12 Tags of 2012... Game on!

Hi everyone :)

Well I wasn't sure if I would participate this month as I have a bit going on at the moment. Study travel etc etc lol. I was also having a creative block when it came to this months techniques as I neither have honeycomb paper or a matching stamp and embossing folder.

So after thinking for over a week I decided I was going to use one of the butterfly movers and shapers for my card. Then last night I decided that dried marigold would be my colour of choice. But I didn't know how I was going to do the embossing technique....

First I tried various markers in embossing folders to see how that worked. I tried marvy markers, pitt big brush, pitt artist and zig. None worked as with large areas the colour starts to pull away from the recessed sides. So the best result I had gotten was with the Faber Castell Pitt Artist Markers so I decided to try again today... No go it just wouldn't work with the larger intricate design.

I have some more examples to show you what I ended up doing :). First I covered my white cardstock in distress stain. For my card I used Dried Marigold. Then I used my cuttlebug border folder on the edge. *Tip; if you are going to do this while cs is still damp from the stain use a full size folder! After I did this I took my Pitt Artist Marker in Orange Glaze #113 and carefully coloured over the raised flourish.

On this example I used tumbled glass as the background, the embossing folder is the cracked texture fade and the marker is Pthalo Blue #110. I have left the middle bare for now as I am not sure what kind of card I will make with this as yet :)

The next one is made with wild honey and am not sure of the name of the cuttlebug folder. It's a leafy flourish at any rate lol. I used Pitt Artist pen in Leaf Green #112. Again leaving the middle blank for embellishing.

The next two examples were done with differently. The first was done with dried marigold stain, embossed with the same folder as above and then I used my distress ink tool to add ripe persimmon ink to it. I them misted with shimmer mist.

This last one was done with aged mahogany stain, then I shimmer misted and blotted to activate the ink and tone down the colour a little. I then shimmer misted again and ran through my cuttlebug with the Cuttlebug Clockworks folder. I used my ink blending tool and the aged mahogany ink pad to swipe over the top of the embossing.  Absolutely Love this one :)

Back to the card lol. The flourish on the edge is an embossing folder from cuttlebug from the Organic Flourish set. So pretty! The background butterflies are from recollections and are stamped with a Big Brush Marker the same colour I coloured the flourish.

My butterfies are cut from the movers and shapers butterflies. I layered 7-8 pieces of paper and ran them through. I also cut each butterfly from grungeboard. I adhered a butterfly to each grungeboard piece with matte accents. I then folded each butterfly wing along the body so they were creased well. I used a small amount of matte accents along the body of each butterfly and layered them up. I waited til they were dry aand then fluffed them up lol.

Lastly I created my sentiment with Lifestyle Crafts Label dies. The back piece is coloured with the orange glaze big brush marker. The top coloured with dried marigold stain. I then used a Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous sentiment stamp from Mini Classics and my big brush marker in orange.  I layered the pieces together with foam tape and thats it Card done!! :) Just in time too. Sorry for the few pics, was scrap day at a friends and it was raining so my camera stayed at home! lol
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Stampendous Baby On Board Page

Hi everyone. Sorry it's been a while, loads of studying going on as well as helping my mum and volunteering at school etc :). That's not to say I haven't been crafting, I have been working on a secret project that I will be able to share in a couple of weeks :) and another that I will share at the end of April. Can't share them before the recipient receives them!

So I had been looking for a project to use the Stampendous Cling Thinking of You set. I decided to enter the Stampendous texture challenge and was going through the list of my stampendous stamps and thought I know just the one :).

Then I went through my photo's and found these three from when I was pregnant with my first child way back in January 1996. I had already formed a vision in my head of a page of circles. Well not really a vision just an idea lol.

I stamped the medallion onto my waffle texture cardstock with Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress inks. I then used the same stamp and my Versamark pad on plain cs and embossed with Ranger Fine Detail Clear Embossing Powder for texture. After heat embossing I cut these with my Lifestyle Crafts Circle dies using some florist tape to hold the dies in place.

I cut my photos with various sizes of scallop circle dies... Yes I know they aren't scalloped anymore. I changed my mind... I just felt the three scalloped photo's looked out of place. This is a page in progress shot showing the scalloped pics and temporary placement of circles....lol The circles are held in place with repositionable tape.

After that I had to take everything off because my cat had decided it was a nice bed while I was sleeping and left kitty hairs everywhere! lol.

I used my three colours of distress ink starting from the lightest, tumbled glass, and my distress tool and completely covered each embossed circle. I then used broken china, leaving a small area of tumbled glass visible in the centre and finally faded jeans around the edges. I did this for many many stamped images so I could then cut them smaller and have the various shades on each piece.

Using inkscape and a jpeg image I found online and a youtube tutorial I created an svg file of a pregnant lady to finish off my page. I cut her out with my ecraft and again stamped her with the medallion and embossed her. I used the same three distress inks to tie her in with the rest of my page. For added dimension each of my ladies is adhered with foam tape as are some of the pics and dots.

Here is another  view of the other side. My words are glittered american crafts thickers for even more texture.

 I craftily hid a journaling spot between the top and middle photo. one of the spots just big enough to add the required info to, I didn't want it to detract from the page itself by adding ribbons and things so I just created a little area to stick a circle that could be removed :).

Hope you enjoyed my page, Thanks for looking and
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Boxes Galore and Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone :) Hope you all have had or are having a wonderful day!

I have been making boxes, boxes and more boxes! All the boxes I have made come from the SVGCuts One Piece Box set. I cut all my boxes in my ecraft. I had to make a couple a smidge smaller but all good, they still cut great.

For the ones that had extra pieces I used SCAL 3 to open the box file and a new project tab to open each of the extras. I ungrouped my extras as some had 12" long boxes and regrouped them smaller and then copied them to my box tab. I then clicked ctrl A to select all pieces and grouped them together. By doing this I was then able to resize all my pieces at the same time and maintain scale. ( I didn't end up using the boxes with extras tho lol)

I made quite a few boxes 4 in the lacey pattern and then a couple of others. So here are the lacey ones. The light pink one caught on my ecraft on the way out and as I was not near by I had to do some creative fixing lol.

My oldest daughters box in shades of blue/greens.

My youngests. Her flowers are different colours as she picked what she wanted :)

Mine is in shades of purple. My fave colour!

Next up are some boxes my daughter took to school, another purple one and a red one decorated with scraps of paper I had laying around.

This first one went a little awry so had to fix as best I could. I gave that one to a friend for his mum as she had given us a couple of lifts lately :)

This one was for my youngest daughters teacher last year and my current training placement teacher :)

This was for her current teacher :) As I said just decorated with some scraps I had.

This next box was made on bright green cs, anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan, it was a test cut. It didn't work 100%  needs to be shrunk a lil but with some creativity I hid the fold mark! lol My daughter saw it and decided she wanted two boxes! I used some scraps of paper I had to decorate it.

This last box is another different style. I found some lovely fairy paper in my scraps and used that to embellish the box.

All flowers are I am roses and have been coloured on the tips with distress stains and then misted with home made pearl mist. One flower on the green box has been coloured with the evergreen bough distress ink pad. The big pink flower on the last box I cannot remember what I used on it as it was a while ago. I think it is Stampin' Up ink. The stamp set is XOXOXO from The Paper Studio

Hope you like my personalised valentine boxes! For the most part they a colour specific to each person and filled with goodies! :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Soooo Excited. I am a Prima Winner!!!!

Well Hi there everyone :)

Today I am about ready to bounce of the walls.

I am a WINNER!!!!
on Prima's  blog! I won the most gorgeous prize!
Thank goodness my sister tagged me on facebook so I knew to go look :) Thank you very much!

Wanna see what I won? Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal.....

Anyone who knows me, knows I love Prima and have a box full of the older got flowers and a couple of other collections :) I have just started making some bead sprays with them :) I am working on ways to add the flat flowers into sprays so I will be hopefully I will be doing a video tutorial soon :) I have two ways so far lol.

I am also waiting on some coloured wire I got for a brilliant price on ebay :) 10 different colours to play with :)
I am not really one for adding florist tape to my sprays as I am a smidge ocd and would want it on every section so it all looked the same. So coloured wire sounded like a good option!

Back to my prize. How lovely is the stamp set? The flowers and bling as well of course. But if you know me, you know I love flowers and butterflys! So these stamps are just so me :)

Anyways I just had to share my excitement! Now I best get to cleaning! ugh rofl...
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Papermania Midnight Fairytale Card

I recently saw these fairy stamps and fell in instant love with them! They are so pretty and great for colouring in with my Faber Castell Markers. they are Papermania Midnight Fairytale clear acrylic stamps.

I first stamped my image with Timber Brown Stazon. I chose brown as it softens into the image more, it's a  less harsh look in my opinion.

I then coloured the image with both Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens and Big Brush Markers. I used a couple of techniques. First I straight coloured my image. For some reason I always start with the skin. I used the artist pen for this. I found that if I did a small section then pulled/blended the colour down I ended up with less streaks.

Once I coloured all the skin and it was dry I then went back with the same colour and added shadows with the same marker.i used my finger to again pull the colour and blend it in. I worked in very small sections so the colour was still very wet when I blended. Her face is a little dark because I went over it two times. But it was late and this was my umpteenth go at colouring her in.

Because the dress is a large area I used a big brush marker for this section to minimise streaking, again blending as I went. I added shadows and the flower details with the same maker.

The rest is done with the pitt artist pens as most is fine detail work and my hands are just not steady enough to
colour these with the big brush markers.

The technique I used on her wings was to go over the stamped lines with my chosen colour one line at a time, then pull the colour down into the wings. This gives a nice translucent effect. After I fussy cut my fairy out I used home made glimmer glaze over the wings ( Reeves Iridescent medium, spritz of water, multi-medium gloss, spun sugar reinker).

On a white cs base I added polka dot paper from the KaiserCarft 6" Candly Lane stack. I then used a lovely floral stripe paper from the Authentique uncommon 6" stack that I had cut with my Lifestyle Crafts largest nesting frames die. I used foam tape to add my fairy onto this.

I then grabbed some I Am Roses flowers and coloured them with the two main shades of Faber castell markers I had used. I worked quickly, one flower at a time, to colour the edges and then mist with home made pearl mist (pearl ex on macro pearl, micro pearl and pearl white, water and a few drops of glossy accents).

I added my flowers to the card with glossy accents. I used the stems from some of the flowers to make twizzles to finish off the card.

Hope you like my card. thanks for looking :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Beaded Flower Spray

Ok so as you can see I have been having fun with lately! I was following links and came across one from Wild Orchid Crafts for Floral Bead Sprays. So I decided to give it  a go :) With my own flavour  added of course lol.

I gathered some beads, iamroses flowers in various sizes (all white) and beading wire and set  off on an adventure lol. I, loving butterfly's, had decided this time I must have a butterfly. I resisted the urge on my previous bead sprays so now was the time! I also decided my favourite colour, purple, would be my colour of choice.

Supplies in hand and working on my twist, the first things I grabbed were the butterfly and a rose bud. I wanted my rose bud to be the top of my spray so had to work out how to incorporate the butterfly and rose in reverse order to the video instructions.

I started with my butterfly bead as per the video instructions for beads but only gave a little twist to the wires underneath. I then stuck the long stem from my rosebud through the butterfly and incorporated it into the twisting wires.

I then made  four more bead/flower  combos one bead and flower on each. However after  I twisted  it all together it looked wrong to me lol.  I grabbed two more  itty roses and twisted them onto the two stems that felt too long and bare lol...

I coloured my flowers using dusty concord distress stain on the tips and then spraying with home made pearl mist.

My 8 yr old daughter took some pics for me :) I will add  one that  shows the whole thing when my camera batteries charge :)
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Pic  showing  the whole spray

Home Made Decorative Pins

Hello again! I hope everyone is having a good weekend :) Something else I have been making over the last few weeks are decorative pins, stick pins, hat pins, whatever name you happen to call them by lol.

All you need to make these are pins, beads glue and/or crimp beads. As I don't own crimp beads I used glue. Glossy Accents or Dimensional Magic depending on what was closer but any clear drying glue would work.

The first series of pin use a flower bead cap and 5cm long pins. All I did was put a drop of glue on the pin shaft and then slide the bead up. I did that for each bead so they would be held securely in place.

The next ones have an added dangly with a charm on the end. I started using jump rings but then thanks to a friend, who I showed how to make the pins, I realised I could just slip the chain right on the pin shaft for a less bulky look. Some of the pins are 5cm some are smaller. The smaller ones are regular pins I picked up at a junk shop.

The last pin is just a small one. My friend gave me some teeny butterflies. They make the cutest pins! I am trying to find some of these butterflies  on ebay... No luck so far!

I love making these things!  The only draw back is finding the longer pins in Australia. I have found loads on ebay but post kills lol. Hopefully I can get some more when I go to Sydney lol. Anyways I hope you like my pins.
Happy Scrappin'
Purple

Home Made Bead Sprays

Well I found a tutorial on youtube to make my own bead sprays. So I had to try it out as bead sprays are not something I would usually buy. They are after all a bit on the expensive side. The lady who I am emulating is Leanne from LovleeScrappin. Click the link to see her tutorial. It is very clear and well done :)

 My first effort is well... Iffy at best lol. Not bad for my first try I guess. Of course I didn't follow directly what Leanne said soo erm yeah anyways... here it is.

My next effort was much better, however I had the wire break along the way. Twisted too tight I guess. I had to undo that section and reattach the wire to the main body... That was fun for a non beader lol. I know no secrets. So what I did was add the blue bead in the middle and used that to anchor the broken wire to and reintegrate it into the spray. I added another bead in the middle because I thought one looked weird lol.

Then I decided to try one more time and do something different. I added extra beads to each line, all except one have three beads on each arm. I added a bead at the bottom to finish it off. As you can see by my spacing I am learning as I go. I will get there in the end! lol

None of the ones I have made tonight have any colour theme. I was just playing and learning how to make the sprays. I'd still like to try and work out how to get the effect I was going for in the first one to work but as a non beader I am happy with baby steps!

The first and last sprays were made with swarovski crystals. The middle one was made with acrylic beads.
Thanks for looking and Happy Scrappin'
Purple