Modern Vintage

Hello! Today I have a more vintage style project to share. I made this for the challenges at Mixed Media & Art and Mixed Media Place.

I made a series of ATC's, layering each stack up with gauze, chipboard and various other media. I coated the chipboard in a variety of products - gesso, Gelatos, ink and Metallic Melts - to achieve that modern vintage look. I love this effect. I actually scraplifted myself for the design of this one and taught these techniques in some classes a while ago.

I thought the title was perfect to celebrate my two gorgeous kids. The photo shows their fun personalities well.

Here's the Mixed Media & Art challenge board.

I took many elements from this board. Obviously the colour scheme was the big influence but I also added book paper, stamped moths, a single leaf and metallic affects. I was excited that they had moths in the moodboard and not butterflies because I knew I had some moth stamps - lol! Some of the moths are stamped on book paper. I even added an image of book spines but it ended up mostly hidden under another layer. The mood board creates an 'old and cozy' feel and I think my layout captures that. You can find the challenge here.

The Mixed Media Place board is gorgeous:

The theme is 'Autumn' so I chose to use autumn colours with a warm, rich feel. I took the brown and gold colours from the central photo. As much as I adore the pinks and oranges, they wouldn't have worked with the style I had in mind for this project. This mood board was all about warmth and comfort so I created my page to reflect this. You can find the challenge here.

I hope you can join in these fabulous and inspring challenges!


Happy scrappin'!


Heather

Shine Bright at More Than Words

Hello there! It's Mini Challenge time over at More Than Words and the word that we need to see on your card, tag, ATC or postcard, is 'Bright'. I made a card:

You know me - if the challenge word is 'bright', I'm not only going to use the word, I'm going to make my project very bright as well. Lol!

I dragged out my old Silks to paint these letters. They have just the right amount of transparency that gave me enough colour but still let me highlight with black pen over the top. I hadn't used them for ages and was horrified to find most of them had dried out but a bit of water on the brush worked well enough.

I hope you can join in the challenge this month. Be quick! You only have until the 30th of September. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!


Heather

Getting My Mojo Back With Art Playground

Hello!

Since I've come back from holidays I've had trouble getting my mojo back. It's the first time this has happened to me and it wasn't fun! Today however, I got very inspired by the challenge over at Art Playground. I'd like to thank them for helping me find my mojo! It's a cold, wet day here, with hail and even a bit of snow, so it was the perfect day to stay inside and scrap about a summer holiday. Here's what I created.

I almost never use purple so this pushed me well outside my comfort zone. I'm thrilled with the results though. The challenge is to use the colours from the board.

The theme to go with the colours is "Oh Blessed Mistakes", the idea being to embrace your mistakes. I was scrapping a few days ago and I started a background for another page. I worked on it before the paint was dry though and I smudged it. I couldn't rescue it, and I couldn't use the back because it had a faded secion on it, so I put it aside. When I saw the Art Playground challenge, I had an idea. I could use my mistake page to start another project.

Here's my 'mistake' page, complete with smudges and a few marks from a stencil.

For this project, I swiped gesso over most of the dodgy circles, leaving just a bit of them showing. The paint I had used for the circles was a textural one so the shape can still be seen under the gesso.

I then went crazy with purples, some pinks and a splash of orange. The hot pink and orange paper behind the photo is a gelli plate print from Fiona Paltridge that she gave me one day. I adore that colour combo! I stamped the roses, then painted them with Pebeo two-toned iridescent paint, which gave an amazing pink and purple metallic look.

In a nod to the circles underneath the gesso, I added some wire circles under my photo.

I ha so much fun making this!

I hope you can play along at Art Playground this month. You can find the challenge here.


Happy scrappin'!

Heather

I'm Back!

Hello there! Welcome back to my blog.

For those of you that might have noticed I was missing for a while, I've been travelling so I haven't been scrapping. I was very privileged to see some amazing sights on this trip.

One of the highlights was the incredible cultural shows in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. I was blown away by how colourful and spectacular the costumes and makeup were. To top it off, the people were so friendly and welcoming, yet so proud.

I wanted to capture all of this on paper so I used part of a photo plus a variety of mediums to try to capture the colour and impact. I hope I succeeded.

I started by cutting out part of a photo that included the face of a spectacularly painted performer.

I used a mix of Tinby Designs Colour Crush, watercolours and acrylic paints to make the head-dress and used watercolours for the shoulders.

Although first impressions when looking at these head-dresses is that they are made of feathers, there are actually many other objects in there. I saw sticks, wool, plastic, sparkly objects and, commonly, long blue strands of plastic that look a bit like the much-desired Bird of Paradise feathers. I have no idea what they are but I tried to incorporate them into this head-dress.

I had some ideas in my head of what I wanted to create and when I found the challenge over at Mixed Media and Art I knew I'd found the right challenge for me. Here's the mood board.

The theme is "Colours of Life", such a perfect description for my proud Highlander in his traditional costume. I was inpired by the blues and yellows of the moodboard but also by the swirls, swipes and splats of paint.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather