 girls, 9 boys and his wife.
Every nook and corner of the church had another interesting feature including beautiful statues (like the lady in the middle of the layout) and a Ladies Chapel separate from the main chapel.  There was even a tomb with the bones on display.”

The finished church layout looks like this –

Thanks for looking and I hope you try using masks as they are a lot of fun and can make a very individual background for your Layouts. 

Welcome to my first blogpost. I'm an keen scrapbooker and will be regularly posting my new layouts and tutorials on various techniques.