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

Deep Inside the Blue Cave

Hello again.

Have you seen the challenge board over at Mixed Media & Art? OMG - it's gorgeous! That delicious blue and gorgeous rusty colours really caught my eye. And then I realised I had the perfect photos for it.

Here's what I made:

This is what the challenge board looks like:

The Blue Cave, in Kastellorizo, in Greece, was simply sensaional! I haven't tweaked this photo, except to increase the brighness because it was a little dark. I was in a cave after all! That really is the colour of the water and it reflects onto the cave walls turning them blue as well. There aren't enough superlatives to describe the almost luminous colours. Here's another photo without people in it so you can see what I mean.

I used heaps of elements from the challenge board. I used the sketch and that stunning, rich blue of course. Because my photo and background were both so blue, I needed other colours to contrast against it. I love the rusty copper and gold colours in the challenge board photos so I ran with those. I used Dusty Attic chipboard leaves and painted them with copper and gold Jo Sonya's paints.

I added a number of metallic elements, painting them all in copper and gold.

To make the second word in my title, I coloured chippe alphas with Gelatos and coated them with Clear Gloss Varnish.

I added some book paper behind my photo, taking my cue from the top photo in the challenge board. I love book paper!

I bought some Wood Wool the other day and included it on this layout. It's looks like fine string but I think it's made from shreds of wood. I coloured it with sprays and tucked it under and around my leaves. It 's really messy stuff. I ended up with it all over my scrap room!

I also added beads in among the elements. One thing I liked about the Wood Wool was that it was strong enough to support beads so I added some onto the actual strands for more depth and for a bubbly effect. (If you look closely at the photo below you will see them.)

I had fun making the circular frame. I used a chippe frame as a base and distressed it with inks, paints, book paper and Metallic Melts. I then wrapped a coated wire around it and painted the wire with copper paint. I added flowers, metallic shapes and beads to finish it off.

If you want to join in the challenge there's still heaps of time. You can find all the details here.


Happy scrappin'!

Heather