An ArtStacks Journey

Welcome back!

The end of 2020 has been such a busy time for us as we've just released our first New Releases at ArtStacks! And I feel so lucky to be the first one to use them. They don't come much more hot off the press than this!

So the first of the New releases is called The Homemaker, a vintage-themed stack based around the life of an early-mid 20th Century housewife. It has 8 pages of gorgeous old-world roses, vintage book papers (some nearly 100 years old), vintage sheet music, pianola roll paper and dress patterns. Many of the pages are unque - no two stacks are the same. How cool is that?

Anyway, I used the printed pianola roll as my background to make this.

Everything on this page is from The Homemaker stack, except the title which is from the Faces & Figures stack.

I adore the printed pianola roll! Here's a tip - layer it over another paper and the colour of the underneath paper will show through the punched holes. Different colours can give surprisingly different effects. I used black here but I could have used white or pink. It's such a unique way to put your own touch to a page.

My layers behind the photo are cut from the page of roses printed on canvas photo paper, plus the other sheet of pianola roll (which I sprayed with pink spray) as well as some of the old book paper. I didn't use the 1920's paper on this one - I'm saving that for a feature piece.

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Happy scrappin'!

Ho Ho Ho!

Welcome to December!

I've got my Ho Ho Ho on at More Than Words where the challenge is to be inspired by the word "Childhood" and to "Add Gold" to your project.

I made an art journal page - or is it a scrapping page? I seem to blend these two a lot. I call it Art Scrapping - or is it Scrap Journalling? Lol.

I used poppies from ArtStacks' Anemones & Friends stack and the hand is from the Faces & Figures stack. All the chippies are from the Dusty Attic. 

To create a cool border I used a mix of stamped words and words cut from ArtStacks pages.

Will you find time in this busy month to join us? There are heaps of awesome prizes to be won!

Happy scrappin'/journallin'!

Heather

Nearly Neon

It's the start of December which means the silly season is officially underway! I hope it's a fun and exciting time for you.

The challenge at Kraft + for December is 'Naturally Neon'. I have an embarrasingly large amount of stash but, much to my surprise, I only had one tube of paint that could be called neon. So I went with using really bright colours and added a splash of the neon lime green. 

Here's my 'nearly neon' page!

I used a mop-up sheet as my background and added butterflies from ArtStacks of course!

I made a ruffle from my mop-up paper and ran it along the edge of the coloured paper.

I hope you find time in this busy month to join us. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

What If You Fly?

Oohhh, I've made my first Monday Muse post for ArtStacks! I wanted to share how easy it is to re-size our DigiStacks. On the ArtStacks blog you can find three simple steps how to do this. You can find the post HERE.

I re-sized a butterfly to create the large wings behind Courtney in this photo. It's so cool and so easy!

I used the red poppies, black and white anemones, tissue flowers and butterflies all from ArtStacks' Anemones & Friends DigiStack.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Fall Down 7 Times

Hello!

Don't you hate it when you go to all the effort to make something then forget to post it? That's what I did this month - lol.

The new Mini Challenge at More Than Words is to use the word FALL on a mini project. I made a postcard.

All my features are from ArtStacks. I used the girl with a swagger from the Faces & Figures stack, the butterfly is from the Anemones & Friends stack and the quote is from the Inspirational Words MiniStack.

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

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

A Bug's Life

Hello and welcome back!

November is all about bugs over at Kraft +! Yep - you need to add bugs to your project made on kraft. Bugs can be anything - ants, beetles, moths or butterflies. 

My daughter and I have just launched our new business - ArtStacks - so I was so excited to be able to use the products for this project. You can check out our brand new website here. 

I made an art journal page for the challenge:

Everything on this page, except the paint and the scrap paper around the quote, is from ArtStacks. I love this figure - she's so expressive. She's from our Faces & Figures stack.

I wanted to use our beautiful butterflies from our Anemones & Friends stacks and I feel I created the impression of the figure opening her mind which worked perfectly with the quote.

The tissue paper flowers under the figure and in the corners are also from the Anemones & Friends stack and the quote is from the Inspirational Words stack.

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

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

'Tis the Season for Leaves!

Hello!

Whoops - I got so sidetracked by the launch of our new business, ArtStacks, that I forgot to put up this post! It's been an incredibly busy, but rewarding, time.

The challenge this month at More Than Words is to be inspired by the word SEASON and to use LEAVES on your project. 

We were in Cres, in Croatia, when we turned a corner and saw the most amazing sunset! Cres is a beautiful old town where the buildings have shuttered windows so I went with lots of shutters from ArtStacks on my page. I painted them blue/grey to match the clouds in the photo.

The chipboard flourish is from The Dusty Attic.

I hope you can join us this month! You can find the challenge details here.

Happy creating!

Heather 

Fly Me To The Moon

 Hello there! 

There's a bit of excitement in the McMahon household tonight as our beloved football team are about to play in the preliminary finals! It'll be a tough gig - we go in as the underdogs. Go Tiges!

OK, that's enough about football! The Mini Challenge at More Than Words has just been revealed and the word to use on your card, tag, ATC or postcard is MOON. I googled some quotes and found this one. I love it!

I started my background with the deep eggplant colour as it reminded me of a night sky and layered stars on top. I found the moon in my stash - bonus!

Will you join us this month? You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Night - A Special Time

Hello again! Have you seen the new challenge at More Than Words this month? You have to be inspired by the word NIGHT and use NO FLOWERS on your project. Now that is a real challenge!

I wanted to make an art journal page so I went searching for a quote. This one is perfect for me!

The quote says, "Night is to see the dreams and day is to make them true". This is so true for me! My best ideas happen at night when there are no distractions and my mind is free to think. I sometimes find it hard to not get up out of bed and start on whatever my idea is though!

The beautiful big flourish is from The Dusty Attic. I painted it silver but that hasn't shown up too well in the pics.

This quote is so suited to me that I even added this to the page:

Yep - this is me to a 'T'!

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

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Getting Chalky at Kraft +

Hello!

Thanks for dropping in. I'm sharing a layout I made for Kraft + this month. The challenge is 'Crazy About Chalk'. I had a small problem - I had no chalk. I rummaged through my stash though and found some chalk pastels and created this.

This project turned out nothing like I originally planned. I was going to make splashes of colour around the black and white photo but my printer is playing up and insists on printing purple where there's supposed to be solid black. I tried all sorts of things to fix it but in the end I accepted I had to use the purple photo, which changed my colour scheme. Having said that I love how it turned out!

To create the coloured squares, I first ran some gesso up and down the page to give the chalk pastels something to grip to and to make the colours pop. I made a simple template by punching squares in some paper and I used a brush to apply different colour chalks in the squares. I tool a leaf out of Amy Churchward's book ( a fellow Kraft + DT member) and spayed a light coat of hairspray over the chalk to keep it in place.

I hope you can join us this month! You don't have to use chalk on your project - you can maybe scrap about covid chalk creations or about chalk on the school blackboard. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

More Than WORDS

Hi! The word to use on your mini project this month at More Than Words is.... Words! Hmmm, what can you create for this?

I made a tag.

I really just used up lots of scraps on this one.

Will you join us this month? You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Going Geometric!

 Hello again!

Have you seen the new challenge over at Kraft + yet? The challenge is to Go Geometric! Well that one got me thinking.  Here's what I made:

I had a clear idea of what I wanted to make and the triangles came out pretty much as planned. I happened to find the stencil though when I was looking for something to put on the background and it was so perfect for the geometric challenge that I couldn't resist it. 

I knew this design would be great for using up paper scraps so I raided my leftovers drawers. Some of the paper is really old but I jazzed the page up by adding some very recent geli prints and stitching. I had it in my head that I wanted blanket stitching on the large red triangle. I contemplated doing it by hand for about 3 seconds then I did it on the machine! As usual, I did lots of messy stitching too.

I kept the leftover paper scraps theme going by making a flower out of coordinating scraps. I love how it turned out. I almost finished off a packet of Heidi Swapp stickers on this but couldn't quite do it. I never seem to finish packs of anything!

I sure hope you can join us this month. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Book Club

 Hello!

So many things have changed since the pandemic started. One of the small changes in my life is that our little book club has to be done by zoom. It's not the same as catching up with my friends irl but it has to do for now.

The challenge this month at More Than Words is to be inspired by the word "Books" and to use use Book Pages on your project. I went one step further and created my art journal page in a book!

I have to fess up that our 'book club' might actually be more of a get together with friends than a real book club!

Will you join us with your book inspirations this month? You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Waiting for the Sun

 Hello again!

It's winter here now and the days have been cold, windy and ... well ... wintry! We're back in lockdown too and I'm really missing those lovely walks we did during the first lockdown when the weather was good.

With this in mind, I was inspired to create this tag for the new More Than Words Mini Challenge. The word to use on your card, tag, ATC or postcard is SUN.

I hope you can join us this month! You can find the info here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Chill Out!

Welcome back!

The new challenge this month at More Than Words is to be inspired by the Chill Out theme and to use a super-cool sketch from Heikes Augenblick.

I took the Chill Out theme literally and scrapped about how we are spending this winter at home due to covid-19 restrictions.

Rather than go with snowy, cold colours, I chose to use warm, rich colours to add that snuggle-up feeling to the page.

I already had that large "2-gether" title but I wanted to add the Chill Out words. My eyes fell on the sketch I had printed to follow for this challenge. The More Than Words challenge board had a perfect copy of the title already made. I just cut it out and added it to my page!

I know butterflies aren't usually relevant for a page about winter but they looked good and the rich colours were perfect ;)

I loved using Heike's fun sketch. I especially loved the stitching part. No surprises there - I love messy stitching on my pages!

Will you join us this month? Here's the challenge board and the sketch. You can find more details here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather