Stamps Ahead

Settle back this is going to be a long post.  My sister is currently in France and she emailed me saying she had found a scrapbooking magazine (all in French) and she loved one of the layouts. So she set me a blind challenge to replicate the layout.  She will send me photo of the one in the magazine when I send her these.  Yes I did two layouts - let me show then and then I will set out the instructions she sent. Both photos from our holidays last December.  Can one have too much of Paris? The email instructions and my asides: 1. Imagine a white textured page e.g. raised dots (now I did not have this so I have gone with plain white) and in your mind divide it into 9 equal parts 3 x 3 2. Sew a line of 5 rows (2 to be zig zag) down approx. right 3rd of page.  Note : not all lines have to go to the bottom, at least 2 shorter. (I left some threads dangling) 3. in the middle going across the pages use the gold paint I gave you from Singapore, was it ca...

I am a guest designer over at ARTastic Challenges   this month.  The inspiration is this mixed media work titled Listen by New Zealander, Jenny Grant.  The criteria for the month was free choice, make of this what you will. Mixed media (according to Ebay) is loosely defined as any work of art that uses more than one medium.  I loved the colours, the writing you can see peeping through and that hair effect.  I am relatively new to this mixed media application for scrapbooking and initially I was what - 'scared' to put ideas onto paper. After deciding to use a brick stencil/mask, Impasto medium and Gelato's painted on after medium had dried and then sprinkled with salt.  I played around with three variations of these until I got the background I wanted. In this case a patterned paper already with writing and flowers on it and a thick layer of Impasto medium. I wanted to match the different clothes and hair colours of us all.   These are some ...

Scrapbooking from Scratch (SFS) has a series of monthly challenges.  One of them is a quote challenge and the quote this month is "Life is good".  This is the first time I have participated in one of their challenges. In August I moved from Sydney to Central Coast of NSW and life is certainly good in this part of the world. My nephew, who stayed with me recently, took a series of photos of Umina Beach and Google created this montage of the photos he took - I love the photo and I hope I have done it justice with my layout. Firstly, I used a Clear Scraps mask called Chicken Wire and onto white cardstock I sponged it (well, really I used a makeup remover pad as I could not find my sponge!) with Stampin' Up! (SU) Brilliant Blue ink and then went hunting for papers that would add movement to my layout.  The papers come from various companies. I then tore the papers to reveal the white core - top to resemble the clouds and bottom to resemble waves.I then cut out some tull...