Friday 26 December 2014

Merry Christmas All!

.....But especially to my Secret Santa (not so secret now)

Every year Carmen from Whoopidoo...ings sets up a Secret Santa swap between bloggers. Once the date has arrived she randomly allocates you a recipient to spend a minimum of £10 on pressies for them. You get an email listing information for your recipient & where you can stalk them to get ideas.

This is the third year I've joined in & its just as fun to collect the presents together as it is to receive them.

When my parcel arrived I briefly opened it to make sure it was from my Secret Santa & then hid it away so I wouldn't be tempted to open it before Christmas Day. On Christmas eve I opened it up a bit more to lay the gifts out & was touched by the fact that not only was there beautifully wrapped presents for me, but also for Ryan & the kids!

On Christmas day I carefully unwrapped the presents so I could keep the reindeers & other beautiful ribbons & embellishments my Secret Santa had included.


Isnt it all fab! Cake decorating items, yay! Wooden embellishments, yay yay! & a variety of shaped paperclips!!! I am super happy. The Thornton chocs are Ryans, while the kids got sweets & a pen each, which Kai had to immediately try out.
And I must draw your attention to the tiny origami Santa on the card, how cute is he!!!!

So who was my Secret Santa, the card, which I opened last, revealed it all. My Secret Santa is te talented Laura from Beads, buttons & birds. Thank you so much Laura, you have made me a very happy bunny :)

Monday 17 November 2014

Friends

With it being the last day of Frosty Festivities I went back and looked for things I might not normally do myself. I found a few to use on a layout which I could tie in with this weeks UKS challenge.
The challenge is to....
Use 5 or more paper/card layers
Use 3 or more washi tapes
Use 10 or more small embellishments

I framed a photo with beads as suggested HERE, the photo was a little bit too small so I extended the top with white paper which I then could cover with the beads (inspired by THESE)
Other areas of inspiration from Jennifers event were.....
Stencil all over the background of a layout or project
Make your wood veneers extra sparkly with gilding flakes or glitter
Heat emboss the edge of stickers, or paper, die-cuts, etc
Use glitter through a stencil
Mix up different colours of embossing powder - A blend of gold & gold sparkle embossing powder.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Jennifer for holding Frosty Festivities, I've had great fun entering the competitions, seeing what you've made and joining in. As you can see, I got heaps of inspiration from it.

Relish the Moment.

The inspiration I got from Frosty Festivities helped me with last weeks UK Scrappers challenge.
The challenge was to include.....
* Ribbon/twine/string/raffia
* Rectangle(s)
* 1 photo
* Stamping and/or embossing
I started off with a large rectangle aperture in the red paper, showing some of the yellow dotty paper having taken inspiration from Jennifers Giant Aperture christmas layout. It was missing ... something ... once I'd finished so I cut out a kind if wave from the aperture .... is this still classed as an aperture?

I also took inspiration from the prompts...
"Put three bits of ribbon/string together to tie around a project""Use a play-on-words phrase""Use contrasting patterns next to each other (eg geometric and floral)"& "Put a phrase on top of a photo"

These are definitely not patterns I'd normally put together but they do go. & with space on the photo detracting from the main subject (Zack eating a hot dog) this became the perfect space to fill with a title.

Sunday 16 November 2014

Altered Baubles

Good afternoon folks, I've had a lovely time crafting this week, dabbling in different mediums, allowing myself to be lead by the inspiration Ive found at Frosty Festivities.

Jennifer altered a bauble by painting an owl on it, now my painting skills are somewhat limited but I have been wanting to alter a bauble for some time. Inspired by Riikkas post using broken jewellery & found objects I went rooting through my scraps, christmas decorations & broken jewellery tub.







Plain, cheap read baubles covered in black netting with red bats on (not that you can tell they're bats like this), some ribbon, black chains & beads and some red flowers. I really need to get some more red flowers so I can create some more as I really do like them.

I also found some clear baubles I'd had for a while & thought they'd make perfect little snow scenes, a miniature version of Jennifers Scene box frames. A couple of broken wooden christmas decorations would work perfectly.


I added little dots of glue on the back half of the bauble & covered in glitter, rather hard to see them in this photo. I then covered the base in Snow-tex, a product I'd bought the first time I went to Hobbycrafts at the NEC & has sat in my cupboard ever since



This little lady had broken wings so I cut a couple of petals off a paper flower and covered them in gold gilding flakes before gluing them on, along with a silver thread.
I covered the inside of the bauble with glitter glue with the thought it would look like it was snowing. I then attached gold stars to more silver thread and left everything to dry

Once dry I could stick the string to the bauble making to stars & angel appear to be floating (almost)

Friday 14 November 2014

Any one for candy canes?

The last pair of earrings I made were these ones....
Jennifer mentioning fimo in her Frosty Festivity inspiration prompts reminded me of the ones I made last year, but sadly one had broken, so this year I made another set & improved on them.

Rather than straight candy sticks I curved them at the top to make candy canes. I also had special looped screws I could put in the corks rather than wrapping wire round, much more of a smooth finish

Icicle Earrings

At Frosty Festivities Jennifer created a layout with icicles she made, this made me think how nice icicles would be as earrings, though the real things probably wouldnt.
So I made these beaded ones.

The part of the weekend I wanted to get the most inspiration from was Riikka Kovasin's mixed media trees. I'm not very good at seeing something that I would normally throw away as something else, but I went to the Recycling box to give it a go. I saw a plastic bottle & remembered seeing something about using similar containers as shrinky dinks & how the plastic can be manipulated.

TING! Light bulb moment!

Twisted plastic icicle earrings made out of a section of pop bottle :D

Christmas Earrings

As many of my regular readers know, I love making my own Christmas earrings and have more than enough for a different pair for each day in December, and yet I still like to make more. Yesterday Jennifers posts on her Frosty Festivities event spurred me to get cracking on this years. Jennifer herself is a Jewellery maker.

So today I'll be showing you 3 posts with the 3 stages I went through.

I started off thinking "Robins", which lead to "Robin Red Breast"


These are wooden robins with red felt on the back which shows through the gap to give them a red breast. The large ones are dangly earrings whereas the smaller ones are studs.
I made 2 pairs of the dangly robins, one for myself & one to gift to a stranger who finds them on black friday ... to learn more about this and the artists joining in check out the facebook page HERE, maybe you'd like to join in yourself.

I then started thinking about the prompt given for using a flower on top of a Christmas tree...
I attached the flowers & the stars to stud earrings, they can be worn with or without the christmas trees which just slide on & off the earring, I can chop & change them so they are both seasonal & can be worn at any time.

While looking at my supplies I also came up with....



Each of these pairs of earrings can be made for you & bought for £1.50p each plus a one off payment, regardless of how many you buy, of 50p to cover p&p. Just get in touch with me at blackangel (at) blueyonder (dot) co (dot) uk

Each block of words in red leads to Jennifer Grace Creates, Frosty Festivities where I've taken inspiration.

Thursday 13 November 2014

Creative Zone


What always impresses me about Jennifers work & events such as her latest, frosty festivities, she always manages to think outside the box, so I decided to try & add this thought to my scrapbook page, to think outside the photo.

In this case I tried to extend the photo, first by mounting it on paper of a similar colour.


I wasnt happy with it so got my paints out and went over with this. I sponged with greens and blue, then stippled with gold and browns to try & match the autumn leaves.

Jennifer had started with a monochrome page and felt it needed a pop of colour. I decided to do the opposite with this page. The paint being the pop of colour and I wanted the embellishments and title to be monochrome. I layered up embellishments, and a journalling block. Adding also buttons, beads brads & even a shaped paperclip.

I think this technique really draws your eye to the photo, not my usual style but I rather like it.

Wednesday 12 November 2014

RAU Cirencester

I've had this photo (taken by the talented Julie) printed for almost 2 months now but kept putting it down, not sure what to do with it. I liked the technique Jennifer used in her frosty festivities of misting, stencilling & stamping so thought I'd try that as I had a brick stencil. First I misted in yellow, then blocked off some of the mask so there would be space to journal & misted this in brown. Finally I added a "You are here" stamp in brown. I wanted it to be seen but not to stand out to much.

I mounted it onto blue, a splash of colour against the brown, and then mounted again on a sheet of brick wall patterned paper. I also added a blue title. There was something missing, the page was too plain, I needed something to join all the mounts together and soften the line below the photo.
Brown ruffled lace seemed the perfect addition. soft and somewhat opaque.

Tuesday 11 November 2014

Snowball fight in Summer


Last weekend Jennifer held her second Frosty Festivities Event on her blog. I love her events as not only are full of inspiration & tutorial but its also all for free!

I made the above layout using several posts for inspiration.
I initially decided to use Elf as my movie inspiration (mentioned in THIS post), and wanted to use it with my summer snowball photos. Jennifer suggested starting with a title (post HERE) so I googled for some buddy the elf snowball quotes & came up with the one I used.

Though I could fit photos on a single layout I went with a double having read THIS post, and began looking for both christmassy & summery papers & embellishments. Having found some christmas wood patterned paper covered in dots which reminded me of snowballs, I cut it into strips (from THIS post) this gave it a look of planks of a fence or a sledge.

The title didnt really make sense without buddy though so I found an image of him & printed it out fairly large (20cms tall) finding inspiration from THIS & THIS post.

The page needed a bit more texture so I added half pearls, buttons & wrapped bakers twine around a photo (inspiration from HERE). I had some old wooden butterflies that I wanted to use but the colour of the wood clashed with the wooden paper panels so I took on THIS suggestion & painted them white.

I finished off by adding the PL cards, & journalling before sticking everything down

Sunday 5 October 2014

A Heroic Anniversary

Where did September go? I know some of it went in a medicated haze while my system got used to my new tablets, then there was a fantastic crafty bloggers weekend away, trips out cycling, & so on & so forth.

Talking about the weekend away, here's one of the layouts I made while there.
I used the sketch from Scrapologys September challenge & was inspired by the colours of ironman, red & gold with black outlines. There's a lot of blue in the photo as well so I decided a bit of misting would bring this out nicely.

Sunday 24 August 2014

Snickers Cupcakes.

It was Ryans birthday yesterday & he's a tad partial to a snickers so I used that to inspire my latest cupcake experiment.
The base is a simple chocolate cupcake, with a caramel centre added once it had cooled.
Over this I piped a simple chocolate butter cream, (1:2 ratio of butter to icing sugar & cocoa powder & a tbsp milk) as well as Peanut butter frosting (recipe is HERE). I then added a little bit of edible gold shimmer.

Lessons I learnt:-
When piping with 2 frosts together they have to be of the same consistency to pipe evenly. My chocolate frosting was a bit soft & the peanut butter was a bit too stiff so the chocolate came out a lot faster.

Gold shimmer is a pain in the bum! I need to find a way to sprinkle it on without it falling in clumps, some sort of very fine shaker maybe. I did try brushing it on but the chocolate frosting kept sticking to the brush.

The Result:-
Everyone loved them though I think they were a little too chocolatey and needed more peanut butter.
I love the peanut butter frosting & shall have to use this again.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

Chocolate Marmite Cupcakes

I first heard of these on the Wright Stuff, they'd been sent some in to try, and as a lover of trying new & unusual things, a marmite fan (you need to get the 50/50 butter marmite mix right), and of course chocolate, my curiosity peaked.

These cupcakes were on a lot of the big daytime tv shows, in most of the papers & of course social media. You could get the recipe but there were huge complaints that it was confusing, didnt work etc. Then I saw on twitter a link to an article about how a blogger had invented the ORIGINAL recipe, but wasnt getting any acknowledgement for it (you can read the article HERE) so off I went to look at her recipe & order the ingredients.

I started off making 12 basic chocolate sponge cupcakes. While these baked I mixed a tin of caramel condensed milk with 2 teaspoons of marmite (I had checked the day before with @MsMarmiteLover, the lady whose recipe I was using as a guideline, if using the ready made caramel would work just as well as the homemade) ... I then checked it, expecting a salty addition to the flavour. Nope, no salt, but a richer, slightly less sweet caramel flavour with a very slight marmite after taste, I think I was only getting that after taste because I knew it was there.

Once the cupcakes had cooled I removed a cone shaped amount from the centre of each & added some marmite caramel before putting the cone back.

I then followed Kerstins (@MsMarmiteLover) recipe for chocolate marmite ganache, though I used milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate,  & Marmite caramel cream cheese frosting, I had huge problems with the frosting, it was far too runny to pipe, even with more icing sugar added.....  I usually have these problems with cream cheese frosting. As my kitchen was very hot I put it in the freezer for a short time which helped a bit.

I found I'd only got 1 piping bag left (I use disposable ones as I'm lazy), so spooned the 2 toppings into it, scrapping one kind on the one side, and the other on the opposite side.
The ones at the top are plain chocolate cupcakes, the marmite ones are the bottom 2 rows. See how my piping has improved :D

The verdict:
They tasted like rich chocolate caramel cupcakes, once you think you can taste a hint of marmite & try to pinpoint it it disappears. Of course I could have added more for a stronger flavour if I wanted.
The other half (my biggest critic) loved his first cupcake, but when he tried the second he could taste the marmite more which he didnt like. The eldest, a regular marmite on toast eater couldnt taste it at all.

Monday 18 August 2014

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

How could it have got so long without me blogging! I've been busy with school events & then the summer holidays. This summer I gave myself the challenge to master icing cupcakes ... well... at least get them looking half decent.

So I started by watching youtube & discovered my pipping nozzles were all to small for the look I wanted. New nozzles bought I decided to seek the wisdom of those with experience& asked on facebook if anyone knew a good buttercream icing recipe & what butter was best to use. My friend Deb gave me this link which she uses for Lemon & Poppyseed cupcake. Sandie from Itchifingers kindly tagged her friend Pauline saying she's the cupcake queen. Pauline answered it was more like she was the Buttercream Queen; Hooray! exactly what I needed!!! The best advice she gave me was that she uses Anchor butter for her buttercream. Now, I dont know about you but I have tried all sorts of spreads for making icing. Some go to soft, some are too over powering in taste, others split & curdle, so to have someone actually point one out that works for them is a HUGE help.

I decided to dive straight in & give lemon meringue cupcakes a go.

I started off with a simple sponge cake mix with the zest & juice of 1 lemon added to create 12 cakes.
DOH! I meant to put 1/2 the mix in each, then a dollop of lemon curd, & then add the rest of the mix. No worries, I cut a cone shape out of the centre of each cupcake, spooned a small amount of lemon curd in & popped the cone back on top .... shhh, no-one will know it was meant to be any different.
I then made lemon buttercream following the recipe from the lemon & poppyseed cupcake, & popped it in the fridge until the cake had cooled.
I also set about making meringues which I havent done for about 10 years or so... I didn't realise how long they took to cook!!!! So I decorated the cakes without them initially so everyone could have one for pud.
Once the meringues had cooked I crushed them ... unfortunately they had baked perfectly for dessert meringues, crisp on the outside while still slightly chewy inside. Great to eat as meringues, not to crush over cakes. So I had to carefully break off crunchy bits and crush those. Once done I sprinkled them over the cupcakes.

Verdict:
My piping is greatly improved by having the correct nozzle & consistency of the icing.
The lemon cake hating other half of mine adored these cupcakes! They weren't tooooo lemony, & the anchor butter gave it a lovely creamy flavour. The meringue added another texture to the cake, a nice contrast to the soft buttercream.

Pop back tomorrow to see how I got on with CHOCOLATE MARMITE CUPCAKES!!!

Saturday 5 July 2014

Santa's little helper

The challenge at Scrapology was to use Trellising on our layout, they also provided a lovely sketch.
Luckily I'm currently borrowing my friends die that looks just like trellising.
I based the colours around the card I had saying "Santas little helper", Rys work shirt & a touch of gold to glam it up a bit.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Going Dotty

The technique this month in Simple Recipes* is to create a paint confetti look. Using the sketch, which I rotated 90 degrees CCW, I created this layout of my sister doing her work experience 9 years ago.
The dots are a mixture of poster paint dots, some topped with glossy accents & melted beads.
I tried to keep the dotty theme going with the papers I used & washi tape.

Thursday 19 June 2014

A Fresh Start

Sometimes you come across a layout that you love, want to scraplift & dont want to alter too much about the placement/items etc. I found such a layout on UKScrappers during a challenge, if you're a member on uks you can see it HERE.


I had several other photos to go with the main photo so turned it into a double layout.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Road Trip, & the hop keeps going.

Remember last monday I took part in the blog hop that just keeps getting bigger & bigger!? Well if you dont you can have a look HERE, if you do then you might be interested in looking at Ruths blog HERE as she continues the hop. Fay is still planning to do a post but as life has currently got in the way (we all know that feeling) I've told her not to sweat the small stuff, and post it when she is able to.

I would like to show you a layout I made for a UKScrappers weekly challenge using a sketch from Me & Mine blog.
I suddenly realised that black chevron washi tape was perfect for tyre tracks & buttons with a piece of yellow card in the centre matched the wheels on the jeep. I stuck to the colours of the jeep, such as the paint work, wheels, & the imagery of driving through muddy land giving brown.

Sunday 15 June 2014

Shh...

Simple layouts feel like I'm kind of cheating, but I do love this one I made. It started with, yes you guessed it, a challenge from the Refresh Your Craft & Soul event, to keep it clean & simple, something I dont tend to do with my layouts.
I knew I wanted to use a polaroid frame to highlight Kai in the photo. Initially I went looking for a sheet of paper to match the colour of Kai's outfit. I came across this one & allowed the image on it to lead me. I took the colours from the hot air balloon for the frame & tags. I took some chipboard clouds & covered them with white flock, the same with 2 brads. Finally I tried to copy the font by the image to use on the tags.

A Cats Christmas Joy

Dont you just love a sketch! Jennifer gave one as part of her Refresh your Craft and Soul event so I went looking for photos. Last month we sadly had to have Blue, our cat, put down as he was so very very ill, and it was lovely to come across photos of him so well and happy. They were from our first christmas together back in 2002. Back then it was rather fashionable to use the colour blue in the christmas decorations so I wanted to use that colour on the page.


The title are letters covered in micro beads & then glossy accents. & I had to use these cat wood veneers, so cute!

Strong Boy

Teal, orange and white are beautiful colours when put together, and these are the colours Jennifer challenged us to use using a colour palette.


These colours reminded me of the All About A Boy paper range so I located mine and set to work on a layout.


Keeping it Clean & Simple

I've got a few new Tonic dies, and was lucky enough to borrow my friends as well. With a bit of free time between cooking a large Fathers Day roast I want simple cards to make, and thought of Jennifers challenge to keep it clean & simple. I pulled out my fabulous fashion CDs and printed a few ready coloured images out. By using the tonic square base dies I easily created simple, decorative cards which  I could attach the images to.


Some I mounted onto a background


Others I took the image outside of the frame



A few I added half pearls to


Having the cards so simple means I can easily add more embellishments later, such as these two. I added flowers, birds and half pearls.

Saturday 14 June 2014

3 Layers of Resistance

I really enjoy using the resist technique, it reminds me of my childhood, using candles or crayons to draw something & then brushing over with watercolours. Now I get to play with a slightly more grown up version, stamping, using clear embossing powder & then brushing over with sparkly watercolours.

I havent used this technique in a while so, inspired by Jennifers "Can you resist it" blog post I decided that I wanted to create a page with barely anything but this technique. I came across a photo of Banshee sitting on my old computer monitor back in 2005, with a fairly plain colour scheme in the photo I wanted to brighten the page up so went for the colour scheme in this months challenge at SJ crafts, orange, pink white & gold.


I started with the top layer, stamping flowers & a butterfly, embossing powder, heat, painting over with orange, allowing to dry & then cutting out. While waiting to dry I did the second layer, large flourishes, & more flowers, painting over with pink.

Once I knew the size of the second layer I could work out where to stamp for the bottom layer. I did use 3 small patches of flowers but mainly used winged insects on this layer - dragonfly, butterflies & bee. I also stamped a lined journalling box to use. I painted over this with a gold colour

I selected white letters for my title & painted these pink to match the page & waited impatiently for everything to dry. I could then layer everything up, write my journalling & stick the title down.

Being such a pale page really makes the photo pop, and the more you look at it the more you see with the resist technique.

Monday 9 June 2014

An Ever Growing Blog Hop

The always lovely Clair asked me to join in this blog hop with a difference, the next "hop" is on a weekly basis. We are ased 4 basic questions, asked to answer them & then allocate (having previously asked) 3 more bloggers.

What am I working on?

I've had a lovely craft day today with friends, and was borrowing their tonic dies to make cards with. So that is the project that I am most currently working on. Its nice meeting up like this and being able to use each others tools. 

You'll also see a notebook on the table, in this I jot down other projects that I am mentally working on. Things such as the latest ukscrappers challenges with ideas of what I want to do, any current blog challenges, ideas I've spotted - most of which are currently scrapbook related. You see I forever strive for organisation, being a messy person this is quite a hard thing to do & maintain, but part of being organised is getting each year of from my life scrapbooked, I am slowly getting there having got to 2007 working backwards, and I'm almost upto date with 2014!!

How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

What a tough question, like something from a job interview! I would have to say its taking my time, I can spend a day on a small area of a scrapbook page to get it just how I want it, such as creating a 2d version of optimus prime in paper to use as an embellishment, how I'm happy to make my own embellishments or background if I havent got anything suitable in, & my eagerness to have a go at ANYTHING craft wise, I love trying new things, play with a variety of mediums & types of crafts, I always try to think outside the box.

Why do I create what I do?
I was born into a crafting family, my Mom would sew, embroider, bake & knit, my Dad would crochet, my Nan would make leather embellishments for bags and similar, knit, crochet, sew etc how could I not pick up the bug. From as young as I could remember I would love sticking things together, trying new crafts. My scrapbooking started when my Grandad died, its something I'd been considering but when he died I realised that he and my Nan had so many photos that no-one would know who were in it or what was happening, that when my Mom passes it would be the same with her photos, and the same with mine! So I decided to make a record of our lives my my children. Some of the pages may trigger memories, others will let them know a bit about people like my Dad who died when my eldest was so very very small. Once I have got back as far as I can I hope to research my family tree & scrapbook that next :) Most importantly though its relaxing, its part of my life that doesnt worry me & stress me out which as a stress head & a worry wart is very important. Its a release, if I dont get to create things I feel pent-up, depressed and on edge. What is my creative process? Its starts with inspiration. If I havent been inspired I go find it. I can find it in all sorts of places, on a blog, in a challenge, on pinterest, in a sheet of patterned paper, a photo, or just in the fact that its a rainy day & theres nothing nicer than sitting with a pile of paper, some tape, photos & getting stuck in. With scrapbooking I'll either find a sketch or make one to go with a particular photo(s), then decide on the papers, what embellishments I need (& then make them if necessary), then title & journalling. This may sound like a fairly quick process but it takes me aaaaaages. So thats me, next you get to go visit my good friends and uks team mates, but WAIT! They'll be posting theirs in a weeks time, on Monday 16th (why yes, of course I'll remind you all). First there's Ruth. Ruth & I first started chatting on Moneysavingexpert.com, joined in our appreciation on saving money, card making & Christmas. We both started scrapbooking at around the same time. We've met several time sin real life & even allowed our famillies to meet!!! We're firm friends who rarely go a week without chatting, giggling and putting the world to rights. She's a fellow scrapbooker and cardmaker, which is great when either of us need to throw ideas round. Then theres Fay, who I met at a crafty bloggers weekend away. She has become part of our UKS team, and is always part of our team chatter on facebook. A talented lady who sews and scrapbooks. I am always impressed by the clothes that she makes for her children.How does my creative process work?

Saturday 7 June 2014

Man at Work

Growing up we slowly learn to stop "messy play" in line for more constructive methods of play that are usually a lot cleaner. As children we're told off for making a mess & getting things dirty, so when I want to try a grungier layout I get this sense of unease. I think my main concern is "what if I LITERALLY mess it up", make a total pigs ear of it, waste a whole lot of stuff & dont like it in the end.

Well, with a bit of inspiration from Jennifers "crafting without fuss" blog post (part of this weekends blog event she's holding called "Refresh Your Craft & Soul") & this months Scrap 365 sketch I just got on with it.

I used some washi tape before stencilling with punchinella & plenty of acrylic black paint, I then added a few streaks of black paint as well. With the page about my son doing work experience at a publishers I wanted plenty of representation of ink and printing which I think this effect did quite well.

I started layering the photo up but found I really didnt like the lines behind it on the background going horizontally so I turned it around. I also found there was too much going on in the background of the photo so I inked around the edges with brown & black ink to bring the eye more to the subject in the photo.


With the browns & the blacks the page was looking a little dark and dull so I decided to brighten it up with some gilding flakes. I die cut a clock face, painted it & once dry added the flitterglu & gilding flakes before adding it to the layers. I also stamped some clocks & cogs to the background sheet with flitterglu & again used the gilding flakes on them. A few layered embellishments and a cork title finished the page off before adding the journalling.



Friday 16 May 2014

Rides in Rhyll

Looking at the photos I wanted to use I took yellow & green as the main colours on them so wanted to reflect that on my page.
Having read the 3rd NSD challenge at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog, and wanting to add another colour to the layout, I chose to make a triangle of red embellishments on the page. I added tags and brads and attached them giving a burst of colour, guiding your eyes around the page.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Every Colour of the Rainbow

Recently I've got bolder & bolder with using colour on my layouts, but non have been as bright as this one. This Counterfeit Kit Challenge was to use all the colours of the rainbow, so I used them on a double layout & I love it!!!!

The colours of the candles on the cake were rainbow coloured so I knew these would go perfectly whatever I did for this challenge, and the page grew from there.

Monday 12 May 2014

Primary Colours

I am rather late joining in National Scrapbooking Day (3rd May) but I am having fun catching up. Today I made a layout for a challenge over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. It was to use ONLY primary colours, no additional "neutral" colours, just red, blue &/or yellow.
I stuck to yellow & blue as I thought they'd be perfect baby boy colours. I also combined it with this weeks UKS challenge as the sketch went so well with the photos I wanted to use.

Sunday 11 May 2014

First Taste

Its always fun to watch kids try grapefruit for the first time, even more fun with a camera in hand to catch their reaction, regardless of their age.

I tried to keep the colours citrusy, & lots of circular shapes to reflect the grapefruit. I used the sketch from Scrap 365 as my basis & then added layers, texture and colour to it.

Friday 9 May 2014

Melting Beads to make enamel dots


I've been discussing with others lately about melting beads to make enamel dots, I have picked the brains of those who have tried it & listened to their advice before giving it a go myself.

First off, use a conventional oven, fan ovens can blow the beads around (Thanks for the heads up Sue)
I set the temp as high as it would go (about 210C), put the beads on greaseproof paper & pop them in carefully (they can roll around & melt together if you're a lil too rough)
Here's the beads, ready to go in. I even included shaped beads to try.

The Result....
Shaped beads retain very little shape.
Some beads that appear plastic may be glass, these do very little apart from maybe changing colour.
Some beads bubble, this can actually be quite a nice effect.
The cheapest, more childlike beads worked the best, they have a lovely colour & more regular circular shape. These really look like enamel dots.

I tried another batch with the simpler, childrens beads..
As you can see, some worked out beautifully, others are miss shaped. Always make sure the beads are clean otherwise the dirt melts onto the bead & can ruin the look.

Have you tried this yet? How did you get on? Or are you tempted to give it a go?

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