It's Time to be Merry!

Ho Ho Ho! It's time to be Merry at More Than Words. Yes, the word to use on your card, tag, ATC or postcard this month is 'Merry'. Because it's such a crazy time of the year, we've decided to put our Mini Challenge up early so you have two weeks, instead of the usual one week, to get your entry in.

I made some Christmas tags.

I grabbed some old clothing tags and used them on my gelli plate, adding all sorts of patterns in reds, yellows and greens. I added sentiments, many containing the word 'Merry', and added stamping and rub-ons. I finished them off with ribbons and baubles on wire.

Here are some close ups of individual tags.

If you can find some time in this busy month we'd love to see you join in the fun! You can find the challenge here.


Happy scrappin!


Heather

All Needles and Pins at Kraft Plus

Welcome to December and to a new challenge at Kraft Plus! This month, your challenge is to use Needles and Pins somehow in your kraft-based project. You can use the needles and pins themselves or you can add stitching or even just punched holes!

I came up with this:

I took some fun photos of my bestie and I one day when we were travelling together and they've been great to scrap.

I used the Needles and Pins theme in a few different ways. I stitched the title using my sewing machine. I'd never tried to do this before and it certainly was challenging, but I got there in the end. Note that I used a very short title to lessen the chance of a serious mistake! It didn't turn out perfect but it worked. I also used a pin on the butterfly beside it.

I also stitched a fancy border around the edges of the page. I made this by increasing and decreasing the size of the zig-zag stitches.

I had this pack of Kaisercraft embellishments sitting on my desk for a while. I wanted to use them but they were very little-girl themed and I have no little girls in my life at the moment. By only using certain items I was able to use them for a big-girl page instead!

I also dug out my old brads for this. I seem to be reaching for them a lot lately.

I hope you can join us at Kraft Plus this month. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!


Heather

What Do You Believe In?

Hello there! Have you seen the new challenge over at More Than Words? You need to be inspired by the word 'Believe' and use stamping on your layout, canvas or art journal page. Cool!

I went pretty crazy with the stamps on this one. I lost count of how many I used!

The word 'Believe' made me think of Christmas and I found these funny photos from Christmas last year. We always have plenty of laughs when our crazy family gets together. I don't know what they were putting on thier heads in these photos. Some sort of decoration I think!

I stamped the frames around the photos then coloured them with watercolours. I used the same watercolours to colour a few other stamped images near the photos.

Most of the background stamping was done in black. Over the top I laid a banner. I used the same watercolours to colour the flags.

Lost of crazy stitching adds a bit of texture and interest.

I even stamped the journalling. It's not something I plan to do a lot of again - it took quite a while!

I know December is a busy month but hopefully you can join us at More Than Words! You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!


Heather

Weaving with DeeDee

Oh my! I've just got back from a very big weekend in Mt Gambier (in South Australia) with DeeDee Catron from the US and Fiona Paltridge. It was fantastic! We had some awesome classes and a very big Saturday night out on the town. For a small town, Mt Gambier punches above its weight for nightlife! It helps that the girls (and a few hubbies) were such a fun bunch too!

Our last class was a weaving class. We learned some very cool techniques where we transferred rust from old metal bits and pieces onto material strips that we then wove into rusty, rustic works of art. Everyone created something unique and they were all awesome! We got the bulk of the work done in the class then we finished them off at home which was great cos I could dig up interesting material and rusty things to add into the project.

Here's my end result:

I added many metal pieces to this. I hung it from an old rusty drill bit and added an old chain to the front once I'd finished the weaving.

You can see all the different textures and rust marks on the materials. I added lots of knots and lumpy bits for some cool texture.

From the bottom I hung 'tassels' made of cloth, fibres, twines and a variety of metal pieces. There's everything from barbed wire to a water tank tap handle in there!

Each 'tassle' is anchored to a rusty nut or washer.

This was such fun to make! Thanks DeeDee for such a fun and educational class!


Happy scrappin'!


Heather

Shine at More Than Words!

Welcome back!

Firstly, I'd like to send out a big thank you to those of you who follow my blog. Your comments and messages of support on some recent posts means a lot to me. The scrapping community is a very supportive one!

Today I'd like to share a card I made for the mini challenge at More Than Words. The challenge is to use the word 'Shine' on your card, tag, ATC or postcard. I made a card:

This is unusually flowery for me. I just felt like making something in this style. I was inspired to by the realisation that I have heaps of flowers in my stash that I rarely use. Part of the reason I don't use them much is that I don't like bulky layouts as I keep my layouts in albums. A card is the perfect solution to use them up!

I love this colour combo of pink, orange and yellow with kraft. I added bare chipboard and corrugated cardboard in neutral tones too.

Are you going to give our challenge a go this month? You can find the details here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Scrap the Boys

Hi there! I thought I'd give a challenge a go this week. I had a favourite photo of my son and I in mind when I went challenge hunting and I found it was perfect for the challenge at Scrap the Boys.

Here's what I made:

I found my inspiration for the background when I was least expecting it. I was walking past the TV while my hubby was watching it and there was an English cartoonist pouring ink onto paper, making blobs and splats. I was immediately inspired to pour paint on my background. It took a few goes to get the right look but I was rapt with the result. The cartoonist is Ralph Steadman. I couldn't find his paint pouring technique on youtube but I found some of his other work here. He's such a talented man!

Some of my blobs landed in exactly the right places :)

The challenge at Scrap the Boys is to scrap a photo of YOU with the boy in your life. Here's the board:

I used the title literally. I also added the red heart.

I added loads of messy stitching on this.

I hope you can join in at Scrap the Boys this month!


Happy scrappin!


Heather

Lionfish!

Hello there! Have you seen the challenge at Kraft Plus yet? Let the word 'Mosaics' inspire you. Oohh, now that's got you thinking hasn't it?

Firstly, I'd like to thank the ladies at Paper Flourish for sending me an amazing package when I won a challenge. Guess what was inside? Mosaic patterned paper! To top it off there were also mosaic tiles and lots of other bits and pieces. With the exception of the alphas, I made this page entirely from the prize.

Unusually for me, I've scrapped on A4 sized paper because I think the album for this trip is going to be A4 sized. These photos were taken on an island in Indonesa called Seraya. I've never seen so many lionfish before. They were truly amazing!

I alternated between topping my squares with photos and mosaic tiles. I adore those tiles!

The blues and greens of the mosaic paper went perfectly with my underwater photos I thought.

Can you join in the challenge with us at Kraft PLus this month? You can find the challenge here..

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Be Brave

Welcome back!

Today, my scrapbook page is not a happy one. It's about a subject close to my heart. For 12 years we have been fighting a wind project that was planned to be built near our property and now it is finally under construction. 2,000 people live within 5kms of these enormous turbines and so many people in our community have fought long and hard to prevent our beautiful rural landscape from being industrialised. We have failed in this objective, however we did manage to get better noise monitoring and checking in place for those who will live closest to the turbines, which is something.

I'm not usually a negative person and I don't usually express emotions like these in my scrapping, however the challenge at More Than Words this month is to be inspired by the word 'Future' and to add 'Stars' to the project. No matter how much I thought about alternative topics for this, I always came back to the thought of how much our environment is about to change.

Here's what I made:

The torn paper indicates the many lives that have been torn apart here and the stitching represents how we've tried to help each other as much as possible. The stars show that there is hope that our community can deal with what's coming and move on.

The paper is a gorgeous one from 13arts. I wound cotton around the alphas and one of the stars and used the same cotton to roughly stitch across the tear. I've stamped some stars on the background but the main stars are cut from book paper. I adore book paper! I even put on a starry t-shirt for the photo - lol!

I hope you can join in our challenge this month. You can find the details here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

The Colours of Autumn

Hello! I've been very inspired lately by a number of challenges. There are some gorgeous mood boards around at the moment! The ones that influenced this creation are Our Mixed Media Moods, Art Playground,  Scrapki-Wyzwaniowo and CSI- Color, Stories, Inspiration. I have never entered four challenges with one project before but these all feature autumn leaves or an autumn theme!

Firstly, here's my project. It could be classified as a layout or art journal page but it will go into my album and fits on 12 x 12 paper so I'll call it a layout! I had so much fun making this.

I've included many of my favourite techniques on this project. Black, white and book paper is a favourite combo of mine. In this case it's black, cream and book paper as the book paper I used is fairly old and has a yellowed look about it - awesome! The messy stitching is something I use a lot - I love it! I also used some of my favourite products such as the punch along the right hand side and the Tinby Designs Colour Crush on the background.

I used a metallic copper paint through a stencil and matched it with a funky copper-coloured fibre.

I wanted to highlight the leaves on the Dusty Attic chipboard so I found a punch that had tiny little pieces that are roughly leaf-shaped. I punched these shapes out of book paper and added these to the chipboard. It was fiddly work but I love the result.

I love messy stitching!

The photo was taken in a gorgeous forest in Italy where the leaves were just starting to turn a stunning yellow. Coming from Australia, we don't see many forests with autumn leaves so I was pretty excited by this!

Two of the challenges I'm entering are intertwined. The challenge at Art Playground is to use some colours from their mood board and to be inspired by 'My Muse'. Here's the mood board:

I used a range of the olive colours on my background as well as the more coppery colour. The colours look metallic here so I used metallic copper paint. I am inspired by a number of amazing scrappers and artists and one of these is the incredible DeeDee Catron. I love her quirky style and the way she creates pieces that look stunning without being cluttered. She is definitely 'My Muse'.

DeeDee helps run Our Mixed Media Moods which also has a challenge this month. After watching DeeDee's video I rushed straight to the scrap room and created this piece. Here's the mood board:

I was inspired by the photo in the bottom right corner, as well as the text on the aged-looking pieces in the top left photo. DeeDee's creation for this challenge is awesome! You can check it out here.

The challenge up at Scrapki-Wyzwaniowo is to use leaves. Easy!

I have autumn leaves in my photo, book paper leaves on my chipboard and some plain chipboard leaves in the corner of my photo under the title.

Last, but certainly not least, the other challenge that was sitting on my desk as I made this was CSI. Again, it's an autumn- themed mood board.

I clues I used are:
Evidence:
Book paper
Leaves and branches
Fall-themed elements
Twine
Something woven (the copper fibre)
Distressing

Testimony:
Document something about autumn
The Scheme:
Khaki and flax yellow (on the background)
Dark, dark brown (on the branches)

Phew - that was a long post! I hope you can jump on board and join in some of the challenges too!


Happy scrappin'!

Heather