Forever Scrapbook LO and some ATCs

I was finally motivated to create another scapbooking layout. Its been quite a while since I made one of these. I saw the papers for this one in Riot Art and Craft and just had to buy them. I was concerned about getting the journalling to fit witht he paper, but I think it works quite nicely. I'm thinking of entering this one into the Gold Coast Show which is at the end of August.

Also, while cleaning up my desk I finished off a couple of half-finished ATCs. Here there are:

Acrylic Blossoms

Vintage Suprise

Spring Blossoms

May Pick-A-Theme ATCs

Here are the latest set of ATC's I've been working on. The top set had to be hand-drawn, while the bottom set had to be hand-painted. The majority of ATC's I've created since 2005 have been hand-drawn but I really enjoy painting and have recently started to spend some more time practicing. I think it's starting to pay off as I think this is the first time that I've prefered my painted cards over my hand-drawn ones. What do you think?

More Gesso Girls and Some Stamping Techniques

I received an email on Tuesday from my LSS advertising a stamping workshop they were running. The last time I can remember going to one of these would have been about 10 years ago with my mum and I have a storage container full of stamps that I'm simply not using, so I decided to head on down and check it out. Besides, you can't really go past $10 for a 3 hour class. I was suprised by how many of the techniques I already knew, though now they are done using more snazzy (and expensive) materials/supplies. The last time I did a class we still heated our embossing powder over a toaster! I found it funny that Karen taught the watercolour marker technique using special markers and a blending tool. It would have cost about $50 to buy the equipment. When I first learnt this technique we just used normal textas that were scribbled onto a ink pad lid and then painted on using any cheap old painting brush and some water. LOL Anyway, you can see all the little technique sample I created and got to bring home below. I think my favourites would have to be two using the brayer on the gloss cards (the purple and orange samples). I had forgotten how much fun that it, pity mum has the brayer and stamp pads.



I have also managed to grab some time to finish off some more of the gesso girls I showed earlier. These are a lot more normal or natural looking than the first three. I had fun with them but not sure if I'll do any more.

Outside the Rectangle ATCs

I am again just squeezing in before the deadline for this trade, which is actually 1pm today! The theme for this months live trade was 'Outside the Rectangle' so basically the ATC just had to be in a shape other than the standard 2.5 x 3.5 rectangle. Right away I knew I wanted to do a stained glass window design and for once I didn't change my mind halfway through the month. :)

You can see my final design below in both the open and closed views. I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. They took FOREVER to do because there was so much down time with waiting for paints to dry. I think my favourite part is the stone edge, which I used texture paste as the base coat to make it really rough and stone-like. It was get to play with my Twinkling H2O's again as well. They've given the window a nice shimmer. Anyway, I can't wait to see what all the other ladies have come up with for this one.

Chunky Bird Book and Some ATCs

Having to complete those Pick-A-Theme ATCs last week reminded me that it had been a while since I really created anything and that I feel a lot better when I'm spending the day creating rather than just wasting it. Plus, I again have waited until the last minute and need to crank out some work before the mailing deadline passed. :)

The project this time was a 'Funky Birds' chunky book. Chunky books are 4 inch by 4 inch works of art that have some form of dangly embellishment hanging from either the right or bottom edges. Once you get a collection of individal pages you put them together to form a book and the cumulative danglies result in the chunky effect. The very first one I took part in was a 15 page bird trade and I've been hooked ever since. They are quite pricey to mail, since I live in Australia and most of the hosts are in America, so I don't get to play quite as often as I'd like. I have still managed to accumulate books for birds, mermaids, monkeys, africa, and love.

So the page above was my first sample design. I like to try to incorporate my danglies into the page design, rather than just have the attached to a corner. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so didn't change too much for the final design, which you can see below. For this swap we only had to trade 5 pages. I'll send an extra one for the host and be left with 2 for personal trades in the future.

I also managed to create some ATCs. These were done using the Bernie Berlin technique of painting gesso over magazine images and then re-painting the image. I've also used coloured pencil to add some texture and shading.

In other news, I left a scrapbook challenge for Bridge who had lost her mojo. The challenge was to use the colour blue, clouds and lace. You can see the beautiful LO she created here.

Finally Some Craft!

It's been a while but I have finally created something crafty again, mainly because the due date for the swap is looming. :P So I managed to create 4 ATC's today for the "What's My Style?" Pick-A-Theme swap over at ATCsforAll.com. I was probably a bit nasty of me to sign up for this since I don't really have a style of my own. Rather than picking an individual theme for this PAT, each player received cards in an approximation of their style. I signed up for a very cool group!


Short explanations from top left:

Janet (crafter412) - I felt a lot of pressure for this one because her cards are just so beautiful. I've collected her landscapes from when she was a newbie at ATCs. While most of the cards I have of hers are watercolours I noticed that she's doing a lot more work in acrylics so that's what I went with. The card is based on a photo I took at Cape Byron Lighthouse. When I showed Ben this one he actually told me to hang onto it because he thought it was so good. :)

Acacia.rose - I was originally going to make a card with chalks and a thick black border, but then saw a more recent set of jungle animal cards she had done and I just had to go with that style.

TotollyOzSome - She has such a cute and simple style. I don't know how she managed to get so much character into her cards, but I struggled to copy that. Anyway, I just couldn't go past a flying monkey since I know she loves them. It's loosely based on one in her gallery.

Lemurkat - I have watched Kat's art for years so I hoped this one would be easy. Wrong! I chose to draw a Golden Pheasant, as Kat loves birds and I thought this one looked strange enough to take her fancy. Unfortunately, it's not endangered like most of her subjects but I'm sure the bird thinks that's a good thing. ;) I tried to get the colouring and background right, plus didn't forget her stylised sun.

Uni Graduation and Circle Journal Page

I had my university graduation ceremony on Saturday. Dad quite nicely offered to fly my brother and sister up so I could have some moral support, which I very much appreciated. It was great to get to catch up with them both, even if it was just for a weekend. I didn't trip at any stage of the day so that counts as a success. :) We had some professional photos taken too which I'm hoping will turn out nicely though the guy rushed us through a bit. We all went out to celebrate for dinner and came home to play Guitar Hero and Rockband until 2am. Ben was in heaven having new people to show off to. :) Kirby developed some mad drumming skills and got almost-blisters to prove it.

Me in my robes before heading to the ceremony. Yes, I know I need to buy a new dress now that this one has served in the last three special occasions. My sister, Kirstin, and brother, Michael.

My darling Benny! That's the "Fountain of Knowledge" in the background, can't get much cornier that that.

In a more artistic vein, the only thing I've managed to create recently was the back page of the circle themed friendship journal. This was finished a while ago, but I forgot to post it. Used a modified version of the credit card technique on the background because I think I'm in love with the results it gives. Tried to add more depth to the backgorund with a few more layers. Happy with the end result.

8 Year Anniversary and... I Got Engaged!

Yesterday was my 8 year anniversary with Ben. To celebrate he booked a long-weekend (Saturday to Tuesday) getaway at Byron Bay, NSW. For those who don't know, it's a little hippie/arty town on the beach just down from the NSW/QLD border. We stayed at Azabu, a stunning B&B just out of the town. It's set amongst the beautiful rainforest/swapland of the area. You can see how much we're enjoying our stay in the photo below, taken just after arrival. We spent the weekend checking out the view from the lighthouse, checking out the independent/alternative stores, browsing the arts and industry park and just relaxing in general. We also had the joy of a couples massage together, which was lovely.

Ben and I in Azabu's "reading gazebo" in their gardens.

The view from our bed. The lack of curtains made it a bit cold in the mornings, but it was worth it.
The lighthouse at Cape Byron.

Visiting the lighthouse at Cape Byron was a real highlight for me. We went at about 4pm on the Saturday, so got to admire the view in the daylight. From the lighthouse it's only a short stroll to the most easterly point of the Australian mainland so we took a walk to that. Ben then decided he wanted to follow the walk all the way down to the rocks and the beach at the bottom. It's actually a fairly touch 3km return trip, but I hadn't realised it was that long when I agreed. :) By the time we were on the way back up to the lighthouse the sun was setting and it was stunningly beautiful.

Me, and one of the beautiful sunset shots we took.

The lighthouse is also special to me because Ben took us back up there on the Monday at 6pm before dinner. The light was actually working so it kept sweaping over us as we stood in the carpark looking out over the lights of Byron Bay in the distance listening to the waves crash on the beach with some bongo music in the background. Ben then popped down on one knee and asked me to marry him! Even though I had been expecting it, it was still a lovely moment.

The ring!

Gone Wild LO

I spent 4.5 hours at my scrapbooking store yesterday. Did a class from 10 till 12, which you can see below. I really like the way it turned out and think the meerkat photos are just perfect for it. I visit Zoos a lot, so I bought some extra papers and stickers and might make another double LO with more of the photos I have on hand.

We had the ATC swap after that. Everybody created great cards this month. We just hung around discussing various different techniques afterwards. It was good to get a chance to sit and chat with some other crafty people rather than be stuck at home.

On a personal note, I'm heading down to Byron Bay for my anniversary with Benn this weekend. Hoping to come back with some photos to show off, if the rain holds off.

Snow Layout, ATCs and a Circle Journal Page

I've been working on a few different projects recently. First one is a set of Autumn themed ATCs for the Addicted To Scrap monthly trade. Yes, this is as well as the Vintage/ Roaring 20's theme, so I've had to make 24 cards in a month. Again I've tried to go with more of an old-collage style which I feel suits the group better. It's a simple design, but I'm quite fond of it.

I have also been working on a 6" x 6" circle journal page for a group I'm part of over at ATCsforAll. The group is mixed media, though most of my pieces have been acrylics. This month I'm trading with Ria who requested a theme of friends or friendship. The picture is losely based on a photo on my friends and I. Not sure what I'm going to do for the back page yet.

Lastly, I decided to treat myself to a scrapbooking class yesterday as a birthday present. The class was for a snow themed page and luckly I had brought up my ski camp photos when I was last in Melbourne. The class was a lot of fun and at the end my page looked like this:

Since I had taken a LOT of photos while on ski camp I wanted to display some more. Now the logical step is to turn the page into a double, except for the fact that the store had sold out of almost all the supplies used in the class. There was no more matching cardstock, patterned paper or ribbons. Nonetheless, for some reason I refused to let this defeat me. I purchased some similar papers and some more snowflakes and went home to see what I could come up with. It took me a whole day, and I tore off probably half the original embellishments from the single layout, I now have a double layout of ski camp photos which I feel is still pretty cohesive. Just to point out the effort I went to: I had to hand-cut the second sheet of brown scalloped paper!