Aussie Scrap Source

design team picks – nic finlayson

Nicole loved so many releases from CHA that it was hard to settle on one, but the overall standout for her was all the fabulous felt products.  Queen and Co have released new sport themed packs of Felt Fusion and also Felt Fusion by the roll, pre-cut into manageable 1 yard lengths meaning you can buy a smaller quantity rather than a whole pack.  Sassafrass Lass have released "Felties" which are adorable pre-pieced felt embellishments that even come with adhesive attached ready to place in the perfect spot on your projects.

With this layout, Nicole combined Felt Fusion from past Queen and Company ranges with a couple of the new releases from CHA. She used the previously released Star/Scroll and mixed it with the newly released Harlequin in black which comes by the yard and the Basketball which comes by the pack.

The appeal for Nicole is that the newly released Felt Fusion mixes so well with past ranges that the need to replace older with new is eliminated, rather the new releases enhance what you may already have.
Nic has use elements from the newly released "MVP" range by We R Memory Keepers to finish this page off.

Nicole whipped up this cute little journal by covering a Jenni Bowlin 4" mini book with patterned paper. She then cut the hill and clooud shapes from Queen and Co. adhesive felt strips, attached a Queen and Co Felt Frenzy flower and finished with an adorable little Feltie from Sassafrass Lass - too easy, the only adhesive she needed was for the paper.

Unable to resist the adorable Snack Attack Felties from Sassafrass Lass, Nicole used one here as a button cover on her cute little felt envelope housing a mini album created from the new Sassafrass Lass Paper Whimsies. Nic simply cut strips from Queen and Co self-adhesive felt and attached it to a swatch from Junkitz before cutting into pieces and stitching to create this little envelope.

Not strictly felt for a felt post, but still one of Nicole's CHA favourites, the little Paper Whimsies by Sassafrass Lass are the perfect size for a delightful little mini album.

Another super quick and simple idea is to attach the Sassafrass Lass Felties to other pre-cut felt shapes to create cute accessories usually only found in funky handmade craft shops and on Etsy.

Nicole used a Jenni Bowlin felt star as her base, attached an eyelet to the top for strength and adhered a Sassafrass Lass Feltie on top. All that was left to do was to attach a Tim Holtz jump ring, a leather strap and her daughter Maddy had a new necklace that she didn't want to take off. Very Rock Chick!

Simply gorgeous hairclips can be created quicker than it takes you to read this post! Take a normal hairclip (the kind that click when you bend them) and attach a pre-made Feltie and you've created instant hipster hair clips!

  

Another quick idea for Queen and Co Felt Fusion of any kind is to attach it to a plain headband and colour with Distress Inks or Glimmermist. Glue on a few jewels and you've got an accessory fit for a princess! With all of the delightful patterns in the Felt Fusion range, you could make one to co-ordinate with every outfit!

colours and words – week three

 

 

Warming up midwinter this week with this beautiful selection of reds and yellows…

 

For creating a layout specific to a colour scheme was a lot of fun, Carole loved the challenge and really enjoyed picking the right pattern papers to do the job. Carole chose Cosmo Cricket "Mr Campy", which created quite a delicate layout. The extreme reds and yellows to this colour combo, really highlights the blue of the photo.

Carole also used some Glimmer Mist "Pink Bubblegum" sprayed on the tree trunk to blend the colours into the layout.

 

 

Sometimes we need to just stop and enjoy the moment, as told in the journaling in this layout by Nic Howard. Nic had plenty of cute shots of her son from this one photoshoot and has been scrapbooking them with funny or sweet moments she wants to remember. She used a variety of papers and alphas in her layout from the Pink Paislee diecut base to the little embellishments cut from Scrapworks and Rose Moka papers, it all goes beautifully together to add to our challenge layouts this week.

And now, we share all the different moods and moments reflected with the same colour scheme in our readers entries this week.  Thank you to you all for your fabulous pages!

 

    

Wendy Smith

 

Agnus Kasprzak

 

Anthea Peterson

 

Bec Miller

 

 

Cookie Aguilar

 

Julie Bode

 

Karen Brierley

 

Lara Moss

 

    

Moira Garton

 

 

   

Nina Granzien

 

Ronnie Simpson

 

Finally – congratulations to Cookie (again!) for winning the popular vote for last week.  We also adored the sentimentality of Sandra Wilkinson’s layout so Sandra – email me with your address!  We’re sending you out a prize pack too!

And finally – next week…

A reminder that this is your colour palette and we need to have images of your layouts emailed to aussiedt@iinet.net.au by Wednesday 1 July.

design team picks – mel

 

 

Deciding on a product to use for this challenge was an easy one for Mel. The Pink Paislee stickers caught her eye as soon as they were released at CHA and therefore the hardest decision for Mel was going to be narrowing down which range to use for her projects (fascinating, fetching, enchanting or captivating).

Each sticker book is made up with three pages including a sheet of alphabets, embellishments and beautiful decorative strips that can be kept whole or cut up into smaller pieces for projects. The alphabet sheet also includes a generous amount of numerals, plus a few mini brackets, stars and various other small designs.

For this layout Mel has used the sticker strips and cut them up in various sizes to edge the outside of the photo. At Easter time Mel made some small felt finger puppets to use in their home made puppet theatre and the lovely orange and blue tones of the Fetching Sticker Book worked so nicely with the photo that it seemed like the perfect picture to show off the sweet stickers in the book.

The title was created by using the alpha stickers included and Mel also added the year onto the left hand side of the photo with some matching numerals. A larger embellishment (from the first sticker sheet inside the book) was added to the right of the photo and a chipboard embellishment (Technique Tuesday, Classic) was placed over this, after being sprinkled with some orange crush glitter (pixee stix). To set the glitter in position a thin layer of dimensional magic was trickled over at the end.

 

For this page Mel has used several of her left over camping photos and added them in a cluster on top of the diecut (Little Sprout, Stuffed). Because there were several photos, numeral stickers (Fetching sticker book) were the perfect solution for numbering the photos and adding corresponding text for each picture on the bottom section of the layout.

A sweet door was added to the treehouse by using an embellishment sticker and like the first layout, sticker strips were cut into small pieces to finish off the page.

 

Mel's daughter Bella is constantly drawing pictures with different mediums and although she has quite a few store bought drawing books that are used over and over, Mel started thinking about creating her a really special hand made version. Something simple where the pages could be increased when needed and also a design that was pretty, interesting and could stand being possibly trodden on, left on the floor to gather dust and more than likely squished into a school bag.

The base was created with a Teresa Collins bracket shape chipboard cover and down the spine Mel used another sticker strip from the book. {draw} being the title, was included with the alphabet stickers and those little dots were a mix of bling and the leftover circles from another sticker strip. Holes were then drilled in the side of the drawing book and sheets of nice, thick paper were added inside (cut to size).

As you can see the sweet sticker book has stretched very easily across Mel's three projects and there are plenty of stickers left over for future layouts as well!!

weekend inspiration: teresa collins

 

 

With so many heritage photos still to do, Jaimie has put the Documented range at the top of her list of go to product. Teresa Collins new range is to die(cut) for. Each page can be used as either a background piece or cut down to use the diecuts tags and journal spots on your page so much versatility. Jaimie has added the clocks transparency as an overlay on her page to represent the passage of time.

 

The mix of classic graphics and warm colours of Teresa Collins' Family Matters range was appealing to Nicole immediately. The gorgeous golds mixed with red and black lends itself to family photos of all themes and age groups.

This range has divine patterned papers, journal blocks, diecut file pages and beautiful glossy chipboard accents. Nic was particularly impressed by the patterned paper - "Families Are Forever" as it is a whole printed sheet of quotes on one side and the other side has two full alphabets ready to be cut into letters and used on your pages as a title or date like Nic did here. The perfect way to collect alphas for the cost of a piece of patterned paper.

Nicole created the kraft background by masking with Tim Holtz masks and applying paint and distress inks...

 

     

Mel decided to create a cookbook as a gift for a friend with the Haute Cuisine range from Teresa Collins. She has restrained from writing up recipes inside the book, so that it can be filled in at a later date by the recipient

The cover was created by spraying a Technique Tuesday chipboard design (Classic) with Glimmer Mist (Forest Green) and then adding 4 layers of clear embossing powder over the top before adhering onto the page. A diecut charm was positioned in the centre of the mini book (Basic Grey Scallop album) and some Bsaic Grey bling added around the centre circle.

Inside the cook book, Mel kept the design simple by using a mix of patterned papers and embellishing each page with several products from the Haute Cuisine range - cookbook charms, paper and diecuts.

 

Petrina McDonald has created this gorgeous layout using a Teresa Collins diecut to hold a section of her journaling on. We loved the heartfelt story behind the layout, the darling photo and the sweet ribbon ties on the diecut.

 

Another big thankyou to Petrina McDonald for sharing this striking page of her son finding numerous treasures including coconuts, bones, shells and a rotten fish. Notice how Petrina has thought outside the box and turned the Teresa Collins diecut on it's side to create a bracket on top of the photographs - so cool!!

 

Finally, we have been sent some gorgeous examples by Teresa Collins herself using her very own brand of products of course! Enjoy this selection and to see more you can visit her website.  How cute are these cupcakes?

 

colours and words: week 2

 

 

 

Initially Nicole wasn't sure how to approach this challenge as far as using the colour palette went, but once she'd settled on a main colour, being the green, found products matching the other colours as accents, the layout came together quickly.   Nic found that the restriction of using those four colours allowed her to focus more on the design and journalling rather than worrying about a colour scheme - particularly with a black and white photograph.

Nic often finds herself using up a lot of time trying to decide on a suitable colour scheme whereas that part was already chosen.  She emphasised the idea of "knowing" with the little owl stamp by Pink Paislee.

 

The hardest challenge for Mel was deciding on which products worked well with the colour chart, but once these were settled on, the layout itself came together very quickly. The Jenni Bowlin navy lined label die cut (12x12) was perfect to use as a backdrop, picking up the lovely rich navy tones in the chart and creating a nice crisp, white background for the photo and other embellishments/papers.

Mel also incorporated some Scenic Route papers (Ashville range), Jenni Bowlin crepe ribbon (just behind the title) and for the 'know that' subtitle, she used her favourite mini alphabet stamps, Hero Arts basic lowercase letters.

 

Using the leftover pieces of her Scenic Route Ashville patterned papers from the layout above and the last section of Jenni Bowlin navy lined die cut paper, Mel quickly put together a second layout for the colour challenge. By adding a mix of 8 photographs onto the left hand side of the page, it proved an easy way to use up excess supplies. Keeping with the 'know' theme, Mel hand stamped the word using Hero Arts basic lowercase letters and also added journaling down the strip in this fashion.

The page was completed by adding a title and floral embellishment (Pink Paislee Fetching chipboard elements).

 

And now thanks again to everyone who has entered this week – we’re loving your enthusiasm and wonderful inspiration.

 

Jenni Hudswell

 

Tammy Milborn

 

 

Anthea Peterson

 

Bec Miller

 

Cookie Aguilar

 

Julie Bode

 

Karen Brierley

 

 

Sandra Wilkinson

 

 

Lara Moss

 

 

Moira Garton

 

 

Nina Granzien

 

Ronnie Simpson

Congratulations to Cookie Aguilar for winning Week One Challenge with a stunning layout – Cookie please email us with your address so we can send out your prize pack!

And a reminder.. next week we’re brightening up these long winter days with this stunning colour palette!  Entries close next Tuesday 23rd June.

 

design team picks: carole

One of Carole’s favourite things to work with are die cuts where all the cutting out work is done for you, and she said she nearly flipped when she discovered these new releases from Crate Paper.

Carole used Crate Paper Little Sprout Collection - 12 x 12 and Glitter Diecuts as you can see they are just adorable, teamed with the Little Sprout pattern papers, so vibrant, yet very sweet for little sprouts such as her baby photos of Chaise.  The diecuts worked perfectly for Carole's design, using the 12 x 12 mushroom tree as the main feature and embellishing with the gorgeous Glitter Diecuts.

  

Carole created this second Project also using Little Sprout Collection 12 x 12 and Glitter diecuts. She created this cute little flip up Layout, it does lay down to go into your protector to fit into your album, but when you stand the top of the layout up it pops up.

Well who doesn't like a good Rocket and Alien Layout lol !! This gorgeous "Orbit Collection" by Crate Paper is just adorable, with its very cute Glitter Diecuts of Aliens and rockets, and also the very versatile 12 x 12 Diecut, which can be cut up or used as full piece to create your design for your individual layouts.

Carole really enjoyed creating this layout of her Son Chaise, and Chaise loved it too !!

weekend inspiration: scenic route paper

Jaimie says "How awesome is this new range!! I couldn’t wait to use it"

Using the black patterned paper as her background and trimmed strips from the Scrap Strip 1 to give a boost Jaimie has made this LO pop. The chipboard pieces and stickers make for cute embellishments and give a lead into Jaimie journaling about her unwilling but cute test shot model.

Caz loves that Scenic Route makes their papers double sided so you can make colourful co-ordinating layouts with only half the amount of paper you would usually buy. Here she has used the new Garden Grove range to document trying to catch her son in full flight on the trampoline as the sun set behind him on his 8th birthday. She punched holes in the die-cut arrow to add a bit of interest and added some dymo labelling.

There's something fun and happy about the new Garden Grove line of patterned papers and embellishments! For this layout, Mel wanted to emulate that fun/happy feel and decided to add small strips in the red and green tones of the range to her page. The flower was hand cut with scissors and then some distressing was added around the edges before adhering onto the page. The flower stalk is a sticker from the Lucky Stars Cardstock Stickers sheet.

To create the journaling, Mel drew lines using a pencil and ruler and stamped on the text with her favourite Hero Arts alphabet stamps (basic lowercase).

Mel is a big kraft fan and was thrilled to see that Scenic Route introduced three different kraft cardstocks to their new line, Garden Grove. For this layout, Mel used the Kraft dotted border for her background and added some Garden Grove patterned papers (Hope Street & Flower Street) behind the photograph. The embellishments were kept simple and dimension was included with the placement of a chipboard flower (Garden Grove, Time Flies) with some added bling on top (Jenni Bowlin Pearl Flowers, Maraschino).

A big thanks to Ginger Williams for allowing us to show you a few of her layouts using the Scenic Route range.

This layout using the Grafton range of papers caught our eye immediately, not only because of the stunning colours in the photos but because it is just such a fun page to look at.

The Liberty range of papers may strike some people as being very American/Star and Stripes the first time they see it but we love it because as well as being our Aussie flags colours too, it works so well on boy pages. Particularly super hero and space pages as Ginger has demonstrated here.

    

Ginger has used the Liberty papers again on this layout of her sweet little boy, but by including some yellow into the red, white and blue mix it looks like a completely different range of paper.

We love the way that Ginger prints out her journaling strips with a coloured background to match each of her layouts. Thanks again Ginger for sharing with us.

Have you seen the beautiful colors and designs in the new Garden Grove line from Scenic Route??? So bright and happy. Elizabeth and Lisa from Treasury of Memories in the US have rocked this line with their layouts, cards, and mini-book highlighting their summer fun.

These super cute and super simple cards would definitely put a smile on anyones face. SRP have created a gorgeous and versatile range in the Garden Grove collection. Here the girls have added the papers to simple Kraft cardstock along with stickers to give a theme to the cards. Lovely

 

Spring has Sprung with this Garden Grove LO. Kept very simple to retain focus on the photos and journalling. This very sweet page is will be a treasured memory for years to come.

Sheree Forcier shared this beautiful layout with us showcasing the lovely, soft tones of the Sonoma range by Scenic Route. The very sweet photos of Sheree's daughter are perfect with the papers and we loved the special touches on the page, like the hand stitching and clever use of word strips to help create the title.

A big thank you again to Sheree Forcier for sharing this second layout with us for the Scenic Route post. To create this page, Sheree has used the bright, fun range of papers from the Appleton range, which are perfect for boy themed or school layouts. The large arrow looks very cool with the zig-zag hand stitching down the middle and the strip journaling fits so nicely with the 'learning to write' theme.

colours and words: week 1

 

We kick off the first week of our colours and words challenge this week, and have been thrilled at the response by our readers – thanks so much to everyone who has emailed – apparently we have helped to cure some scrappers block and even have entries already for all of the the first four weeks.  We love to see and share our readers stories – I hope they too bring inspiration to you.

 

The challenge to use the word 'unique' came just at the right time. Nic had recorded a very unique conversation with Abby just a few days prior and was thrilled at the chance to get it on a scrapbook layout.  Colour choices were already given - such a challenge but one that fell into place once Nic found a range of papers with most of the colours. Crate "Lillian' was the collection of choice, the layout starting with a die-cut paper and building from there.

The title is built from the new Rose Moka alphas, paired with some BasicGrey chip alphas. Butterflies are stamped from Pink Paislee clear stamps. Read the journaling and you'll see why Nic tried to include a 'goal post' image in her layout... or should that be 'gold post'?

 

Not a single piece of patterned paper was used in this layout, instead Suz built her page from a single piece of white cardstock, using Tim Holtz distress inks blending them with layered Tim and Heidi Swapp masks that she’s loving right now to create colour and pattern. 

She’s combined this with more Tim and Heidi – chipboard clocks and metals, as well as a touch of Tattered Angels Glimmer Glass to create the deeper brown accents.   The flowers are Grungeboard ones that she has also inked, and then blended with dimensional magic to create a shiny mottled effect.

Suz and Nic would like to point out that they both came by the same title quite independently!

 

And now we would like to thank our readers for their fabulous response to our first weeks challenge.  Have a wander through this gorgeous gallery, and vote for your favourite on the sidebar to the left.

Anthea

 

Bec Miller

 

 

Lara Moss

 

 

Moira Garton

 

 

Ronnie Simpson

 

Sandra Wilkinson

 

 

Cookie Aguilar – hidden talent all the way from the Philippines

 

 

Finally, a reminder of next weeks colours and words – please email them to us by Monday 15th June to be eligible to enter.

weekend inspiration: rose moka

The lovely bright and fun colours of the Pique-Nique range coupled with the cool embossed stickers from WRMK really bring out the happy time the kids were having in Chris's photo.

Chris whipped up this quick card using the Pique-Nique range and this adorable embossed cat sticker from WRMK. Add a cute sentiment with Carolee's Creations alpha stickers and this card is 'purfect' for mothers day.

Nicole has had this photo ready to scrap for years and didn't know what to do with it until she saw the Diva range from Rose Moka. The pinks and purples of the Diva palette, and the obvious "female" theme were the perfect match for the spot coloured cupcakes in this black and white photo.

Nic used portions of the patterned blocks as a mat on white so as to not allow the gorgeous bright colours to overwhelm the photo, then layered a journal block by Luxe and a Heidi Swapp Invisible coloured with Glimmermist.
Every paper from the Diva range seamlessly co-ordinates with all of the others making matching papers perfectly easy!

With two sons Jaimie is always on the look out for good boy ranges and Rose Moka Mec range is not one to disappoint. Jaimie's youngest son is 'at that age' and she created this LO to remind herself more than anyone that its all perfectly normal the changes he is going through.

Jaimie tore and layered paper over the background page and then used tim holtz timeworks mask with Glimmer Mist, she also cut out two of the mask impressions and used them as well. A few well placed brads, simple journaling and title and this 'tween' page is finished.

Making gorgeous use of the Diva range, Isabelle created this layered piece to celebrate what we here in Australia call a "Hen's Night". She has layered her base distressing and scalloping the edges then made the letters "pop" from the black by creating a white edge.

      

In this layout Isabelle has used the Pique-Nique (or Picnic) range to make a really fun, happy and bright layout!
Thank you so much Isabelle for sharing your creations with us!

Back again with a simply stunning layout is Isabelle L’Italien. Here Isabelle demonstrates how a little texture on a background goes a long way.

Nathalie Kalbach from Hamburg Germany has the quirkiest style and is what drew us to her. Her choice of 6x12 size pages have instant appeal and definitely make you have a second look.
Here Nathalie has used the Rose Moka Mec collection and her layered and embossed hearts really make her page pop. Stunning Nathalie

Making gorgeous use of the Diva range, Isabelle created this layered piece to celebrate what we here in Australia call a "Hen's Night". She has layered her base distressing and scalloping the edges then made the letters "pop" from the black by creating a white edge

design team picks: donna

 

this weeks dt pick comes from donna – and if this doesn’t make you want to run out and buy the entire new SEI Mimosa range, we don’t know what will!

 

Choosing a favourite new product from the recent CHA was like choosing between chocolate and ice cream for Donna. With so many new & innovative products flooding the market this time round she decided to turn to SEI's new Mimosa range for inspiration.

To begin with, it was Mimosa's textured cardstock that caught Donna's attention. The bold, citrus colours with a kind of 'tie-die' feel stood out as a way to add a little pizazz to the foundation of a layout without the busy-ness of a patterned cardstock.

 

For this first layout, Donna has featured a photo of her daughter with the newest addition to the Wild household (of the feline kind)! The main embellishment here was established by layering a Mimosa chipboard frame with Mimosa Petals and a Heidi Swapp ghost frame to add a little more definition. Donna has maintained the whimsical feel established by the beautiful soft colours & the photo itself.

This is another simple layout that relies on the soft, warm colours and textures of the Mimosa range of patterned papers. Donna has created a 'mat' for her photo by combining the front and reverse and two Mimosa patterned papers and using a diecut paper as a kind of template. By stringing together a collection of Glitter Chiplets Donna has created an entirely simple, but effective focal point for her page. And if you look closely you'll see that she has incorporated three epoxy stickers to mimic the

   

As this cute little kitten is in fact a little boy & Donna rarely scraps a masculine layout, she wanted to maintain the softness of other layouts in her album, but still keep things not overly feminine. The Lime textured cardstock mixed with other shades of green/lime from the Mimosa range allowed her to do just that. And rather than ink the edges of the various elements on the page, Donna carefully dipped the edges in a little adhesive and then some Inque Boutique embossing powder.

The result is similar to inking, but maintains the glitter theme as seen on the Glitter chiplets.