She Art Canvases

I made these 6x12" canvases for two of my colleagues as Christmas presents. I used a lot of the techniques, and a couple of the templates from Christy Tomlinson's She Art workshop. Each of the girls is supposed to look like the colleague she was for - which my colleagues realised so I'm guessing I did a good enough job!

I had so much fun with these! I started off with a patterned paper background by collaging together scraps from the Crate Paper 'Neighborhood' 6x6 paper pad, then slapped some acrylic paint on top. I added some interest by stamping with archival ink and paint, and dabbing modelling paste coloured with acrylic paint through a Crafters Workshop template.    

I used Christy's templates and some more of the Crate Paper scraps to put the girls together, and then defined them with some paint and doodles. My colleagues picked the quote they wanted, which I typed out and added to each canvas. 

There really is something so satisfying about a handmade gift that is well received :D

Tasty Treats

I spotted this challenge over at ScrapFit, and being a lover of Kraft backgrounds I thought I'd join in! This is my effort:

It's another fairly minimalist effort, but it's a look that I'm rather liking at the moment. I used Crate Paper 'Peppermint' papers and border stickers, Liliy Bee alphas and some white acrylic paint. 

I hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by :D

M is for Mojo

It's Sunday, which means it's challenge time over at The Studio! This week, Julie has set a Sesame Street inspired challenge - to create a layout 'brought to you by the letter ?' 

My letter is fairly obvious really - what else could I choose but the letter 'M'?! I'm really pleased with the way this layout turned out - I follow a lot of blogs, and I've been finding recently that I've been saying 'ooh that's nice' about layouts created by three particular people, who all have a similar style (Marcy Penner, Lisa Truesdell and Rahel Menig). I love their work, and have been wanting to try something similar for a while. 

I hope you'll join in with this week's challenge, and maybe try something new too! What will your letter be?

60th Birthday Mini

It was my friend's 60th birthday this weekend, so I made her a mini book to keep all her photos of the big day in!

I used card blanks as the base of the mini book, and glued 8 back to back to give 16 pages.

I then took two more cards, laid them side by side and then moved them together so they overlapped. I adhered the  overlapping sides together, and then scored a second fold at each side. I adhered my pile of cards to the middle, and wrapped the two sides around to form the cover. 

I decorated each of the pages with the gorgeous papers in the GCD 'Paris Nights' collection. I especially love the flocked papers, and I knew my friend would too.

I finished it off with some Pebbles border stickers (from the Mr&Mrs collection, I think), some Thickers and some black satin ribbon.

I was very pleased with how it turned out, and I think my friend was too :D

*In other scrappy news, I made it through to the first round of the Practical Scrappers layout competition. Making it through to the second round depends on the number of votes my layout gets - it's up on the Practical Scrappers blog, in Group 3, and voting is today only, so fingers crossed! I'll find out next weekend if I got enough votes to go through to the next round...

Me@32

The latest challenge went up at The Studio on Sunday, and it was one that I found quite hard. Julie challenged us to create a layout using 5 or more photos - well, I instantly ignored the 'or more' part - 5 photos was going to be challenge enough! 

I think I've mentioned before that I like to create collages in Picasa and then get them printed as 6x4 photos. I tend to double up as well, and often order colour and black and white versions of the same collage. I like having a stock of different photos to work with, and have no problems scrapping the same photo more than once. A quick shuffle through my photo pile revealed this set of self portraits - these, combined with the fab chipboard from the Crate Paper 'Random' collection, sparked the inspiration for this layout.

Do you scrap multiple photos? If you do, or if you want to give yourself a challenge, pop by The Studio and link up your layouts, We'd love to have you join in!

Live for Today

It's week two of 'One Word, One Technique' on the Truly Madly Crafty blog, and it's my turn to provide the example.
So, what is 'One Word, One Technique'? Well, we have assigned a different technique to each month of the year, and each week has a specific word. The idea is that you create a project based on that week's word, and using that month's technique. You could create a one off project each time, or challenge yourself to create one big project. I've decided to plunge into the world of art journaling for my example - I'll create an art journal page using the month's technique, and based around a quote containing the word for that week. The idea is that I'll end up with 12 pages, which I'll bind together at the end of the year.

I've taken inspiration for my page from Karen Grunberg - I just love her art journaling style, her pages are bright and fun without looking cluttered, and I love the fact that she leaves white space.

If you want to know how I put this page together, there are a couple of 'in progress' photos and a walk through on the Truly Madly Crafty blog.

This is the first art journal page that I've completed and been pleased with - I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of Maxine's techniques and prompts lead me to create!

Hopefully this challenge will inspire you as well, and I hope you'll join in :D

Christmas Album

We've taken all of the decorations down today, and I hate the feeling of emptiness it leaves behind, so I'm going to fill it by sharing my Christmas album! I fully intended to complete Shimelle's JYC this year, as I completely failed last year, but as usual life got in the way. I did take a load of photos though, so I've done a retrospective Christmas album instead :D

I mainly used the gorgeous Crate Paper 'Peppermint' collection - all I added to it was some seam binding in red and green, a bit of Tim Holtz tissue tape on the spine, and an odd Studio G rub on from a sheet that I picked up in The Range for 25p, bargain! Oh, and the numbers on the cover are Thickers.

I built the journal from scratch by folding pieces of patterned paper and gluing them back to back. Before I share the rest of the photos with you (and there are a lot!) I must apologise for my sewing - it's only the second time I've used my sewing machine on paper, and the first time I've sewed through photo paper. I think I need to work on the tension, and on sewing in a straight line....

The rest of the post is photo heavy - but I hope you like them!

If you made it this far, thank you! I hope it was worth it :D

Pin It

2012 Calendar

I'm thrilled to announce that I've joined the 2012 Design Team at Truly Madly Crafty :D The lovely Maxine runs two blogs as well as her shop website (I don't know where she finds the time!) and I'll be contributing to both. My first project is for the Challenge Blog, where the January challenge is 'Anything Goes'. 

I made this 2012 calendar using a cheap photo frame from The Range. I took out the glass and punched two holes in the back of the frame and fed two large book rings through. I then cut 13 pieces of white card just slightly smaller than the inside of the frame, and punched matching holes in the top of each.

I stuck to the same basic template for each of the calendar pages - a photo, a piece of patterned paper, a border strip and a small calendar mounted on card. I've used the Crate Paper 'Random' papers and border stickers, and Anita's calendar tabs.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and as it was a last minute gift, I'm very pleased that the recipient liked it too! The rest of the DT have made some fabulous projects, so make sure you stop by and have a look, and don't forget to have a go at the challenge while you're there, Maxine has a great prize to give away :D  

Happy New Year everyone!