Friends forever layout

I had some papers left over from the Pretoria Scrapbook Society Coming Out event in September, and just could not resist making up a page of my eldest granddaughter and her bestie. These two 'young ladies' were dressed up in evening gowns for their schools Ms Boerie event. They both look so grown up!

I started with a dusty pink cardstock as the base, inked on the birds and branches using the Joanne's No.52 stencil from Krafty King and the All Purpose Ink (Truffle) also from from Krafty King. Then I distressed the outside edges with Tim Holtz Tea Stain pad, and spritzed three different colours of K-Craft inks randomly on the page. The glittered background was created by spreading gel medium over portions of a KaiserCraft 12x12 template (Doily), then sprinkling very fine glitter onto the wet gel.

The patterned elements are from the Pretty Pocket Cards and Eashi Tape (Afrikaans) page and the Wordy Delight (Afrikaans) set from  Friendship begins in the Heart Collection from the Ivy Tree Studio. 

The flowers and hexagonal papers were cut from the Gardenia and Agapanthus Blooms papers in the Hadeda Garden Collection at the Ivy Tree Studio. 

I then played around with a very fine mesh gauze, painted the edges with glue and dipped them into flower soft!

Pretoria Scrapbook Society - (4)

Our last kit for the day was a double side-stepper card using some of the Friendship begins in the Heart Collection.

Pretoria Scrapbook Society - Coming Out event (3)

Our third and very beautiful kit for the day was under Surita's guidance, using the Friendship begins in the Heart Collection - HER artwork!

 An amazing choice of papers and elements - all coordinated. I really enjoyed this layout because it has so many unusual elements like the threaded sewing machine. We used gel medium and stencils, spritz paints, sequins, wire, pins and beads and a lot of love to create this page. The photo is of my middle daughter and her best friend. The theme then is that friends are "stitched together" - clever hey! We were also given some of the Happy-Go-Artsy elements pages to work with.

Pretoria Scrapbook Society (2)

This was the second kit we used on the 11th September 2016, at the Coming Out Event of the Pretoria Scrapbook Society. .

Linda King of Krafty King - another great South African scrapbooking company - provided everything we needed and more! These frame box kits are available on her website.

This was also the first time that I tried All Purpose Inks in a tiny little bottle with a huge punch! These inks are fabulous for working with Fantastix brush pens and stencils - vibrant colours that stain the pages beautifully and I used it to create the branches on the background. Gel medium, a stencil, and lots of glitter created the flowers on the branches. This amazing lesson was thanks to Linda who made sure we worked very hard and fast to create this stunning picture frame box. The photo is of my eldest granddaughter and her friend at their school's Ms Boerie event. I actually gave this completed project as a present to my granddaughter.

Pretoria Scrapbook Society - Coming Out Event (1)

My sister Kathy and I spent the whole day of 11th September 2016, at the Coming Out Event of the Pretoria Scrapbook Society. This event was held at the fabulous Farm Inn conference centre in Pretoria.

Ansu, the organiser, and owner of the Ivy Tree Studio, and a wonderful Christ-follower, introduced us to the range of fabulous new South African papers, designed by herself and her sister Surita.

Our first double page layout for the day was using the Friendship begins in the Heart Collection.

What impressed me about this collection is that there is such a variety of pattern options in this paper set, including lots of sentiments and matching elements, AND there are duplicate element papers with Afrikaans sentiments as well! The paper quality is superb and is easy to work with.

Ansu went out of her way to teach us new techniques using this range, including making rosettes and buttons. We were given an abundance of items to work with, not only to complete the layout, but to use on another layout at a later stage.

Here are my made up pages. I have yet to find photos that I feel will suit this gorgeous layout.

Using Vellum

I so seldom seem to find the time to create my own cards and post them on this blog. All my time seems to be spent on keeping Digistamps4Joy thriving! So when I saw that A Day for Daisies has a challenge running until 2nd June, with the theme of Add Vellum I thought it was time to get my but in gear! Fortunately I already had about 4 images in my digistamp collection, PLUS the owner also provides a free digi to use!

I used the image which I had saved as "Ladybug Friends", but now cannot find in their shop anymore. I used this image - not only because this is such a cute image, but because my name as the Girl Guide Leader for 15 years was "Ladybird", and of course I absolutely love insects!

I printed one image on white cardstock, and one on a light green vellum. I cut out the wings from the vellum, then coloured the base of the wings with yellow Copic pens, curled the vellum, and pasted it onto the base of the wings on the white cardstock image.

I then took another piece of white vellum and ran it through my Cuttlebug using this gorgeous nesting die. Using Pergamano tools, the edges were embossed from the back, flowers embossed, and holes pricked. The petals and leaves were gently coloured with Copic pens. Here is a zoomed in image.

I am entering this card into the A Day for Daisies Challenge #146

Margy

Mixed media with foils

My first 'real' mixed media project ( a loooong post). Real in the sense that this was not done during a class training session, but an hour stolen here or there to complete it - all on my own. This board ended up having quite a special meaning to me without planning it that way. Each block represents something I love!

The wooden base board is 40 x 40cm, and each of the smaller wooden plates are 9.5 x 9.5cm, with cut-off corners. I bought these basic supplies and the glass stains at my local craft shop Kief Kreatif.

I started off blindly after seeing a tutorial at My Art Journal and then the owner kindly sent me the tutorial of how to use gel. All the tinfoil was glued to the base blocks with the gel medium. The aluminium (Au) strip comes with a VERY sticky backing and peel-off strip. I bought a role that builders normally use for taping up a geyser blanket.

Tile 1 (I love my family)

Chipboard heart glued to base tile. Lots of small rectangular bits cut from Au strip and pasted to cover whole tile plus sides. In stained with red, yellow, blue and black.

Tile 2 (I love vintage and cameos)

Modged copper paper onto tile then painted and rubbed off black acrylic paint. Punched shape out of Au strip and pasted on top of paper. Modged. Glued cameo on top.

Tile 3 (I love cats and teddies)

Small blocks of copper paper pasted behind punched flowers of Au strips. Rub around blocks, then paint and rub off black acrylic paint. Small embellishments glued on top.

Tile 4 (I love vintage; sometimes I need to be wound up like the lady!)

Pasted tinfoil, painted mix of blue and yellow to produce green. Pasted chipboard lady, mesh, and paper strip and modged over top.

Tile 5 (I love bows)
Glued crumpled tinfoil onto the base with gel medium, then stained two corners red and the inside blue. I then used the same dies, and stained the mesh bow, which I hotglued on top with a gem.

Tile 6 (I love vintage; this is my journey)

Stained AU strips with red, yellow, and black all muddled in a mess LOL. Pasted chipboard and painted chipboard sentiment.

Tile 7 (I love singing and my guitar; life is often a puzzle)

Glued tinfoil then piece of copper paper, rubbed on and off black acrylic paint. Punched out large jigsaw piece from tinfoil and glued on top of paper. Added guitar embellishments.

Tile 8 (I love bling and nature)

Glued same copper paper, rubbed on and off with black acrylic paint. Punched flowers from Au foil and glued randomly on top. Added yellow gems.

Tile 9 (I love my faith)

Stuck chipboard letters onto base tile and covered with strips of AU foil. Rubbed carefully around all the edges of the letters to make them stand out. One big mess of yellow, blue, and red glass stain painted around letters, and letters kept blue. Bible is a small embellishment I modged.

Base board
Two coats of black acrylic paint. Once dried, I modged 3 different scrapbooking papers on top of each other with torn edges. Hotglued a large gold cord around the outer edge, and drilled holes in bottom edge to add the antique hooks.

Hope you like this!