Aussie Scrap Source

techniques: paper accents

 

 

Sue loves using patterned papers. They are the first item she looks for to compliment her photos. Sue has recently discovered the gorgeous printed tissue paper, produced by 7 gypsies. The tissue paper is available in several designs but Sue chose the lovely Birdsong Collage, to use. Sue decided that the tissue paper really needed to be layered to show off it's beautiful texture.

She used a both a quickutz die and a Martha Stewart Punch All Over the Page, Classic Butterfly punch to cut multiple layers of butterflies. Sue stitched the layers together with her sewing machine and then hand-stitched sequins and beads to the centre of each of the butterflies. Sue teamed the luscious brown tissue butterflies with the soft pinks papers from Crate Paper designs and gorgeous pink Prima flowers. She also added in a layer of Hambly transparency to add another dimension to the layout.

The result is a pretty floral layout which compliments the photo of Sue's daughter Lily, out walking with a parasol.

 

 

 

 

Leeann thinks we are definitely spoilt for choice when it comes to paper accents. So when Leeann saw these already made paper accents by Crate Paper/Emma's shoppe she knew exactly what she want to create with them,(pocket wallet). All they needed now was Leeann’s arty touch.

Trim the paper accents and lay them out. Start by randomly stamping with ink and paint using bubble wrap and an assortment of rubber stamps. Then give all the paper accents a white wash all over. Finish off with some doodling using gel pens.

Cut a strip a little wider than the paper accents from Donna Downey 12 x 12 canvas sheet/heart and used this as a cover. Line everything up and machine stitch through the centre.

techniques: stickers

An old favourite – is there anything new left to do with them?  We asked Suzanne Tonga and Kathie Link and you might just be delighted with the results!

 

 

 

Stickers had a bad name in scrapbooking for a while there but Sue believes they have come back into fashion! Companies have reinvented stickers and they are no longer a little boring like they once were. Basic Grey always include an elements sheet and frame stickers in each of their collections and they are designed as an affordable embellishment to compliment their papers.

Sue loved the stickers from the Hello Luscious range but wanted to give them a little dimension on her layout so instead of adhering them flat to her page, she firstly stuck them onto a piece of acetate. Sue then cut around the images, leaving a small clear border around each. Sue could have cut them flush to the edges of the stickers but she liked the look that the acetate edge gave.

The acetate adds a strength to the stickers thereby allowing them to be layered with mounting tape on the page, which adds a lovely depth. Sue created her embellishment cluster with the stickers and a few prima flowers and candy gems.

 

Kathie’s son loves any type of crafty creating at the moment. Recently he created a series of cardstock “motorways” for his collection of tiny cars to drive along. This gave Kathie an idea for using scrapbooking stickers in a novel way. She’s used them to form three dimensional elements in a little cardboard village

To create the village, she cut roads from black cardstock. She used paint and patterned paper to turn cardboard boxes into colourful buildings. To create the dimensional cut-outs, Kathie’s used cardstock and chipboard stickers, which she’s adhered onto cardstock and then propped up with a thin strip of cardstock folded into a triangle and adhered behind the sticker.

Kathie also used images cut from a sheet of October Afternoon’s Bubble Gum paper to decorate her village. And Jamie is delighted with the new components of his motorway. He has been happily playing with it ever since, and has requested more buildings (with doors that open!) and pets.

techniques: flowers

 

Each week we’re taking a new look at an old staple technique or product.  This week we asked Janine and Louise to come up with some wonderful ways of using that stash of flowers we all have.

 

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Janine loves using flowers, they seem to find their way onto all her layouts, so to use them in a different way was the real challenge!!  She decided to create her own decorative paper accents using flowers rather than paper for this bright, fun filled layout.

Firstly, Janine coated cardstock with gel medium and then randomly stuck down her Prima Essentials flowers in colour groups. While this was still slightly damp she then run it through her die cutting machine, using a circle die that would fit inside the decorative edged circles cut from patterned paper.

In the process of the flower paper rolling through the die cutting machine it pressed the flowers into the gel medium to ensure they are firmly stuck on the cardstock.

 

 

It's no secret that Louise W adores all things Prima and loves to cluster her flowers in groups to add a focal point to her layouts. For this layout she's used some of the white Prima Craftable flowers and painted them Glimmer Mist before adding a Prima Reflections flocked rubon as a flower centre. The flowers were spritzed with water first so that they had soft edges and a watercolour effect when painted.

techniques: buttons and brads

 

Buttons have long been a staple in Janines embellishment "go to products", especially for her boy pages, but mostly she uses them for bright spots of decoration on her page. Janine decided to try something different this time and use buttons as part of her grungy, steampunk background in this LO, inspired by the steampunk style of Finnabair. She loves the grungy effect of this page which is perfect for the picture of her son.

To create this custom background, Janine starts with a bit of white gesso, texture paste and gel medium. She used the texture paste to act as part of the "fixative for the bulky items like the cogs and buttons, and by washing over the elements with gesso, it gives a blank canvas for using Glimmer Mist to customise the colours of the elements, including the buttons. It really is a fun technique that Janine thoroughly recommends giving a try.

 

Suz decided to take a simple shape, like a chipboard starfish, and cover it with as many buttons and brads as it could take.  The combination of colours and textures make a glittery, eyecatching embellishment.  She balanced the opposite page with a simple button cluster.

techniques: ribbons and trims

 

 

 

When Louise N got this brief she wasn’t quite sure what she should do; so she did the obligatory googling and Youtube research, trying to find something new and different that she could adapt to her own style. there were lots of fabulous techniques however she didnt think that they lent themselves to her style of scrapping. So it took her awhile before she thought why not 'distressed ribbons'? Lots of scrapbookers distress patterned paper and cardstock to great effect, why not ribbon!

For this particular layout Louise shredded and frayed the ribbon, then tied loose knots in it. Louise has then used this length of distressed ribbon as an embellishment and threaded it through the decorative wire and bead element. Louise has also shredded, frayed and knotted a short piece of ribbon and added it to the wire butterfly embellishment; to add a fabulous textural touch to its wings.

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For this particular layout Louise has taken the fabulous S.E.I. string woven ribbon and shredded it. She has shredded it length ways and opened it up to create a funky grungy like frame for her photo.

 

 

 

Louise W loves to add touches of lace and ribbon to her projects, and uses a number of different techniques to include them subtly.

In this layout she edged a cutout circle with some Prima lace to add a soft and pretty frame. She also created her own rolled lace roses by cutting short pieces of a narrow lace, adding glue along the bottom edge and rolling them up. Once dry she adhered them into place and flattened them out to give the flowers shape.

Also dotted around are some small flowers, these were individually cut from a strip of flower ribbon and painted yellow to match the layout. Finally there's a piece of co-ordinating lace placed beneath the heading to help tie it into the layout and add a soft and pretty edge.

style lounge: clean and simple

 

This week we celebrate the simpler style of Caroline McLachlan.  Though dozens of different styles have come and gone since she started scrapping more than ten years ago, Caz remains steadfast in keeping her pages clean and simple, with the focus unapologetically on the photos, and the story.

Send in your ‘clean and simple’ Caz and Cathy inspired layouts by next Wednesday 1st June to be in the running for a ‘clean and simple’ prize pack!  Please try and use Aussie Scrap Source brands in your pages.

 

When anyone ever asks Caz to describe her scrapping style the best she says she can usually come up with is “boring as bat poo”. A kinder word would be “‘minimalist”’ or to borrow her ‘Idol’ Cathy Zielske’s title  - “Clean & Simple”. Caz can be very much influenced by layouts that she sees in magazines or by a product range but there are some things that are usually consistent in her work.

• Her photos must be straight, very rarely can she put them on a page at an angle and be happy with them. She has no idea why. She just can’t. End of story

 

• Her pages have few embellishments, she can put a pile of photos and embellishments on a page, and guarantee that at least half of them will be removed by the time the layout is complete.

 

• Caz doesn’t like her own handwriting. Most of her journaling is done on the computer. Very few pages have no journaling at all on them, if you can’t see it on the front of the pages more often than not it will be stuck on the back or hidden someway behind a photo for example.

 

 

Caz was lucky enough to meet and take classes with the lovely Cathy Zielske back in 2006. Cathy signed the inside cover of her book, Clean & Simple.  She wrote ‘Caz. Simplify, Cathy Z’.

It was here that Caz realised that she really only wanted to scrap like Cathy does.

To tell the story.

To leave behind memories.

Not only for future generations but also for her current family.

Everyday moments and special occasions

The good and the bad

The laughter and the tears

The beautiful and the not so beautiful.

Thanks Cathy for that one word and all the inspiration that you have provided over the years.

techniques: masks and templates

Each week we’re taking a new look at an old technique or product.  This week we asked our new girl Danielle Quarmby and Kathie Link to come up with some wonderful ways of using masks and templates. 

 

 

For this layout, Danielle began with a set of ‘Winter Trees’ glimmer masks from Tattered Angels and a photograph printed on matte photo paper. Tracing the masks on to the photograph, she carefully cut them out and outlined them in black pen to add contrast. She then set them aside to use later as embellishments on her page.

When creating her layout background, Danielle once again used one of the ‘Winter Trees’ masks to help out. Placing the mask on a sheet of Sassafras patterned paper, she sprayed over the entire page with Tattered Angels Chalkboard mist in ‘Firefly’, a gorgeous bright yellow. Using her fingertips, Danielle added splotches of gesso to the wet chalkboard mist, combining gently to add texture to the page.

Danielle combined a variety of cardstock stickers from Sassafras and Jenni Bowlin with rub-ons from Hambly Screen Prints, Prima alpha stickers, hand-cut photos, her own handwriting and Cosmo Cricket tiny type alphas to create a warm and arty layout centred on the tree images of the Tattered Angels mask designs.

 

 

 

Kathie usually associates masks and templates with making pretty background effects using misting and inking. However, when she saw the new Crafters Workshop Butterfly Meadow template recently, she was inspired to use it in a completely different way and create a piece of fabric wall art.

To begin, Kathie painted a simple background onto a canvas using acrylic paint and added some fun layers by painting through dot templates by Heidi Swapp and Crafters Workshop, and adding some stamped patterns. Using her own hand-drawn cloud masks, she’s added subtle shading to the sky background by sponging around them with white paint.

Kathie’s created grasses and a number of brightly coloured flowers from Michael Miller fabric by tracing the images from the Crafter’s Butterfly Meadow and Botanicals templates onto the fabric and cutting out. The template has been used as a guide for the placement of the grass, stems (string) and flowers on her final scene.

Finally, Kathie cut a butterfly from the fabric, and also used an embossing tool to trace a butterfly onto a sheet of transparency. Misting, painting and stickles added colour and sparkle to the fabric and transparent butterflies, which Kathie’s shaped into three dimensional shapes before adhering to the page.

techniques: stitching

Each week we’re taking a new look at an old technique or product.  This week we asked our Leeann and Lou Nelson to look at stitching techniques on layouts.  You may be forgiven for thinking the brief was stitching on kraft, but that technically wasn’t a requirement!  The different ways of stitching does however, stand out on it beautifully.

 

 

Leeann loves stitching whether it’s done by machine or hand. It’s featured on almost every page that she creates.  She loves that Machine stitching gives you a tone of stitch options and adds texture at the same time.  Leeann likes to always try and fine new ways to use stitching. Lately she has been messy stitching. It’s just basically leaving the thread ends on the page.

Leeann also loves to add pops of hand stitching occasionally to her pages. And using tools like the Sew Easy Stitch Piercer makes this quick and easy.  There are certainly lots of fabulous ways to get creative with stitching!

 

Louise absolutely loves the versatility of stitching in her paper crafting creativity. Both hand stitching and machine stitching adds such a wonderful texture and luscious visual element to any project. With stitching it can be perfect and formal simple and freestyle, oooooh the variety of creative applications is almost endless.

For this particular layout Louise has used her sewing machine to create a simple, free-style, soft flowing flight effect with the Hambly Screen Prints overlay butterflies. Louise then machine stitched frames around her photo and the background. Louise took her machine stitched frames one step further, by removing the thread and just leaving interesting pin-hole like lines.

 

For this particular layout Louise has used the fabulous new WeR Memory Keepers Sew Easy tool with the Cross piercer attachment and some crochet cotton.  She has created subtle cross hatch like frame for her photo, which is simple, quick and effective.

techniques: chipboard

We asked our design team to look at new ways of using products that we all have in our stash.  This week we look at chipboard – just take a look at the incredible results from Louise and Caz.

 

 

 

Louise adores chipboard and the dimension it brings to projects, and when she saw the new Twiddleybitz fairy designs she knew exactly what she wanted to do with it. Using the chipboard toadstools as a base, she moulded paper clay directly onto the top and stems and allowed it to dry. She then painted with acrylic paint and gave it a light wash with a wood stain to add realism and tone down the white. They were finished with dots of dimensional paint for a fun and whimsical look.

The chipboard fairy was given a similar treatment, using paper clay and acrylic paints to give it personality and dimension. The hair and wings were finished with touches of crystalline stickles for a touch of magic. The title word was painted with a bronze crackle paint and finished with some chunky glitter glass for added detail and sparkle.

Small chipboard butterflies were painted with the same brass crackle paint, and once dry, the wings were bent and moulded into shape before they were attached. All the chipboard elements combine perfectly with clusters of Prima flowers to complete the fairy in the garden theme of the layout.

 

 

Caz thinks chipboard letters would have to be the most versatile items in her scrapbooking stash. She is always on the look out for bargains when shopping. Pick up alphabets in ugly colours that are going cheap because no-one can see beyond the colour. Rip off the top coloured layer and you have a raw set of letters ready to alter to match your layouts.

Caz has shown a few examples of how to alter chipboard letters in this layout that showcases random photos found on her phone and the kids ipods. It's such a fun way to create a snapshot of everyday life at the time.

r - add a tiny piece of ribbon and a decorated pin
a - ink the letter all over using a stamp pad and add an embelishment
n - use leftover bits of rub-ons. You can keep moving the rub-on until you have the coverage you are happy with.
d - a simple spray of pearls (once again an offcut) and a small bling flower.
o - spray liberally with Glimmermist for a beautiful sparkly finish.
m - add off-cuts of felt shapes (always keep any small off-cuts you never know when you can use them)
s - add bling, Caz only had 3 pink jewels left so mixed up the colours till the letter was covered.

techniques: stamping

We asked our design team to look at new ways of using products that we all have in our stash.  We kick this off with a look at stamps – just take a look at the results from Louise and Iris.

 

Louise W isn't the world's most confident stamper so tends to get around that by using a pigment ink and stamping onto a plain transparency instead. In this case she did that with the tree from the Tattered Angels stamp set - it makes it much easier to position it and avoid smudging. By stamping on the front of the transparency, she was then able to use alcohol inks to colour the tree on the back, adding interest to the image and allowing it to be customised to suit the layout colours.

The tree stamp adds depth and grounds the heading for the layout, while the vintage branch echoes the trunk and ties it in with the dual-meaning heading 'Buds'.

 

Iris' style usually involves some misting and a lot of stamping... She likes to try different mediums for stamping and for this assignment, Iris used glossy cardstock for her base. The edges of the glossy cardstock has been stamped and distressed using alcohol inks... a great solution for multi-colour stamping on non-porous surfaces according to Iris.

With this technique, Iris was able to work on a glossy surface, and stamp multi-colour and vibrant images. To achieve the crisp images, Iris applied two to three colours of alcohol ink on a felt pad and dabbed the pad on to her stamp. She then stamped the image immediately. With the still moist felt pad, she dabbed the felt pad on the edges of the cardstock to give it a distressed look.