Hello Beautiful Layout

 Hi Tracee with you today, I got to work with the gorgeous Pink Paislee Memorandum collection this month.

Hello Beautiful by Tracee Provis

I used mainly the Memorandum collection but my background paper with the clouds is from the Saturday Morning collection by Basic Grey. 

 I have to confess that I "found" the Hello wood title just laying on my desk and have no clue who it is by! I was sent these chipboard frames so I layered my wood title over it and added a word sticker from Bella Boulevard.

I layered up lots of different papers from the Memorandum 6 x 6 pad and I cut out a few of the clipboard images in the mini size. I used more word stickers to make up a subtitle.

Hope you liked my page, see you again soon

Tx

Disney Scrapbooking with Bella BLVD

 

I've been having fun with the Bella BLVD collection The Zoo Crew.

It's such a great collection of papers and stickers.

 

I have a video on YouTube here  telling you more about this LO.

 

 

I used this 'That Special Touch' Mask here with some pastels. These masks are great and so sturdy to use. I highly recommend.

I coated the wood veneer with a Tim Holtz Distress Stain and finished with a little glitter. 

 

 

 

Here is the finished LO. I hope you enjoy the video.

Thank you. Lisa x

Pixie Powders part 2

Hi, Carol with you today with part 2 of my Pixie Powders post.

Remember these pieces:-

from this post here….

Well, with a bit of distress ink, and some stamping, stencilling and matting they now look like this:-

using the sample pieces of card and some some dies and punches I cut some small butterflies and stars to add as sparkly embellishments - they were outlined with some black ink.

With a lot of playing, I've found that if I shake the bottles upside down, then holding them horizontally, the powder seems to have a better flow… so, I had another play…. with this card (forgot to take photos before) I cut some cartridge paper to the required size and then spritzed with water…I then added Purple violet and gold mint…I then added more water…using another piece of cartridge paper I placed it over the mix and lifted…I'm loving the results…

I then matted and layered these onto a card blank and a tag and added some stamping, I think that the new 49 and Market stamps would look great on these, I've used stamps from my stash. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to finish them off….

Hope you enjoy having a play with these new powders all of which can be found here.

TFL 

Kaisercraft Sea Breeze pt 2 ...Photo Bunting and a quick, easy layout.

Hi There.....Anita here with my final offering for June, once again using Sea Breeze papers by Kaisercraft.
I decided I would try my hand at making some photo bunting and as these papers are in my fave colours I just knew I had found the perfect ones to use and combined them with some family photo's.

I made a heart shaped template and then cut out 11 heart shapes on nice sturdy chipboard. I covered 6 with some of my favourite black and white photos, I then sponged around the edges with some white acrylic paint and the remaining 5 hearts were covered in scraps of paper including Refresh Splash and Swirl

I then added paper blossoms, sequins and butterflies that were given some *bling* using some Mercury Glass Stickles Each heart had 2 holes punched into them and I threaded them all up with some garden twine. I am really pleased with the final product and see a few more in the pipeline in different colours. I think they would be wonderful for a wedding decoration, using photo's of both the bride and groom, maybe as they grew up and decorated in the wedding colours or for a special anniversary.....or imagine for a child's first birthday with some of their 1st year milestones....the list could be endless!

I also made a very quick, simple layout. I based it on a sheet of Sea . I stuck a 5" wide band of  Refresh down the centre with a thin scalloped band of  Waterlily down each side.
I misted various patches with some Turquoise spray and added a sprinkling of turq and silver sequins and a selection of die cuts from the matching Collectables range.

I don't know about you, but I LOVE using my sewing machine to stitch sections on layouts if I get the chance. However......there is a brand new range of gorgeous stamps in the shop by a new manufacturer called 49 and Market
And in the range is a gorgeous set called Gabi's Line Stitch .....I fell in love with these and they sell out so quickly everywhere that I have seen them.....so I managed to grab a set.....and they ARE AWESOME!!! I used them around the edges of my layout....and I can see they will be appearing in LOTS of places from now on. ;)

Have you played with Sea Breeze yet?  If so, it would be lovely to see what you have created with it.
That's it from me now for June, I will be back in July with some gorgeous papers from Blue Fern Studios.
Happy Scrapping.
Anita xx

Simple Stories Sunshine and Happiness AND WRMK Alphabet Punch Board

Hello, this month I worked with the new summery Simple Stories line Sunshine and and Happiness which is full of a beautiful rainbow of colours and patterns.

I used the sun ray background paper as a base for my layout and then went rainbow mad!  I brought out my Distress inks in the colours Spiced Marmalade, Tumbled Glass, Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers,  Picked Raspberry, Spun Sugar and Scattered Straw.  

I also used the Tim Holtz mini stencil from the Set 4 pack to create a rainbow background to go across my sun ray page.  The distress inks blend so easily together and create the most gorgeous rainbow backgrounds.  

I was lucky enough to grab a “Bubbles” chipboard set from Dusty Attic and used an old favourite, Stickles, to create rainbow coloured bubble outlines to match the rainbow theme of the page, I even used the bubble inners from the pack and layered Stickles onto them to create multi coloured bubbles floating around the page.  

Finally I wanted to add a little pop to the page to emphasize the sun ray effect.  I cut out two pieces of paper from a co-ordinating sheet and created two of my own sun rays to sit behind my main photo.  This page is definitely a lot brighter than I normally do but I love how it has come out.

I also tested out this month the We R Memory Keepers Alphabet Punch board.  

This punch board is fabulous for creating easy letters for banners, cards, books whatever you fancy.  The punch board is approx. 11 ½ inches in length and 7 ¼ inches wide and is very solid.  

 

It includes two punches built into the board and a section that has a removable blade that cuts the letters in the right places to create the shape you are after.  The board also comes with a detailed step by step instruction book but you can also download an app onto your phone or ipad so the instructions are at your fingertips.   The board is easy to use and the instructions are so easy that my children have been having a whale of a time creating letters for themselves.  You have to cut each piece of paper to 3” by 5” as the base of your letter unless you wanted to create the letter “M” and then you can cut 5” by 5”, again the instructions tell you exactly what you need.  Once you have a few pieces of paper cut to size you can really create any sign you require. 

You can also customise your letters with a little fishtail edging with the punch provided on the board so you have a choice of two styles of letters with just one board.  This is now a staple in my scraproom!

Thanks for looking at my post, back in a few months xx

June Cropping

It's wet and rainy, so what better place to be than at Otley Village Hall spending the day scrapping!  That's what we'll be doing tomorrow, and our kit this month has been designed by the lovely Lynn.  It's a beautiful rainbow page using distress inks... 

We will have our usual array of punches and dies for your use, homemade cakes and 10% off anything you buy in the shop... come and join us if you can!

Experimenting with Distress Crayons

Hello, It's Lynn with you today sharing my experiments with Tim Holtz Distress Crayons.

A little information about the crayons:

* The crayons look like markers, the medium is in a plastic barrel with a removable lid at one end, the other end is twisted to extend the medium - much like a lipstick.  Each crayon is the length and diameter of marker so easy to handle.  The cap and the 'twister bit' show the colour of the crayon and the name is also written on the barrel. This shows the crayon fully extended so you can see how much of the product is in the barrel.

* The crayons are available in packs of six colours, there are three packs available so far - brights, neutrals and earth tones.

* The crayon is a very smooth, creamy consistency.

* The pigment is water reactive, so can be applied (1) as it is dry or (2) smudged with a rag, sponge or your finger or (3) blended with water.

* The crayons can be used on many different coloured surfaces and because it is a pigment it works well on dark cardstock.

* The colours can be mixed, and appear to work best when a large amount of medium is used. This shows the results of blending the colours (shown dry at the top of each image) with water (left) and dry with my finger (right).

* The colours match the existing Distress palette of products.

* The crayon pigments do not contaminate one-another when adding one color over another. So you can add in a pale colour when you have already used a dark one, without spoiling your crayon.

* You can take the colour from the crayon with a wet brush and apply it to paper that way.

* The colour is permanent when dry, but can be made wet if further movement needed or sealed to prevent movement.

*The medium is non toxic and odour free, but the package says they are for adult use only and should be kept out of the reach of children.

Here are a few ideas I experimented with:

Gesso
I used watercolour paper and treated one piece with Gesso to see what the difference would be. The Gesso sealed the surface and made the colour move around more easily.

1. I coloured them both with the crayons, then blended the colour by rubbing it with my dry finger.

I tried lifting colour with a baby wipe through a stencil on both samples (a wet piece of kitchen paper or cloth works just as well).  The Gesso base appears to result in a whiter finish when the colour is removed.

While I still had the Gesso out, I tried different tricks with water - this shows application of crayon over water (top) and water over crayon (bottom) - with and without a Gesso base. 

Texture Paste
I tried colouring the texture paste with the brights crayons by mixing the two together on my craft mat before using through a stencil. I like the subtle shades it produced, a lot of crayon would be needed to make a strong colour.

I added texture paste through a stencil and allowed to dry then added colour using the crayons. These were then blended with a water brush.  This gave a good result as the texture paste took up the colour easily, and gave the same intensity as the paper.

I tried transparent texture paste next - this was applied through a stencil and allowed to dry completely.  I drew onto the surface with the crayons and rubbed in with my finger. Initially the pigment on the paper was a dark contrast to that of the texture paste. Rubbing further with a soft cloth removes colour from the texture paste until it is just tinted and finally disappears all-together from the shiny surface.

Stamping
The verdict for stamping is that the crayons can be stamped onto but not stamped with!

I tried pigment ink and dye based ink both work, despite applying to dry colour, both smudged a little after about 15 minutes.

However the next day it seems not to smudge, shown here on Gesso (left) and without (right).

I tried using the crayons on the stamp to make an impression, Look carefully to see the top image which is barely visible and was created with the crayon applied and stamped directly onto the paper (labelled 'dry'). The second impression shows what happened when I added crayon to the stamp then misted it with water before stamping.

Masks and Stencils
I tried applying the colour directly from the crayon through the stencil. This gave a lovely rich colour but there is a build up of medium around the edges of the shapes which takes longer to dry and therefore the card remained tacky for some days after application. You can see where I have tried to blend the thicker areas out but rubbing and so smudging the colours together.

I wanted to achieve a softer application of colour and so tried using the blending tool and foam. The colour was added to the craft mat and applied through the stencil with the foam and tool. This was a successful way of obtaining subtle colour blending.

Textured surface

I made a textured surface using an embossing folder, then several colours were added to the raised areas and blended with my finger.

Painting

Using the crayon pigment as water colour was achieved by adding some colour to the craft mat and picking it up with a wet brush and painting with it. The stamped images are on watercolour paper in fast drying oil based pigment ink (Versafine). I added each colour and blended them as I went along on the paper. I edged the paper by drawing on the edges with the crayon and then used the wet brush to drag in the pigment in creating a colour wash type background.

Metal

I tried colouring a metal embellishment to highlight the detail. I added the crayon directly to the surface and left it for a few minutes before polishing off the excess.

These crayons were fun to use once I got going. I have to say I was a little disappointed at first, but it just took a bit of practice to get to understand how they work. I found them easier to use as I went along. I like the way they can be used as the very bold colour they are in the crayon but can also create much paler shades. A pack of six crayons can result in many additional shades by blending the colours together. The effects shown can be achieved with other media, and all give slightly different results.

The closest comparison I have found is the Gelatos by Faber-Castell. Carol reviewed these on this blog last year and her post can be found here.

I hope this gives you some ideas for using the crayons. Have fun and please leave comments when you have tried them or to ask questions.

Thanks for looking, and well done if you have reached the end of this post!

Lynn x