This month I really wanted to do a lot more than I physically was able to. I managed to completed the Stuck?!Sketches Challenge for 1 October (there are two per month). This one interested me with the second area of photo placement, though I was pretty sure I wouldn't place a photo there.
Anniversary Adventure With A Difference
(yes I know there is a spelling booboo in the title. It's what comes from rushing to finish a project late at night and then not having the energy to retake photos when you realize!!)
In combining it with Mercy Tiara's 27 Day Challenge for October, I started to formulate a plan. Shannon Daley Allor won last month's challenge and as the winner, she challenged us with this recipe:
1. Scrap some kind of celebration. It can be a birthday, losing a first tooth, a sport event, etc.
2. Use a long title.
3. Use mixed media such as mist, splatters, ink or texture paste. Anything goes.
4. Use some form of a primary color.
5. Use wood veneer.
6. Use washi tape.
Given there are few things I do celebrate, a slightly belated anniversary date on 9 October was a natural contender. The colour combination of pink, red and blue was one I don't think I have actually used before.
Pink is an easy choice for me, but the rest of the inspiration came from the number cut-apart from Shimelle's "Glitter Girl" line.
In addition to incorporating a woodgrain pattern (as distinct to using woodgrain elements in the challenge) I thought the addition of a neutral colour would work with the others.
The number card used in the extra photo placement area of the sketch would make it a kind of feature embellishment and since it stood for the number of years we have been married, it made sense to emphasis it.
I rotated the sketch 90 degrees then "mirror imaged" it to look like the one on the right, No particular reason other than that's just how it looked "right" to my eye. I printed the two landscape photos pretty small since they were of questionable quality having been taken in a space with low light and forward facing selfie mode!
I picked the background paper for the layout pretty easily. An older line by Crate Paper "KissKiss". but thought it was still subtle enough to be able to use with some kind of mixed media paste.
I wanted to try marbling pink in with white. Since I already have a Heidi Swapp metallic pink paste that was a lovely warm pink, I decided to go with Dreamweaver Glossy White Embossing Paste. The HS Pink was also sort of glossy and by using that rather than adding some kind of ink, it wouldn't change the consistency of the paste. I also added a bit of Bo Bunny Glitter paste in what looks like a very neon pink but it's not!
In spreading the pastes, however carefully, the marbling effect wasn't as distinct as I hoped, but still soft and pretty.
A heart stencil from Shimelle's "True Stories" Collection was just the right size but distorted if the past was too thick so next time I would be more careful to keep it thinner. Titles are not hard for me to fit in with whatever I'm doing so that's 3 out of 6 prompts taken care of. I manged to even use the word "adventure" from a set of word Thickers! The washi in pink and gold was from a Crate Paper washi booklet (Maggie Holmes "Bloom" Collection I believe).
The wood veneer was a very last minute addition and I used what I had loose on my desk since accessing the rest of it seemed too hard so late at night. I would have preferred some hearts but I'll leave it as is.
I really wanted to fussy cut some roses from Maggie Holmes' Chasing Dreams line. Some chipboard in each of three groupings of embellishment (which didn't necessarily correlate to embellishment spots on the sketch).
The chipboard ribbon prize ribbon motif commonly used in "Chasing Dreams" hasn't been the easiest motif for me to use, This one had a gold bunny so a label sticker and number "2" made it work a bit better, I have to say I had all these plans to add fussy cut butterflies and cameras and all sorts of stuff so to stop where I did wasn't bad for me. I guess that's where I call it done...or not!
After taking the photos I decided I wanted gold mist, Lots of it!
Keep checking back - I still need to edit the video for my Victoria Marie Challenge from last week as well as a few more things coming up over the next few days.
As I've mentioned before, I'm hosting one of 12 challenges for the Victoria Marie Virtual Crop/Retreat. These challenges make up the virtual crop portion of the weekend. The crop will run concurrently with the actual retreat! Victoria made the elegant graphic below to promote the event.
Victoria is posting snippets from the retreat and it looks like so much fun!
Anyway this is what my challenge is called:
"Your Crafty Name
Recipe Challenge Recipe"
You know those name
generator “tests” that come up in your social media feed?The ones where you are asked to use the first
letter of your first name and the last letter of your last name or birth month
or whatever and you get a new themed named?
Well instead of
finding out that you should have been named “Princess Pop Dot” or “Pasty
Scissor Face”, your actual name will determine which products you MUST use in
your project.
I’ve listed as many
techniques, products, themes or other ideas for each letter of the alphabet,
but you only need to pick ONE for each time that letter appears.The colour suggestions for example don’t all
need to be used together (unless you have multiples of the same letter and you
really want to!!)
So…in order to see
what your name gives you, you need to: Use the FIRST THREE letters of your first name Use the LAST THREE letters of your last name
You can also use your MIDDLE
INITIAL for bonus points!
Q – quilt pattern or motif (or photo or story),
quote in title or journaling, question mark motif or question for a title
R – ribbon, red,
rainbow motif, rain or romantic story, royal blue, rose (colour or motif/pattern),
resin flowers/shapes (cabochons), retro, rub-ons
S – stickers, stamps,
stitching (hand or machine), six-by-six pad, sequins, stripes, stars, snow, spring,
summer, scraps, specialty paper, scarlet, silver, school or sports photos/story,
sketch or scraplift, square photo, selfie
T – twine, typewriter
motif or for journaling, template/stencil, torn edges, triangles, Thickers/dimensional
alphas, tangerine, turquoise, teal, travel photos or story
U – upcycle something
(e.g. packaging), umbrella or unicorn motif, ultramarine, ugly paper or story
relating to something ugly
I decided to start scrapbooking my class with Ryan Reaveley. Naturally I loathe how I look in photos, Stupid steroids make my look like a chipmunk. 🐹 The punny title is practically essential given I live with two boys who come up with them at every possible moment! Watch the video for the chaotic process:
I had the camera battery running down at the end and I did a booboo! Do you see what I forgot? It's not the extra aqua pieces near the top (I felt it needed more aqua in that pink area).
Yeah it's my letter "V". Oops! 😳 I had my vellum leaves ready, but didn't think they were the best fit. The view masters were better, but the battery on the camera was running down so it was a fairly abrupt ending with a funny feeling something was missing.
Am I happy with how it turned out? Well I don't hate it, but it definitely didn't turn out quite how I hoped. I think the pattern choices for the strips were not the best. I imagined more of that lovely black floral would show, but this is the first of several layouts and I definitely plan to repeat the patterns and include messy, painty mixed media goodness which is what Dyan is all about.
I don't use it on layouts as often as I'd like (more on cards probably) so this series will be a good way to bring more of it into my album.
I also don't want to deviate from using lots of pretty paper which is true to my style so I need to keep that in mind and try to marry the two styles together. I love it when it works out!
There are some seemingly random embellishments on the layout. I think I mentioned on the video why I included them like the globe with the map of Australia - OK that one is pretty obvious since Dyan was travelling to Australia to teach.
The double decker buses from Shimelle's first collection are very cute, but for someone who loves in Australia and tries to avoid public transport where possible, it makes them hard to use! Dyan doesn't live in London itself (she's actually not far from my frond Joy!) but it's a close enough association of me to use it and it's red.
The colours I chose were also very relevant. I wanted to save red )for Dyan's hair) for the embellishments. I got the impression from what she was saying that she likes pink too. I used pink paint where possible and hope to use some of my work from the class in my layouts.
I'm hoping to be able to play along with some of the other challenges this week and maybe ad to my Dyan story so please keep checking back (and maybe the video will even be ready!)
Many thanks to Victoria for the opportunity and all the hard work she has put onto making the even possible and including those who were not able to physically attend the retreat,
Victoria of Victoria Marie is hosting a three day retreat...in Texas.
It's a bit far to go sadly, and it sounds amazeballs to spend three days secreted away crafting to out hearts' content, buuut there is an alternative! Victoria made the cute graphic below.
Victoria will be running a CYBER CROP in her Facebook Group for the duration of the retreat! There will be lots of fun stuff happening including regular crafty challenges and prizes! Hopefully we'll even get some sneaky peeks at what they're doing at the retreat!
It just so happens that this Pink Mama is hosting one of these challenges and yes I'm definitely giving away a prize so be sure to stop by and have a go at one or more of the challenges! They will stay open for longer than the actual weekend so if you're busy you can still play along when you get time!
Please note that the dates and times are in CST timezone which you can calculate with this handy dandy timezone calculator, but if my calculations are correct, CST is 16 hours behind Australia's east coast (EDST that is). MY CHALLENGE is 3:00pm on 21st Oct CST which corresponds to 7:00am on 22nd Oct so I'd love to see you and find out what you have to do in order to be in the running to win the prize I'm offering.
All you have to do is head on over to Victoria's Facebook Group and hang out there and get your craft and chat on! Hope to see you there!
Many thanks to Victoria for all het card work. Please visit her at her blog or on Facebook or her fantastic YouTube Channel.
Wanna know what happens when things go a little bit wrong? (I mean more than usual) This:
I decided to play along with this sketch challenge for a few reasons
(click on the image above to take you to the challenge page) -
one big one being that I could use my 57 rolls of cat themed washi in place of the paper strips
Great idea in theory...and possibly in execution had I not ruined the background, but couldn't bear to waste the white sheet of Pink Paislee paper with black (and sporadic multi coloured spots). It has a blue ombre on the reverse and I bought 2 sheets with the aim of probably using each as a background. I don't usually care if I have to put something in the bin, but I didn't want to have to replace the paper or have to use my second piece.
Perhaps I should backtrack slightly...the bit that went wrong was the splodgy, inky, painty bit.
Normally this is almost impossible to mess up. (Almost). I wanted to use GOLD so I grabbed my Gold Mr Huey's (which isn't my very favourite) gold mist. It was way too light. Gold "Heidi Shine" was slightly better, but when that still failed, I decided to try the Tarnished Brass Distress Paint which I added a little water to so it would be runny enough. It was by far the best, but after it dried it still didn't have to look I imagined.
Here's what I did: I pulled out my Gansai Tambi watercolours and what a huge mistake it was. 😞The colour (despite attempting to mix something close) was way off, as was the style of using a brush vs the more free form "packaging method". I couldn't use the wet-on-wet method on patterned paper. It would have fallen apart. I probably should have tried Distress Stain in the same colour.
I had also already applied the cat washi strips (which I was pleased with 👍) after the first lot of paint dried.
The only damage control that came to mind was extending the strips to cover as much of the mess as possible. This also meant some of the nicer areas of the initial painting would be covered, but it was a necessary evil. Placement of the photo and embellishment would be critical to hide the joins.
The next issue was the photo. I wanted a square(ish) photo to cover a ruined Polaroid I took a few days before. Why was the Polaroid ruined? A certain SCD* said "what does this button do?" and in a millisecond pressed the button which opens the hatch for the film pack so the light overexposed what was left in the camera (only 2 shots) so I thought I might as well use one for a frame.
Now my only method for printing at home right now is the Canon Selphy so there was no simple way of resizing and printing exact measurements.
After much trial and error I decided to trim it down and lose some of the image. Of course I was about 1/16 or so out and it was obvious, 🙄 which is why the right side of the photo has some strategically placed washi.
Due to the washi being on the right, something needed to go next to it and after much deliberation and indecision, I put a journalling card there. I hoped the whiteness of both the photo and card would help them stand out among all the washi craziness. It worked a little. I had a few distractions/side projects that needed finishing before this was done, so eventually I got those embellishment clusters to the point where I was satisfied.
I know the usual drill applies about the first layout I do after a break so I don't love it, but far from hating it. I might even go so far as to say I kinda like it. I'd like it better were it not for the pain disaster (and SCD even asked me why the cat has sparkly toe floof. I think it was still from this layout). I have lots more about NCC's* arrival so I'll get to those in due course and I think I'd really like to give this sketch another try sometime.
That's all for now! Til next time, love and sparkly toe floof! xxx
Before I announce the winner, I just want to thank EVERYONE for entering!
I really appreciated all the love in your comments. I will get around to replying, but the last few days have been a bit exciting and busy (more on that soon!)
So...I tallied up the number of entries each person got and gave each one a number. In total there were 41 individual entries and as you can see below, the random number drawn was #29
So checking back with my handy numbered list, number 29 corresponds to....
It's that time of year again! The Coffee Loving Cardmakers are having their quarterly blog hop! (The GIVEAWAY is now closed. A big thank you to those who entered) Click on the image below to go see all the wonderful Autumn inspired creations. It's Spring here in Australia, but still a bit chilly so warm coffee is always good for that. Speaking of which...I had the most amazeballs Dirty Chai the other day...so SO good! Anyway...I digress as usual!
So...as a big fan of coffee and tea )and caffeine in general!) I have amassed quite a collection of coffee and tea themed craft supplies. So...what to use? I shall attempt (although I cant promise) more than one card but here is the first one.
I wanted to use the Verve stamp set called "Coffee" that I've had on my stash for quite a long time. They still sell it, although there is a new one out too. In particular the stamp "This girl runs on" shouted to me. Very loudly. There is also a word die which I used instead of stamping it.
I tried heat embossing the sentiment in copper, but I think my freshly re-inked Versamark ink pad was a little too juicy. Also boys and girls, don't forget to use your embossing buddy first! 😬 Too late for me I'm afraid (as you can probably tell) 😂
I felt this sentiment needed a girl and "Latte Anya" from The Greeting Farm came to my rescue. The next ideas that pushed their way to the front were using the Tim Holtz embossing folder and using a diffuser to get a flat circle in the centre. You can't easily see it, but it meant I could stamp there and I considered colouring the image on it, bit later forgot about that! It definitely wasn't a very well planned design, but sometimes you just have to stick ad go and not over think it.
Shimelle's second line with American Crafts (True Stories) featured coffee cups and I still have quite a lot of it (Huzzah!) so the grey takeaway cup print was perfect. I ended up using the 6x6 size as it was a better fit. So the embossing folder has cold drinks, but it still kinda goes, right? 😉
True Stories has bold colours which I do associate a bit more with winter, but I felt the olive green, red, yellow warm grey and warm pink etc would work for Autumn too...and Anya happens to also be bundled up in warm clothes!
I used colours from this collection to colour Anya and fussy cut a few cups from the 6x6 version of that coloured version of coffee cup paper you see in the background. It's far from my best colouring but I feel so out of practise! 😬😬😬
NPCH* felt it was Autumny enough, but I didn't so I added some leaves in the form of clear stickers from the "Go Now Go" sticker book (also by Shimelle). The acorns needed to be backed with white cardstock first to stand out enough. A touch of Glossy Accents makes the heart look more like a button and co-ordinate with the shiny clear stickers.
The card itself isn't a standard size so I'll have to make a custom envelope. I wanted the dry embossed coffee cups to be as big as it could be since the diffuser took up most of the centre. The other layers were built around it. Being used to a 12x12 scrapbook canvas, a card size is always a bit of a shock!
Giveaway Details
The Giveaway is now closed and winner has been drawn
I have this tea themed stamp and die set by Verve to give away, This is NOT sponsored - I just forgot I had one and bought it twice! Oops!
Wow long time no blog! Doesn't feel like it's been 3 months!
But I have BIG EXCITING NEWS! I officially resigned as a Stampin Up Demo a couple of months ago!
NPCH*
and I have BIG crafty plans for the future, and SU was really starting to hold
us back. I'll be honest and admit that it's not JUST that. There's a little more to
it which isn't worth going into since this is supposed to be a happy post!
Let's
make it clear that it has NOTHING to do with the company itself.
Stampin' Up have extremely flexible conditions and take a really
sensible, balanced approach when they changed their policy about competing products.
I will still continue using Stampin' Up products, and continue mixing
them with other manufacturers as I have been (all allowed thanks to Stampin' Up
policy!) but we have outgrown SU and it's time to move on to bigger and better things!
It will take some time to achieve our goals, but watch this space!!!
We plan to offer (among other things) both local and online classes and more in the way of free tutorials (both blog and YouTube).
As for the other things, they're a bit secret so you'll have to wait and see.
I am also in the process of selling of much of my retired stock. I am thinking of starting my own group on Facebook (just for selling my own stuff) or otherwise using one of the many existing groups.
They can be a bit painful at times, though!
If anything I've said so far about our future endeavours interests you and you'd like more info, you can:
*Be notified by email when a new posts come up Just enter your address in the "follow by email" section in the right sidebar.
*If you use Blogger a fair bit (or just have an account) click "follow" at the bottom of the left side bar.
*You can also find me on Facebook
*Just drop me an email alex@pinkcraftymama.com
Also, if you are in need of a Stampin' Up demonstrator, please drop me a line and I will put you in you in touch with a really lovely lady!
Another Mercy Tiara challenge comes to a close. Like over a week ago now. Oops.
But you all know me. Actually I DID finish my layout in time I just didn't blog about it. No, really I actually did!
As usual I had the deadline breathing down my neck. For the month of April, March challenge winner, LeeAnn (aka LeeLee Scraps on YouTube) came up with a beautiful mood board for us to work with. It was designed with the northern hemisphere Spring in mind which is no issue for me since I don't scrap chronologically A copy of the mood board is posted below.
I had hoped to make TWO videos to go along with this challenge given the improvement in our setup, but alas it's just one and a rather longwinded "kit" walk through at that. I have been reassured many of us make not-so-great videos when we first start, but it doesn't reassure me too much! I ended up just filming the papers I chose to go along with the mood board - a kind of kit, but only the papers. There are still a few technical issues I'd like to iron out but we're almost there!
I tend to just make up kits containing paper only since I often have more than one sheet of the same paper and many more papers than embellishments. I can add those as I go.
So after the challenge was posted in Mercy Tiara's Facebook group, this is what happened (aka a look into PinkCraftyMama's "interesting" creative psyche. Proceed if you dare!):
I have such a hard time narrowing down papers in a kit and this is no exception. It's made harder when the mood board is so full of the colours and motifs I love. If I had to pick just three colours that jump out at me from the mood board, it's pink, aqua and yellow. My most favourite combo and most of my stash is one of these three I'd say!
After saving the mood board at the beginning of the month, I just thought about it for a bit. Several days later LeeAnn posted a video of her own choices and interpretation of her mood board. I loved this little insight into her thought process and her interpretation. This video is linked below.
LeeLeeScraps April 2017 Mood board Challenge Video
In summary, I felt the mood board included flowers, watercolour, stripes, rain/clouds/umbrellas, an animal, geometric shapes (triangles in particular) doilies, bunting, wood grain texture, fabric texture, brush script typography, hearts, circles containing colours and patterns, scallops, bright rainbow colours but mostly pink, aqua and yellow and plenty of black and white. Phew!
I had at least one specific layout in mind when I assembled the mood board, so it might have turned out differently had it not been the case. Given the size of the kits I think I'll only let myself take anything extra from my box of scraps.
Green was something that struck me about this mood board. Odd since I'm not normally drawn to green I don't dislike it, but have a hard time using it. I guess I mean a grassy emerald green like the leaves in the watercoloured flowers.
The other thing I really appreciated about LeeLee's video was the shout out she gave to scrap lifting. This us something I have had to do if I want finished layouts in my albums. Arthur* just doesn't let me do it all right now and I have found (through trial and error) that this part of the process is one I struggle with (at least at this point in time).
Sometimes I can do more than others and it took a long time to accept that I simply had to eliminate part of the process. I'd wistfully gaze at past cards and layouts I made without the use of sketches, but gazing at empty page protectors makes me feel worse.
Many very accomplished scrapbookers use sketches or lift others too. This gave me the idea of starting a kind of miniseries on this blog (and over on YouTube). There are MANY ways to use these and some dos and don'ts too. Scraplifting is so much more than just "copying" someone's work.
Meanwhile, here is MY moodboard video and links to all the relevant channels appear at the end of this post.
PinkCraftyMama's April Moodboard Video
The vast amount of paper doesn't worry me. I love these colours and patterns so much that I'll the rest of the paper kit to my other paper kits (!) and keep working with it. I definitely have some rainy day photos to scrapbook.
I knew the moment I saw the "Lovely Day" paper from Dear Lizzy's Lovely Day collection that I wanted it for this layout. Oddly, not an
awful lot in the story about flowers. A little bit in my sister's home decor
(photos were taken at her house), but that's about it! The red is probably coming from
SCD's* shirt, but there really isn't any navy blue. Some black yes but I
think I prefer navy. Perhaps I confuse that red shirt with another red
and navy one he has??
Now before I get any further, no
we don't encourage underage drinking, He had just a sip and doing it
this way keeps alcohol from being a taboo and all of that.
In any case, this story is about an invitation for dinner and margaritas which had just the perfect timing! I printed the photos about 3x4 since the quality wasn't great and strangely for me, I had a rudimentary plan in my head for what I wanted this layout to look like!
I wanted what I call a "1/3 2/3 split" where 4" of the page has one paper and the rest in another, Combine that with the colours and main print I wanted, I certainly was way ahead of where I normally would be in my process!
I found this older page by Shimelle and it seemed like the perfect one on which to base my layout. I wanted the floral on the left so I had to mirror image the layout and I also loved the addition of acrylic paint.
I used Heidi Shine (yes I do mean Heidi Shine not Heidi Swapp Color Shine) in Navy since I had already used it on the DIY Thickers
The other Thickers needed surgery to make the "O" I didn't have left.
I also used a 3x4 card which had been "frankened" since the text and border were from 2 different cards.
The addition of the critters simply happened. Started with one die cut and then another and then it really needed a third.
The other think I knew I wanted from the start is that Kelly Purkey stamp on the bottom! I added a couple more for balance - One by Shimelle on the right and another Kelly Purkey Stamp on the left. The pages preceding this one in the album haven't been made yet, but put the story in context which is why I didn't need to put the back story into the journalling.
Other papers used on the layout came from Shimelle Laine'sLittle by Little and True Stories, Amy Tangerine'sFinders Keepers, Paige Evans' Oh My Heart
Do I love the end result? Not so much. I definitely don't hate it, though. I admit I pulled up a bit off the bottom the following day and added another strip of yellow to give the illusion that the yellow box is a bit bigger.
Otherwise, probably too much "stuff" and too little contrast maybe? Patterns too busy? Pages like these typically happen after a break of even a few weeks since I want to use "all the things" not knowing when I'll scrap again. The solution is to scrap more often. Oh if only it were that simple!
Anyway I do want to try this page again - in its original "right to left" orientation and with acrylic paint.
So please subscribe both to this blog and my YouTube channel for more. I'm going to make a superhuman (for me) effort to do more and more often. It makes me excited, because I feel much better within myself when I scrapbook regularly and this had a flow on effect to other areas of my life.
