Glitz March Monthly Challenge - Week 2: Glitter

Hello all,

Back again with some more Glitz!
This time, I decided to enter their Glitter challenge for this month. Initially I wanted to do a paper layout, however I ran out of time, so am entering another digital layout.

And my layout:

Supplies: Glitz paper, elements and brushes. Additional elements and brushes: KPertiet.

This layout uses all Glitz 'Hello Friend' range with feathers from Finnley and Wild Free which have been recoloured and glittered.

The challenges end in about 15 minutes, so I better get my skates on!

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Thanks for coming by.:-) 

Glitz March Monthly Challenge - Week 1: Carpe Diem

Hello everyone,

I just LOVE Glitz papers. Love the colours and designs. The 'giant rhinestones' and 'peek-a-boos' are also a favourite of mine. For the month of March, Glitz are having a number of challenges - focusing around one of their new designs, Carpe Diem. If you love soft colours and pastels, this is the one for you! Check out the challenges HERE.

I have decided to enter Week 1 challenge - Carpe Diem with a digital layout:

Supplies: All paper, arrows, fawn, tabs from Glitz 'Carpe Diem'. Some brushes from Glitz (arrow, cloud, washi tape). Layered template (altered - Studio DD) and other elements and brushes from KPertiet.

I just LOVE that ombre background paper, don't you?

All Glitz challenges end March 30, so there is still time to enter one of the challenges that takes your fancy.

Thank you for coming by today. :-)

Stampotique Challenge #138

Hello all,

I love green and am so glad there are many challenges out there at the moment that are focusing on the colour due to St Patrick's Day earlier in the week. Thank you to the Irish.

So I have decided to play along with a challenge I found via France Papillon's blog, the Stampotique Designers Challenge. For challenge #138, the predominant colour must be green and the use of stamps is also a must for your project.

Here is my submission:

The stamps I used and some close-ups:

The finished size is 6" x 8". The base is some cereal cardboard I cut to size. I really wanted a smaller project so that I could experiment with using serviettes on the background. I firstly came across the use of serviettes to add layers by Jane Davenport, but Gayle Price uses it more so and in a different way to stunning effect.
The lower left close-up photo shows the underlying layer of serviettes. I love the subtle effect it gives.

You can read more about the challenge rules HERE. You have until the end of March to get your green on!

Thank you for coming by.

Colour Challenge #23 - KreativeKoncepts -DT

Hello all!

As you may already know, I am on the Design Team for ScrapFriends. Recently, the online store has been sold by its founder, Angela Star, and with the new owner, Annette, comes many changes including a name change. From now on, you will no longer see ScrapFriends, but Kreative Koncepts. For the fuller story, please go to the blog HERE.

For now, here is the new Colour Challenge. I am loving gold at the moment, so had to incorporate it into a colour challenge at some point:

And my layout, which is all digital:

Supplies: StudioDD Layered Template (recoloured and adjusted), additional paper & elements by Katie Pertiet.

Really hope you are able to play along this month. Remember, you can do a canvas, art journal page, off the page project, digital layout, card or tag!

Go HERE to see what the Guest Designers and Design Team have all done for more inspiration.

Thank you for coming by. Have a great weekend!

Gelli Printing - Background Uses

Hello everyone!

A few weeks ago, I did my first Gelli Printing pages. I had 8 sheets in total, so am now using them for backgrounds. Today I'm sharing 2 more pages that I have worked on.

This is the first one:

This is what I came up with:

I used a side profile stencil from Jane Davenport and one of her eye stencils found HERE. I'm not very practiced at doing faces, or eyes, but find the stencils really useful as a starting point.
Also, I had done some writing (same words) but really didn't like how I had written it, so fixed it in Photoshop and re-wrote it. Writing in style is an art form all in itself which I never realised until doing this page.
I have also added some stitching and felt to my page.

My next one is from this basis:

I decided to do a digital page for this one, late one night:

 I really didn't like my white triangles along the top, but it was a great design start-off point. Most of the digital elements are from Fiddlette Designs and Tangie Baxter.

Thank you for coming by. If you have been doing any Gelli Printing lately, please leave your link below in the comments - I'd love to see!

Step-by-step LOVE Canvas

Hello everyone,

For the current Colour Challenge #22 over at ScrapFriends,  I made an 8" x 8" canvas. It was my first time doing a canvas and a highly enjoyable process. Here is a reminder of the canvas...

Today I thought I'd show the steps I took to create it...

1. I really had no idea what I wanted to do at this stage but I glued down a spare die-cut piece from my Silhouette, then some cut lace and sticky netting.
2. I brushed white gesso all over.

3. Added some texture paste (stars through a stencil which didn't work so well).
4. I had left the canvas for a while and returned when I had a better idea of what I wanted to do. Using watered down brown acrylic paint, I brushed a wash over the entire canvas.

5. I added some shading around the edges with a mix of Distress Ink, Distress Stain, and acrylic paint, wiping with a baby wipe as I went and adding more again.
6. I love my splatters, so had to add some here - brown acrylic paint and white gesso.

7. Using left over bits of paper, I inked the edges with Distress Ink (Frayed Burlap) and added black lines around the edges of the paper, then arranged them as so, gluing them down.
8. I added some more left over bits of die-cut paper - I sprayed the white frame blue with Glimmer Mist (Sapphire) as well as the Wycinanka chipboard frame (love their chipboard).

9. Added some more layers of paper as well as painted a little bit of Twinkling H2O in 'True Blue'.
10. Some more layers again - I just love those large Prima bulbs - a canvas is perfect for them.
11. Lastly, I added my photo in a Kaisercraft chipboard frame, some flowers and finally added my title, as below:

This has now been given to my mother. She loves it (mum's are great, aren't they?).

Thank you for joining me today.

Gelli Printing 1

Last week I showed some examples of what I had done with my new Gelli Printer. I have now decided to do something with these 8 sheets of colour and patterns the first being with this one:

Last year I took a year long course called Life Book 2013 by Tamara LaPorte. Unfortunately, I just didn't have time to make use of it, and only ended up downloading about 8 classes and videos from the entire 50. Anyway, I have just recently been watching one of the videos and was inspired to do a page. The design concept of a girl in a boat with waves is Tamara's, however I used different mediums and have a totally different look. Mine is far more contrived than Tamara's free-flowing, luscious page, but this is my first attempt at something other than scrapbook related.
This is what I created:

 I added some Dylusion Inks and Distress Stains. The waves were cut with my Silhouette and misted. The little diamonds were left over from a Silhouette cut I had done. The partial sun was left over from an earlier layout. I drew and coloured the boat, flag and girl. Using Dylusions stamps I inked then cut around the shape before adding it to the side of the page. I didn't want to add too much to the background because I didn't want to cover the gelli printing I had done. However, in hindsight, I think it would have been better to have added more.

As a result of wanting to add more, I decided to also do a digital page:

I used additional brushes on the background and elements mainly from Tangie Baxter and Nancie Rowe Janitz. The 'life is today' is from Ali Edwards. I worked on PSE7.
It was super fun to do.
If anyone is new to Photoshop, or thinking about it, I would highly recommend classes from Jessica Sprague, I learnt so much from her.

Also, if anyone is interested, I have compiled a folder of the above digital print. In it, there are 2, 3"x4" versions of the picture - one with and one without the 'Life is Today - Live it' (great for Project Life) and 2, 8.5" x 11" versions. As well as an 8.5" x 11" of the original gelli printed paper that you can print on your printer and use as a starting point for your own work. Because I have made them at full resolution for printing, they are large files, so I have added a link here for you to be able to access them. The best way I found is to do it via Dropbox. You don't need to sign up to view and download the files.

Here is the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z6ijxdu0pj7g8dp/jMhJIlGmd0#/

I have also added the link within the text above.

Once you get to the link, the page will show you 5 different images. You can click on each image to view in full and to have the option to download - great if you just want to download 1 file. The file name includes the size of the print which you will be able to see when clicking on the image (file name is bottom left of the page).
If you would like to download all the 5 prints, then you can click on the little square with 3 round circles at the top-right of the linked page and it will give you the option to download as a zip file.

Sorry for such a wordy post. Quite unlike me, but I wanted to try something different.

Any questions or comments about any aspect of this post, I'd be happy to receive and answer. Please let me know if there are any problems with the link.

Thank you for joining me today.

Scrap Friends Sketch Challenge #23 - DT

Can you believe it's already March? I truly believe that old adage that says 'time goes faster the older you get'.
Anyway, new sketches are released all around the scrapping blog-o-sphere today, including ScrapFriends.
Some of the DT and Guest Designers found it a little tricky, but you wouldn't know because they have all done stunning work. Please head HERE to check it out.

And here is the sketch, which I hope will challenge and inspire:

And my version:

All papers are from the old Basic Grey collection, Curio, as well as a little bit of Kaiser thrown in.

And some close-ups:

I loved making this one. My mojo left me last month in quite a big way, and I wasn't feeling inspired at all to do much, but I thoroughly enjoyed the making of this one, and feel excited again about creating. I guess that happens.

Sketch Challenge #23 ends March 31 at 11:55pm EST.

Thank you for coming by and any comments you care to leave.