30 May, 2019

Design Team Post for Embellish With Flair (21 May)

Hello Lovelies!

Here's next installment of my Lost Mojo (or Finding Inspiration) series for the Embellish With Flair Design Team! 

If you missed part 1 you can find it here.

Today we're talking colour.  I absolutely love colour and don't shy away from throwing lots and lots of it on my layouts!  So how can we use colour to get us out of a creative rut?

Are you a crafter who needs to start with a basic staple like white cardstock each time or do you prefer colour and or pattern? 

You can still be inspired by colour even if you are, for example, a white-sheet-of-cardstock-as-a-base scrapbooker.  You just need to keep this in mind while you pick out your other supplies in your chosen colour scheme

There are plenty of colour palettes all over the internet like Pinterest (we’ll touch on Pinterest a bit later) where someone else has come up with a selection of colours (usually to go along with an inspirational image.

You may wish to take colours from your photo, but you don’t have to.  It may seem like a strange idea, but it can work really well especially when the colours in your photo don’t relate to the story as it happened in your head or reflect how the event really was.  (Today’s layout is one of these!).  For example, a photo taken on an overcast wedding day (especially of its of guests rather than the bride and groom) wouldn’t be true to the story if created with similar colours!

So where to begin if you want to use colour to get your mojo going again?  Are there any specific colours that relate to your story or memory?  Today’s layout is one of many layouts of my son’s year 6 graduation.  I use his school colours throughout his “school” album: purple, aqua/turquoise and black.  I also use a fair bit of grey since it's one of my favourite neutrals and the boys’ school uniform has a lot of grey.  This doesn’t mean each page in that album uses those colours and only those colours.  Usually it incorporates one or more colours mixed with others to make new combinations while still giving a sense of continuity.

Doing a Google search for color scheme or colour palette (followed by the name of at least one colour) can give you sites like Magnet Street or Design Seeds for example. With colour palettes created by other people,  I prefer to search Pinterest and make boards for various albums where I have recurring colours. 

There are also sites like Coolors where there are random colour schemes constantly generated,  you can enter a colour to filter the colour schemes in the database,  adjust shades and hues,  pick colour schemes based on a photo and so much more!

I find that searching Google or Pinterest for one colour at a time gives better result than entering the whole string, but definitely try both and in between options.

So…for today’s example I did just that, but not at the very start of my process.  Firstly I got an idea when I saw these Embellish With Flair purple star badges.  I use stars as a motif in the school album, but even more so in the graduation photos.  For some reason I thought of cut files with a star in place of a letter like this super star cut file by Paige Evans.  I don’t use cut files on all my layouts, but it fit beautifully in one of his graduation layouts.  Especially when the star is turned into a shaker!! 

I decided to look through some of Paige's collections as a starting point.
πŸ“Tip when you get stuck: if you’ve made one decision, stay with the same manufacturer or designer as a starting point.

I got really excited when I saw paper 11 from Turn the Page collection.  Then I saw paper 19 and decided I was found to fussy cut both papers.  The back of this paper co-ordinated beautifully and I toyed with using it as a background, but I wanted my cut file and stars to stand out and the stripes might compete too much with everything else, but I hadn’t ruled it out.



In any case, the fussy cut stars in the “wrong” colours could be turned around and used anyway!  I did want more than just the aquas, greyish blues and greens.  I hoped to add purple and possibly something else.

I searched Pinterest for the terms colour palette and colour scheme with each of the colours and saved anything that grabbed my attention.  I really wanted to see how purple would look with these colours in an actual example to confirm how it linked up in my head.  Lots of times I imagine something and it simply doesn’t translate to paper the way I thought.

Most of the search results that come up on Pinterest are from Design Seeds.  You can visit their website directly and what I love most is that there is an image along with the colours they chose, so you can use the image and add more options for yourself.

 What I love about Pinterest is that you can make a board (even a secret one if you don’t anyone else to see it) and save what grabs your attention.  Like this cat.

It more or less had the colours I was after.  Another one of Paige’s collections has a very pale purple, but I wanted something a bit bolder so I kept looking and found these other palettes.












I figured that between the three I was set.  I was a bit disappointed not to find a new colour, but when I thought about all the shades of the ones I had, I probably had enough.  The exact greens in some of the palettes are way off, but it gives the general idea.  A more muted green needs a more muted purple, but in the case of this…the lime green goes really well with the bright purple.

So back to my layout.  I use a nested star cut file of Paige’s and cut different sized starts on the silhouette out of mostly purples, but a few more greens and aquas to.  I tried to pick papers where I could use both sides.

I cut my title and printed my photos then took a punch or two to the scraps to get some tiny and medium stars.


Shaker Pocket and backing the cut file - done!

Stitching some of the stars together for texture and interest - done





















Once everything was in position, I used a ruler to mark out the area for the starburst and stuck down the stars.

I used the flair badges to make the centres of the letters such as R and P since they didn’t have them and the stars on the flair badges co-ordinated with the shaker pocket star A.  It's a lot of flair in a concentrated area, but they definitely stand out!

As much as I love piling on the embellishment, this page didn’t need a whole lot.  I used a little bit (for me), but even so, the whole page is practically covered which is NOT what I had in mind!  The title isn't the best choice for the specifics of the story.  On the surface it's about that bear, but on a deeper level it's about our relationship and I always think of him as my buddy and my superstar so while other stories of the night might have been better suited to this title, it's certainly not totally out of place.


Mama's Super Star


Embellish With Flair Product used: 3 Tone Stars Purples


That's all from me for this installment.  I hope it made sense.  Colour is such a vast topic!  If you have any questions, comment below! 

Love and Embellish With Flair,


24 May, 2019

Design Team Post for Embellish With Flair (6 May)

Hello Lovelies!

This is a replica of my very first Design Team post on the Embellish With Flair blog (6 May).  I've had so much happening that I've not had the chance to reproduce it here.

I love that the four of us in the EWF Design Team have different strengths and passions and we all bring something different to the table, so I felt it natural to use this as the inspiration for this layout!


Today I thought I’d talk a bit about inspiration or “mojo” (in particular lack of it!) as it’s known around the crafty community.  We’ve all heard about it and probably all experienced it…but how do we get past it if we want to make something?

Inspiration for a project can start anywhere no matter what you’re making.  It also can come from several areas at once.  Understanding the possible sources and what is likely to work for YOU will hopefully help you get out of a rut and get you making again. 

I may have to break this topic up over more than one blog post so it’s not ridiculously long - and I’m not likely to be able to give you a single project that covers aaaaaall the examples!


Story or Photo

I’m starting here since I’m mostly a scrapbooker (and mostly for the story telling aspect), but I’m sure you can take something away from this even if you don’t scrapbook.

For scrapbookers, it’s often a story or a photograph which starts their creative process.  The photo and story might be the same, but not always.  If not, it adds an extra step when getting ready to scrap.  I actually love it when my photo doesn’t directly correspond to the story and only by reading the story does it all comes together and you make the connection!

Product

Sometimes it’s a product that starts the creative process.  Is it a sheet of patterned paper with a motif that makes you immediately associate it with a photo or story?  Something brand new that gets you excited and your pulse racing, or an old favourite you forgot you had and only stumbled across by accident it as you tidied up in your craft room?

I can tell you that my product choices almost always tie in with the story very closely and I’ll tell you about all the important bits as I go along in this particular example.

Let's Get Scrappy


So what inspired today’s layout?  If I had to break down the MAIN source, it would be story and photo, but for me, product played a part too.  I don’t mean the flair badges themselves, but the specific ones I decided to use.  This ended up touching on colour a little bit too.

As I thought about what kind of project to make, I naturally considered what story I wanted to tell.  Finding a photo to work with it is often a simpler issue (for me) when I already have a story in mind.

Naturally it needed to be compatible with those lovely flairs.  Since I had such a varied selection to work with, I wasn’t overly concerned about finding some to showcase.

Fairly often, I get hit with an idea like a bolt out of the blue and this is what happened this time too.  I can’t tell you how exactly it occurred to me to make a layout using the photo of the whole design team (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them in my Instagram travels occasionally) but the timing seemed to make sense just as the first DT begins its first term, no?

The aqua and blue feathers of the Embellish With Flair logo were a natural starting point.  I remembered I had a light blue paper with a feather print from Shimelle’s "Little by Little" Collection!  Perfect!  I had a photo, the beginning of a story and a paper I was pretty sure I’d use as the background.

Now that I had a few decisions made, was a good time to go through my flair badges and pick something that works.  I knew straight away these Mirror Ball flair badges were the winners. These colours reminded me of Shimelle’s "Head in the Clouds" collection.  The playful and whimsical nature of that collection would work.  I could possibly even get away with a dragon or two!  They remind me of imagination and creativity.

Shimelle’s "Box of Crayons" and "Glitter Girl", Paige Evans' "Whimsical" and crafting themed lines by Echo Park and Simple Stories also had some colours that might work and they all had crafting/inspirational motifs and phrases.  I don’t always go for themed products, but sometimes (especially when it’s about a topic near my heart) I just go for it.  For me personally it’s a bit of an all or nothing approach!

While we’re talking crafty motifs, Virginia Walker (the brains behind Confessions of a Paper Addict)  has been making some incredible cut files (especially ones which made great titles for craft layouts).  This was as good a time to use one as any and the one I chose seemed to make me think of starting something and the start of a design team working together for the first time connected the dots in my head.

Once I backed the cut file with patterned paper and added dimensional foam to the back, I just had to figure out where the photo, journaling and embellishment areas would go.  Then it was time to commit!  I did some messy stitching to give the paper strips some texture.  It's a simple but effective detail!


You'll find all kinds of little bits in my embellishment clusters,  There are almost always cameras since that's an integral part of scrapbooking, some whimsical critters and even peacock feathers as a nod to Crece's logo!  Speaking of her logo, I used one of the packaging inserts as a base for my embellishment here.


I also used the three chipboard circles from the Whimsical chipboard pack to hold the flair badges.  I didn't want them to get lost and these were the perfect size.  The little sentiments around the circumference are quite perfect and the colours are variations on pink, aqua and purple too. 


Phew!  Thanks for sticking with me after all that and I hope you found it useful.  I’ll be back with another project on 21st May with the next installment in this series.

Embellish With Flair products used: Mirror Ball

OTHER SUPPLIES:

The products I used (or similar) are listed below:
This post may contain affiliate links.  By clicking on the items or making a purchase (at NO additional cost to you) you help support this site, so a big, pink THANK YOU
Please rest assured I only recommend products I personally love!



Love, and Embellish With Flair!


21 May, 2019

TTCRD 21 May DT Project

 Hi Lovelies!

Today is challenge day for Design Team B for the Through The Craft Room Door Challenge.  This is a WEEKLY "anything goes" (any type of project and any theme) challenge with 2 design teams who alternate weeks to make projects showcasing the sponsor who often offers PRIZES!

This week's sponsor is Morgan's Art World. You can read a bit about her below.
Prize: 3 Digi images


I’ve been trying out alcohol ink backgrounds this past week and enjoyed it so much that I decided to use it on these butterfly images.



The complication is that being a digital image it needs to be printed.  I have a laser printer which is great for colouring images, but not all paper can be put through the printer since the heat would melt it.  The best option for alcohol ink is Yupo.  It’s so cool!  It looks and feels like paper, but it’s 100% polypropylene!  That sounds like a disaster in a printer!

Glossy paper is the next best option, but it’s unlikely to print well even in a laser printer and I was still not convinced it wouldn’t kill the printer.

I remembered that the black foil that I used with the foil quill for my last card looked much the same!  The quill is hot, so slightly nervous (not gonna lie) but it’s fast and you can heat emboss on Yupo and glossy paper so should be OK.

I wanted to use foil on the alcohol ink so I decided to make the backgrounds first them foil the images last.

As you can see the first page I did wasn’t as clear as I’d like it so I set the quill to do two passes for the next one and it was much better.  The left one was a single pass and right was 2 passes.


I'm not totally thrilled with the composition - I think I cut the butterflies too large, but I do like the white with the only colour being the butterflies.




That's all for today!

Love and fabulous foiling!


20 May, 2019

GIveaway winners (Complete!)

Hello lovelies!

So...I opened each entry in a new tab from those who sent me the numbers of their blog hop makes and the SmallCraftyDude chose...

Project #363 by Sandi Pressley.

The SCD said:  "I liked that it was shaped like a coffee cup and the realistic details like the plastic lid"

He is currently working on designing a coffee cup sleeve in graphic design at school so this was a really good exercise for him to look at coffee themed projects!

Here is her project and her blog post so go leave her some love!


You already emailed me your entry numbers, Sandi so congratulations!  All I need is a snail addy!

So...here is the video with the winners


And the names are below if you want to see without watching the video:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1. Karen Letchworh
2. Denise Bryant
3. Caroline Jones

All new names!  Please email me at alex@pinkcraftymama.com and tell me the stamp sets in order of preference.  Karen gets first choice, then Denise then Caroline.  Prizes are below for another lookee:

The first stamp is called "Caffeinated Dino".  I chose him because my SmallCraftyDude says I'm like a T-Rex with my short arms and hair trigger temper! 😳😳😳  The sentiments are so apt also!


This next guy ("Caffeinated Rabbit") is a nod to the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and you know how I love that!

We have a pair of smaller stamps next: ("Caffeinated Crab" and "Caffeinated Bee") just to mix things up a bit

Lastly, the bonus prize is called "Handmade Brew".  As I mentioned above, to be eligible to win this, just let me know which numbers in the main blog hop your projects were.





I'll be back with an updated post soon!

Love and congrats winners!

18 May, 2019

Giveaway Closed!

The giveaway is now closed (I ended up giving an extra 12 hours or so since I was still getting entries and I admittedly I hadn't done a closed post).

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all the participation and the really lovely comments.  They make my day and I will get on to replying as soon as I can.  I have crafty deadlines which means new projects to share with you lovelies! (Yay!)

I'll need some time to get all the entries sorted and winners pulled.  Ideally by tonight, but if not then tomorrow morning. 

Stay tuned and hopefully we can pull winners the usual way if a SmallCraftyDude agrees to loan his hand! 🀣🀣🀣

16 May, 2019

Coffee Lovers Spring/Summer Blog Hop Project 3 (unofficial)

(GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED)

Click here for Project 1
Click here for Project 2

Sorry these projects are taking my longer than I hoped to get made and posted! What I'll do is extend the date of the Giveaway for an extra day.  (I'll adjust all the relevant info in the section at the bottom!)

We're back to cardmaking today and I really wanted to make at least one project with a stamp from The Rabbit Hole Designs.

Remember this guy I coloured during the last 30 Day Colouring Challenge?  I thought now was as good a time as any to put him on a card.  I also felt now was the time to try my hand at one of those alcohol ink backgrounds that are all the rage at the moment.  I've used the alcohol inks for various things, but not this as yet.

I wanted purple, aqua and yellow and you know what's going to happen when you mix purple and yellow, right?  I tried to minimize the mud by letting the purple dry a fair bit and using the yellow in the pearl formulation which sits on the top more.

I also loved the idea of adding foil to still sticky bits before it's all 100% dry.  It's the perfect way to use leftover or messed up bits of foil left from using the
Minc or the WeRMK Foil Quill.

I love that the caffeine molecules in the various critter stamp sets by The Rabbit Hole vary in size.  i wanted to heat emboss in white which was a tad nerve wracking (and rather stinky) when using Yupo "paper".  Looks like paper, feels like paper, 100% polypropylene πŸ˜‚

I wanted a black mat, except the layers looked silly and formal stacked up evenly so I made them offset.  The embossing itself isn't as crisp as I'd hoped (largely due to forgetting to use the Embossing Buddy and needing to tap off more powder than I should have...or crafting at 3am,  it's a toss up, really! 🀷).


I felt Dino's mug needed Glossy Accents and the sentiment needed foam.  A small plastic bow seemed to be the finishing touch fastened to her (I guess she's a girl now!) hair with an ever faithful Glue Dot.

I'm a T-Wreck Without My Caffeine



OK now to the giveaway part:

Giveaway now closed! Thanks for entering!

πŸ“ŒAll prizes are from The Rabbit Hole Designs.  A new company which I can't speak highly enough of.  Most of their current stamps feature hilarious critters and plenty of coffee snark.  Their super speedy shipping and excellent customer service are hard to beat so made sense when I placed my last order to choose to purchase prizes from them as well.
πŸ“Œ I have three items (and a bonus fourth prize) to give away (pictured below) and I'll pull three names for the first three prizes.  For the  fourth "bonus" prize: it will go to someone who has entered the main blog hop (let me know your project numbers.  You can wait til the blog hop is over to do this since they change sometimes.)
πŸ“Œ The first name gets first choice, second name gets second choice and so on.  Bonus prize will be SmallCraftyDude's favourite project!
πŸ“Œ This Giveaway is NOT SPONSORED.  The bonus prize is a stamp set I received free and The Rabbit Hole Designs have given me their blessing to include it in the giveaway.

The first stamp is called "Caffeinated Dino".  I chose him because my SmallCraftyDude says I'm like a T-Rex with my short arms and hair trigger temper! 😳😳😳  The sentiments are so apt also!



This next guy ("Caffeinated Rabbit") is a nod to the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and you know how I love that!


We have a pair of smaller stamps next: ("Caffeinated Crab" and "Caffeinated Bee") just to mix things up a bit


Lastly, the bonus prize is called "Handmade Brew".  As I mentioned above, to be eligible to win this, just let me know which numbers in the main blog hop your projects were.  It's probably better to wait once it's finished.  Just email (alex@pinkcraftymama.com) me or leave me a comment or PM in any of my socials.


You will receive an entry (or entries) for each of the following.  You absolutely don't have to do everything - just how ever many you like.

If you have previously followed my socials then these are already done for you!

πŸ“Œ The giveaway will remain open until 11:59PM AEST on Friday 17 May (a whole week)
πŸ“Œ The winner will be drawn on Saturday 18 May so PLEASE CHECK BACK HERE!
❗If the winner and I can't make contact by Saturday 25 May, I will have to draw a new winner since I need to get these prizes out altogether.
❗Please try to email me at alex@pinkcraftymama.com This really is the easiest way for me to get in touch with you since not all blogger profiles have an email attached and if you JUST leave comments, I have no other place to search for you.

So...what do you have to do to get entries?
🍡 Follow this blog - 3 entries (in the left sidebar)
🍡 Follow me on Facebook - 2 entries
🍡 Follow me on Instagram - 1 entry
🍡 Comment (once per day per person) on a post between now and the close of the giveaway - 1 entry per post

Click here for Project 1 
Click here for Project 2 

I don't yet know how many makes I'll have done between now and then, but it will be at least three.  The more love from you guys the better the chances of me getting crafty which gives you more chances to enter.  I may even keep making after the end of the hop, but you'll have to keep checking back since the link up will be closed.

So today...if you want to leave a comment, tell me which crafty technique would you like to try but haven't yet? (or anything else if this doesn't grab you) and please don't hesitate to  email me with any questions at alex@pinkcraftymama.com

Love and copious cups of coffee!