Messy fun..

Sometimes things just don't go according to plan!

Take the layout I made last night, when I was in the mood for a little messy play-ink, mists, stamping, paint and messy machine stitching. I've not used messy stuff on a layout for a longtime, and I really enjoyed the process and I also got to use up some of my stash, which is great as I do have a lot and want to put it to good use.

The check stamp, and the ribbon trim are from ScrapaGoGo kits, the rubons, transparent compass,  brads and the offshore tag are Kaiserkrafts. The green background paper is Prima packaging, the spotted paper was free from The Scrapbook Magazine. The cardstock is an old American Crafts paper. 

However this is not the layout I had envisioned!

I had originally planned to use the other side, and did a crackle effect using PVA glue, acrylic paint and distress inks, which you can see here:

But it just looked ugly, so I flipped the paper over and used the reverse, and I'm a lot happier with the result. I will adhere the whole thing to plain cardstock in the interests of neatness!

Art journalling

I did an entry in my art journal today. I haven't actually done anything in this journal since way back in February, but today I got the urge to use some paint, and gesso, and stamps, and ink..

My journal is a book I made using wallpaper from Gauche Alchemy way back some time last year. The page is made with gesso, acrylics, watercolours, colour pencils and stamps-mostly Kaisercrafts stamps.

The journalling is in the middle between the two pages, but I have cut it out because it's embarassingly boring and trivial!! Other than that, it's a very attractive page!!



Stamping..

Stamping doesn't come naturally to me.

I really admire those clever people who can take a stamp and some ink and do all sorts of clever things.

Me? I can do the basic-ink and stamp, but I reckon that has served me well in this layout of Jack on his very first bike.

All I did was used black stazon to stamp the bike onto patterned paper, and I LOVE the graphic effect.

In fact, I think this is my favourite layout from this month's ScrapaGoGo 'Curiosity Shop' kit. It's a pretty plain layout, because I didn't want anything to compete with the stamped paper. I  stamped the bike wheel on the wee wooden button on the bottom right too.

And see the black line, and the spots at the top? That's the waste from the scallop sticker from the Echo Park 'For the Record' sticker sheet.

Waste not, want not!

Hybrid scrapping

One great thing about  Scrapagogo is that there are hybrid elements that you can buy for very little, and of course, use over and over again, making them great value!! You don't have to be a digital scrapper either. Just print out the elements, cut them out, and use as you would any paper elements.

Everything in this layout, except the background paper is a hybrid element. The background moustache paper is from Hambly.

One thing I loved about my Scrapagogo kit was that the patterned papers came in a lovely big brown paper bag, which I soon put to work in this layout:

First I used half of the zip trim to make a frame for my photo of Emily and her dad.

The zip is quite versatile because it can be moulded around different shapes if you snip into the fabric part at 1cm intervals like this:

Then I cut a long strip from the brown paper bag, punched along the edge with a Martha Stewart punch, and added that to the frame. I used glossy accents to adhere the paper frill, and kept it in place with clothes pegs:

I added another piece of the punched bag across the page, with some of the gorgeous lace trim from the kit.

The bottom two flowers are spiral roses also made from the paper bag. Some buttons, charms and a little bit of fussy cutting completed the layout-all from the September kit!

another..

from my ScrapaGoGo kit:

I love the colour scheme of this page.

This layout uses  the Jenni Bowlin rub on clock, which I cut up and used as frames for my photos, and the roman numerals as some decoration for the page.

If you want to try something like this with rub ons, make sure you keep the backing paper on, or your

rub ons may stick where you don't want them to stick. Especially these Jenni Bowlin ones, as they transfer with hardly any rubbing!

I'd love to see how you use your rub ons in different ways!!

Been busy..

...scrapping.

I've just done my first stint for Scrapagogo, and what a fantastic kit I had to work with!!

It is such a versatile kit, and I was able to make layouts that are quite different from each other. So far I have made 6 layouts-and I still have products left over for at least two more! Great value!

The first layout I made mainly used the Echo Park sticker sheet 'For The Record', and the whole layout came together so quickly:

Stickers can be a bit tricky to work with. It can be easy to adhere a sticker to the page and then wish you had placed it elsewhere-but of course by then it's too late and you have to live with the placement.

The easiest way around this problem is to cut just outside the outer edge of the sticker, leaving the backing paper on, like this:

Then you can place them anywhere, and rearrange them until you are happy with the placement.

I 'll post more tomorrow.