Dream at More Than Words

Can you guess what the Mini Challenge word is for December? Yes - it's DREAM! You must use the word DREAM on your card, tag, ATC or postcard.

I made a tag.

I made this with my own geli prints and ArtStacks papers. The gorgeous gingko leaf and the row of trees are from ArtStacks' new Trees & Leaves stack. I love this one! You can find it here.

I did some experimenting with the ArtStacks tissue. I wrote on it with a permanent pen then applied it with gel paste. It worked perfectly. You can't see the tissue at all!

I hope can join us over at More Than Words this month. You can find the challenge here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Peace, Hope and Love

Welcome back! have you seen the new challenge over at More Than Words yet? The challenge is to be inspired by the word "Wishes" and to use Trees on your art journal page.

ArtStacks recently released a new stack called Trees & Leaves so I had many trees images to choose from! In the end, the gorgeous colours of the pink and yellow tall trees spoke to me so I based my page around these.

My background is a sheet of the printed pianola roll paper from The Homemaker CardStack. I layered it over pink paper so the pink showed through the small rows of holes. I added an extra border of the roses and stencilled and swiped paint over the top.

I painted gold stars to make the trees look Christmassy. These are all from The Dusty Attic.

I finished with a quote printed on tissue from another New Release, the Christmas Quotes MiniStack. As usual, this tissue has almost disappeared when applied, leaving just the print showing. I love it!

You can find the trees, the printed pianola roll paper and the quote over at ArtStacks here.

I hope you'll join us over at More Than Words! You can find the challenge here.

Happy art journalin'!

Heather

The Wrong Day

Hi again. How is your December so far?

I found time to relax in my craft room and came up with this piece for ArtStacks. I love this quote and the cute little guy. Both are from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack. 

I made a balloon with the collaged shapes I've been making lately and tangled the string into a mess to work with the title. The gorgeous gingko leaves are from the new Trees & Leaves stack.

I find that these quotes and images from Lorraine Haight Moraine make creating a breeze!

Head to www.artstacks.com.au for more info.

Happy craftin'!

Heather

Rainbow Love at Kraft Plus!

Hello and welcome to THAT month! Have things got a little crazy for you yet? I'm ok at the moment but I'm about to get very busy with so many December events on.

Luckily, creating is still my relaxing time and I've been able to get a project done for the new challenge at Kraft Plus. You have to be inspired by rainbows. What a cool challenge!

I adore colour so I had trouble deciding what to create at first, but in the end I found this fantastic quote and decided to create an art journal page based around the quote.

To make this, I first layered the RAINBOW letters onto the cardstock then added Magicals on top then lightly sprayed them with water. You then need to let everything dry thoroughly before removing the letters. This left the word in white behind which I outlined with black.

I raided my bits and pieces drawer to find small images to add to the page - I even found a rainbow and a cloud! To keep to the kraft requirement, I backed my page with kraft and added a large leafy image made with kraft.

Will you join us over at Kraft + this month? You can find the challenge here.

Concertina Album

Hi! 

I thought I'd make something different and came up with this concertina album. It's designed to sit on a coffee table or display bench, showing off photos, or even quotes. I 'anchored' it at either end with Altered Ancestor figures from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack.

I cut a piece of cardstock in half and scored it to create the folds. I cut, then punched the ends then added my own geli prints to the background. I then added organic shapes from paper that I'd collaged. The paper that I collaged with came from The Homemaker CardStack, hence the beautiful pinks.

I finished it with ribbons along the top.

I taught this at a class on the weekend and we had a great time playing with geli prints and collage!

To see more info, head to the ArtStacks blog here.

Happy craftin'!

Heather

Remembering Our Dog

Hello! 

The challenge over at Kraft Plus this month is to create about "All creatures great and small". As soon as I saw this I knew who I had to create about. We lost our nearly 18-year-old dog a few months ago. He was not the world's smartest dog and as age caught up with him he became very needy, but I chose to highlight one trait that always struck me - he was always so full of joy! I think people can learn a lot from dogs sometimes.....

Another thing I didn't have to think too much about was using ArtStacks' new Trees & Leaves stack for this. I'm finding these images are really useful for when I don't want to use flowers on my page. 

I was rapt that we had kept his name tag. I think that adding it to the page is the perfect way to keep it safe.

Will you share your favourite pet with us this month? Head to the Kraft+ page to check out the details here.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

The Positivity Project

Welcome back!

There's a new project happening over at ArtStacks! It's called The Positivity Project. It's not a competition - it's just about creating art with a positive or uplifting message to help us all when times are tough, like they are for so many people at the moment.

To enter, just post your project on the ArtStacks Facebook page here. You can find more details there too.

I thought I'd create an art journal page:

The funny thing is that it isn't so much this quote that's uplifting for me - it's the Dooo-doo-doo chorus that I wrote around the edges of the page. I find it hard not to be uplifted by that simple, catchy and somewhat silly chorus. I smile every time I think of it!

You certainly don't have to use any ArtStacks products for The Positivity Project but, of course, I did! I used the gingko leaf from the new release Trees & Leaves CoreStack, the vintage figure from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack and a quote from the Words of Wisdom MiniStack.

I hope you can join in!

Happy creatin'!

Heather

Showing Gratitude at More Than Words

Welcome back to a new challenge at More Than Words! This month, you need to create an art journal page inspired by the word GRATITUDE and use the colours from our challenge board image.

I came up with this:

I really enjoyed making this one although the detailed work on the face ended up driving me crazy! I rashly decided I was going to do a collage so I took a geli print and punched small circles from it then put these together to make the face. It took me ages! I really like how it turned out though.

I added some ArtStacks eyes and made her features a bit imperfect - crooked eyes, crooked mouth, different coloured eyes etc.

Almost the whole piece is made from geli prints. The only exceptions are the ArtStacks gingko leaves and the ArtStacks trees that form the base of the background. These are both from the new Trees & Leaves stack. I even used the leftover punched geli strip paper to write my title on.

I hope you can join us at More Than Words this month. You can find the challenge here.

Happy journalin'!

Heather

Christmas Card Recipe #2

Welcome back to my series of Christmas card recipes!

For today's cards, I focussed on using just white, kraft and a pop of one colour.

I've written up the recipe, plus costs, on the ArtStacks website. For full instructions click here.

I sure hope you can join in the fun!

Happy cardmakin'!

Heather

Black, White and One

Hello! For the first time in ages, I'm participating in a challenge! The challenge over at Challenge YOUrself caught my eye. It's black, white and one - and you have to include yourself in the photo. I'm a bit of a fan of  black and white so I thought I'd give it a go.

We had a recent holiday in Queensland and I thought I'd scrap something from that trip but not many pics had me in them! I eventually found one, and it relates to a story I really wanted to scrap, so it was perfect.

The fun challenge about this was that the chook was purple and it was obvious that purple had to be my 'one' colour. This is not a colour I use often but I think it suited the topic well.

I had my first real play with some of the leaves from the new Trees & Leaves stack over at ArtStacks. They were so much fun! Being printed on mixed media paper, I could colour them with watercolours to match my page. I left one type white in keeping with the black and white theme.

Going to the Tambo Chook Races was a hugely funny night. Aussie friends, if ever you get the chance to go there, do it!

I'm joining in over at Challenge YOUrself.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

 

It's Spooky Time at More Than Words

Hello. Have you heard - the More Than Words Mini Challenge is back! This month, you have to create a card, tag, ATC or postcard with the word SPOOKY on it.

I created a tag:

Almost everything on the tag is from ArtStacks - the tree, the cat, the background paper and the cute, somewhat worried-looking little boy! The boy is from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack. I think he's adorable!

Will you join us this month? Head to the new More Than Words Art Cafe to join in!

Happy spookin'!

Heather

Christmas Card Recipe #1

Welcome back!

I'm running a new series of tutorials called Christmas Card Recipes over the next couple of months. These tutorials will show you how to make cost-effective yet eye-catching Christmas Cards. I give you a list of ingredients (most of which you will have in your stash) plus costs and how to put them together.

This is Christmas Card Recipe #1. The full recipe is available over at ArtStacks so, rather than have me re-write it all here, just head to www.artstacks.com.au/blog/ 

I hope you can join in the fun!

Happy craftin'!

Heather

It's Manga Time at Kraft Plus!

Manga! Ooohh yes, this is a challenging challenge isn't it? There have been some great interpretations of the challenge already though. This topic is more flexible than you might first think! 

I'm lucky that both my kids loved manga as they were growing up. Courtney has made some amazing manga drawings and paintings over the years so I thought I'd create about some of those. For a fun twist, I embellished the page with ArtStacks flowers and butterflies as Courtney drew those as well. 

Will you join us over at Kraft + this month? 

www.kraftpluschallenges.blogspot.com

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

More Than Words is Back!

Hello and welcome to some exciting news! After a few months' break, More Than Words is back!

We have made some changes and the first one you'll notice is that the new More Than Words Main Challenge is for art journals only. Yes, a dedicated art journal challenge!

Here's the first challenge board:

What a cool challenge! Here's what I made for it.

I used the 'write' theme as inspiration for my title. This tissue title from ArtStacks was perfect. I LOVE how the ArtStacks tissue just disappears into the background. I also wrote some journaling at the bottom of the page.

I made an image transfer from a magazine, then cut the words form the same magazine to describe my girl's story plus I used some paper from the same magazine as backing for my page.

I can't wait to see what you create! Head to www.morethanwordschallenge.com for all the details.

Happy journaling!

Heather

Nanny's Flower Quote

Hi there! Today I have a step-by-step tutorial showing how you can use scraps to create beautiful backgrounds. I made this background entirely from scraps from The Homemaker stack plus a piece of paper that I geli-printed myself.

I started my art journal page by adding some colourful scraps of paper behind some pianola roll paper from The Homemaker stack. The dots on the pianola paper allow the coloured paper to show through, creating a cool effect.

I then layered on random scraps from The Homemaker stack plus some more of the coloured geli-printed paper.

I really like the rows of coloured dots created by the pianola roll paper over the coloured paper so I decided to reinforce this by making rows of larger dots. l used a standard hole-punch to punch out lots of small circles and glued these in rows. I also added the negative strips from those dots plus some more coloured paper. I painted pink around the edges of the pages and added a rose, again from The Homemaker stack.

I wanted to add my crazy stitching around the edges of the page but I had other art on the back of these pages and the stitching would show on them so I took more scraps from The Homemaker stack and added lots of stitching to them then glued those to the page.

The final step was to add butterflies, a flower and a quote from the Anemones & Friends CardStack. In the stack, the quote is attributed to Walter Hagen, however my mother-in-law used to use this quote a lot so I'm attributing it to her! I finished by using a black pen to finalise the border and highlight the rows of dots.

I love using up leftover scraps to create with!

Happy creating!

Heather

A New Kraft + Challenge!

 Hello there!

Oh gosh - the new challenge over at Kraft + is a beauty this month. You have to be inspired by Laura Horn. Laura's work is beautiful - I really love it. There's lots of watercolour and abstract shapes.

I created my background using Laura's work as my inspiration then added an Altered Ancestor figure and a quote from Lorraine Haight Moraine's new stack over at ArtStacks. There's a double-artist inspiration on this one!

I'm still using my collaged sheet made up of leftovers on my desk that are largely from "The Homemaker" stack at ArtStacks. I cut rough circular shapes from it to add to this background. I really love these!

I hope you can join us at Kraft +. You can find the challenge details here.

Happy creating!

Heather

Set it Down Anywhere

Hello! Sorry I've been MIA - I'm on holidays, catching some sunshine and avoiding covid spots.

ArtStacks is sponsoring the month-long #seekgathercreate challenge so I thought I'd participate.

The challenge requires you to use certain items on your project. Weeks 3's requirements are:

The focus of my page is an Altered Ancestor and funny quote from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack. I love these!

Because I'm on holidays I found it hard to collect some of the items needed for the challenge. The old photo was easy - Lorraine's images are perfect for this! I used blue watercolour and a piece of one of the blue backgrounds from Lorraine's BackStack. The fabric part was not so easy. I eventually cut off the hanger ribbon from inside one of my t-shirts and used that! I cut the barcode from a cheese packet and used the Say Cheese sticker from the same pack. I thought it was appropriate for the stern-looking woman. I added the badge about only 6 grams of sugar as there is very little sugar in this woman's expression. :)

I hope you can join in the #seekgthercreate challenge. You could win an ArtStacks prize!

Happy creating!

Heather

Doesn't Follow Directions......

Hello! It's the first of the month which means there's a new challenge over at Kraft + and it's such an original challenge. You have to use pie-chart shapes on your kraft-based project!

I thought about this then decided to create some funky, oversized flowers that are in a pie-chart shape.

My flowers started out as a collaged piece of paper using up scraps that were lying around my desk, mostly from ArtStacks' The Homemaker Stack. I simply collaged these onto a blank background then used this collaged paper to cut out my flowers.

To create the flowers, I simply cut rough circles from the paper then cut a couple of pie wedges from the circles, moved them out from the main circle slightly, then decorated them with 'stamens'.

The funny woman and the quote are from Lorraine Haight Moraine's CoreStack from ArtStacks. I love these!

I thought the lady is the very strange dress clearly doesn't follow directions - or understand the meaning of "one word" - lol!

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

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Just for a Laugh

Hello there!

I've been having so much fun playing with ArtStacks' new Artist Series stacks by Lorraine Haight Moraine! I adore Lorraine's snarky, funny quotes and I've used two of them here on my tags.

Aren't the Altered Ancestor figures so cool? They match the quotes perfectly.

All the papers on these tags are from Lorraine's stacks. The figures, bags and quotes are from her CoreStack and the background papers, including the black and cream paper, are from her BackStack.

You can find Lorraine's stacks here

Happy scrappin'!

Heather