Scrapbooking Made Simple

This month I have a few classes on at  Arnolds Scrapbooking Store .  I have two canvas projects of varying sizes and another class on how to make flowers. The flower making class will give you lots of different flowers of varying sizes to make and one of them doesn't require any special punch or diecut to achieve a quick and easy flower (in fact you can see it on my pink and brown canvas below... the brown flower in the bottom left hand corner of the canvas). Come and join me for this fun class. The first layout is a Red and Black canvas I created using Glimmermisting and stitching and there are also some stamping on acetate techniques to be learnt, as well as the obligatory flower making... you know how I love my flowers!. This pink and brown canvas using an artist canvas (thiner and harder canvas to work on) and the beautiful "Glitz designs" papers will also show you how to make one of the flowers and stamping on acetate and how to using modelling paste to achieve...

On the weekend I had the pleasure of teaching a couple of scrapbooking classes at the Redcliffe Art Gallery.  When I was asked to do this I was pretty stoked and the classes were just as enjoyable as I imagined. It's always nice to work with people who are so genuine and friendly. For the class I made the above two simple examples for the kids to copy if they wanted to..... otherwise their creativity was the limit.  I also took in an album for them to see lots of different ways I've done my pages so they could take ideas from there too. I was amazed at how quickly they took to it. There was one charming little boy who is now a champion flower maker. He took to it like a duck to water. I told him I'd have lots for him to do at my house anytime! LOL In the younger age group 4 - 6 they needed a little more help to do what they wanted but their ideas were so imaginitive. The little girl who was the shyest of the lot was the one with the most original finished product....

Here's the final canvas I did with the family portraits in 'coral' Here I used another DCWV paper stack (can't remember the name of it though I think its' the Butterflies Stack) This time I decided to only have a couple of flowers on the layout and use the butterfly in the background paper as my embellishment. So I cut a few of them out and covered them with dimensional magic.  I tend to use alot of flowers on my layouts as I love them so much and now that I'm making them myself they're so cheap. But once in a while I also like to challenge myself to do something a little different. So three different layouts all using the same photos.

So here we are with the same family portrait and I've used a different range of papers from the DCWV Linen Closette Paper Stack and one other apricot paper by My Minds Eye to decorate this page. I used a TimHolz Die for the bird and cage and a Queen & Co ribbon (the vine leaf) all the flowers were handmade out of the papers used with a cream one added to plump out the colour palette slightly. I thought it would be good to show you how I've done three distinctly different canvas projects using the same photos (this is post 2 of 3 which will be up tomorrrow). I often have people ask me about the process for choosing papers for a layout. In this case I chose the green of daughter number 2's skirt as the main colour and then added the light apricot to pick up the coral colour of our clothes. When I'm choosing my papers for a layout I will look at the photo and see if there are any colours that dominate the photos. If so I will look for papers in that color range...

Here's a canvas I did using the Bo Bunny Gabrielle Collection.  I introduced the teal to this layout because I thought it needed some contrast. The photos and papers were all a coral or peachy colour and the composition was looking pretty flat. The introduction of the teal made it pop! And it's only little peaks of the teal you see. I distressed the edges with my paper distresser and inked using Tim Holz Walnut Distress ink. Again all of the flowers here are handmade.

I love patterned paper! I have ALOT of it!  And yet I still don't have enough.. LOL One of the things I like to do is use the patterned paper as my embellishments. You can do this by fussy cutting the images on the paper and using pop dots to stick them to your layout. Or I also like to cut little tiles out of clay and then stick the paper to them. Sand the edges and then coat with Glossy Accents. These tiles don't have to be square either, hearts or circles are also easy to do.  I dug through my kids playdough accessories for some really cool shapes and rollers. This is a very quick easy and cheap embellihment option, it also makes it really easy to have co-ordinating embellishments on hand for any layout you're working on.

Wow such exciting news!. You'll have to keep an eye out for the September Issue of Cricut Magazine as a project of mine is being published in the magazine along with the instructions so you can reproduce the project if you like.... If you have a cricut machine of course. I can't believe I got this one. I have an amazing batch of friends who have been pushing me to get out there and do stuff. For instance when Arnolds Scrapbooking Store was advertising for teachers I got a plethora of text messages telling me about it and telling me to go try out for it.... which I did and got the job. I hadn't really bothered with getting published before, didn't really need the ego boost. But on urging from several sources (including my incredible hubby) I sent a few pieces in and was picked up straight away. The girls as Arnolds have been very supportive and along with urging from them and my friends I will be published in a couple of publications, one of which is the Cricut Ma...

Here's the canvas I'm teaching at Arnolds this month (April). I decided it was time I did a boy themed canvas as I've done so many girl ones and it really was time I taught some techniques for making your own embellishments for boy pages. If you'd like to come along to this class it's April 14th.