December 2014 - Black with 2 challenge - Ice Blue and Pine Green

Where did November go??  Already 1 December and time to put up my DT sample for the December Black with 2 challenge.  The Mood Board challenged us to use the required black cardstock background with Ice Blue and Pine Green.  What a lovely colour combination!!  And the sketch to use was just as lovely.  Here is the Black with 2 Mood Board and sketch to follow:

I was playing around with a flower and butterfly punch at a recent scrap get together I held and punched out a pile of blue and green flowers and butterflies and whilst playing with them, my whole layout came together for this challenge.  So here it is a vintage page from my children done in these beautiful colours:

I kept it simple with just flower and butterfly embellishments with some trellis and flourish details.  The photo is of my mum with myself and baby brother in our favourite childhood park, Queens Park in Kimberley, South Africa.  Here is some close up of the flower detail.  Some of the flowers were cut  from scrap paper with a die punch and then put through an embossing punch, cute little hand-held punches.  I then combined them with some Prima flowers and used either brads or little pearls to decorate the middles of them.

Playing with a card design

I took some of the left over papers from Maja Design and made up a Thank You card.  Love the soft shades of the card.

And I really love how the flowers cut with the Silhouette Cameo came out.  Here is a close up of

Black with 2 - Tangerine and Blue

Black with 2 have a lovely colour combo this November month to play with - Tangerine and Blue.  What appealed to me about their mood board was the soft shades of this colour combination.  When I think of Tangerine, I always think of the bright orange colour, but here the tangerine is a soft muted colour.  So when I looked through my paper stash I was struck how beautifully the colours of some of the papers from the Graphic 45 By the Sea collection matched the BW2 mood board.

My layout:

Did quite a bit of layering and fussy cutting for my page.

And here is the BW2 mood board and sketch that we needed to follow:

This is a great challenge so I hope that many play along with the challenge this month.

Finally! I got to play with Maja Design paper!!

After dreaming about Maja Design papers and drooling over every page and card I have seen made with this gorgeous range of paper, I finally got to do it all myself.  I just so LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this range and I was in heaven working with it.  It is everything it promises to be!!  Beautiful, romantic, modern vintage and such a treasure to use.  I love the thickness of it and it distresses beautifully.

So here it is - my page made with some random pages from some of the Maja Design collections:

I am crazy about layering papers, so did a lot of layering here and this is where beautiful crafted papers like Maja Design really come into their own and in my opinion are worth using.  The thickness of the paper allows you to easily distress it.  I did damp the edges of the papers with water so that I work the edges into a more distressed look.  I used Maja Design for all the page with exception of the trellis detail and the flourish - even the papers flowers were cut with my Silhouette Cameo from some left over scraps.

Just some close ups of the detail:

Just a comment on the flowers I made.... The paper is really wonderful for paper flowers as you can work it exceptionally well to make soft kinks and bends in the petals to create a lovely 3D effect.

I would also like to credit Page Drafts for their amazing sketches.  I used their sketch #31.1 for my page.  If you haven't checked out their sketches, you really have to - they are amazing!

Well, needless to say, I am now a Maja Design convert!  I am totally obsessed with it!  And am already thinking about my next page.

Anniversary Card - Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection

This weekend I made an Anniversary Card for 2 special friends, and what better paper to use than some of the beautiful romantic paper from Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection.  I thought the Valentine stamps from the Spring has Sprung page would be perfect for the card and matched it up with the paper from All my Love page.  I fussy cut some of the beautiful violet flowers to add some extra detail to the ribbon and flower detail.

So here is my card all done up and ready to go:

And a close up of the flower and vintage lace bow detail:

and here is the paper that I used from the Graphic 45 Sweet Sentiments Collection:

I just love this collection and will definitely be making more cards from it.

Thanks for looking.

Getting Quirky with Graphic 45 Papers

Just had to get back to playing with Graphic 45 papers!!   Oh woweee!!  Do I love this range of papers - my craze, my obsession, my scrappy addiction!!  Just need to have every single collection of this range in my scrap room!

Well I had such a lovely time playing with the Typograghy collection and made up an Inspiration Board which I called Quirky.  Actually I made this project to be the front of a box where I keep my stencils and templates.  The box can stand up on it's side so that the inspiration board can be displayed.  What a fun project this was!  I love the busy, eclectic look and all the layers!  I'll probably keep adding a few bits and bobs to it.

If you want to have some fun, I would suggest you get this G45 range - it is amazing!

WhooHooo!!!! I made the Summer Design Team of Black with 2!!!

Oh yes, I am doing the HAPPY HAPPY DANCE!!  I am on the new Design Team for summer for one of my favourite scrapbooking groups, Black with 2.  I love the challenge of working with black and especially using black cardstock as the base background for the layout.  You often have to think a little out of the box and often need to be a little creative to get the perfect look.

I am especially thrilled to be part of this talented group of scrappers and cannot wait to have some fun with the upcoming challenges.  So now onto this month's challenge:

October's challenge is Pink & Mulberry with predominant black card stock and just a touch of white (5% only allowed).  So here is the mood board and sketch to be used:

And seeing that pink is significant with breast cancer awareness, I did another layout of our bike ride we did in May in aid of the Breast Cancer Brunch held in Auckland.  I put together the pink and yellow layout for the September Bw2 challenge of myself dressed up for the occasion, and thought it would be great to do the other layout of hubby and his "big toy" all pinked out for the ride.

The mulberry colour is a lovely rich colour and perfect for a "big boy's" page.  So I used mostly this colour on my page and made the elements of the page masculine to suit the theme.  So no pretty cute flowers except for the flower doodles on the black card stock, but I just couldn't resist a teeny weeny little touch on pink bling here and there.

So do have some fun with this challenge!

Glamming up my Silhouette Cameo machine

I recently saw on a Facebook group how the owners of Silhouette and Cricut machines glam them up with vinyl.  So playing with vinyl is a whole new ball game for me and one I am so keen to try out.  I recently scored some offcuts of vinyl from a sign writer, so thought that some experimenting with vinyl would be a perfect project for personalising my Cameo machine.  I call my Cameo my magic machine, so here is what I have done so far .....

Still wanting to put a little more on my machine but haven't found what I am looking for.... so watch this space.

All Pinked Out - Black with 2 Sep 14 Challenge

Just the perfect combination of colours and inspiration I needed to get this layout done - thanks to Black with 2!!

I have had some photos from a Cancer Bike Run we did in May this year sitting on my scrap table for months now.  I have fiddled around with them trying all sorts of coloured papers and nothing looked right.  I really struggle when there is so much pink in photos.  I really do like pink, but not in photos!  Too pink photos really challenge me!!

But when I saw the mood board come out for the September Challenge with the hot pink and yellow combination - I went straight back to these photos, pulled out out the black card stock and pink and yellow papers and oh gee oh gee, that is exactly what I needed to get the page done!!  I must have spent hours trying all sorts of the colour combinations, but never put the yellow and pink combo together.  And what an amazing colour palette they make!!  And I really think the perfect colours for my photos.

And I really love playing with black layouts - they count as one of my favourite mediums to work with.  There is so much one can do with them, play with Gesso as I did here and the colours and patterns are so vibrant against the black background.

For the embellishments, I added a vibrant pink stencil cut with my Silhouette Cameo and yellow stained paper doily, Prima flowers and could not resist added some pink feathers (from the very same pink boa used int he photos) in the flower cluster for effect.

I'm in love!! With Graphic 45!!

I have an obsession - since I first saw Graphic 45 papers - I am absolutely totally in love with them!!  These beautifully designed speciality papers are just awesome!  I just love the imaginative design and vintage appeal - every single collection just blows me away.  I guess it because I am a lover of heritage and olde world sentiments.  So after much thinking and pondering, I have just brought in my first lot of Graphic 45 paper pads.  (More are on their way to me right now!)  With these beautiful papers, I had all the inspiration I needed to scrap these 2 gorgeous photos!!

This page consists completely of the papers from the Sweet Sentiments range and I teamed it up with sketch 33.2 from Page Drafts.  Just loved the idea of the ribbon banners and thought it perfectly suited the theme I wanted to create here which is soft and dreamy.  The sketch also gave me an opportunity of exploring a different approach of 2 separate groupings on the page.  I usually group my photos together, so to do something like this has been a wonderful learning experience for me.  And I just love how beautiful the layout looks!!  I also teamed up the project with an opportunity of learning more about my Silhouette Cameo - aah so much to learn with this amazing machine!!

Just a close up of more of the detail:

I distressed the banners with Antique Linen distress and fussy cut some of the Graphic floral design to lay under the banners.  I also used little Prima flowers tied with some lace for detail.  Underneath the photos I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut out 2 doilies for layering.

And my totally awesome Cameo was used to do my title.  And I finished it off with a few wooden butterflies and flower embellies.

Back playing with Heritage Layouts

It's been a while since I have really scrapped anything.  My mojo was still very much missing in action, so I have really been playing with different ideas, styles and techniques and just having a little time-out fun.  So none of the playing really materialised into any finished layouts but it has given me the opportunity to explore new things.

Along my time-out journey, I did find some interesting new scrapbooking groups and forums.  And 2 of these groups kickstarted my mojo again which is wonderful!! I simply love the sketches that Page Drafts put out and I could not wait to try one out.  One of the sketches was perfect to complete a challenge for a new group I found on Facebook, Scrap It With Attitude.

So here is my entry into the July Heritage Challenge for Scrap It With Attitude:

I did a retro style heritage page of 3 really super cute photos of my youngest brother when he was a baby.  And found that sketch # 33.2 of Page Drafts was perfect for this page.

And just some close up of the details:

I used my Silhouette Cameo to print out the words which I aged using coffee staining and a handy little air blower gizmo from Tim Holtz to create the brown smudges on the word tiles.

The flower detail is part handmade outer flower petals with smaller Prima flower inner petals with some really old vintage metal buttons for centres.

It's All About White - a Let's Scrap NSD challenge

And while that pot of white gesso was handy .... why not have a hand at a White layout challenge at the same time.  So here is my LO for this challenge:

So out came the gesso to glue some white serviettes to white cardstock and also to glue the florest white mesh to the page for some texture.  I wanted to add a touch of soft pink to the layout, so used a little misting of watered down pink ink here and there and a touch of bits and pieces of pink feathers to finish off the background.  I focussed the detail to the right bottom of the page to leave plenty of white space on the layout.  I used a soft dreamy photo of my great niece and framed it with some lace.  I clustered some white and pink roses at the bottom and added a small cluster of white flowers with white ribbon at the top of the photo.  I really struggle with white space on a layout, but am so happy with how this page came out!  It is perfect and just what I wanted to achieve..... a soft dreamy layout with just enough detail and lots of white space.

Some photos of the details will come soon.

Aaah, having a bash at Mixed Media - NSD challenge

I have gotten myself that all important bottle of Gesso - and of my oh my .... the Gesso bug has bitten!!  Just love using it.  So when I saw a Mixed Media Challenge come up at the Let's Scrap site for National Scrapbooking Month, I just couldn't resist not getting down and getting messy!!

So out came the Gesso, Modge Podge, inky sprays and Ranger Distress Ink pad and lots of scrap paper and even a little lace.  I used the reconstructed page method to create a unique background for my LO.... with lots of modge podge on a sheet of cardstock and lots of layers of my scrap paper with some lace for texture.  When all that modge podge had dried, I spread some gesso all over the page to give it a white wash effect.  Just loved the effect of all that layering, modge podging and white wash!!

I built up my LO on this mixed media reconstructed background using a little misting in places, destress ink on the edges and still a little more gesso on the burlap and edges of the brown cardstock.  My title was made using my newly acquired Silhouette Cameo machine and I added a some embellishments to finish it off.

The photo is a recently taken selfie of hubby and myself taken on a day trip to a local lighthouse.  I titled the LO "Capture Life" because it was just a wonderful day out for us... just a good day enjoying the time with friends and having some fun in the sun.

Will put up some pictures shortly of the detail on the LO.

Playing with Black & Grey and a bit of Gesso

I have so looked forward to scrapping with black and the May challenge over at Black with 2 was just what I needed to get out some black cardstock and get into the black zone.  And just for fun I decided to have play with Gesso to jazz up the black background.  So here is my take on the challenge.  It is always a challenge to get the colours come out correctly on a photogragh, but the brads are actually a soft grey colour and 3 left hand side buttons are shades of grey.

The May Challenge mood board was to use black with soft grey and dark slate grey with an inspiration image of splatter.  The other requirement was to use the sketch provide and the word "life" in your journalling.

So just to describe the detail I used on my page entitled "colour your life", I decided to go for a bright photo of a closeup shot of a brilliant pink geranium bud from my garden.  I first splattered Gesso with toothbrush over the black card to give the background some interesting splatter detail and by chance found the cut-out of 2 flourishes I did for another layout gave a really wonderful effect over some soft grey patterned paper.  I stamped up a doiley and flowers using Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink, combined these with some ric-rac and buttons for the embellishments.

I really love the finished page!  The overall effect of the pink flower gives the layout a wonderful pop effect.
Just a few closeups of the detail:

My featured DT layout for Let's Scrap

This is my first layout sample for my next DT term at Let's Scrap.  This is such an adorable photo of my great niece which was taken by hubby during his visit to South Africa in September 2013 - how could I not scrap such an adorable cutie pie?! 

Little Michaela has just been adorned with some Zulu jewellery but shame she was not very happy to have the beads around her neck and wrist and we are very lucky to have this lovely photo of her.  Hubby just had a luck to get this snap of her posing like this.  Seconds later she was not a happy little girl, just wanted to get the jewellery off.

 

The sketch I used for this layout is this:

 

I used the right hand side of the sketch and flipped it upside down for my page.  I also skewed the papers on the right hand side for some interesting detail.  The papers, buttons, ribbon and cotton are various and from my stash. 

The big flower I fussy cut from some patterned paper

Start of my next Design Team Term on Let's Scrap

Well my next DT term on Let's Scrap has started.  Here is my DT contribution:

For with this week's sketch:

Our 52 Week Money Challenge

Yes, we are going to do this challenge this year!!  If hubby and I stick to the plan, we will have $1,378 to spend of our December 2014 holiday!