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