Monday, 22 September 2014

Introducting... Karen Barker

Today we would like to introduce you all to our new member of the design team....Karen Barker!! We have always loved Karens style and are honoured to have her join our team to bring you tips and inspiration.
Here's what Karen had o say about this layout...

'Papermaze sent me some beautiful papers from the Carta Bella Moments & Memories range, 2 sheets of Bazzil card stock, plus some embellishments, ribbon, tags, brads wood pieces and avocado liquid pearls.
Firstly I cut the floral paper at 11.5cm and added the scalloped border on the sticker sheet, and then fussy cut the flourishes from the paper. Cut out the clock from the Tim Holtz weathered clock die from Kraft card stock I had left over from my own stash, and cut out a banner from the patterned paper. I then placed my pieces along with my photo so I could then decide were to add my clusters of flowers, title, stickers, studio calico wooden shapes and frames. I have watered down the liquid pearls to make a paint to colour my frames and used small dots of the pearls directly from the bottle. Distressed the edges of the card with brushed corduroy distress ink and  tattered rose distress ink on the flowers.'

Thank you Karen for sharing how you created this layout. If you would like a chance to have your work posted here on our blog, email any projects you have made using products we sell to louizabelle@hotmail.co.uk
 

Friday, 19 September 2014

September's Crop...

I can't believe we're in the middle of September already!  But here we are, and it's time for another crop day :)  This month we're getting messy with paints and texture paste for the kit.  My photo measures 4.5"x3.5" and shows me with my 3 children on Mothers Day this year.  



We're always pleased to welcome new members to the crop, so if you haven't been before but fancy joining a like-minded group of people, just drop me an email.  £4 for the day (10am - 5pm), the kit is optional, drinks & homemade cakes on tap and a discount on anything you buy in the shop! 

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

Basic Grey - Second City

Hi, Carol with you today with my last post for the month - today I'm using the Basic Grey second city 6x6 pad that I used in my first post…

I thought that I would use a selection of the brightly coloured papers and make a patchwork effect background, this technique has been around quite a while, can't remember who thought of it first tho', so apologies to them!  I tore left over papers from my first project and adhered them to a kraft card base…this is the finished result…

whoa…thats a bit bright!, so, I brayed some white acrylic paint over….(at this point I got carried away and forgot to take pictures, even tho' the camera was beside me!) - with my paled background, I outlined the blocked edges…..I pulled a flower stencil from my stash and added texture paste thro - any texture paste will do, the golden crackle medium I used last month would look good too - once dried I added colour using distress markers, pulling out the colour with a water pen, and mixing my colours together as I went…..an old maya road ticket was stamped with happy birthday and adhered using silicone gel and a small gem, a black pen was used to doodle around the edges…this is the finished result…


see how the white brayed paint has just knocked back the colour?

There are 18 different paper designs in the pad, using the black, orange and a triangular grey and orange patterned piece I made this card….


The kraft cardstock base was covered with the patterned paper, which had been trimmed to fit and the edges inked with walnut stain distress ink…..The orange centre panel was stamped using orange ink and a bo bunny stamp…..this was then mounted onto black cardstock, a stamped sentiment was stamped onto white card and inked using the walnut stain distress ink and a small inking tool, this was finished off with a small amount of metallic gilding wax - golden light…a button and three metal headed pieces of bling were added to finish off the card….

TFL

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

In the Frame...

Hi everyone,

Hope you've all been enjoying the summer and have captured lots of lovely pictures to scrap with!

This month I have been working with the 'Capture Life' collection by Echo Park. One of the sheets of paper that jumped out at me straight away was 'memories' pictured below. I really liked the Instagram style photo frames and knew that I wanted to create a layout using various frames.


You can view and purchase the 'Capture Life' collection here.






Resources Used:


Take a look here for the large collection of frames that Papermaze stock, so you can make your own frame based layout. Enjoy!

Anna x


Sunday, 7 September 2014

Basic Grey -

Hi, Carol with you today!

Have you seen the new releases from Basic Grey which have just been received in the shop?  Both look really bright and funky, and since I'm usually a "grungy" sort of crafter, I decided to try and use these bright papers in my projects…so, first up is…


I had the 6x6 "second city" pad, these pads are great as you get 2 pages of each of the 18 designs, which gives you great scope to add to your projects.  For todays project I decided to make an a5 sized card - my base is white cardstock creased into my card base….. I have cut a strip of the striped paper and adhered to one side.  Using the dotted paper and the purple paper from the pad I have made some "petal" shapes - I have made a template by drawing onto a piece of cardboard and using this to draw around on the two different sheets…but, there are several different stamp sets out there, and die sets,  (another die set here) which you can use to the same effect…..I have then edged my "petals" with black soot distress ink and covered with distress stickles rock candy…. I have then attached a large button from my stash. I then cut three strips of the yellow card and edged with black ink for the bottom…..Happy Birthday was then stamped using distress ink and edged using a black pen.

I will be using the same papers again for my next project, hope to see you then.

TFL