Saturday 23 July 2016

Card Tutorial - July Off The Rails Scrapbooking inspiration.

Hi everyone, This is my last Tutorial and Inspiration share with the amazing Off The Rails Design Team, I would like to take the opportunity to say a big thankyou to Amanda for giving me my first ever design team position and to her and all of the team members over the last 2 1/2yrs for inspiring and supporting my creativity and providing me with the confidence to grow as an artist. I will keep in touch and I know I will continue to be inspired by these fantastic artists in the future.


July Pastels Mood Board


 



July sponsor























































Items used include:
  • 2 pieces of card stock
  • Choice of colours from the Dylusion ink collection including 'White Linen'.
  • Chipboard- Butterfly and love heart
  • Tinby Metallic melts 'Gold nugget' 'Sherwood Green' 'Red Velvet'
  • Versa Color ink 'Olive' 'Bisque'
  • Versa Magic ink 'Red Brick'
  • Black Staz On ink
  • Kaisercraft stamp 'Perfume'
  • ‘Public Library Designer Brads’ 
  • Tissue paper stamped with script stamp using StazOn
  • Stampin Up letter stamper
  • Kaisercraft 6" x 6" paper collection papers
  • Black gesso, gel medium and water mixture in a recycled empty glossy accents bottle
  • Black cotton
  • White cotton
  • Black Sharpie fine pen
  • Black drawing ink 
1. Fold you card stock in half, place small amount ink of each colour  in each section of your palette adding a small amount of white ink to each to make a pastel colour



2. On the first card, you want to cover the whole front of the card.
3. Add ink to a piece of plastic, I used the plastic from the chipboard wrapping. Remember water is your friend when doing this technique so be liberal with it. Turn the plastic over onto the paper and spread the ink with your fingers by using gently pressure.




4. I placed a scrap piece of paper over the back section of the card to protect it from getting ink onto it. Continue using each colour until you are happy with the coverage.



5. The second card I placed a scrap of paper over the back and a blank piece of card over half of the front of card as a mask to protect it from ink coverage. I repeated the inking process as with the first card.






6. Using the brush loaded with water and ink splat a selection of the colours over the cards.



7. Now for the butterfly, using the Versa color/magic ink pads I layered each colour with a matching Metallic Melts powder. I did each individually until happy with effect. The wonderful thing about Metallic Melts they can be remelted so when the whole butterfly was covered I reheated the melts and whilst hot sprinkled a different colour over the top and then finished melting them with a quick hit with the heat gun again.






8. With the heart for the second card I only used one colour of Versa magic and Metallic melts.

9. Using StazOn black ink I placed stamping along the edges of the cards and a sketchy border with a black Sharpie fine pen.

10. Only half covered card I dribbled the black gesso in the bottle along the inks edge and let dry.

11. I added torn stamped Tissue paper onto the fully covered card and added a stack of Kaisercraft 6"x 6" paper collection with a brad onto front of the cards. Black splats of black drawing ink finished off the background before I added some black and white cottons and the butterfly/heart.

12. The last piece to be placed on was a 'Happy Birthday' title I made using the StampinUp word/letter stamp tool.

Here are some close ups for you to see the detail:





Hope these cards inspired you to try some mixed media on your next project. My family and friends always look forward to getting one of my new card creations for their birthdays etc I'm sure yours will be excited to get on from you too. Drop over to Off The Rails to find more inspirational ideas and come join us in our challenge. Looking forward to seeing what you create.

Friday 15 July 2016

'Attitude'- July Sketch Challenge Scrapbooking Top 50


My beautiful grand daughter has the most wonderful personality, full of fun and attitude. I loved this photo and just had to create this special page for her.

Scrapbooking Top 50 Australia
 July Sketch Challenge.



Items I used for this layout include:
  • 12" x 12" paper
  • Watercolour paints
  • Chipboard including Imaginarium Designs '4 in board shapes'
  • White gesso, Ranger gel medium and water mixed in a recycled glossy accents bottle.
  • DecoArt media 'crackle paint white'
  • Urban Artist 'Bloomingvale' stencil
  • Tinby Design Metallic melts  'Royal Purple'
  • Versa Magic 'Perfect Plumeria'
  • Little Birdie flowers
  • Kaisercraft flowers
  • Mill Hill Antique glass beads
  • Pale purple and Black card for backing the photo


  1. Firstly I used lots of water and purple watercolour and placed it onto the plastic wrapping of the Imaginarium chipboard packaging before placing it onto the paper. Using my fingers I spread the paint around until I was happy with the distribution and then lifted the plastic up. I repeated this until I covered the desired area.
  2. I used a spatula to smear crackle paint over the stencil in couple of places and left to dry to get the desired crackled effect.
  3. Using the mixed gesso, gel medium and water mixture I made swirls across the page.
  4. The Chipboard was covered with Vera magic Perfect Plumeria before sprinkling them with metallic melts and melting them with a heat gun.
  5. The photo was backed with black and purple card (edges distressed with scissors)
  6. When the swirls were dry I adhered the photo onto the page and then placed the flowers and chipboard on.
  7. Finally to finish the page I mixed beads into some gel medium and using a spatula spread some strategically around the flowers and chipboard.
 Close-ups




 Thanks for dropping by, I hope I have inspired you to join us at Scrapbooking Top 50 Australia and have some fun taking on the sketch challenge.

Simply perfect: Off The Rails Scrapbooking July Challenge.

Going camping is my escape from the hustle and bustle of my busy life, an opportunity to scrapbook in a peaceful environment, read a good book and just relax. Nothing is better than a fire, glass of wine and a campfire meal shared with my hubbie and my friends.

Here is my take on the 'Rustic and Soft' mood board over at

Off The Rails Scrapbooking July challenge.

Thanks to the fantastic Memory Maze for sponsoring our challenge this month.


'Simply Perfect'






 The items I used included:

  • White 12" x 12" card stock

  • Acrylic paints for background including black, white, yellow ochre and burnt sienna.

  • Spray bottle- small

  • Watercolours to paint the Memory Maze 'Flower Bunch' chipboard

  • White and black drawing ink.

  • Memory Maze Flower Bunch, Arrow, Kangaroos, 'Perfect' tag

  • 12" x 12" Kaisercraft Stencil-' Stained Glass'

  • White Crackle Paint- DecoArt

  •  Cardboard from a thick cardboard box and pull of one paper side to reveal corrugations

  • Page from old book.

  • Distress Ink Tim Holtz 'Vintage Photo' & 'Brushed Sage'- to age page and cardboard to give a burnt effect

  •  Black card to back photo

  • Scrap paper to back onto Black backed photo.

  • Plaid Dimensional Magic.

 

 How I created this layout:

Background: 

  1. Placing the stencil over the page I used a spatula to spread the crackle paint over the places I wanted to place the stone like pattern. It takes a while to dry so I did this the night before although I could of just waited or gently used a heat gun.

  2. Mixed black and white acrylic paint leaving several shades of grey to be able to be used. 

  3. Mixed yellow ochre and burnt sienna  to make an earthy colour that closely matched the colour swatch on the mood board.

  4. Spray the paper with a light spray of water and then using a very wet brush I applied the different greys to the page picking up the earth colour occasionally and dabbing it on to blend it into the grey. 

  5. With a drier brush I dabbed areas with the different colours to blend the paint together when necessary.  

Chipboard: 

  1. Using the grey paint left over from the background I painted the kangaroos and set aside to dry.

  2. The Flower Bunch was cut into 2 pieces with the stem removed.

  3. Using the watercolour palette earth tones I painted the flower in different sections.

  4. I painted the word 'simply' and the tag with watercolour paint and when dry covered them with Dimensional Magic and set aside to dry. (This does take a little time.)

Layers:

  1. Back the photo with black card and earthy coloured paper edged with 'Vintage Photo' distress ink 

  2. Tear a piece of cardboard to fit behind the backed photo and add both 'Vintage Photo' and 'Brushed Sage' distress ink.

  3. I did the same with a page of an old book.

  4. I layered all elements onto the background and when I was happy I used 'Glossy Accents' to glue them into place.

To finish the layout off  I used the colours I used watered down Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre paint and the black and white drawing ink to splat over the paper.

 


 Here are some closeups for you to see:



This will be one of my last inspiration pieces as a design team member at Off The Rails Scrapbooking, later in the month will be my tutorial so pop over and see my take on our other July mood board. 

I have had a wonderful time over the last 2 1/2 yrs and have grown in confidence and creativity thanks to the amazing artists over my time with the team. Thanks to the team for their support and inspiration I'll miss working with them but will keep up-to-date what's happening with the challenges and wish them all the best in the future.