Ultimate Design Challenge Winner

So the winner of Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge was announced yesterday and the grand prize winner is Kathi Simmons - Congratulations Kathi!! Kathi's win was well deserved, her projects were all fabulous! You should pop on over to the Swirlydoos gallery and check out all of the beautiful entries!

So I decided I should dig into my Swirlydoos kit "Belle Chanson" and do a few layouts and tags. Last night I made another tag using the kit, I just love the teal color on some of the papers and Krissy very nicely added a teal chalk ink with the kit - I'm loving coloring my chipboard with it, lol. I just wanted to do another simple inspirational quote tag so off I went digging through my quotes that I have saved on my computer. Once I found the one I wanted I got to work on my tag.

I took a couple of pages out of an old romance type paperback novel and just tore them into different sized pieces. I took some Mod Podge and painted a layer over my tag. I then just laid the pieces down in no particular fashion. I didn't worry if I went over the edges of the tag as I would trim it all up after it was dry. I then painted over the tag with the Mod Podge again to seal it all. Once the tag was all dry I trimmed it all then used some vintage photo distress ink and inked all around the inner edge of the tag and then used the teal chalk ink & went around just the edge of the tag. I also used the teal ink on my script stamp and stamp down the left side of my tag.

I had some left over burlap in my stash so I took that piece and glued it onto my tag and then took a bit of gesso and painted a few spots of it onto my burlap in different areas. I then inked up my Tim Holtz flourish with the teal ink. While I was waiting for that to dry I made a couple teal flowers that I added a bit of glossy accents to and then dipped into some diamond dust to give them all that sparkle! I also stamped my teal ink onto my non-stick craft mat, added some water to it and then took a piece of my cream seam binding and soaked up all that luscious color and scrunched it up and left it to dry to tie onto my tag when I was finished. 

Once everything was dry I was able to glue the pieces onto my tag along with a little string bow I made. I then printed out my saying and cut it out and glued that onto the tag and tied my ribbon on and voila I was done! I hope you like it! TFL!

   

Second Try!

Okay so I did another tag using Lynn Forsythe's video and I actually remembered to do all of the steps this time, lol. Some times I really have to shake my head at myself! Oh well, I'm entertaining if nothing else, lol. Okay enough about my feeble brain, I really just wanted to pop in and post the new tag, so here it is.

 I don't know but I think I like both of them, this one just has the few added extras. Well thanks for stopping by and having a peek!

Good Evening all!

Since I didn't get to go on in Round 5 of the Ultimate Design Challenge at Swirlydoos I've had a little bit of time to catch up on things. I have been wanting to try Lynn Forsythe's "Farewell Technique" tag that she did a video on, which you can find HERE. So sad that Lynn has left the Swirlydoos Design Team to move on to other things, but I will be stalking her blog! So here is my version of Lynn's tag...

 So I was all pleased with myself for just zipping along on this and getting it done so quickly, when I suddenly realized I had forgotten a few steps. I had totally forgot to cover the tag with torn book pages and also forgot the lace and twine bow underneath the large flower. You'd think by now I would learn to watch the video again before I try someone else's technique - duh, blonde moment! I still like the way the tag turned out but I am in the process right now in doing another one and making sure I do all the steps this time, lol. The small rosebuds I made myself and I cut the leaf flourish on my Cricut machine. You can check out my "Rosebud" tutorial HERE. Anywhoo...thanks for stopping by and having a peek! 

Swirlydoos Round Robin Card Challenge

So unfortunately I didn't  make it into week 5 of the Ultimate Design Challenge over at Swirlydoos but I sure had fun with the first four challenges, it really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Thanks for a fun time Krissy!

So it was my week for team 4 of the February 2013 card challenge. We got three twists for this challenge and had to do at least one of them. Here's the information for the challenge
Twist 1 You had to use at least one of the three colors - white, blue and brown and you could not use any other colors on the card except for maybe green from leafs of your flowers.
Twist 2 You had to use either glitter, bling or pearls on the card.
Twist 3 You couldn't make a square card.

I checked out Patty's (who's card I was following)  card  and got started. So there I was whipping along with my card and thinking how quick I was when suddenly I'm like "Oh S__t", I hadn't used any of the colors we were suppose to use. Oh well, that card just became my dh's Valentine card, lol. So off to my paper stash to collect the paper colors I needed and I think I got all of the twists, on this card. There is glitter on the card and also blue rhinestones for bling, I used the white, blue & brown colors and the card is more of an oval shape. So here's my card!

I also wanted to show you Patty's card that I had to follow!

 
 So thanks for stopping by and I love hearing your comments. Have a great weekend!

Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge Week 4

So excited that I made it to week 4 in the Ultimate Design Challenge at Swirlydoos. So this week the challenge is using mixed media on a canvas. I did my first one but I was not really happy with it so I redid it (thank God for Dollar store canvases, lol). So this is what I came up with.

 So first is used three glimmer mists in blue, pink and green. When they were almost dry I used my Prima Peacock feather mask and molding paste on it. I didn't realize this before but when you add molding paste to a damp canvas it will suck up the color from below, which made the colors on the feather look very cool. Then I added some glass bead gel to three corners of the canvas and let that all dry. While these were all drying I took some cheesecloth and sprayed it with the same glimmer mists and set that off to the side to dry. 


 So while that was drying I cut out some angel wings on my Cricut machine out of some Tim Holta grunge board and then embossed them. I painted them with white acrylic paint and when that was dry I used Inka Gold Steel Blue and Green-Yellow and just rubbed that over with my finger and then dry brushed some blue Gelato's over the wings. The embossing and painting doesn't show up that well in the photo but it looks good IRL. When that was all dry I glued them and a gold heart (from a pair of earrings which I got from the dollar store) to the top left corner.

Now that the canvas was all dry I took some Glossy Accents and painted that on the area I wanted to put the cheesecloth on and then laid that down to dry. I then printed out my saying on the computer and cut it out and laid it down over the cheesecloth once it was all dried. I took just a bit of gesso on my finer and kind of rubbed it over the glass beads in the corners and then dry brushed that with some blue Gelato's.  I think I covered all of the steps here, lol. 

So I thought I'd show you my first canvas I did which I decided to use for a photo of my daughter when she was 16 mo old. I didn't use enough molding paste for my peacock feather and i used gesso to stick my cheesecloth down with and I also didn't pre-spray my cheesecloth so it didn't pick up enough of the glimmer mist when I sprayed it on. I think my second try looked a lot better, lol. So here it is....

I'd love to hear your comments on them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I make it to week 5 but I'm not real confident as the others are all so talented. I'm pretty happy that I made it this far but I sure would like to win that prize! TFL! 

Finnabair Style...

I'm sure everyone knows who Anna Dabrowska/Finnibair is and her style of scrapping. I love her work but my style of scrapping isn't anything close to what she does but I thought I would give it a try. So here's my masterpiece, lol.

I bought the canvas from the Dollar store - I love that place, you can buy something and if what your doing with it doesn't really work out, well you haven't lost a great deal of money! So to start I decided to use my brick mask on the canvas. Instead of using gesso or molding paste I decided I'd use some Liquitex glass beads. If I'd been really smart I should have read the label first to see that it dried transparent, not the beads but the paste. So to fix that I just took some gesso and a paint brush and painted over the beaded bricks. Once that was all dried I sprayed everything with glimmer mist in "Sunflower", "Tuscan Sun", and "Lily Pad". After a few layers of that I decided to try spraying some "Juniper" glimmer mist - bad idea, it was to dark for what I wanted. The canvas looks a lot brighter IRL than what it looks like here but it would have been much better if I had left off the "Juniper" mist.

While all that was drying I dug into all of my scrapping stash and pulled out all sorts of bits and bobs I could use on this canvas. I also remembered I h ad some metal Prima flowers which would be perfect to use on this canvas. I even used the metal tabs off of the pop cans and pulled out some old jeans I have in my sewing room for doing repairs with a cut the zipper pulls off of all of them. I decided to use this B&W photo of  my daughter that her friend took (I'm sure everyone must be getting sick of seeing these photos by now but I love them, lol) and basically figured out where I would place it and then moved it off the canvas and started laying all the goodies down. I sprayed more glimmer  mist over everything and once it was all dried I glued my photo down. I liked it but still felt it needed something else - like maybe  more bits & bobs. I decided to show it to all of my Swirly sisters at "Swirlydoos" to see what they thought. Well they all agreed that they liked it but yes it needed more "stuff" laid down, overlapping the photo and on top of other pieces. So below is what the canvas looked like before I added more goodies. I think you'll probably agree that the top one looks much better. Some of the girls also suggested maybe putting some gesso over some of the goodies so they would pick up more of the glimmer mist and I think I'll try that out next time. It was a lot of fun to play with something so outside of my comfort zone. I'd love to hear your comments - TFL!

 
 

Ultimate Design Challenge Week 3 - Metal Foil Tape

So I made it through to week 3 in the Ultimate Design Challenge over at Swirlydoos. This weeks challenge was from Design Team member Miranda Edney to use Foil tape. This stuff is amazing to work with and just looks so cool, like real metal or you can use inks on it, just so many ideas. You can find Miranda's tutorial on how to use this tape here: Foil Tape Tutorial You really do need to stop by the Swirlydoos forum to see everyone's projects, they will take your breath away!

After playing around with the tape a bit I decided to make a picture frame to go with a photo I have of my dh on his Harley to give to him as a Valentines/Anniversary gift. I wanted to use chipboard letters for the title on the frame but when I tried it the foil tape I had was a thin gauge so it tended to tear when trying to push the tape down on the letters. So instead I used alphabet stickers which gave the same effect just not so deep. I used a crisscross embossing folder on the tape on the botto0m right and top left of the frame. Then I took 4 small metal gears that I had and put two on each side and covered them with the foil and used my stylus around the gears. Beside the crisscross metal pattern on the top of the frame I laid down some mesh ribbon (like you would use for making Christmas wreaths) and laid the tape down over that and used my bone folder and ran it back and forth across it to pick up the mesh pattern. I used a spider web embossing folder for the top left corner of the frame. For the other areas I just used my stylus to make the different patterns. After the frame was all done with the foil tape I covered it with black paint (as shown  in Miranda's tutorial) and wiped it off so that the black paint was left in the cracks and crevices of the tape. I really like how it turned up ad once I got the photo in it I think it looked even better. (As she pats herself on the back, lol) I really hope that my dh likes it as much as I do. I hope you stop by Swirlydoos and check out the challenge! TFL  

Guest Design Spot at OUAS

So for February 2013 all of the Meg's Garden design team are guest designing at Once Upon a Sketch. Here is all the information for this months sketch:

The month of February is the month we celebrate St Valentine's Day here in Australia and in many parts of the world. Love takes on many forms..relationship love, parental love etc etc. So let's think about what the above quote can mean and how you can interpret it on a layout. You are free to scrap about any kind of love you wish however you like based on the following sketch. 

Ideas for journalling: love for your partner, family , parents ,siblings , children, work, students, craft, music, extra curricular activities. Whatever it is that you connect LOVE with. 

Your layout must incorporate this theme and the sketch below. 

Please make sure that we see some sort of journalling on your layouts and please tell us where your journalling is . You are allowed to journal in any language but please tell us where on your page we will find your journalling. Remember journalling has to be a bit more than a title, or a generic comment. Hidden journalling is perfectly fine.

Nadia always has such beautiful sketches. I used the beautiful "French Bird Cage" paper for this layout, I thought it would be perfect for this photo of my daughter. I also used one of the pretty White Gardenias from Meg's Garden in between two of my handmade flowers. I really like the way the layout turned out.

 

DT layout for Meg's Garden

I love these beautiful papers from Meg’s Garden and thought they would be perfect for this photo of my daughter. I distressed all papers with my distress tool. For my paper layers under the photo I used a piece of “French Bouquet” paper approximately 7¼” x 3½” and glued the white lace down the right side of the paper. The next 4” x 2” piece of paper was cut from the 4” bottom strip of the “Ma Fleur Rose” paper using the scroll frame piece which I glued down about an inch down from the top of the other piece. I cut the perfume label from the “French Bouquet” paper and glued that down as shown. I then laid my photo down over top of these layers.

I took one of the white gardenias and used my purple ink to color it and glued it down and used two of the green leaves to slip under either side of the flower as shown and then glued down the lilac and lavender flowers and the small pink rose buds on either side of the large flower. I tore in on one side of the background paper and used a small piece of mauve cardstock behind the torn area and glued down a small purple rosebud as shown by the tear. I then laid the pink crystal and pearl flourish on the left side of the layout. I printed out two butterflies and used glossy accents on both of them for some strength & shine and glued them down as shown. I then cut out my title with my Cricut machine and laid that down. Here's a closeup of the flowers.

Materials Used from Meg’s Garden

Paper – P6251 Blue Paradise

             P6296 Ma Fleur Rose

              3400 A French Bouquet

Lace     - L2920 White Lace

Flowers- gar wh White Gardenias

-          Lilac & Lavender Paper Roses

da810 Green Leaves
 

Don't forget to stop by Meg's Garden and checkout the beautiful new papers by Denise Ann, "Ode to a Summers Day" ! The Design Team will be showcasingthis collection over the next few months. Thanks for stopping by and having a look!

Ultimate Design Challenge Week 2

Okay so I didn't get an email from Swirlydoos to say I was eliminated in round 1 so I got to enter the Week 2 challenge.

If you were eliminated in round 1, you would have received an email early this morning. If you did not enter round one you have been eliminated. If you entered round one and did not receive an email early this morning then you are IN IT TO WIN IT! GOOD LUCK!

Your SECOND challenge is issued by Swirlydoos Designer Rachel Moses and the challenge is:

"To create a scrapbook page or card using the PAPER LAYERING techniques shown in Rae's video  below"

Here, Rae shows us an example of a layout she completed using multiple paper layers and distressing techniques. You may follow along and create something along these lines, or feel free use your own creative license to show us what amazing paper layering concepts you have hiding within your self!

http://youtu.be/3qxlo9szY0s

So below is my layout for week 2. I think I have about 10 layers here (unless you count the photos, then it's 12). These are photos of my grandchildren one taken  in 2006 and the other taken this past November. I'm feeling really old all of a sudden, lol. I used the papers from the Swirlydoos "Belle Chanson" kit. I love the teal color in this kit. Krissy just coordinates these kits so well! 

I  just realized after I had finished my layout that I had given it the same title as I had on the layout I did of my son (their Dad) and his cousin. Oh well, that's okay, lol.  

Ultimate Design Challenge - Week 1

Well I've really got behind in my posting here. It's already week 2 of the Ultimate Design Challenge over at Swirlydoos and I haven't even posted my week 1 project. So that being said I'll post my week 1 project then I'll post week 2's project.

The first challenge is issued by Swirlydoos Designer Vicky Alberto and the challenge is:

"To create a multi-dimensional embellishment for use on a scrapbook page, card or other altered item"

• You must use either a die cut paper or a piece of chipboard as your base shape (does not have to be a birdcage)
• You must turn that die cut/chipboard into a dimensional (layered) usable embellishment
• You  must use at least TWO art mediums (gesso, gels, pastes, glazes, paints etc)
• Your final piece must be showcased on a layout, card or other altered item
• Post a photo of the embellishment ONLY on this thread, and upload the finished project into the Swirlydoos gallery by the deadline 

You can go here: Ultimate Challenge Week 1 to see Vicky's tutorial and other info you will need. Even if you didn't register for the contest you can still play along on your own.

So my embellishment is the cameo on my tag. I took one of my Cricut cartridges and cut out 5 cameos which I then glued on top of each other. I then took a piece of white cardstock and cut an oval piece and glued it to the back. I then filled the head part of the cameo with glossy accents. Once that had dried I took some Rock Candy distress crackle paint and put that over the brown area and let that dry to crackle. Once that was all dried I glued it to my tag as shown above. I then added this tag to my layout below of a photo of Mum taken in 1946 in Belgium.

 

 

New collection at Meg's Garden

Check out these beautiful new papers by Denise Ann at Meg's Garden, "Ode to a Summers Day" ! You can see a larger view at Meg's Garden along with special pricing to celebrate this new release. 

Another new week....

Well here we are at the start of another new week in January and apparently the days are getting longer by one minute a day. Come on spring hurry up!  

Since it is a new year I thought I would try something new. And "What is that?" do you ask! Well...it's using "Gelatos". Everyone was talking about Gelatos over at Swirlydoos forum. These apparently came in the Swirlydoos November Tech Kit and once I saw some of the tutorials on using them I thought I must try this. The gelatos come in a tube that looks much like a lip balm but when you open it it almost looks like a crayon. You can take the gelato and rub it on your craft mat, spritz it with a bit of water and all of a sudden it's like an ink. You could also just use it on a canvas, rub it back and forth across the canvas, spritz with a bit of water or a wet brush and it all starts to blend, really very cool! Below is my finished project and I was quite pleased at how the canvas background turned out. If you'd like to check out one of the tutorials, pop on over the Swirlydoos and check out the video that Lynn from the Swirlydoos Education Design Team came up with here: Gelato Tutorial

This next layout is a photo of my son taken in January of 2012 up at Mount Seymour in North Vancouver, BC. I was digging through all my papers to find a wintery one that would go with this photo. All of my wintery, snowy papers are more towards the blue type of papers. I ended up at my LSS and ended up picking these Bo Bunny papers that tend to lean more towards green/blue color. These worked good with the photo as my sons jacket was kind of a dark green/brown color. I hope you like it, here's the finished project!

  

Happy New Year!

Wow, can you believe it, another year has gone by again! I just want to wish all of my scrappy friends a wonderful 2013 filled with love, joy and happiness and lots of "scrappy time"!

To start the New Year off right "Swirlydoos" is having an "Ultimate Design Challenge" contest!

To find out more  info on this challenge please click here: Ultimate Design Challenge.

Have a safe and happy New Years eve everyone!

2 more sleeps!

Can you believe it's only two more sleeps until Christmas? It seems to have flown by. I'm off this afternoon to fly to the mainland to spend Christmas with the kids. It's always fun to watch the grandchildren on Christmas Day opening presents and seeing their eyes light up!

I want to wish all of my friends and followers on my Blog to have a wonderful Christmas with lots of love and happiness!

Christmas projects

Wow I didn't realize that it had been a few weeks since I had updated my blog. I guess it's all the running around shopping, Christmas work parties, and if your crafty like all of us scrappers and card makers you are probably racing to get projects finished. I'm happy to say that I finished all my Christmas shopping and projects today!! Yay me! I'm flying down on Sunday to the mainland to have Christmas with the kids and grandchildren. I'm looking forward to that, Christmas is always more fun with kids around.

So today I have a couple of projects I did for Christmas. This first one is for this cute paper tree.

I have seen a few of these paper trees around the internet and I thought I’d try making one like this myself. I was going to make this with one of those foam cones you can buy. But, go figure, when I want one I couldn’t find a single one. So I decided to make my own cone out of cardstock. It’s not beautiful but it worked for what I wanted it for, lol.

I used the “Forget Me Not Toile” paper from Meg’s Garden, it has nice shiny silver look to it. I cut 1 ½” strips of the paper and then cut that strip into ½” strips. Take your ½” strips of paper and curl one end of the paper around a wooden skewer (or thin paint brush) so when you remove it the one end of the paper curls up as shown in the picture. Starting at the bottom of the cone start gluing the paper strips down. When you get to the second row stagger the paper strips from the row below. Do this for each row and continue all the way to the top of the cone.

 Here's a closeup

You can see in this one picture that my cone did not go right into a point at the top. So I cut a 1 inch circle and made a tiny cone to fit over the top of the tree. Then I took a tiny red star that I had in my stash and glued that onto the cap of the tree. I did spray some shimmering mist onto my tree but you can’t really tell in this photo.

Materials used from Meg’s Garden:

Paper    - P6305  Forget Me Not Toile

Other items used:

Paper or Styrofoam Cone  (approximately 9 ½”)

Aleene’s fast grab tacky glue (or glue of your choice)

Small star for the top of the tree

I’ve being wanting to make my granddaughter a name banner for at least 6 months to go in her new bedroom. I just hadn’t found the right papers for it until I received my DT members’ package from Meg’s Garden. These beautiful floral papers from Meg’s Garden are perfect for making “pretties” for a young girl’s bedroom!

I made the banner pieces from canvas but you could use papers for the banner pieces. I happened to find these 12 x 12 canvas sheets from one of the dollar stores which worked out great as you could get 2 banner triangles from each sheet. The banner is 6 inches at the top and is 9 inches long. I took one of my flourish stamps and pink ink pad and stamped the banner pieces. I then took 2 paper doilies and glued them down so that one is just slightly higher than the other and each hang over the edge about 1”.

I made the larger fan flower from the “Ma Fleur Rose” papers. I cut the paper 1 ¾” wide and 10” long and then punched one side with one of my Martha Stewart punches. The smaller fan flower is made using the “A French Bouquet” papers. For this one I cut the paper 1” wide by 10” long. When making my folds on the fans I made them each ¼” wide and I added a pearl brad, which I had cut the prongs off of, to the center of the flowers. 

I cut my letters out on my Cricut machine at 4” and glued them down on top of my fan flowers.  I then took  some of my handmade roses as well as the 3 layer white gardenia’s, Pink/Cream Open Paper Roses and the French white open paper roses and glued them down as shown. The dark pink roses you see are actually the French white open paper roses that I painted with some of my pink ink as well as painting the center of the White Gardenia with pink ink.  I then punched my holes, added the eyelets and tied them together with the pink ribbon.

Materials used from Meg’s Garden:

Paper - P6296 Ma Fleur Rose

- 3400 A French Bouquet

gar wh 3 layer White Gardenias

Pink/Cream Open Paper Roses

French White Open Paper Rose

da810 Green Leaves

Other items used:

Double sided tape

Ribbon

4" Paper doilies

Letters for name

Ribbon

 

 

We Have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who joined in on the Blog Hop for Meg's Garden this past few days. We hope everyone enjoyed seeing all the creations and the eye candy that is being given away. By everyone's comments I can see you all did have fun!

My winner of the eye candy was chosen using a random number generator at random.org. So the winner of the beautiful eye candy that I am giving away is....drum roll please...MichelleMc ! Michelle please email info@megsgarden.com with your mailing address so that Meg can send you your prize.

I would also like to thank everyone for their lovely comments on my tissue box and card - they really do mean so much to me! Once again thanks again to everyone who joined in on the blog hop!

Here is the list of all the Meg's Garden DT Blog Hop winners: 

Adriana = Wendy Mac

Chantal = Irina Kittsteiner

Heather = Buffy Esser 

Denise = Jane Stirling

Jenny = little place of scrapbooking

Evgenia = Kitikas

Sylvie = Scrapadyne

Ulrika = Gittescrap

Elena = Sveta Albert

Stephanie = Michelle Mc

Vicky = Tone-lill 

Sandrine = Karen Shady

Shell = Svetoforik

Gayle = Gillian

Grand Prize (from Meg's Garden) = Ava G.