Scrapmatts and Flourish With a Bling Sneak Peaks

Scrapmatts has teamed up with another great Australia company, Flourish With a Bling, for a product swap. I can't show the full projects on my blog just yet, but you can head on over to the Scrapmatts ning site to see the blog post with all the details. Here are a few sneak peaks of the projects I created to get you interested.

 

 

Both companies now sell direct retail and I would highly recommend both of them. I've been a fan of Scrapmatts long before I joined their DT. They have wonderfully detailed designs and their chipboard takes a lot of pounding. This was my first opportunity to use Flourish With a Bling products and I was really impressed. Their pearl flourish holds their shape so well, I pulled the whole thing off in one go and there was no bending or flopping around and getting stuck to itself.

 

This last one was a bit more crafty for me and I was inspired by the great toadstools from Flourish with a Bling.

 

 

Here is all the official information:

 

Welcome to the third day of the Scrapmatts and Flourish with a Bling product swap! In case you haven't heard of FWAB, they are a manufacturer of pearl, rhinestone, puffy, metallic and laser flourishes and designs that are sure to add some sparkle and shine to any creation - www.flourishwithabling.com.au.

Scrapmatts is an Australian chipboard retailer, offering fine designs for scrapbooking and cardmaking and have been in the craft industry for 27 years. They exhibit their designs in Craft Shows all around Australia - www.scrapmatts.ning.com
 

 

We are so excited to show you what our design team have come up with so we thought a little competition would be fitting to celebrate the swap :-)

In order to enter this fabulous giveaway you can do one of the following three things:

1. Head on over to the Ning Gallery and name your favorite project you've seen in the gallery this month, 
2. Head on over to the Scrapmatts Facebook fanpage and name your favorite project you've seen in the gallery this month, making sure you've hit "Like" to become a fan.
3. "Like" and leave a comment on Flourish with a Bling's Facebook fanpage and tell them Scrapmatts sent you.
4. Leave a comment on my blog post over at the ning site.

 

Do all four to enter yourself into the draw four times!

Winners will be posted on Thursday the 7th of March.

Be sure to visit the Ning site every day over the next week and a half to see more inspiration.

Happy Sad Tiger

Who says only good photos should be scrapped? True, I probably should have edited these in Picasa a little but I get too eager and just printed them. Some times it's the candid moments that make the best stories. This one is all about the 'Happy, Sad, Tiger' game my family started playing around Christmas last year.

 

 

Went for a confetti effect with pearls and brads along with a rosette, just because it had been a while since I'd made one of those. The papers are Everyday Eclectic by Echo Park (currently on sale at Paper Stories and so cute!). Birds are a new release from Scrapmatts. Background has texture paste over a Kaisercraft mask which them had glitter spread over it too.

 

The LO is based on the February sketch over at Paper Stories, by Page Drafts. They make some great sketches so I think I might be using them a bit more often.

 

 

Scrapmatts DT Canvas

It's going to be a bit quiet around here while I'm working on DT projects but I have this canvas I created earlier that I can now share. All members of the Scrapmatts DT were sent out a canvas to decorate which will travel around with the company to all the expos in Australia. I have previously only completed one mini canvas so this was an exciting new challenge for me.

 

 

You can see some of the detail shots below. I used dimensional magic on the light purple heart and pressed sead beads in while it was drying. Once dry I fitted the light purple back into the dark purple heart. The chipboard is such good quality there was not problems with warping. I used the sample dark and light purple paints on the frame with crackle medium to add some extra interest. The circles in each corner are a mixture of texture paste and acrylic paint with the sead beads pressed in while drying. The background is acrylic paint with a crackle stamp in a couple of different colours over the top.

 

The leaves are from a sprue however I cut it down to fit my LO. The vine is a new release for February and I loved using it! It comes in four pieces and I'm so happy I have some left over.

 

Scrapmatts Supplies Used:

CB1153 Leaf Spray 08

CB2020 Vines 01

CB6002 Ornate Frame 02

CB1070 Hearts 03

Who needs Santa?

I have blogged previously about my love of Santa photos but annoyance at the steep prices that are being charged these days. I was having dinner with my brother and sister when we saw that the Santa set-up was vacant for the night and not roped off. Luckily I had my camera handy, so I set up the auto-timer and snapped a couple of quick shots of us all. :)

 

 

This LO ended up NOTHING like I had imagined when I started it, about the only thing that stayed the same was the photos. This LO was primarily created as my DT piece for UnstampaBelles. The challenge for February is to use at least one doily. I have used three cute crochet dolies from The Chip Chop Shop. I didn't plan to use Scrapmatts chipboard either but they ended up being the perfect embellishments.  

 

I have also used the new sketch over at Sketches with a Twist. The twist this month is to use texture paste. I have used texture paste over a mask and then misted on top with two colours to create the background. My husband thought the end result was very pretty. I'm a bit disappointed I ended up covering up so much of it. I'm not really one for interpreting sketches so this stayed pretty close.

 

 

Lastly, I was inspired by the colour challenge over at ScrapFriends. I love seeing the LO's everyone comes up with and the different effects that result from people chosing different primary colours from the swatch.

 

Love

So I've been stuck inside all day as all of Queensland is currently subject to severe weather warnings. I live on the Gold Coast and we are just about to get possibly the worst four hours of it soon, though possible tornado and flood warnings will remain for the next two days. Kind of ruined our Australia Day long weekend but right now I'm just hoping to get through it without any serious damage.

All of this time inside was the perfect chance to create another LO though. Went with a recent photo of me and my grandparents taken when I was in Melbourne last December. Journalling is hidden behind the layering, the 'love' tag pulls out so you can read it but I wanted to keep this one personal.

I normally avoid flower clusters because they can be very expensive but the sketch I worked from needed some. The green ones I have die-cut from a matching sheet of paper before hand-rolling. The brown one are those simple paper flowers from Kaisercraft but layered up and scrunched.

 

I worked from the Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch #4 for January. Papers are all from the Periwinkle Collection which is beautiful with it's cream/brown/aqua/grey colour scheme and lots of nature images. I've also used rub-ons, chipboard, flowers, mini-alphas and pearl florish from Kaisercraft.

Sharing a Giveaway

 

Good morning everyone. I hope anyone else in Australia is having a fantastic Australia Day. It is wet, wet, wet here on the Gold Coast and our local council called off their celebrations so Ben and I are left without plans. Stuck at home I stumbled across the Scrapbooking Memories blog hop showcasing some great Australian companies. Besides making me consider starting digial scrapbooking (Studio Flergs designs looks great!) I also came across a great giveaway for Flair Buttons that I had to share. Like a lot of people, I have become quite taken with these buttons so couldn't pass up the chance to win 50 from Purple Pumpkin.

 

Frog Pond-ering

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I'm one of those people that love bad puns! So, with these photos having been taken at the Frog Pond in Boston Common during our holiday and the photo of my pondering away with one of the statues I just couldn't resist going with this title. :) I think this LO is almost there but is lacking that extra 'something' to make it pop. Any advice is welcome.

I figured this LO was the perfect opportunity to use some of the beautiful Scrapmatts snowflakes. I mixed up some texture paste, white acrylic paint, sand and a touch of blue/gold glimmer mist then painted it on the snowflakes to add some texture. I really liked how well they took the weight of the paste whilst still retaining the delicate details.

This LO was created for the Paper Stories sketch challenge, which was extended to include January as well. I drew inspiration from Georgia Heald's example LO for the layered background photo mat.

LOL and Memories

 

This page is a quick introduction to me as part of my Design Team commitments with Scrapmatts for 2013. I went with an older photo of me that I felt showcased my personality well. I think one of my favourite things to do is laugh and make others laugh. I've also listed a few of my other favourite things on the journalling tag.

 

Close up details of the great Scrapmatts chipboard on this LO. The card border has been painted with liquid pearls. The butterflies has been sprayed with GlimmerMist and the bodies covered in liquid pearls The wings have been lifted from the page for extra dimension.

This LO was created for the ScrapFriends sketch challenge #9. It also fits the criteria for Punky Scraps challenge #59 which is to scrap all about you.

 

Our second DT challenge for this month was to create a page with the theme of 'new'. I have chosen to scrap a photo of my husband and I celebrating the New Year in Central Park, New York.

 

Close up of the chipboard used in this LO. I have cut the nested shape into smaller pieces to use it as a frame for the photo. The Christmas stars mirrored the stars on our hats so I've chosen to use them here rather than a Christmas LO.

 

This LO was inspired by Sketch #51 for Keeping The Best. It also fits the criteria for ScrapFit this month which is to use stars. 

I'm back from America!

 

Hello again dear readers. I hope you all had a great Christmas/ New Year period. After getting to catch up with my family in Melbourne I went travelling in America with my husband for two weeks. It was very exciting as neither of us had been before. I took SO MANY photos that I decided to just show off my favourites in some collages.

I will be back with crafty goodness later this week.

 

 

 

We spent two and a half days in Boston and got to see snow which is a rarity for us living in a sub-tropic region normally. I loved doing the freedom trail.

 

We spent six days in New York, including New Years. We tried to do Times Square for the ball drop but weren't keen on standing around for so many hours so went to the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park instead - much more fun! Also checked out Wicked on Broadway, the High Line and a harbour cruise. 
 

Lastly, we spent six days in Chicago which was also fantastic. We saw two Bulls games which was the highlight for Ben.

Die Cut Gift Card Holder

 

The challenge over at Unstampabelles this month is to use one of more die-cuts in your creation. I seem to go through patches where I don't use a single die-cut and then other patches where I use them on everything. My DT sample is a gift card holder I gave my brother for Christmas. It uses Kaisercraft papers and die cuts with some liquid pearl accents.

 

If you're wondering why my blog has been quiet recently it's because I'm actually on holiday in America for 2.5 weeks. I'm sure there will be plenty of photos to share when I get back though. :) Hope everyone is having a great start to the new year!