I won, I won, i won!!!

Yes, I am a little excited!!! last week I was contacted by AALLandCREATE to find out I had won the INSTAGRAM competition, which gave me access to all their current online classes!! OMG...The collaboration of talented artists and their work is amazing, and I am happy to say, I had time to play on the weekend and take my first class by Flore Thannberger!! It was a card class, her card was amazing!!! here is my take on her class and details of the products I used!!! I can't wait to do the next one!!!

I've used Kaszazz cardstock in bling for the base card, then a piece of A6 watercolour paper. My watercolour base is Dylusions inks and Distress ink refill.

I have these gorgeous little Kelly Purkey stamps in my stash which I love, particularly the numbers and the Live big, so they went on there in Colorbox ink. The gorgeous fox, flowers and Dragonfly stamps, I have been dying to use. They are Uchi's Designs stamps and I won those in a CSI challenge.

The original card sample by Flore had machine stitching, which I almost did, but it was late at night, the hand machine didn't want to play and too noisy to get the sewing machine out. So, I stamped a few arrows, and bundled up some black cotton for a similar effect. The cute little flair is from D-Lish Scraps.

You can see on the Dragonfly above, I have some shimmer, that is Perfect Pearls! There are a few little touches of that on the fox and flair.

Finally, see this cute photo corner??? Well, I have a little box of metal Provocraft embellishments, that I thought I would never use!! The photo corners, (they are brads), were an ugly blue & green colour. So I sponged some Gesso on to prime them and then when dry, sponged some Distress Stain in Brushed Pewter!! Voila, silver photo corners!! I so love making use of old stash and re-purposing!!!

I can't wait to share more creations from these fabulous classes and teachers!! Our very own Fiona Paltridge is teaching over there, why don't you check them out, it's lots of fun!!!! Click here

Scrap the Girls August moodboard DT page

Well, hello, it's the 1st of August, and that means a new month and another new challenge. Yippee! I absolutely love this month's moodboard over at Scrap the Girls, I know you will too, it's just stunning!! Take a look....

I was immediately drawn to the image in the top right and thought my Kaszazz Mandala stamps would work a treat in my background.

First I added a coat of clear Gesso to my white cardstock, then sprayed some Dylusions inks and water. When that was dry, I started stamping my background. Aswell as the Mandala stamps, I also used some other Kaszazz stamps, the mesh stamp & net stamp.
I've used some Colourblast, colour paste in blue through a stencil and also used it to colour my chipboard arrow and feathers. (Which was one of the fab pieces I got from a prize I won from Dusty Attic.) It is stunning!              

Actually, I did alot of colouring on this page!!! I coloured the flowers with Dylusions sprays and used Alcohol ink Art markers to colour bits of the Mandala stamp. Flowers are from Scrap Matrix and Merci.
There's some free glitter stickers and a paperclip from an old Scrapbooking Memories magazine, some twine and hessian, 7 Dots papers, stickers and journal tag, (which I've hidden), and a gorgeous Kaisercraft clear word sticker.

Hope you like my layout, it's one of my favourites I think!! TFL,
Tania

First Design Team Reveal for Off The Rails!!

Another exciting day today, as the 1st project for my Off the Rails DT gig is revealed, yay. The moodboard was black + anything goes, with some gorgeous inspirational images. I decided to do a card. I was forced to be behind in my DT projects this month due to having SHINGLES which was quite horrific. So that lost about 2 weeks of valuable creating time for me.
But anyway, I came up with this card, and I'm quite chuffed with it!

I started with a white card base, and found a piece of Glossy black cardstock in my stash, from Kaszazz. (I had already punched a scalloped border on one edge, bonus!!!) I love the Glossy card. I added some Texture paste through a TCW stencil and while that was drying, stamped some Kaszazz Spring flowers and border stamps onto watercolour paper. I then had fun with my Kaszazz watercolour pencils and my Aquash water brush, colouring them in.
I wanted to add something special to the large flower centres, so used some Scrap Matrix micro beads.

I attatched and mounted flowers, cut them up a little to piece them together and added some die cut Leafy Flourishes, (also Kaszazz), and one of my favourite Heidi Swapp die cut words, 'happy'. Then stamped a birthday sentiment and embossed it in white! Hope you like it, and don't forget to visit Off the Rails blog for some more Design Team inspiration and current moodboard.
Tania

Kraft Plus July challenge

Hi all, I am scraping this one in again this month. I so like to do the Kraft Plus challenge each month, but I seem to be having less time. However, I still have quite a few hours left in the day and it's the last day of the challenge, and I made it!!! So this months inspiration & requirement, was the moodboard and Sheet music and of course on a Kraft background. Here's the sweet board:



I was inspired by the Script, and sheet music, and flowers, and the two pastel colours of mint green and pinky/peach.

I started with a collage background of some torn sheet music and an old book page, then gessoed over the top of them. I then sprayed two different colours of Heidi Swapp Colorshine over that and when dry, I stamped a Newsprint background and Music stamp, both from Kaszazz. I had only the one piece of old sheet music paper which was given to me by one of my Art Journal students. How cool! I used a large strip for the banner and then placed some washi tape and some Amy Tangerine paper for another banner.

I love doilies, and this one was just what I needed to break up the colours. I got out my Kaszazz Ezy Press and die cut some love hearts, from the Dear Lizzy music paper and for my photo and photo mat. There's a cute little transparency piece with gold dots on it in there, that came in a pocket letter swap, love all the bits I have collected from my pals!!!
I jazzed up some paper flowers with Color Shine and the Newsprint stamp, joined 3 together with a cute Basic Grey brad. All the other flowers were re-coloured with Color shine.

My wood veneers are from Merci and Stampin Up, enamel dots from Francheville and the Thickers are Amy Tangerine!

I finished off with some cute little, white embossed music notes, and went around the edges of my page with some Colourbox fluid chalk ink. I'm happy to say I dug deep into some old stash for this challenge, the Dear Lizzy paper, the little black and white border stickers, from Cloud 9 I think, and the brads, all go back a long time, feels good to do that!!!!
Thanks for looking! See you next time!!!
Tania

Scrap the Girls Sketch challenge DT post

Hello again!! I have a Design Team layout here, for Scrap the Girls sketch challenge this month, (you can see the full reveal and other awesome DT member's work over on the blog!!

Here is the sketch!!!!

I started with a TCW stencil and sponged some Distress Inks through it for my background. Love the watercolour effect this produces! I also did some stamping and flicked some Heidi Swapp Colorshine on there.Then I worked in clusters, using Echo Park and the lovely STITCHED range of papers from Amy Tangerine, with matching die cuts.

There's some cute Simple Stories word stickers, Fynmark mini alphas and my chipboard title is from Blue Fern Studios. (Coloured in a few different mediums and coated with some Glossy Accents for dimension!)

I love the little gold glitter dots to finish off near my clusters. (I got these from a $2 shop and there are silver ones in the pack too!)
Thanks for looking and don't forget to visit the Scrap the Girls Blog and play along this month!!! It's a fun sketch to work with!
Tania

Art Journal page tutorial, by ME!!!

Hello, so as I made a promise to a few people who wanted instructions for this Art Journal page: ALWAYS BELIEVE, here I go with the how to!! I created this page for one of the Art Journal classes I teach, and it was a big hit. The creations made by my students were awesome, and i loved seeing the different takes!!!

So, as with most journal beginnings,
1 .YOU NEED TO GIVE YOUR PAGES A GOOD COAT OR 2 OF GESSO!!!

2. DIG OUT THAT STASH OF LACE YOU HAVE, ANY COLOURS, RANDOM BITS, LONG, SHORT, ANY BITS, AND ADHERE THEM IN STRIPS DOWN THE LEFT OF YOUR PAGE. (I used multi medium for an adhesive, but any collage or fabric glue will work!)( I STARTED LONG, & STAGGERED THEM, GETTING SHORTER AND SHORTER.) I STOPPED ABOUT 3/4 THE WAY BEFORE THE MIDDLE OF THE PAGE.
3. DO THE SAME ON THE OPPOSITE PAGE, STARTING AT THE EDGE WITH LONG BITS AND WORKING YOUR WAY BACK TO THE MIDDLE, TOP OF PAGE, WITH THE SHORTER BITS. ONCE AGAIN, STOP ABOUT 3/4 OF THE WAY ACROSS.
4. NOW YOU NEED TO HUNT THROUGH YOUR STASH OF UFO'S (unidentified objects, we all have them, in a tin, or a jar, and you have probably been collecting them for years!!! Guess what, Art Journaling allows a space for you to use them!!!!)BY UFO'S, I MEAN, METAL TRINKETS, BEADS, BROKEN JEWELLERY, CHARMS, FOUND ITEMS ETC.
5. YOU WILL ALSO NEED OTHER EMBELLISHMENTS, LIKE FLOWERS, CHIPBOARD BITS, OLD KEYS!!!
6.  NOW BECAUSE I DO WANT TO CLOSE THE PAGES OF MY BOOK, I WENT WITH FLOWERS, & A CHIPBOARD KEY, BUT YOU CAN ADD EXTRAS, AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT TOO BULKY!
7.  FORM A CLUSTER OF FLOWERS, OR EMBELLISHMENTS IN THE BOTTOM LEFT AND TOP RIGHT HAND CORNERS OF THE PAGES, AND WHEN YOU ARE HAPPY, ADHERE THESE THINGS TO THE PAGE. (Please note, I have gemstones on my flowers, but they will be adhered to the page at the very end!)
8.  ONCE YOUR GLUE IS COMPLETELY DRY, MAYBE THE NEXT DAY IF YOU DON'T HAVE A HEAT GUN, PAINT OVER YOUR ENTIRE LACE AND EMBELLISHMENT AREAS WITH MORE, WHITE GESSO. MAKE SURE YOU GET A SMALL BRUSH FOR UNDERNEATH THE FLOWERS AND CHIPBOARD BITS, TO COVER COMPLETELY IN WHITE!)
9.  WHEN COMPLETELY DRY, SPRITZ THE ENTIRE PAGE WITH A LIGHT COLOURED SPRAY INK. PREFERABLY ONE THAT HAS A SLIGHT SHEEN OR SPARKLE TO IT!(I used a perfect pearls spray mist I made up myself.)
10.  ONCE THIS IS DRY, GRAB YOUR STAZ ON OR ARCHIVAL INK AND SOME BORDER STAMPS, OR BACKGROUND STAMPS, AND STAMP RANDOMLY ALONG THE EDGES, OVER THE LACE, IN BETWEEN EMBELLISHMENTS, WHEREVER ELSE YOU FEEL IS GOOD AND DO SO ON BOTH SIDES.
11.  NEXT, PICK A LIGHT C0LOURED DYLUSIONS SPRAY, (or other spray in your stash), I USED FRESH LIME, & STARTING WITH THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER, (TURN YOUR BOOK UPSIDE DOWN, SO YOU CAN SPRAY FROM THE TOP OF THE PAGE,) SPRAY SMALL BURSTS AND LET IT RUN DOWN THE PAGE. ( JUST DID IT OVER THE LACE AREA TO ONCE AGAIN CREATE A STAGGERED LOOK!) UNSCREW THE LID OF THE INK AND USING THE STEM, FLICK SOME INK DROPS RANDOMLY OVER PAGE.

12.  WHEN THE INK IS DRY, TURN YOUR BOOK UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN AND DO THE OTHER CORNER, REPEATING PROCESS. (IF THE INK DOESN'T RUN, SPRAY SOME WATER OVER THE TOP OF IT TO THIN IT OUT, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A CRAFT SHEET OR NEWSPAPER UNDERNEATH!)
13.  YOU WILL WANT THE DYLUSIONS TO BE COMPLETELY DRY BEFORE YOU SPRAY YOUR NEXT COLOUR, SO A HEAT GUN WILL COME IN HANDY TO SPEED UP THE PROCESS!- CHOOSE A 2ND SPRAY INK COLOUR, MINE WAS BUBBLEGUM PINK, A REPEAT THE PROCESS FOR THE FIRST COLOUR, BUT USE IT SPARINGLY, JUST A FEW BURSTS, REFER TO MY PHOTO! (I have tried to keep the centre area clean with plenty of white space for your quote!)
14.  DRY 2ND COLOUR & ADD A 3RD LIGHT COLOUR, LEMON ZEST WAS MY CHOICE! (This is also a good time to add any small areas of stencilling if you wish, I used my honeycomb stencil as a stamp with Dylusions ink and did a little randomly on the page.)
15.  WHEN THE INKS ARE DRY, YOU CAN DO A BIT MORE STAMPING WITH YOUR CHOSEN BLACK INK, (I did some music notes, and Script& Newsprint stamping!) (See photo!)
16.  NOW, IT GETS EVEN MORE 3 DIMENSIONAL!!! CHOOSE YOURSELF A COUPLE OF STENCILS, SOME TEXTURE PASTE, MATT OR GEL MEDIUM, OR IF YOU HAVE NONE OF THOSE, GESSO WILL WORK. I ONCE AGAIN, FOLLOWED THE PATTERN OF THE LACE AND ADDED TEXTURE PASTE THROUGH ONE MY STENCILS, ALTERNATING DIFFERENT ONES, AND BEING CAREFUL AROUND THE EMBELLISHMENT CLUSTERS. DO THE SAME ON EACH PAGE. *Once this starts to dry, and over a few days, you will notice some magic. The colours of the Dylusions, will be soaked up by the texture paste and you will see the colour in areas of your texture paste.














17.  WHEN THE TEXTURE PASTE IS COMPLETELY DRY, PICK A DARKER SPRAY INK COLOUR, MINE WAS POLISHED JADE, AND GIVE A FEW VERY SMALL SPRAYS IN EACH CORNER, TURNING THE BOOK UPSIDE DOWN FOR THE BOTTOM LEFT, AS BEFORE! *I watered this colour down as it was quite dark! Spray over the top with the water spray.

18.  ADD ANOTHER LAYER OF TEXTURE PASTE, USING A DIFFERENT STENCIL, AND WHEN DRY, ADD A 3RD LAYER OF TEXTURE PASTE IF YOU HAVE ANOTHER DIFFERENT STENCIL.
*While you are waiting for each layer to dry, you can have a look at your stash for your quote. (I used up words from parts of rub on quotes, stamps, stickers, magazine cut outs etc. I backed all of my words onto cardstock.)
18.  CUT EACH WORD OUT LEAVING A SMALL BORDER OF CARDSTOCK AROUND EACH ONE, THEN BLEND AROUND THE EDGES WITH SOME DISTRESS INKS. * I used Shabby Shutters, Milled Lavendar & Peacock Feathers. Set aside till the wet mediums are all dry.
19.  WHEN PAGE IS COMPLETELY DRY, STAMP A DREAM CATCHER STAMP, OR STAMP OF YOUR CHOICE IN BLACK INK AT THE TOP LEFT AS SHOWN, AND AN ARROW STAMP DOWN THE BOTTOM RIGHT. I ALSO STAMPED A SMALL SCRIPT STAMP NEXT TO THE DREAM CATCHER. WHEN INK IS DRY, COLOUR THE STAMPED IMAGES WITH DISTRESS INKS & A WATER BRUSH. *I use my acrylic block to dab some ink on, then spritz with water or use a waterfilled brush.


20.  ADHERE YOUR QUOTE TO THE PAGE AS SHOWN, OR WHERE YOU WOULD LIKE IT TO GO.
21.  I ADDED A FEW MORE FLOWERS, WHICH I COLOURED WITH DISTRESS INKS AND A WATER BRUSH AS ABOVE.
22.  ADD YOUR GEMSTONES TO CENTRE OF LARGER FLOWERS, AND ICE STICKLES OR OTHER GLITTER GLUE TO THE CENTRE OF SMALLER FLOWERS. *The Dylusions magic will happen again with the glitter glue and will soak up the colours of the inks.

So there you have it, quite lengthy, but a really fun process. Can't wait to show you some more projects using these techniques. Make sure you leave me a comment if you are here, especially if you are going to have a go at this page, would love to see the end results!!!

A couple more projects inspired by Big Picture Classes lessons!!!

I'm really loving my membership over at Big picture Classes. I love that I have all these classes to choose from for such a small payment each month. The inspiration is amazing, so many cool teachers!!! Love all the choices of projects too. I can choose from cards, scrapbooking, art journalling and more, whatever my mood is, there's something to inspire me!!!! So here's a couple more cards I did this week!

The first card was about using build it up stamps, which I don't have an actual set of, so I just found a really large Grant Archival set in my stash and used a few of the cool little flourishy ones! I used Colorbox inks in some Spring colours.

The 2nd one was about finding inspiration in art, stationery or decor, or everyday! I found this cool tissue box while doing the shopping and had a play at circles. I used a cork and some Dylusions and Heidi Swapp Color Shine to stamp the circles and then watercolour paints in the middle. I also layered a die cut sentiment and embossed it with gold 3 times which I'm kind of in love with the results.

Two challenges down for national Scrapbooking Day (weekend)

So this challenge was inspired by the lovely Natalie Elphinstone over at Big Picture Classes. It was to create a stamped background on your project! i have so many stamps in my collection and sometimes it actually becomes too overwhelming to use them. However, this weekend I have worked a bit more on organising and cataloguing them. (I started that job awhile ago, but good to do a bit more.) And the bonus is, you remember all those great stamps you have forgotten about and use them!!!
Here's my card!

I'm happy to say it's a male card too, I find I'm a bit slack with male projects and I need to be a bit fairer with my layouts where my kids are concerned. It's just so much easier to do girly stuff. But I am challenging myself to get some more boy layouts done of my little man!!!
Products used: Kaszazz stamps, cardstock, and twine. Flutterby Designs flair, Distress markers, Dyslusions spray, and a tiny little clothes peg!