Tangerine Dreams

Hi there.

Firstly, my apologies for being MIA. I could try to tell you I was busy on some super important scrapping project but, the truth is, I've been recharging the batteries with a bit of sun, sand and surf. Heaven.....

Anyway, I've arrived home and have managed to launch straight into my next project. I thought I couldn't fit in another White With 1 challenge but I couldn't help myself! The colour this month is:

Now, I seem to have started a bit of a thing using the colour in my title or subject matter with these challenges. When I first saw the colour for this month I knew exactly what to make! And with a bit of pushing from Lizzy Hill I got it done! Here it is:

When I first saw the colour I knew there was a Beatles song with Tangerine in the title so I googled it. Once I had the words I remembered the time we were sitting in a canoe on the Okavango Delta in Botswana, watching the sunset (hence the tangerine trees and marmalade skies). It was perfect!

I thought it would be cool to use watercolour splotches as the base for my title. I dripped various shades of tangerine onto the paper then placed my words in some of them. It's a VERY long title so I had to ensure it flowed across the page well. I used a watercolour pencil to outline the watercolour shapes that contain words to highlight them.

For extra interest and texture I ran a sheer ribbon across the page (it's hard to see in these pics) and wrapped some black and white twine around it.

The Beatles song is 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' so I had to add some diamonds of course! These are Dusty Attic's small Argyle Panel. I just painted them white and the dark outline of the lasered chipboard shapes meant the edges were already darkened. Easy! I added texture paste through a Crafters Workshop stencil in the blank spaces and there are pieces of gauze, some of my favourite holey ribbon (I have no idea what it's called!) and a few paper scraps in there as well.

I created a flower cluster and added butterflies and a leftover piece of feather to it. A stamped dragonfly was very appropriate and finished the page off well.

Thanks for looking!

Heather

Feelin' Groovy with Dusty Attic

Hi again,

I'm back with my January layout for The Dusty Attic. I've also submitted it for the January Punky Scraps Challenge.  The feature of this layout is a new chipboard design which has just been released. It's called Geometric Panel and it's amazing! As soon as I saw it I instantly thought 'retro' and knew which photos I wanted to use with it.

Here's my layout:

I love the riot of colour on this! Making that background isn't hard - here's what I did. I first took the full sheet of the Geometric Panel and laid it on my 12 x 12 white cardstock. I then sprayed Dylsuions sprays randomly over the chipboard. In effect, the chipboard became a stencil. I then removed the chipboard and it left that gorgeous background. A bonus is that I still have the full brightly coloured chippie shape to use on another project!

I then took a Geometric border, which matches the Geometric Panel, and painted this with Dusty In Colour paint in Soot. When it was dry I gave it a coat of Dusty In Colour Clear Gloss Varnish. I gave the Heart Arrows the same treatment.

I added some Celestial White Dusty In Bloom flowers which were a lovely simple flower to compliment this page.

To make the title I used some glitter Thickers plus some Doodlebug glitter letters and outlined them in black pen.  All the other embellishments were just the shapes taken from these letter packs.

Here are the Dusty Attic products I used on this page:

Geometric Border - DA1029

Geometric Panel - DA1037

Heart Arrows #2 - DA1026

Dusty In Colour - Soot - DA0925

Dusty In Colour Clear Gloss Varnish - DA0901

Dusty In Bloom - Celestial White - DA0800

Thanks for looking! You can take a look at the other amazing DT layouts at the Dusty Attic Blog here. Other ladies have used this same product in VERY different ways to me! While you're there, I hope can join in the January sketch challenge!

Cheers,

Heather

It's All About The Hair

Hi everyone!

I hope you've been enjoying some sunshine this week. I have!

I have a new layout to share with you. This is my third layout using the new kit from Scrappy Chat Designs. And for something different, I've made a girl layout with what are very boy papers.

Here's my layout:

I felt that the softer colours of this range suited a girl layout and used only those. The navy blue was added for contrast.

Do you like the flowers and leaves? I made them with the Paperclay that came in the kit. Here's how:

Large Flower - Step 1

Take a small piece of Paperclay and flatten it with your hand. Take a plastic flower and press it into the Paperclay, face down.

Step 2

Tear away the pieces of Paperclay that don't form part of the flower shape. These pieces can just be re-used.

Step 3

Once you have removed all the unwanted Paperclay, take the plastic flower off and you are left with a gorgeous Paperclay flower ready for you to decorate as you wish. I rolled the corners of mine up for more depth and painted it with acrylic paint.

Leaves

Take a small piece of Paperclay and flatten it out. Tear or cut a rough leaf shape and press a plastic leaf into it to create the veins. Allow to dry and decorate as you wish. Here are my finished, but not painted, large flower and leaves.

Small Flowers

To make these I took pieces of Paperclay about the size of a large cooked grain of rice and roughly rolled them into petal shapes. Note that Paperclay doesn't stick to itself so assembling the flower before it dries doesn't help - you have to glue each piece onto the page individually.

The rest of the layout is largely made of banners that I made from the papers. I was careful to keep boy-oriented sayings off the page but there were plenty of options for this. I inked around every banner piece to help define them.

To make the background, I roughly coated the gorgeous Kaisercraft stamp that comes with the kit in paint and randomly stamped it on. Stamping with paint always gives an imperfect, grungy look which I really like. Just be careful you don't put too much paint on though or you'll just get a big smudge!

Well this is my last layout for this month's kit and I must say I really enjoyed this one. If you have this kit, I hope you have lots of fun with it.

Cheers,

Heather

My First Dusty Attic Post

Hi there,

I'm very excited to share my first post as a member of the Dusty Attic 2014 Design Team with you!

Each month Dusty Attic have a sketch challenge. All the sketches are provided by the amazing Nadia Connizzo. Here is the January sketch:

And here is my take on it:

I flipped the sketch to suit the orientation of my photo. I love this photo of my daughter. She was having such a great time just being silly.

Isn't that Dusty Attic Ivy Corner amazing? I painted it with Dusty In Colour paints. Here's how.

1. Paint the entire piece with Forrest Dusty In Colour paint.

2. Mix a bit of Hot Chocolate paint with some Forrest paint and paint the branch sections of the chipboard.

3. Using an old or cheap fine brush (one that gives a streaky application), paint Pesto paint over the top third or so of each leaf, letting it radiate out from the centre in streaks.

4. Using Jungle Green paint and the same brush, repeat the above step but only cover about half of the Pesto colour.

5. I then painted the arrow on the top with Soot paint and finished off the piece by twisting Dusty Roses around the arrow.

Here are some close ups:

The background paper and some of the embellies are actually a Christmas range from Fancy Pants. I love these papers! I don't think they look Christmasy at all here - I just had to make sure my title tag and photo covered some of the key Christmas features!

To make the cluster around the title, I took another piece of the Ivy Corner and painted it in exactly the same way as above. I left all the small heart shapes at the end with just the Forrest colour as they didn't need the variegated ivy look I was painting onto the ivy leaves. I took one of the Mini Banners, cut it in half and painted it with Navajo White paint. I then strung a string above it and I was done!

It would be fabulous if you could join in the sketch challenge. Head over to the ning site here to join in.

Here are the Dusty Attic products I used:

Ivy Corners DA1018

Mini Banners DA1021

Dusty Roses white DA0971

Dusty in Colour – Soot DA0925

 Plus I also used Dusty In Colour paints in the following colours:

                               - Forrest DA091

                                - Hot Chocolate DA0923

                                - Jungle Green DA0920

                                - Pesto DA0918

                                - Navajo White DA0903

Other products I used were:

Fancy Pants and BasicGrey papers

Martha Stewart border punch

Fancy Pants stickers, flair and ticket

Ranger Distress ink

Sharpie pen

String

Happy Scrappin'

Heather

Keep Calm with Scrappy Chat Designs

Hi everyone,

Firstly, a big thanks to all those who sent such lovely Christmas and New Year wishes. I've been super busy lately and haven't had a chance to reply to all my online scrapping friends so please take this as a personal thank you!

Today I have my second layout made with the new Scrappy Chat Designs kit. I sure had fun making this one! Here it is:

My son and I were waiting for an appointment one day and, as teens do, he pulled out whatever digital device he carries around in his pocket and started taking selfies. He used a programme called CamWow to distort the photos. We had a good laugh over them!

The papers are from Carta Bella and the background framing is made using the gorgeous Kaisercraft stamp that came in the kit. I love this! You'll see this one appear in my work many more times in the future I'm sure. The black diamonds are made with black ink but the tan colour is made with the Metallic Melts that are also in the kit. I inked up the stamp with VersaMark ink, stamped it then added Metallic Melts on top. I then melted it with a heat gun and I think the effect is amazing! I deliberately kept the images imperfect to give the page a grungier look.

Now you're probably wondering what the story is with that weird 'flourish' beneath the pic. I made it using the Paperclay that came in the kit. I wanted something a bit grungy and different and I think I certainly achieved that!

Here's how I made it:

Step 1

Take a piece of the Paperclay and start rolling it into a sausage shape. Go back to your kindergarten days and pretend you're using Play Dough!

Step 2

Keep rolling it out, letting the piece get longer and thinner.

Step 3

Make several long sausage shapes and just shape them into whatever you want. I then used a piece of thick glass to flatten it but this isn't essential. Then just put the shape aside to dry then paint or decorate as required. I altered the shape of my finished piece slightly after I took this photo.

A tip for the Paperclay - just store it in a Glad Bag once you've opened the pack. This seems to keep it nice and fresh and it's easy to get into again next time.

The great thing about Scrappy Chat Designs kits  is that they come with really interesting products like these. I would never have discovered these products without the kits. And the kits are so generous. There's not a single thing on this layout that didn't come in the kit. I hope you get to play with them. They are sooo much fun!

If you're on holidays, I hope you're having a wonderful time.

Happy scrappin'

Heather

Happy New Year!

Well it's the beginning of a new year and it will be an exciting one for me because I can now announce that I am part of another wonderful design team. I'm on the DT for Dusty Attic! In the short time I have been working with them I can honestly say that you wouldn't find a nicer group of ladies anywhere. An added bonus is that they're all incredibly talented! You can find the full DT announcement here.

I'm looking forward to sharing some of the gorgeous Dusty Attic chippies, paints and flowers with you. You'll be amazed at what's coming up.

Also, the new DT has been announced for Scrappy Chat Designs. Renee and I are staying on and Sandra Wallace has joined us - yay! It should be a fabulous year with many exciting things coming up. The Scrappy Chat kits are truly awesome.

You can see the full DT announcement here.

Here's the team:

And here are the team members' blogs:

http://beckbt.blogspot.com.au/   Beck

http://reneeaslette.blogspot.com.au/   Renee

http://backinmycorner.blogspot.com.au/   Sandra

Again, I am so lucky to be on a team with such amazing, inspirational and lovely people.

I'm also staying on at Scrap Everything so this year should be sooo much fun!

I hope this year brings you many wonderful experiences and is a rewarding one for you.

Heather