The Colours of Bali

Hi and welcome to my second post for this month's Scrappy Chat Designs kit. This kit features some gorgeous October Afternoon papers. To show how versatile these papers are I thought I'd make a page that is about as far from the usual October Afternoon feel as you can get. My page is about Bali!

It's always hard to show a double page online so here are plenty of close ups:

Aren't those Tinby Metallic Melts divine? If you're a member you'll get full instructions on how I made this.

I had so much fun playing with the stencil, Distress Stain and Metallic Melts from the kit on this one.

If you're a Scrappy Chat Designs member then you will be emailed instructions on how I made this. As a member you get heaps of info every month showing techniques, tips and hints as well as a minimum of three videos showing how to make the key three layouts from each kit. Contact orders.scrappychatdesigns.gmail.com.for more info.

Happy Scrappin'!

Heather

My Scrappy Mess

Hello everyone and welcome to the first of my posts using the new "Explore" kit from Scrappy Chat Designs. This has to be favourite kit of mine. It would be a worry if it wasn't cos I picked the papers for it - lol!

These October Afternoon papers are gorgeous. Even though October Afternoon papers look fabulous in their own right, I find they work really well on my pages. The layouts I make with them are usually not vintage or retro themed, as the papers would seem to dictate. I find they work well with all sorts of layout styles.

Here's what I mean:

There's nothing retro about this layout. It's about as modern as you can get!

Don't you just love the title? I found it on one of the sheets of paper. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to use it! I can see so many scrappers relating to it! Here's a closie:

The kit comes with a fabulous Crafter's Workshop stencil, some Distress Stain, Tinby Metallic Melts, cardstock, twine and enamel dots. I've only used two of these products plus the paper on this layout. I can't wait to show you what else I've made!

For those of you who are Scrappy Chat Designs members, a step by step process of how I made the background will be emailed to you. For those of you who aren't members take a look here to see if this might work for you. You get kits, instructions and videos delivered each month to your door or your inbox. How easy is that?

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

My First Jot Challenge

Hi all,

I meant to get this post up a few days ago but kept running out of time! I've made my first layout for a challenge at Jot magazine. This is a very cool online mag - and it's free! You can find it here.

There are several challenges but I've elected to go with the mood board. It's a great mood board and suited the papers I had perfectly. Here's the mood board:

And here's my layout:

I had finished making my layouts with the July kit from Scrappy Chat Designs and I had a few pieces of the gorgeous October Afternoon papers left in teal and mustard colours. The mood board couldn't have been more perfect for me! 

Here are some close ups:

I wanted a more textural background to suit the textural feel of the mood board so I rummaged around and found an old sheet of this embossed paper. I think it creates that textural feel well. I used girls in my photo, as there's a girl in the mood board and I switched the hearts to butterflies as I thought girls of this age might not appreciate too many hearts on their page. Way too soppy for them! I picked up the tan/brown from picture four and used a distress stain in this colour to ink the edges of everything.

Happy Scrappin'!

Heather

Stamp and Distress Stain Tutorial

Hi all,

Here's my first tutorial for Scrap Everything. I was actually inspired by Katherine's tutorial on Scrap Everthing's blog where she discusses using Ranger Distress Stain to stain wooden Off The Page projects. I'd like to take this one step further and show you how to decorate and enhance wooden and chipboard pieces using stamps, ink and Distress Stain.

Take any wooden or chipboard item. I'm using a chipboard frame here.

Using a strong coloured ink, stamp any image you like randomly over the item. I find black StazOn ink gives a good, clear image but most inks will be fine.

Make sure the ink is dry then apply a light coat of Ranger Distress Stain. For best effect, make sure there is a strong contrast between the stamping ink colour and the Distress Stain colour.

It depends on what you're creating, but I often then like to apply a good coat of Glossy Accents to finish it off. Leave this to dry for at least a couple of hours and preferably overnight. And there you have it - your own unique embellishment!

Here's a variation on the same theme:

I've taken a wooden Kaisercraft balloon here. I was looking at my stamps and realised one of the Kaisercraft stamps had a circle pattern on it about the same size as my balloon. I inked up the stamp and just stamped the circle part of the image onto my balloon.

I then applied Distress Stain to the balloon part of the piece. I then took a second Distress Stain and applied that to the basket. I didn't want a glossy finish to this piece so I left it at that.

How good does that look? This took me a total of about one minute to create!

And you can even take this a step further by embossing your stamped pattern if you prefer.

Next time you want to use wooden or chipboard embellishments, have a think about how you could apply this method to them. It's such a fast and effective way to transform them to suit your page perfectly.

Enjoy!