Twinkle Little Star - Let's Get Sketchy DT Application

I'm currently in the middle of a massive clean up/ clean out of my scrap space and I was trying to keep the desk clean by not creating anything new. However, the urge the scrap just became too much so I sat down last night and whipped up this layout using another one of Harrison's beautiful pictures from his newborn photo shoot. He is coming up on 8 months old now and looks so very different to this tiny baby.

 

The background is actually a very pale blue colour and I've used a fantastic Kaisercraft star-themed stencil with texture paste over part of the background. This was then accented with two colours of blue gelatos and some blue Glimmermist sprays, with some brown stamping overlaid over the top. The title is a FabScraps chipboard piece coloured in gesso and then the two gelatos again. 

 

 

Let's Get Sketchy is an amazing sketch challenge site, with a new sketch every week. They are having a design team call at the moment and offered two sketches to chose from for applications. I selected the one below.

 

 

Applications close April 8th so you've still got time if you want to apply too!

 

Smile Layout - Couture Creations DT

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Welcome back for my final reveal as part of the 2014 Couture Creations Design Team. I have made lots of cards and off the page projects for this team recently but it has been ages since I did a layout so I decided that would be the perfect project to end on. I've had a great time playing with all the fantastic Couture Creations products and hope you have enjoyed seeing my projects over the past year.

 

 

Photo credit: Juniper Blooms Portraiture

 

1/ Take your background paper (I used Rouge Stripes) and in pencil lightly mark guidelines at 1.5", 3.75", 6", 8.25" and 10.5" both horizontally and vertically. Use a brown pen to draw in faux stitches over the top of the middle three lines both horizontally and vertically.  

2/ Cut two strips of paper 1.75" x 4" and eight squares 1.75" x 1.75" from various papers from the paper pad. Edge all of these in brown ink. Adhere as shown in the photo, raising two using foam tape or cardboard for added interest.

3/ Cut 'Smile' die cut from Everyday Essentials and two of the decorative square frame from Hearts Ease from thin cardboard. Emboss all of these in two coats of brown embossing powder.

4/ Trim your photo to 4" x 4" and adhere the square frames to the corners, cutting away the parts behind the photo. Place three pearls in the corners of the frames. Adhere to the background, raising it up using foam tape or spare cardboard.

5/ Add your title to the top corner. Add embellishments to each square and some journaling strips, also edged in brown.

 

 

Couture Creations Materials List:

CO724062 Vintage Rose Garden 12" x 12" paper pad

CO724124 Everyday Essentials, Script - Smile die cut
CO724310 Hearts Ease square frame die cut

C0721998 Pearls Moonlight

 CO721986 Handheld Essentials, Craft Knife, Piercing Tool and Scoring Tool
6mm adhesive tape

 

Kaisercraft Design Team 2015 Entry

Any regular followers of my blog will know how much I love using Kaisercraft products. Their paper ranges are the basis of about 80% of my work and I am always using their texture stamps, flowers and bling. I have looked at their DT calls for the past couple of years but never applied. This year that changes though! I've got nothing to lose by applying and gained two new projects. :)

 

Photo credit: Rachael Wilson Photography.

 

My first project is a layout featuring the XO range. This was also the first time I got to use the Kaisercraft clear stickers, I loved these and will be buying more soon. Other Kaisercraft products include a couple of texture stamps, flowers, pearls.

 

Photo credit: Juniper Bloom Portraits.

 

Project two is this 6.5" frame featuring the Blue Bay range (papers and die-cuts). Kaisercraft frames are great bases to create off the page projects, I've done a couple of the 12"x12" sizes and two of the advent calendars too. Other Kaisercraft products include texture stamp, chipboard, flowers and sparkles.

 

The last project is a quick card with the Shine Bright range (papers and sticker sheet). The bright yellows in this collection just make me feel happy. I have also used some Kaisercraft pearls.

 

Thanks for checking out my application. Finger crossed! :)

Cute Little Bum

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I snapped this photo the other day, just because I had my phone handy while Harry was playing. I think it's adorable, though my husband was a bit bemused as to why I would scrap it. I'm trying to get a mixture of milestones and everyday moments into Harry's album, because I'm sure I will forget something like this as time goes on.

 

 

I was runner up in Kaisercraft's January competition and chose to receive my prize pack from the Blue Bay range. I don't know how I missed this collection, it is beautiful and so versatile.

 

 

This layout was created for the D-lish Scraps March cybercrop. I have been part of their Scrap Suite for ages but must have accidently turned off notifications for the facebook group so had forgotten about their great crops. Challenge #3 this month uses the great sketch below. Loved having to scrap a smaller sized photo. The brown leaves are from D-lish.

 

 

Birthday Swirls Card

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One of my best friends turned 30 yesterday and had a fantastic lunch party over the weekend. She loves to admire my crafting so the pressure was on to create a special card for her. Unfortunately, it was a very busy week so I was a little bit time limited but I think the card I created is still quite effective. She was very happy with it.

 

 

Old book page sprayed with three colours of mist, gesso stencil work over the top, chipboard sentiment on a banner, some flowers and some rhinestones.

 

I was inspired by this great card I found on Pinterest:

 

Easter Baskets - Scrapmatts DT

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Scrapmatts runs brilliant classes at shows and expos. Even before I was on the design team I would always make sure I did one of their classes at every expo I went to. Sofie makes sure you finish all the projects during the class (anyone else have a pile of unfinished projects they didn't finish in a class?) and you also get a couple of sheets of extra chipboard to create projects at home too. I had these baskets in my 'extras' stash for quite a while from one of the classes and just realised they would be perfect for some Easter themed cards.

 

 

This little guy has a smaller sized basket and I managed to make him using the background off-cuts from the other two cards. I couldn't resist the pun title. :)

 

 

I received the bunny for this card in an Easter themed swap some years ago and he's just been sitting in my stash since then. So happy to have been able to use a number of scraps the complete this card. Basket was raw chipboard with some gesso spread around using my finger.

 

 

It had been so long since I'd created my own rolled flowers because they used to take so long as you held them in place waiting for the glue to dry. This time around I used glue dots and it was so much quicker! This basket has been given a proper painting of gesso over raw.

 

Have you created an Easter project with Scrapmatts chipboard? Share it with us over at the Ning Gallery.

 

Birds of the Alphabet: J-K-L ATCs

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The next instalment of the Birds of the Alphabet ATC series, this time featuring J, K and L.

 

 

Java Sparrow

 

King Parrot

Lovely Fairy-wren

Here Comes Trouble

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I loved this photo of Harrison and Ben as soon as I took it, it was exactly what I wanted to capture on our family picnic. Harrison can't crawl yet, but he had no problems getting around via rolling and is managing to get into all kinds of mischief hence the title.

 

 

I wanted to include some journaling on this layout, as I think it's something I've been forgetting to include on far too many layouts recently. I decided to hide it in the double matting of the photo, which actually swings open like a book.

 

I used the current sketch over at Stuck?! Sketches as the basis for this one. I actually changed things around a little bit, which is unusual for me, but the main body of the sketch as stayed true.

 

 

Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge's theme for this month is the colour blue, pretty clear how this layout qualifies. :) Use Your Stuff had also posted that their next challenge was going to be monochromatic however the page appears to have gone missing for now? Anyway, if it comes back then my old item is the pebbles which I was so excited to purchased back in June last year and never used until now.

Birthday Butterfly Card

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One of my friends has their birthday tomorrow and I was all out of birthday cards, so I whipped up a new one for her. I have a whole stash of Christmas cards that I make each year and never send out, plus some other special occasion cards but for some reason I seldom make Birthday cards just to have in my stash, which is silly because they are the ones I could use the most.

 

The card features a fantastic chipboard butterfly from Scrapmatts and pearls, Glitzin' Glamour and embossing folder from Couture Creations.

 

 

Anyway, I was inspired by two challenges while creating this card. Just Add Ink have two beautiful inspiration pictures for their current challenge. I couldn't go past the striking pink/black/white colour scheme.

 

 

Use Your Stuff's current challenge is to add twine to a project. I've used some I've had sitting in an unopened packet for ages to frame my white mat.

My Boys

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We had a newborn photo shoot when Harry was nine days old. Even just seven months later I look at them and doubt he was ever really that small, which may have something to do with the fact he's a real chunky bubba now. We have given copies of the prints to the grandparents for presents and I'm now slowly working my way through scrapbooking some of them.

 

 

Photo credit: Rachael Wilson Photography

 

I created this layout for the March D-lish Scraps challenge. I was inspired by the colours, though my blue ended up a bit lighter than the mood board. The bottom left image with all the frames made me create a layout with lots of rectangles and geometric elements. There were so many flowers in the mood board I couldn't resist adding one to my layout too. The flairs and flower are from D-lish Scraps.

 

 

Because the D-lish Scraps sketch didn't work for the photo I wanted to use, I worked from this sketch:

Smile Card - Couture Creations DT

Do you ever fall in love with a paper range so you buy the whole paper pad? Then you get a couple of projects in (eleven in my case) and you start to get sick of the same colours/designs etc so the pad gets relegated to the bottom of your supplies. I was feeling that way about the Vintage Rose Garden range and was a bit over the pink/green/cream colour scheme, but then I realised that I could easily use some of those papers in a different way with just a bit of alteration and some fresh eyes. This card was the end result of that experiment.

1/ It looks like I've used a chipboard piece on this card, but it's actually a die cut from the Hearts Ease range. I cut this piece three times from thin cardboard (an old cornflour box), glued them together with adhesive spray and then gave it a coat of gesso.

2/ Get your background paper ready. Cut a sheet of plainer patterned paper to just smaller than 6" x 4", I have used a cream checked pattern. Adhere it to a piece of thin cardboard to give it some stability. Ink the edges with a dark orange ink then distress. Apply gesso over the top of a stencil to add a new pattern. Randomly stamp a texture stamp over the background in dark orange ink.

3/ Glue the die cut to the lower left corner of the card. Flick some orange ink across the card and use a wet paintbrush to spread it over the die cut. Once the orange ink is dry, flick some yellow ink over the card too.

4/ Die cut the 'Smile' sentiment twice, once from orange cardstock and once from white. Use adhesive spray to stick them together slightly off-set so it's like the white is a shadow.

5/ Adhere the sentiment to your card. Place some flowers at the top of the die cut and sprinkle some pearls around the card. To finish simply apply the background to a white cardstock base card.

Couture Creations Materials List:

CO724062 Vintage Rose Garden 12" x 12" paper pad

CO724124 Everyday Essentials, Script - Smile die cut
CO724312 Hearts Ease, Mandshurica die cut

C0721998 Pearls Moonlight

 CO721986 Handheld Essentials, Craft Knife, Piercing Tool and Scoring Tool

Product Giveaway

*** Closed due to lack of interest ***

 

March marks the end of my design team term with Couture Creations. It was a fantastic experience with great opportunities so rather than be sad about the term ending I want to celebrate it. Couture Creations was a very generous company to be involved in and now that I have completed all my required projects I thought I would pass along some of their terrific products to share the fun. All the paper packs are brand new and still in their plastic, the embossing folders and dies have been used a couple of times only.

 

 

The main prize consists of:

- Vintage Rose Garden 12" x 12" paper pad

- 20 sheets of Black Magic Potion No. 9 Core'dinations Cardstock

- Bold Bouquet ornamental lace die from Floral Lace Collection

- Nativity Scene intricutz die from Merry Little Christmas Collection

- Devonshire Lady and Gentleman intricutz dies from Glamour Days Collection

- 1950's Albert and Simonetta intricutz dies from Glamour Days Collection

- Panama Branch decorative die from Secret Treasures Collection

- Tabbed Journal Tab decorative dies from Secret Treasures Collection

- Polaroid Frame decorative die from Secret Treasures Collection

- Cog Border intricutz die from Metricon Collection

- Only One embossing folder from The Marriot Collection

- Large Wire Barbs embossing folder from The Marriot Collection

- Great Lazy Days embossing folder from The Marriot Collection

- 3D Foam Strips

 

What can you create with these products? Here are a few examples of some of the different die-cuts in previous projects I created with them.

 

 

Here is a closer look at the embossing folder patterns too.

 

Due to postage costs, the main prize is only available to Australian residents.

 

 

 

I also have a small international/2nd prize consisting of:

- Vintage Rose Garden 6" x 6" paper pad

- Paris embossing folder from The Ambassador Collection

- Babette embossing folder from The Marriot Collection

- Siblings intricutz dies from Metricon Collection

- Discover decorative die from The Van Roe Collection

- Aztec Gold Glitzin' Glamour

 

How to enter:

1/ You must be a follower of my blog: Blogger, Bloglovin', Networked Blogs, Google reader etc.

2/ You must share details of the giveaway publicly, such as on your blog, facebook, instagram etc.

3/ Leave me a comment stating how you are following me, how you have shared it and which country you live in. 

 

Competition will run all through March and I'll announce the winner in early April.