Aussie Scrap Source

cha winter 2013: k&co smash!

k&co smash! kim arnold

 

Kim used the Smash divider tabs to divide the journal into each segment of her trip: London, Paris, Wedding, Rome and back to London.

 

 

Kim has used her Smash Album more in the style of a traditional mini album, scrapbooking photos and ephemera from her recent holiday to London, Paris and Rome. Kim has managed to fit 340 photos in the album, along with journaling, brochures and other keepsakes! Kim says that the travel Smash journal was perfect to record her memories from her trip - with beautiful photo pages that come in the journal seeming to always fall in the perfect place. Where a photo page in the journal didn't work, Kim simply covered it with brochures, photos or patterned paper.
To make the front cover, Kim has simple inked the embossed design that comes on the journal. She has then added paper tape at the edge of the fabric spine binding, some dots of white paint with a template and several stickers. Of course, nothing of Kim's would be complete without twine, and she has tied it over the paper tape and added a lovely little Webster's Eiffel Tower charm.

k&co smash! suz doyle

 

Suz decided to fill up her large K&Co Smash book with anything that inspires her, from her kids to her arty heroes and her gallery wall.  She has plans to add pages of quotes, song lyrics and pinterest pages.  She has created this cover with layers of gesso, Pink Paislee Artisan elements, and Dear Lizzie vellum and assorted trims, and then given it a beautiful sheen with Mister Huey’s Calico Shine colour mist.

 

 

 

 

 

The K&Co Smash range of embellishments is a heap of fun, from the little bags and pockets you can include to hold extra stuff, to numbered brads, printed post it notes and stripey tagged paper clips, they’ve thought of everything to add perfect final touches to your pages.

k&co smash! lou nelson

Louise N believes that Smash albums have been a long time in coming and are a perfect complement to the scrapbookers 'must have' list of products. The convenience of these albums and complementary product lines make them so user friendly; travel journaling and everyday life journaling has never been easier!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

k&co smash! louise williams

 

Louise is using her K&Co Smash book as a visual idea reference album for furniture and finishes she’d like to include in her house and new studio. She started by finding photos on Pinterest and printing them out, before organising them into categories and adding some quick reminders as to what it was she liked along with some fabric samples.

 

Louise wanted a simple, aged and arty cover for her album as it will be getting a lot of use and she didn’t want anything able to be damaged put on. She used an iron paint and dragged it over the cover before activating it to achieve a rust effect. When this was dry she added some simple lettering as a title before sponging over a copper paint and activating it again to achieve a verdigris finish. A few splatters of indian ink finished the look.

 

 

As the whole studio is going to be a modern vintage theme, Louise altered the pages of the album with gesso before spraying liberally with walnut inks and allowing to dry. She then went over this darkened areas with distressing ink to further enhance the aged effect. A Pink Paislee stamp was added as a reference for the kind of artwork she plans on painting on the furniture and some hand-drawn scroll doodles draws the eye to the heading as well as being a reference to the floor pattern. Some punched tabs attached to the page edge helps define areas of the book into rooms.

 

 

 

 

Continuing with the vintage theme, Louise again lightly gessoed the surface of the pages before adding some strips of et Cetera paper and layering with random strips of tissue tape. She then liberally applied distress stain to the whole surface before flicking the surface with a Glimmermist spray. For this spread it was all about colour and décor ideas so she included paint swatches of the proposed wall colour as well as dream rooms and lighting ideas. Again some simple black pen lines highlight favourite pictures and note the ideas she’d like to implement into the room.

 

The storage spread was created by roughly gluing over the pages and attaching tissue paper before covering both pages with the distress stain, giving each page a uniform look and leaving space for further photos and information to be added. Some bakers twine adds a pop of colour and fun and the Prima wooden tickets add some cuteness and dimension. Although the album is fairly simple, it invokes the feel of the room Louise is trying to achieve and is a great source for all the ideas and images she wants to be able to refer to.

k& co smash! suzanne tonga

Sue has always loved photography but it has been a slow learning journey, possibly one she will always be on!  Last year, Sue participated in Karen Russell's online photography course which she says, was just amazing!  Sue decided that she would use her smash album to create a journal of the learning process.

Although the smash album Sue chose is wedding themed, Sue shows that you can alter the theme to whatever you like! Just cover up the parts you don't like and embellish those you do.  The wedding album is filled with lovely soft prints and colours which is why Sue was attracted to it.  Sue has combined text from her lessons and assignments along with photo examples of the techniques she has been learning. 

What a fun concept Smash is!  Sue says the sky's the limit in terms of what they can be used for.  Practical or fun, the choice is yours.

 

 

 

 

 

k&co smash! danielle quarmby

 

Danielle loves the organic feel of the K&Co Smash Folio Eco Green. She chose to give it a general purpose, but realised that she normally journals and writes about dreams (the sort of waking dreams about the things she'd love to do) as well as lists! Hence the title of 'Dream Journal and Listography', though Danielle doesn't feel that she will be bound by this definition, as once she started playing on the internal pages she found her inspiration wandering from tangent to tangent. She also loves the ideas of adding further pockets and taping pieces of day to day memorabilia inside.

 

k&co smash! jilly van iperen

 

Jill van Iperen has used the K & Co Smash Folio Simple orange and absolutely loves it!  She has decided to use it as a place to keep her day to day thoughts, as well as a journal to keep all of her "scribbles" in the one place.  (and yes.. many of us wish we could ‘scribble’ like jilly!)

 

k&co smash! iris babao uy

Iris totally fell in-love with the idea of having her K&Co Smash book to hold an inventory of her art supplies. She currently has an on going love affair with art mediums and goes crazy over the discovery of a new one.  Often on the look out for supplies, she sometimes has a hard time remembering certain colours that she needs. 

 

 

 

This Smash system will work for her because she simply needs to carry this book with her on her shopping trips and will then be ready with an actual record of the stuff that she already has and those which she needs to buy.

 

Iris lightly covered the first two pages of her K&Co Smash book with gesso to prepare it for the various art mediums she wanted to layer over this spread. This page represents what motivates and inspires Iris in her art... her two girls. In this page you will see a lot of mediums used such as acrylic paint, gel mediums, glass bead gels, distress stains, pigment powders, mists, and pan pastels.

 

A sample page of her work with distress stains.  A fun way to record Iris' collection of distress stains and an effective way to have a sample of the actual colours on paper.

 

This page holds notes about Iris' favorite art mediums.. the ones she has, the ones she intends to stock up on, and the ones on her wish list!  She has used one of the Smash pockets to hold them.

 

 

Iris has a growing collection of smooch inks. She loves to colour stamped images with it as well as add colour detail to her embellishments. The first page shows a sample of an artwork and the opposite page hold a small envelope where she keeps a list of the inks that she currently has.

 

 

 

 

 

This spread contains a small Smash pocket where Iris inserted the colour diagram of her pan pastels. At the opposite page is a sample of her work where she used the pan pastels. This system makes it easy for Iris to have a look at her colour collection as well as provide an inspiration for her whenever she wants to start on a project using this medium.

 

A page showcasing the effect of vintage glass glitter, Tattered Angels Glimmer Glaze and Glam.

 

Finally, Iris stamped small postage stamp images and colored it with her current collection of distress markers. Each image is labeled making it easy for Iris to identify the colors that she has right now. This way, she will not make any duplicate purchases in the future.  A great use for her Smash book - beauty and function combined!

k& co smash! leeann pearce

Leeann was super excited to receive her K&Co Smash Book and though it was a little intimidating to start with, the products are just fun and accessible and it wasn’t long before she got stuck in.

 

 

Once she started smashing into her album she soon realized what she really wanted to do. Leeann decided she wanted this album to be completely free and random having no rulz or guide lines. “It’s all about being totally random quirky and fun.” Leeann now carries her smash album with her at all times (stashed in her handbag) so that she can “smash it” any where, any time!

 

Leeann has an assortment of favourite photos that she just carries around. Now this is the perfect place to have them. Leeann used a heap of leftover scraps on these two pages. She used some of the K& Co Smash embellishments you can get to help fill your album. The washi tape is super colorful and fun. The tabs help flip pages and divide sections in your book and come in a few different designs.

 

 

 

These are fun completely random pages made with scraps from here and there. Leeann added a simple doodle border using the pen that also comes with the album and on the other end is a glue stick. This makes Smashing instant! The other bonus was already made pockets. Leeann cut out a few extra mason jar shapes and has them stashed in there. She really loves the pockets as they are perfect for all your extra scrappy stash, ready to smash later.

 

Once again another pocket this time filled with photos ready to be smashed!

 

 

 

 

Another fantastic idea are the zip locked doodle bags. How cute are they! Leeann used hers like a memory jar but in this case a memory bag.  Fill with glittery flakes and a photo and finish of with a tag and button, you can’t help but love these K&Co Smash products!

k&co smash - janine

The K&Co Smash range has finally arrived in Australia, and so we sent them out to our design team to have a play with and see what ideas and inspiration they could come up with for making the best use of the fab products.  The results, as you will see, are breathtaking -

 

Janine wanted to use her Smash album for an art journal as she often finds herself wanting to play with art mediums and techniques but is too scared that she might mess it up, or is unsure of how some of the products will react.  For the cover, Janine covered the album with white gesso and then used gel medium to apply this pretty napkin to it.

 

 

Janine wanted to play with merging glimmer mist colours and some embossing enamels.  After applying gesso to the page and sticking down a few random elements, Janine then applied a thick layer of embossing enamel to the heart area and heated it up until it went molten and the different colours merged together. Then while it was still hot she stamped into it with the bird stamp.  She then used 3 shades of chalkboard glimmer mist on the rest of the page, allowing the pools of colour to blend together.

 

This page had a bold dice paper image on it. Don’t be afraid to use these bold pages for bases of art journal pages. Just apply gesso liberally to the page and it will soften the effect of these papers. On this page Janine played with glitter effects, from mixing it with white gesso for a grainy effect to applying it onto a thick smear of gel medium. Lots of fun and a great way to experiment.

 

By applying a thick smear of gel medium and then applying glitter on top of it and gently pressing it into the gel medium you can achieve a thick glittered effect on your page as shown here.

 

 

On this page Janine was playing with the effects of gesso as a partial resist while using water soluble oil pastels and also the effects of layering tissue tape and napkins with gel medium.

 

You can see how the Tim Holtz tape and the napkin have both "melded" to create a triple layered effect on this page as you can see each of their individual images as well as seeing the layers below. Janine LOVED this effect.

 

Most of the time Janine merely uses glimmer mist to add some splatters to her pages of colour flowers and lace.  On these pages she was experimenting with spraying at close range and holding the book upright so that the mist would run downward on the page, creating this fabulous drip effect.  She then went back and highlighted with gentle patches of yellow on an otherwise pink and purple misted page to warm the overall effect.  Once again she had so much fun experimenting and this smash album is the perfect opportunity to try techniques but still keep it all together and by adding photographs can become a keepsake album at the same time.