Adore You

I was flicking through some old photos to see if I had anything to match the D-lish Scraps mood board when I came across a series of photos from Harrison's first swim. How hilarious does he look with that bald head and so much chubbiness?! This is why I print my photos, rather than just store them on the computer. I need to have them at hand and randomly come across them to scrap.

Chipboard and stencils are from Scrapmatts. Papers, title stickers and die cut frames are from Kaisercraft. I have used D-lish enamel dots and the seahorse flair from a past JAP kit.

I was inspired by all the geometric shapes in the mood board, so kept a lot of them in my layout. I also referenced the arrows and the frames. Such a lovely colour scheme.

Love You Everyday - Scrapmatts DT

My second Scrapmatts DT project for October is a simple yet colourful layout featuring a favourite photo of my son. I wanted the photo to be the focus, so have kept the embellishments fairly simple. Surprisngly, I actually created this one without using a sketch but had a firm design idea in my head and it turned out pretty close to that.

I enjoyed creating the busier photo matting that I normally use, and creating the rainbow with my Gelatos was fun. Can you believe for my title I had actually already used up all the 'y's so had to create more out of 'q's? Who uses up all the 'y's but still has two 'e's available?! 

Scrapmatts chipboard: CB6107 Assorted Words 25, CB6105 Assorted Words 23.

Life is a Journey Canvas - Scrapmatts DT

Are you like me and you keep all those left over bits of chipboard? You know the ones, when you only have one piece left from the sheet, or you take it out but change your mind so don't use it on the layout, or even the extra bits you get in the Scrapmatts kits if you take an expo class? I have had a great time using up some of my leftovers stash to form the base of a small canvas display piece. The great thing about it is that it doesn't really matter what you have in this stash, because it will mainly get covered up anyway.

I quickly captured some progress shots to show how I built up the background. Stage one: two layers of chipboard and a metal charm, along with some builders tape and some texture paste through the stencil. Everything has been covered with a layer of gesso. Stage two: I have added the flowers and some lace strips. I decided I wanted the brick texture to stand out more so re-applied more texture paste, including over the lace. Everything got another coat gesso. Stage three: I have built up the coloured coverage using multiple applications of three colours of mist. Because of the gesso, they initially dry lighter than expected, so quite a few applications were required, but this helps blend the colours together. Stage four involves flicking black ink across the canvas, dry brushing white gesso across the whole piece to highlight the contours and then dabbing on spots of gold coloured paste to the flowers for highlights.

 

My tips for creating mixed media background:

- put your flat layers down first! I forgot to put my lace and builders tape down first, so ended up having to cut it to fit around the chipboard shapes.

- always coat everything with gesso to ensure they absorb the paint at the same rate, otherwise you ended up with inconsistency in the colours between surfaces.

- Let ink colours dry before changing colours to avoid them getting muddy. Don't be afraid the overlap dry colours to blend them though.

- Spray inks from different angles and positions to get into all the nooks and crannies of the canvas.

- If in doubt, add more!

You can see in these detail shots the background detail created by putting some texture paste through the brick stencil as well as the layers of chipboard in the background prior to building up the frames. The gold frame is embossed, and the top frame has a watered down mist painted over white acrylic.

Scrapmatts chipboard: CB6103 Scrap Words 21, CB6113 Scrap Words 32, CB6091 Ornate Frames 19, CB6110 Ornate Frame 25, plus bits and pieces left over. Stencil: ST5013 (this is my go-to stencil for background texture).