Less is More, Sparkle City Sure Does Sparkle

Hello crafty friends!

This month the amazing Scrap Shotz team sent me some of Shimelle's Sparkle City collection to play with and, wow, talk about colour and vibrant and silly and fun. My favourite!

As with all of Shimelle's amazing collections, this one is full of purples, pinks, reds, greens and all the amazing patterns. The puffy stickers are gorgeous and the die cuts are so cute (think smiling cartoon pigeons and little french fry containers) - some of them are even holographic!

Take a peek ...

To be honest with so much colour and so many options (the paper pad alone has 48 sheets), I was a little overwhelmed. I wanted to play with all the things. So I started small. Small photos and a small amount of product. A 'less is more' approach to get the Sparkle City spark going.

My approach ...

In my photo stash, I had two tiny (2x2 inch) colour photos of my crazy nephew following me around a tourist shop in Victoria, B.C. wearing a plastic horse mask. I was laughing so hard at his antics I could barely take the photos  - so they are horrible. But good photo or not, this memory had to be scrapbooked. Besides how good does a photo of an 11year old in a plastic horse mask need to be?!

Now usually with a bright collection, I use neutral or even black and white photos and very large photos to help bring some calm to the layout. However, this is Shimelle's collection and I feel she is all about colour and would appreciate a more vibrant approach, so I went for it - a big colour, but a small product and photo, approach.

You can probably see that I used very little product - less is more with the super bright and cute collections for me. I used 4 die cuts (the camera and the little city building), two small scraps of paper behind my photo and roughed up the edges to bring some mess and dimension to the layout, 3 tiny stars, 3 phrase stickers and a title. A lot goes a long way with this much sparkle!

I really wanted to draw the eye to the tiny photos so decided to place the photos cluster on a two-tone watercolour 'mess'. I chose purple and red as those are two of the colours of the little die cut buildings but also because I just love these two colours together. I simply found some red and purple watercolour paints in my stash and used the packaging technique to smoosh a puddle of wet paint onto the page. Yes, smoosh is a technical term - all the mixed media gals are using it (wink, wink). 

Once assembled, I finished off the layout with some journal pen stitching around the border of the page - this is where you literally freehand lines down each side of the page with a couple of random squiggles as if the "sewing machine" got all caught up. Then added a few matching purple and red splatters. I like white space but only so much. 

I love how this layout turned out! Off camera and before it went in the page protector, I added some freehand horizontal lines below the photo to the bottom of the page and added my journaling. I was chuckling to myself as I wrote- what a ham my nephew is. Oh he makes me laugh! 

Now that I have cracked open the Sparkle City vault - I am dying to make more, off I go!  Hope you all have a few mins to get crafty this weekend too. 

December Daily Mini Album with Lawn Fawn

Hi there!

This is my fifth year doing a version of a December Daily album.  Obviously, December is a busy time, so to make things simple I usually make my own mini album ahead of time.  The Perfectly Plaid 6x6 paper pack from Lawn Fawn is perfect for a mini album.

To start the album, cut the following pieces of heavy cardstock:

1 - 12" x 6"
3 - 12" x 5.75"
2 - 5.5" x 5.5"pł

Score the 12 x 6 piece at 3" and 2.5" from each end.

Adhere the two 5" x 5" pieces of cardstock to the outer flaps of the 12" x 6" cardstock making sure to centre the piece with an even border around it. This will be the cover.

Score the three 12" x 5.75" pieces at 3" inches from each end. Adhere the three scored and folded pieces together to make a paper chain.

Adhere the centre portion of the paper chain to the centre of the cover. Be sure to use very strong adhesive to do this step (I used wet glue) since this is the part that is the support for the book pages.

You can leave the book like this and it will give you 11 pages (not counting the covers). But, I do all 31 days of December, so I needed more pages. I cut and scored a two more 12" x 5.75" pieces and adhered them to the ends of the paper chain. I cut and folded three 5" x 10" pieces and adhered them to the centre of each panel to make flip up pages. I added more pieces and flip cards to the album until I had 31 pages.

Now that the album is finished, I wall papered every page with the Lawn Fawn paper.

For the cover, I embossed and watercoloured  the poinsettia stamp from The Ton. The pine branches and snowflakes are cut from a Kaisercraft die from my stash. The scalloped circle was cut from with my Silhouette. Swing Thickers from the September Kit  and some alphas from my stash make up the title. The dots are from Liquid Pearls in Gold.

The only page completed in the album is the dedication page. I keep all my Christmas/December Daily supplies in a pizza box and try to use any products that will work for my needs. Here, I used an old Elle Studio journaling card, some more Lawn Fawn paper cut with a Fiskars punch and the number one die cut from an old Spellbinders tag die.  The rest of the pages will be completed as the month progresses.

I have prepared a short video showing how the album looks with all the pages expanded.

I'm pretty happy with this album and can't wait for December to get started!

Thanks for looking!

The Ton Stamps - Peony Cluster Mini and Cozy Poinsettia

Hi there!

This month I got to play with stamps and die sets from The Ton.  This is a "new to me" stamp line, but I'm thinking there will be more added to my collection very soon.  The designs are so versatile and the detail is incredible.

I started with a simple card design using the Peony Cluster Mini.

After heat embossing with gold, I used some pink water colour to colour my image.  I'm quite the novice at water colouring, so I find embossing the image first is quite forgiving.

The flowers were then cut with the available die and using foam tape, mounted it on a nest of pink twine. All of that was then placed on top of the strip of pink cardstock which had been stamped repeatedly with the sentiment. To finish it off, I added some strips of washi tape, some rhinestones, and rounded the corners of the card.

Now that my creative muscles were flexed, I set out to play with the Cozy Poinsettia stamp.

The gold embossing and the water colours were still on my desk, so I used those supplies again.  This time, instead of using regular foam adhesive, I used the die to cut out some fun foam.  The larger image was quite warped (even though I had used water colour paper), and gluing the image to the fun foam keeps it nice and flat.  I think it will hold up better in the mail, as well.

I mounted the image on a piece of white cardstock and a piece of patterned paper from the Perfectly Plaid 6x6 pad by Lawn Fawn.  I embellished it with a small strip of washi at the top and some Nuvo Crystal Drops in Pale Gold.

The creative juices were flowing now, so I pulled out my Copics and started colouring.

Again, I'm no expert in Copic colouring and I only have a few markers.  I started by stamping the image with Black Archival Ink. The markers were R05, R27, R89, G24, G17, and YR09.  Then, Stickles were added to the centers.

Using an A2 sized card, I cut approximate,2 3/4 inches off the front of the card base and replaced it with a piece of Hot Off the Press Acetate. To cover the seam, I placed some washi tape. I stamped the sentiment on top of the acetate with Staz On Ink. 

Whew!  Lots of words to explain three pretty simple cards.  But, I just love how they turned out.

Thanks for looking and for any products not linked, please be sure to check out the store.

May 2017 Scrap Shotz Kit Reveal...Hello

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Hello!

It's Rosie, back with a couple of cards made with the Scrap Shotz May kit.

One of the kit add ons is this Hero Arts Ombre ink pad used in the card above.
To create the inked background, press the stamp pad on white card stock, let dry and then trim.
Choose 2 coordinating patterned papers, trim to size to fit a 5.5" X 4.25" card base, adhere to card base offset and using foam tape.

Hello is die cut using the Avery Elle Simply Said Hello die, not in stock but can be special ordered.
Glossy Accents is generously applied over the die cut and then adhered with foam tape over inked card stock.

Dollar Store sequins add some shine and the card is ready for giving😁.

When I received this kit I thought it would be perfect for a fabulous Father's Day card and I still think so, BUT I didn't get one done😬, instead I made birthday card.

I heat embossed the stamped flowers with silver detail embossing powder on watercolour paper and then coloured with the Hero Arts Ombre ink pad and a water brush for the flowers. The green leaves are coloured with Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolours.

If I manage to whip up a Father's Day card with this kit I will post it as a bonus project so make sure you keep checking back here to see what happens!

Thanks for taking a look😃
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