Stamps Ahead

It has been a rather drab and dreary weather lately here in Australia, so why not a couple of cards to make you feel happy.  Created with one of my all time favourite Stampin Up! (SU) sets Inspired by Nature, it has a date of 2004 on the stamps.  Every year I like to get this stamp pad out and think of ways to use it.  It has two sides this is one side and the side has daisy type flowers.  This year I went with the grasses side.   I was inspired by a card I saw on Splitcoast Stampers that in turn was inspired by a card by Jayne Mercer - ironically Jayne was my SU upline when I was a demonstrator with them. The greeting on the side is also another old SU favourite. A new stamp set and dies to play with from Close to my Heart (CTMH) and the set is called In Full Bloom. CTMH created this set especially for card makers and so the greetings are smaller that the larger ones they do for scrapbooking.    I really love the set and there are more little ima...

 This layout is for a challenge over at ARTastic Challenge blog on facebook.   The challenge was to be inspired by this artwork by Adrian Feint called The Green Hen. The additional criteria was "feature things that fly in some way". I was really taken with the colours and the immediate thing that came to my mind was that time flies. I have used elements from two Kaisercraft its - Reminisce and Serenity.  I also used Dylusion Shimmer Spray to colour the chipboards and some sparkles from my stash.   The colours I selected also had to go with that orchid in my Diet Coke.  Some stamping as well to make my own background. The photo is of me celebrating my 70th birthday in Honolulu, Hawaii in December, 2019.  Time does fly 70 already - I can't believe it - I don't feel it - live is good! Thank you for looking, Margaret

A layout I completed today, using papers I had already out from previous post. This is a photo of my sister walking along Black Head Beach near Forster in NSW.  It was an overcast day and so beach was not seen in all its glory, but it had the most fantastic tidal area where the rocks were exposed. For this layout I have used Dylusions Spray Periwinkle Blue - sprayed to top of white cardstock and then held up to all the drips to fall - I also sprayed water to enable quicker fall and to dilute some of the spray. When it was dry turned it on its side. I wanted to lighten the effect of the blue on left hand side so using Dylusions Paint White Linen and Bubble Background stamp randomly stamped. I also used the left over paint on my mat to stamp the #moments onto black CS. Papers and arrow embellishment are from the Distress Surfaces range and of course all supplies are available from Kaszazz.  Yes, I am a consultant and I love the products available. Thank you for looking. M...

One of the fun things that my sister and I did when we were in New Zealand at the beginning of this year was a ride on the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway.  This just had to make you smile as the train went past this "Lavatree", in a private garden, on the side of the railway line. Yesterday, I posted a layout on which I had created lines of acrylic paint - this morning I decided to try it with my Dylusions paints and ink sprays.   I have kept the layout simple to show off the background. I am going to add this to Paper Issues Spring Crop. Below are the layouts before I added the photos and alphas.  Not colours I normally use, so it was good to get out of my comfort zone. Thank you for looking and smiling, Margaret.

I am leading a scrapbooking workshop this coming Saturday.  It is a fund raiser that will assist raise funds for a school in Kenya.   The ladies, most of whom I know, love to use new techniques to them. A long post follows, so please stay with me. The first is a single page layout and they will be making the following layout, which I have shared previously on my blog: The ladies will choose their own Dylusions Spray Inks to create their own background to match their photo of choice. The next session on the day will be a double page layout: This is a based on a technique called "bookending or bracketing" that I found on the website of Debbie Hodge .  It is a mixture of two of the layouts in that article - Katie Scott (I love the use of multiple photos on her layout) and the layout created by Gretchen Henniger (I was inspired by the wide papers bracketing the lay out and the use of paper doilies).   I sought further inspiration for the photo frames I have crea...

We are expecting record high winter temperatures here today, so why not a bright layout. This is a photo of my sister taken on our cruise in April this year.  My sister is currently overseas and she found a scrapbooking magazine in France and posted it back to me.  She had handwritten a note on a layout she found in the magazine - see below.  (note the other handwriting is mine translating the ingredients for the layout) So I accepted her challenge and my layout is the result.  I used Dylusions Paints and pages from an old dictionary on which to apply the paints.  My stash provided everything else. Thanks for looking, have a bright day, Margaret :)

Last night Melissa Kennedy of Unmistakable Creations held a class called Perfectly Incomplete.  Now Melissa lives in Victoria and I live in New South Wales - so I decided to work on my own incomplete masterpiece at home.  Here is what I did and further explanation follows this photo, and it is somewhat a long post: Class description - play with mixed media products you may not use. For those doing a page for an art journal we will be focusing on a theme for a bit - Accepting ourselves as we are faults and all and BEING UNMISTAKEABLE CREATIONS as well as hopefully creating some.  Bring along a QUOTE that means something to YOU based on the song Masterpiece by Jessie J.    I chose the words "Got a way to go, but it's worth the wait."  Google the song to see the full lyrics. I decided to go with an art journal - something I have seen quite a lot of on the internet etc, and never had the 'guts' to start one.  Here is what I started with Dyl...