Dina Wakley's Introduction to Art Journalling workshop

What a FABULOUS day I had last Sunday! Not only did I go on a road trip with my gal pals Karyn and Nicole, I got to spend 6 hours learning all about art journalling and being a sponge and absorbing as many creative vibes as possible from Dina and a handful of other very special ladies.

I had so much fun getting messy and painting for hours and learning some great new techniques. Three days later my knuckles are still accessorized with blue Dylusions. That's always a good look. :) 

So anyway, I have lots of photos to share!

I had to just let go and trust the process with this page... I wasn't sure where the 'cover it all with black' thing was going to end up but I don't mind how it turned out in the end!

The Pages 2 Scrap staff and design team - Sam, Heidi, Dina, Karen, me, Tracey, Karyn and Julie

Loving the saturated blue with lots of white space  :)

Luv my handmade cloud stamp from Extase.  :)

The lovely Heidi - thanks for letting me borrow all your stuff chicky! :)

This is my fave page - I had some bits of an old comic and the text in it seemed really appropriate. And that bit of journalling? You need a Ohto Fude Ball pen. Go get one now. They write on anything. I reckon they would write on water. Pages 2 Scrap should have them back in stock very soon. :)

Messy, scribbly, stencily fun.

Rainbow layers! 

Thanks Dina for sharing your skills and techniques and stencils and stamps and making us all realise we CAN draw! xx

And thanks to Lisa for letting me share the two pics below... aren't our hands BEAUTIFUL?

CSI 67: Hey crab man!!

This is the first time I've had a go at a CSI challenge... I've avoided them a bit because, man, there's so many rules! 

But I happened to have these pics of Ty in a crab costume sitting on my desk, and the colours just clicked. :)

I've used all the colours and the sketch, and for the evidence I have used clouds and outlining in pen, and punctuation embellishment if you count the white asterixes.

For the testimony I've handwritten my journalling and I guess it's documenting something funny too, I laugh every time I look at this ridiculous costume!!

I've used a lot of stuff on my page but no mist (very unusual for me!), and I got to use up those metal circles which are actually some tag maker rims from Making Memories that are a million years old. And would you believe I had a die cut crab in my stash? It was meant to be.  :)

Paper from Echo Park, Crate, Glitz, Making Memories metal circles, Fancy Pants brads, Jenni Bowlin buttons, Bella Blvd clouds, washi tape, crabs and swimmer badge from a way old Pink Paislee Nantucket ephemera pack, Amy Tangerine Thickers (and asterixes), red Dymo letter stickers from Officeworks, Sodalicious arrows.

And so... I have made myself an art journal.

I altered the cover of this el-cheapo watercolour pad back before Christmas, but I hadn't shared it with you because I haven't really done much in it yet. :)

But, I'll definately be giving it a work out on Sunday....

I'm heading up to Pages 2 Scrap to meet the amazingly talented Dina Wakely for her Introduction to Art Journalling workshop!

WOOOOT!

Stay tuned for pics and awesomeness and INSPIRATION!! xoxxoxo

April 123 Challenge!

Here's my take on this month's 123 Challenge which is to use...

Duck-egg blue   +  "Today"   +   Whitewash

I had to scrap these pics of Holly being a diva (with a sugar moustache)  :)

I love how my background turned out :)  I suppose it's not technically 'whitewash' but it's 'white spray!' and lots of it - a fingerpainted base made with some white paint, then heaps of Mister Hueys on top, left to dry overnight.

Head on over to the 123 Challenge blog to see some more fab DT inspiration, I love how this has challenge criteria has been interpreted in so many different ways!

Materials used: very old and somewhat nasty Bella paper (yay - scrappin' some crap LOL), Greatest View badge, white Mr Hueys, October Afternoon, Authentique, Websters Pages and Thickers alphas, Sodalicious wood bits, gauze, washi tape, and, as always, paper scraps.  :)

Super girlyness :)

I wanted to scrap these pics of Holly right after I took them - she finally decided to try on the ballet dress-up set her aunties bought her for her birthday in January, and she was having such a lovely time doing ballet in her room.

She even cleaned up her whole room so she had space to dance!

There is nothing cuter than a leotard on a baby pot belly :)

I used a colour combo to tie in with a challenge at Challenge Me Happy which was all about pink and maroon.

Materials used: TCW stencils, violet ink, cranberry glimmermist, Manorhouse flowers, straws from Molossi, feathers left over from Tyler's Easter hat! :)

Houndstooth + chevrons = awesome!

The April challenge at Show us your Stuff is to create a 8.5 x 11" layout and, as always, include a handmade element.

I've used a cute Charms Creations heavenly heart as my handmade element :)

It was nice to have all my DT stuff up to date and be able to enter a challenge myself; I've been a bit swamped lately!

Materials used: Pink Paislee pp, Charms Creations heart, Basic Grey asterisk chip stickers, Sodalicious number, Glitz Designs paper, blue Dylusions, washi tape and random paper scraps of course :)

Why thank you lovely readers!

What a lovely happy email I had last week. The lovely Chantalle has passed on the Liebster Award to me, which is a bit spesh... and then another from the (also lovely) Dot! Thanks so much girls... it's nice to know people like my little blog. :)

The Liebster Award is kind of like a pass-it-on blog hopping encouragement thing* to give a shout out to other blogs that you love, and help your readers discover new blogs and new inspiration!

I've chosen all these lovely ladies because they all have a very distinctive scrappy style and a definite personality to their layouts. I love it when you can look at a page not knowing whose it is, but be 99% sure it was created by a particular person because of their strong style.  :)

So in no particular order, prepare to discover new awesomeness...

Lisa Oxley
Love this girl - if there was ever anyone who totally embodies 'zest for life' it's Lisa! xo

Sarah Martin
I met this lovely lady at  Lou Nelson's class last year and I love her splattery-painty-mixed media style!
 
Kim Price 
Kim you are the queen of perfect watercolour backgrounds! And your layout photography skills are awesome  :)

Anne Patterson
Love Anne's work and her patience and attention to detail, and all that amazing stitching!!

Ashli Oliver
I pretty much credit Ashli as the one who inspired a turning point in my scrap style. You can pretty much look at any of my blog posts prior to about September 2012 and see the difference. There is pre-September shittiness and then post-September confidence - I finally found my own style and stopped trying to achieve the kind of results other scrappers could get but I could never quite manage. (You know - straight lines - shabby prettiness - sparkly girly blingy stuff - I admire these things but they're just not me!). So thank you Ashli for helping me find my mojo!  xo

*The idea is that it's awarded to blogs that have fewer than 200 followers to encourage new visitors. Once you've been nominated, you award it to 5 other bloggers who you appreciate, that have fewer than 200 followers. Leave them a comment on their blogs to let them know that you have given them this award.
**Technically Ashli has more than 200 followers. I don't care, she's on my list anyway because she is amaze-balls. 

White With 1 April challenge...

This month's challenge over at White With 1 is a sketch challenge plus you've got to use yellow on your layout. Well, I struggled with this one a bit because I don't do sketches!! Too many rules, man. :)

But I think the end result turned out ok...

 ...plus it was kinda nice to scrap a photo of the two of us, which I really should do more often!

For the background I used  an empty Xpress-it tape roll to mask the circle and used a flowery Heidi Swapp mask over the top with some random black sprays in there too.

Love those Heidi Swapp buzzwords; I've been using them a lot lately!

Head on over to the White With 1 blog to see some more inspiration from the lovely ladies - this month White With 1 has teamed up with WOW so there is double the awesomeness :)

Materials used: Heidi Swapp mask and words, Manorhouse flower, Sodalicious letters, Rainecloud wood button, Kaisercraft and Glitz transparencies, Typo shipping tag, Glitz pp, black Mister Hueys, Sunflower glimmermist.

New DT Projects with Basic Grey's Fact & Fiction - Pages 2 Scrap DT

OMG Can I just say that I LOVED working with this kit that the lovely ladies from Pages 2 Scrap put together this month.

Basic Grey's Fact and Fiction is right up my alley - all simple clean lines and bright colours mixed with neutrals, I LOVE IT!  :)

Anyway, here's the layouts that I had heaps of fun creating this month - this collection has some great graphic patterns that contrast against each other but somehow work without clashing.

How cute are those little coat hanger tags? So many quirky bits and pieces to play with! And Pages 2 Scrap have a great selection of Basic Grey in store.  :)

For me, the best part of the Fact and Fiction collection is those circle stickers! So simple but I love the effect they have coupled together.

And the embroidered fabric brads. Aw, it's all great really! :)

I'm really happy with how this one below turned out - the brads, the circle stickers, the coat hangers - lovin' all the cute details. My little man started kindy this year and I'd only just taken these photos the morning before I scrapped them :)  If only I was that efficient and up to date with all the photos that I want to scrap! 

And a close-up... circle stickers and fabric brads with some layered papers and a bit of washi and stitching underneath for texture. 

For this layout, I had two sheets of this beautiful striped blue paper, so I misted one with a bit of cranberry glimmermist, then cut it roughly into strips, wove the strips together and roughly stitched all over the top to create a subtle pattern-on-pattern background. I have used a couple of neutral stickers from my kit and kept it modern but feminine.

I love this photo of Holly eating sand. Pretty sure I've scrapped it before actually but this time I've used Pix.lr to edit it and add some rainbow lights to it. It's an awesome free online photo editor, with lots more options than Instagram or PicMonkey which I've also used. Disclaimer: not moonlighting for Pixlr - just think it's rad.  ;)

Love how Basic Grey papers are such lovely quality to work with, with minimal buckling when you mist them.

Hope you enjoyed these little peeks showing some of the ways you can use this awesome collection. Time to pop in to Pages 2 Scrap to pick up more of these papers! Luv 'em!