Love makes a house a home

Hi there today I'm sharing the acrylic album I put together for Scrappingclearly!

So, as I shared in my last 2 posts for them I was feeling intimidated by the Time Machine collection by Kaisercraft, add in my house shaped acrylic album and yikes, intimidated doesn't begin to cover it! I don't really do mini's and the pages are CLEAR!! Haha! But, when I finally found my big girl pants I dived into it and LOVE the finished album! Like, seriously, love! 

I will start by sharing the completed album then take you through page by page, grab a cuppa and I hope you enjoy!

The idea I had for my album was showing the growth of my little family from when hubby and I got married in 2008 up until the present, hence the title "Love makes a house a home."

Here is the album in all its completed glory

And a close up of the detail of the cover. 

I started this page with a stencil and texture paste from stash which I simply added some teal colourshine to. I left that to dry and when it was I started pulling pieces from my offcuts, the collectables pack and the sticker sheet. The "love" was cut using my big shot and a die from my stash and I added a coat of glossy accents just as a little extra finishing touch. 

The first page is, of course, hubby and I. About a year after we got married, about a month before we found out we were going to be a family of 3. 

For this page I just went with the stencilling from the previous page as my base, added a rub on from the kaisercraft journal spots rub ons, a couple of scraps of papers, some die cuts and stickers. I used a coat of glossy accents on the "two" tile stickers as well. 

Next is the 1st addition to our family, our 1st fur baby, Zeus. 

For the base of this page I used the Time Machine stamp set with both teal and brown permanent inks. I got impatient, I was FINALLY in the groove of making this album, so used some clear embossing powder and my heat tool to set the ink so I could keep working!! More paper layers, die cuts and stickers. I have also fussy cut a frame from this Hambly screen prints page and tucked that behind the layers. And to keep the flow I added some glossy accents again to the tile letters. 

And here are the 2 pages side by side, I really love how you can see all the bits and pieces peeking through!

The next page is our very 1st photo of the 3 of us as a family. Not the most flattering but I love this photo and all it represents to me. 

Again, I started with the front design on the page, I was really loving the see through element by now!! More paper layers, die cuts and stickers. And glossy accents on tile alphas!

The next page is the addition of our youngest child. Again, not the most flattering photo but it's the 1st of us as a family of 4 and I love it!

This time I started with that same Hambly print but this time cut to the whole house shape. I adhered all my layers to the screen print so when it came time to stick I knew where I'd be able to hide the adhesive. I did the same steps again with this page, die cuts, papers, stickers and glossy accents. 

And here are the 2 pages side by side. 

The next page is the addition of our 2nd fur baby, Olaf the Bunny. 

The screen print is of course where I started and I knew roughly where I needed to place my layers to cover the adhesive from the front. Firstly, another rub on from the Kaiser journal spots rub ons and then more die cuts, stickers, paper layers and glossy accents completed the page. 

And the last page! I started this page with this gorgeous screen print piece cut down from a 12x12 sheet. This is us currently, all 6 of us!

This page doesn't have many layers to it at all! The gold tile thickers, the 2 photos and the sentiment sticker. Oh, and the tiny tile alphas :)

And the last 2 pages next to each other. 

This takes us onto the back cover. Nice and simple!

A couple of tags, some of this acetate sheet and that pretty gold tile thicker. 

And here is the view of the entire album from the back. 

I hope I have inspired you to try something new and perhaps out of your comfort zone. You never know, you may end up with a treasured piece of work!

Head over here to see the full range of fun acrylic albums available at Scrappingclearly!!

Happy scrapping!

Mel

xx

INSD fun!

Hi there!

Super quick share today as Cocoa Vanilla Studio are having a super fun competition over on their blog and all one has to do to enter is share their favourite creation that was made for INSD!!

I am still plugging away at a few challenges but I already know that this will be very high on the list of my faves for this weekend if it isn't the top!!

Funnily enough too I have used product from the Made of Awesome range I have in my stash, which sadly, is depleting!! And just as a side note, I made this page before I saw CVS had this little competition going!

Here is my completed page and a couple of close ups!

Thanks so much for the chance Zoe! What an awesome prize! 

I hope you have liked my page and I will just quickly mention that was a labour of love!! That stitching took me a 1 1/2 hour episode of Orange is the New Black, an episode of The 100 and 1 1/2 episodes of The Vampire Diaries to complete!! But, I LOVE the finished page!

Happy scrapping!

Mel

xx

Week 5 2016 and a challenge!

Hi there and Happy International Scrapbooking Day (weekend)!!

I just dropped in today to share the pages I put together for my challenge over at Scrappingclearly for the fun mini crop this weekend! Make sure you head over and play along as the Queen of the Crop will be awarded an awesome 12" Minc machine!! How awesome is that?!

So, the challenge I set is use multiple photos. Surprised?! Haha! I do love my PL and finally my 2015 album is done so I'm ready to kick 2016's butt!

Here are my 2 completed pages!

I used a mix of Cocoa Vanilla Studios Hello Sunshine and Hello Beautiful ranges. I also added in some fun gold glitter washi from Amy Tans newest release along with the gorgeous new roller stamp from the same collection. Oh, and some cute tear apart Studio Calico sentiments from my stash. 

Here is the left hand side, with a flip

Pocket!

And here is the right hand side. 

And of course a few close ups!

Make sure you head over to the Scrappingclearly FB group here to play along today and if you manage to complete all the challenges you may find yourself the owner of a brand new 12" Minc machine!

Good luck and happy scrapping!

Mel

Xx

Always find time for the things that make you happy to feel alive

Hello again!!

So, for my last post for Scrappingclearly I used the Kaisercraft Time Machine Collection Pack and while I still had that out and was working outside of my norm I decided to pull out my beloved copic markers and also my art journal! Now, to say that I love this page would certainly be an understatement! I had SO MUCH FUN pulling all this together and just loved the process!

Here is my completed spread in my journal

And now, my process!

First up I prepped the double page with a coat of gesso - I didn't really have a finished design in mind but I had already pulled out all of the round elements from the Time Machine Collectables pack so had an idea of colour scheme and the very loose idea of steampunk.

After my gesso dried I laid out all of my pieces from the collectables pack across the 2 pages and used a clear matt medium to stick them all down and also applied a coat over the top to seal them in.

I did "cheat" here and use my heat gun to get it to dry off as my plan was really beginning to come together in my head :)

I then grabbed the stamp set from the Time Machine collection and used a selection of the stamps with a brown chalk ink from my stash and also the teal Heidi Swapp ink pad - both are permanent inks and safe to apply wet mediums over the top of when dry. Again, I used my heat tool so I could move onto the next layer. Which was texture paste. I used a cogs stencil and paste from my stash and actually left that to dry for a few hours.

While that was drying I started colouring up my image - which is a digital stamp I purchased from Saturated Canary and printed to fit about 2/3 of the height of my journal page. I decided to go with sepia tones with a pop of gold (on the cogs) and that fun pop of teal. When she was all coloured I up I fussy cut her out. Needless to say, I was totally inspired by the classes I have taken over at Kit and Clowder and cannot recommend Alyce's classes highly enough!! In fact, she has a whole class on mixed media techniques using this image and it is well worth a look!

Copic colours used are as follows:

Browns/sepia tones: E50, E51, E53, E55, E57 and E59

Teal/aqua: BG11, BG13, BG49 and BG78

Gold: Y11, Y15 and E15

My next step was COLOUR on the pages! I used a super fun and easy technique and literally splashed/threw water all over the pages and then splashed/threw Heidi Swapp colour shine in Tea and Teal all over. When the inks met the water and each other they blend together and give this gorgeous water coloured/mottled effect and I really, really love how it dries. Before it dried I added a few splashed of Gold colour shine and some of that also blended together with the other colours. When that was completely dry I went back in again with the gold and applied bigger splatters.

I got the quote directly from the Time Machine stamp set. I used the tiny tile alphas from the Time Machine collection pack and also these fun gold foiled scrabble style thickers to replicate the quote on my page. I did have to use some hot glue to get the alphas through the centre of the pages to REALLY stick ;)

Once that was all dry my page was completed! This was such a fun way to use up so much of that collectables pack and it was great to make the time to pull out my copics and get messy!

Thanks so much for stopping by and see you soon!

Happy scrapping!

Mel
xx

A little news

Hello there!

Just a super quick post today sharing with you that I have once again bitten the bullet and re-joined Stampin' Up!!

I first fell in love with the products back in 2007 (I think) and immediately upon seeing my very 1st catalogue I joined up as a demonstrator!!

I needed to replenish a few things recently - I seriously cannot go past SU cardstock for my cards - so took the plunge and signed up again!

I don't know if it is good timing or not but the retirement list has just come out again so if there is something you are desperately after that is on the list make sure you jump on it cause once it's gone, it's gone for good!!

You can click here and see the retirement list in 2 categories - stamps and everything else and here if you wish to order - a simple, quick, easy way of ordering and it will get sent straight to your front door!!

So, that's it for me for today, if you have any questions or anything please don't hesitate to contact me either leaving a comment here on my blogpost or if you click the link to shop there is a link there to contact me as well :)

Happy scrapping!

Mel

xx

A Creative Journey

Hi there!!

I've just dropped in today to share the start of a fun creative circle journal I have signed up to participate in with Scrapping Clearly.

For those of you new to this whole concept (which totally included me right up until about 6 weeks ago!!) a circle journal is an art journal that goes around a group of people (in this case, 12) with or without a theme. My theme is "Advice for a younger you". I completed the album construction, the front and back covers, the sign in page and also the page with my own advice. My journal is in transit as I speak to the next person in my group who will complete their own version of my theme on the next pages in my album. It will make its way around the whole group and I will receive it back in 12 months time full of beautiful art work - I cant wait to see how it comes home!! Also, I am super excited to play along in everyone else's journals with everyone else's theme's over the coming 12 months!

So, I hope that makes sense and onto the fun stuff!!

Here is the front cover

I actually did my front and back as one piece before I assembled my bag so here is the front and the back together

As I toyed with different ideas for colours/design while I was working on this I heard my little guys (Master 6) little voice in my head saying "rainbow Mummy" so thats what I did!! First a coat of gesso then gelatos in Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, Teal-ish and Blue - yep, I totally missed the Violet and that was totally on purpose!!

I used some permanent chalk ink in grey to stamp and then to apply through a stencil.

Here is my sign in pages

I got the idea from a couple of other peoples journals (the tags) and from Suse Fish with her "planner pockets" in her scrapbook pages.

A quick coat of gesso again and when that dried I splashed water all over the 2 pages with a paint brush and then splashed all my pink Heidi Swapp colour shines in the same way to give this fun water colour effect. Next was the stamping - I used grey ink with the stamp set from Amy Tan's Finders Keepers stamp set. When that was all dry I added some black colour shine to some texture paste and applied that through a stencil.

And here are the close ups of the 2 pages

I didn't take a photo of my tag because I thought I would keep that for the people reading the journal :)

And then onto my advise to my younger me

Again, a coat of gesso - I seriously cannot believe how well these brown paper bags stood up to all the water, ink and mists!!

This time I started with some white embossing of those gorgeous Kaiser butterfly and texture stamps. Then I went in with my cheap water colours from spotlight - they have this gorgeous shine to them that I just cant seem to capture on camera. I used some blues and greens and really, really love how these pages came out!

For my embellishments/words I started with one of those gorgeous lace doilies and pulled out a bunch of cameo cuts that I had made both in vellum and in paper using the Dear Lizzy Documentary range! I just love the colours, the words and those florals are just beautiful!

I have a little container on my desk with little bits and pieces that I have been dipping into to get used so I also pulled from that the white and silver arrow and the silver glitter ampersand. Those alphas are one of my all time faves - October Afternoon Mini Market.

I used my scotch quick dry adhesive to attach the doily (after I cut it and the embellishments on it) and then used hot glue to attach everything else!

I seriously love how these pages turned out! Here are a couple of close ups of these last couple of pages

Oh, and my very final touch was adding some splashes of both black and Oceana (I think) colour shine and sticking down a few sequins :)

So, thats the last I will see of my journal until this time next year when it makes it way back to me! I hope you have enjoyed seeing this and I will share my progress as journals come and go throughout the year!!

Happy scrapping!

Mel

xx

Beautiful

Hi there!

I'm just popping in quickly to share a 12x12 layout I made over the last weekend, well, just because! I have this gorgeous Cocoa Vanilla range sitting in my stash (Life Is Beautiful) and I just wanted to play!

Here is the finished project - pretty clean for me but I am super happy with how it came out :)

I have used papers, stickers and the ephemera pack all from the Cocoa Vanilla range and paired it with some gold glitter thickers from my stash.

Unlike most of my pages there is no journalling on this page but I know that there will be other pages to go along with this event in my album so will get around to telling all of the relevant stories on other pages :)

Here are a few close ups

I had to add some ink splatters to finish it off - I pulled out my Heidi Swapp colour shine in gold (of course!!) and navy :)

That's it for me for today, and honestly probably for the next few days at the very least as after I finish work tomorrow the family and I off for a little camping trip! I hope you get to enjoy some of your own scrappy time, especially if you are here in Australia and enjoying the long weekend :)

Happy scrapping!

Mel

xx