For these things…

08 Tuesday Oct 2013

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…I am grateful.

I have a new class coming up at The Paperie on October 23 – a gratitude mini album. This is going to be one jammed packed class with work, fun products, and stuff to learn!

The album itself is based on a mini I did of our beach vacation this summer. I did it on the road with minimal supplies and actually had it finished the day after we got home. Anyone who knows me realizes what a huge deal that is! So friends, if I can do it, you can definitely do it too!

In class I’ll show you how to put the mini together, using an awesome 6×6 Basic Grey paper pad, fun Doodlebug enamel dots, great washi tape, and some exclusive digital die cuts that Mary Ann and I are designing just for this album. I’ll run through how to switch it up and do it “on the go” if you want to make a travel album in the future, as well as how to resize photos, add text, and get them on your pages in a fun and interactive way.

As if that wasn’t enough, I’m going to give you some photos prompts now, so if you’ve signed up or are thinking about it, you can start your picture taking now! Also, if you wish you could come but the time isn’t right, or you live out of town, give The Paperie a call – they can always put a kit together for you, with full instructions!

Since it’s Thanksgiving in Canada this coming weekend, it’s a good time to get some photos for a Gratitude Album. Here are some ideas for you to run with:

1. a family photo

2. turkey dinner

3. a glass of wine (that may be just me, but I do appreciate a good cold glass of Pinot!)

4. leaves on the ground

5. a beautiful sunset – we get amazing ones here this time of year

6. kiddies playing

7. your current book

8. raindrops on the trees

9. sunshine (crossing my fingers here!)

10. your dog or cat sleeping in their favourite spot

I’m really looking forward to this album and am super excited to see all the things that people are thankful for. With all that gratitude in one room, we’re bound to have an amazing time!

YLA2013 | August

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Mixed Media Layout, YLA2013

I taught another session of the Year Long Album a week or so ago and we made our August LO’s. These might be among my favourites ever!

We broke out the Twinkling H2O’s, everyone got new stencils and some fun wood veneer, and we played with crayons – it was a good day!

The first LO used a gel medium resist under the photo:

After spraying our confetti with a bunch of mist colours, we added those for a little extra dimension:

A few flicks of contrasting Twinks and the base was done:

The second one used crayons for a more subtle (or more vibrant, depending on the brand of crayon used) resist:

The crayon I used above gave more of a colour difference while the one I demoed in class was a true resist:

Again, we misted and added confetti, this time in a less random pattern:

And, with the extra flicks of Twinks, it was finished:

They’re pretty simple but the techniques can be used for super cool backgrounds and the shimmer of the Twinks just adds to the awesomeness – have I mentioned my love for Twinks? 😉

It’s already October which means I’m thinking about next year’s class and sign ups will be coming sooner than later. We always have the best bunch of people, a ton of fun, and great products so if you’re interested in knowing more or signing up, call the Paperie and get put on the list!

YLA 2013 | June class

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Project Life, ScrapBook, Simple Scrapper, Techniques, Tutorials, Yearlong Album

≈ 1 Comment

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Gel Medium Resist, Ranger Distress Paint, Simple Scrapper

A few days ago I showed you how I had an idea for these pages, went through an epic failure, and then found redemption on better and bigger paper.

Today, you get the final product!

The rainbow page is my favourite – I love the colours and the pictures so much:

I first sponged glossy gel medium through a stencil, then added puddles of Distress Paint to the edge. I misted until I ran out of water (that’s only a slight exaggeration!) and let the colours run down the page. The texture is from rolling paper towels over to blot up the excess water. How cool is that?!?!

This second page is based on a Simple Scrapper template from the July 2013 Premium Member templates:

Once again you start with glossy gel medium through a stencil, then add puddles of paint to the middle of the page. Mist with water and tip the paper to allow the paint to blend and then run in different directions.

The resist is fabulous and has a great shine in real life:

I used some Heidi Swapp fabric that I died with the paint and some new Studio Calico wood veneer to add dimension and layers to the top:

So there you have it – a class LO all the way from idea to final product, with a mini tutorial to boot! Hope you enjoyed, I’ll be back later this week with more ICAD’s and the final LO’s from the June/July Paperie Card Kit.

YLA2013 | May class, part 2

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

≈ 4 Comments

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Mixed Media Layout, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

Sorry it’s so late – today had some unexpected happenings and news – but here is the second finished LO from this past Sunday’s class.

With this one, I layered a couple of mist colours and let them drip, plus I spattered shimmer mist to create sparkly water drops. I also smeared modeling paste over the stencil in such a way that most of the words/paste picked up colour and blended into the background. I did this on purpose so that the word “happy” stood out in white on the photo itself.

Finally, I layered stickers, paper scraps, circles, and stamps under the picture.

Lots of colour and movement here – perfect for a busy four-year-old boy!

YLA2013 | May class, part 1

28 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook, Techniques, Yearlong Album

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Mixed Media Layout, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

This past Sunday was another Yearlong Album class and we played with gesso, Dylusions Ink Spray, and modeling paste.

It was fun to see how much the gesso could change not only the look of the background page but also how it reacted to and played with inks.

I also showed how fun certain mists are when they interact with molding paste:

Mine was very subtle but I love how the paste picks up the mist colour as it dries! And look at the shimmery spots – Luminarte Radiant Rain mist is *so* shiny!

Of course, to finish it all off I used lots of layers of tissue, book print, stickers, stamping, and buttons – love the dimension!

I’ll be back tomorrow with the second page – I started it in the class as a demo of sorts so even the class peeps haven’t seen this one completed yet!

Drawer of Memories

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, Techniques

≈ 7 Comments

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7 Gypsies Library Drawer, Class, Mixed media

I’m teaching a class tomorrow night (UPDATE: We’ve had to move the class night to June 4 so you still have time to sign up!) and I think this is going to be one of my favourite projects yet!

I’m calling it the Drawer of Memories:

We’ll be using the 7 Gypsies Library drawer with monthly dividers plus adding additional 4×6 tabs and cards. Everyone will go home with a beautiful drawer ready to fill with pictures and snippets of journaling plus I’ll be sending along the .pdf of journaling cards so you can add to it for several years!

The main part of the drawer that we’ll be working on are the seasonal dividers:

Each one uses a different technique and product so if you’re looking to learn more about the supplies you already own or if you want to try some new ones before you buy, this is the class for you.

Luminarte Radiant Rain Mist

Dylusions Ink Spray and Heidi Swapp ColorShine

Distress Stain & Multimedium

Luminarte Primary Elements

Although the original idea was to use this drawer to write a single journal line each night and continue that for several years, I can really see it being a different type of mini album.

The first year of your baby’s life? Your first married year maybe? Or a way to document a first or last year of school? A few words, a bunch of pictures and you have the perfect display piece for family and friends to look through.

The ideas for this drawer really are endless and I’m so excited to see what you are all going to do with them!

Hope to see some of you at class – it’s going to be a memorable one!

Look at me, look at me, look at me now!

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

7 Gypsies, Classes, Scrapbook Layout

While at the Paperie retreat last month I managed to do a bunch of LO’s – way more than I usually do. Some were already started (from the KP weekend) so just need pics to be finished off, some were demos (showing the Primary Elements) that I wanted to complete, and others were from scratch.

This one is from the exclusive retreat kit that the Paperie sold – they did a scrapbook kit and a card kit (yes, they’re starting a bimonthly card kit!) and the stuff in both was awesome!

The scrapbook kit had 12×12 paper that could be cut into tags and, while I always love that type of paper, I find that I use one or two tags and that’s it. This time I was determined to use the whole sheet. So it became my background!

For a bit of colour contrast, I rolled the edges of the paper I used to mat and ground my photos because the “B” side was a good pop to the “A” side pattern. And the Prima alpha stickers that came in the kit? Fabulous! They’re a mistable fabric resist that I just had to colour with the new Dylusions Ink Spray.

I also used the same colour, Calypso Teal, for the letters in the title.

A bit of a crazy LO but the fun wonkiness seemed to fit with the crazy Gabe pictures!

I’m hoping to get a sneak peek or two out in the next day or so of an upcoming class. This is going to be a great ongoing project, but all the work is done for you! It’s a 7 Gypsies Library Drawer and we’ll fill it with written and photo memories. The nice thing? You can do it for a year, or three, or just one special event! Sign up, I promise you won’t regret it! Plus we’ll be playing with the new Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs, Luminarte Primary Elements, and Radiant Rain Shimmering Mists! Make sure you follow me on twitter and instagram so you get the peeks as soon as I post them!

P.S. By request, I’m going right now to upload Ella pictures to Flickr!

A Day in the Life | April 2013

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Day in the Life, Project Life

≈ 4 Comments

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A Day in the Life, Ali Edwards

NOTE: Sorry for the delay in this post – could not get WordPress to upload a single photo yesterday. Sigh.

It occurred to me this weekend that although I try to do A Day in the Life each month, I never post the pics here. And since it’s a time-consuming, photo heavy taking day, I thought I should share some of what I capture.

Here’s a few from April:

7:37am – Ella

7:53am – breakfast

8:10am – Molly off to school

9:13am – Instagram with Gabe

10:52 – getting ready for our walk

12:02pm – walking home from school

1:37pm – homework

4:12pm – self timer pics with Gabe

4:46pm – taking pics of retreat LO’s

6:36pm – evening bike ride

One in a Million but only 7 Layers

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Mixed Media Layout, ScrapBook

On Saturday I took an awesome class with Cathie. I normally only use mixed media on my canvases (though I’m working on bringing it to my LO’s too) but Cathie’s a genius at the mixed media LO’s. This particular class was all about layers – 7 to be exact!

I only have one completed, due to flicking white mist all over the picture for the second LO, but I managed not to destroy the picture for this one and love the colour and movement in it.

I really love all the layers, especially the doily to pull your eye through all the layers around the picture:

And this really is One in a Million:

My Gabe, the day he was born. He came super fast so was pretty bruised and beat up in this picture, hence the darkness to his normally very pale complexion!

Cathie has blogged both LO’s from the class here, and Krista, our very clean and simple friend, also blogged her experience with the class here. I love it when we can bring another one to the dark side of messy hands!

I’ll post the other LO as soon as I get it finished, but I do have lots of other work to do this week for upcoming classes and for Simple Scrapper.

One of the things I’m finishing off is my LO for the Yearlong Class this weekend. After Cathie’s class I came home, looked at what I had done and started counting layers – 6! Think I can get another on there before Sunday? 🙂 The funny thing? They’re completely different layers than hers – isn’t mixed media fun?!?

YLA2013 | Album Cover

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, Techniques, Yearlong Album

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Album cover, Luminarte, Mixed media, Ronda Palazzari, Silks, Stencil, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

This may be one of my favourite projects ever. The colours, the texture, the dimension, the shine and, hello! That stencil.

Seriously people, that stencil may be my favourite of all time, maybe even edging out the Pomegranate one. Yes, it’s that good. It’s so good that I could even say I’m in love with Ronda Palazzari for designing it and Jamie at The Crafter’s Workshop for making it. I love it so much that I made sure everyone in my Yearlong class got the 12×12 one as well.

Moving along, this lovely project also happens to be the album cover we are making for the Yearlong 2013 class. Obviously, as it is a mixed media album no one will have the exact same cover but I’ll be teaching all the techniques I used and showing how I got that awesome texture (hint: teabags may have been involved!).

I also used modeling paste which made the hearts pop:

And gave fabulous dimension to the spine:

The paints I used were Luminarte Silks to give it that awesome shimmer and shine:

And for those who don’t have Silks yet (I stress the word yet, they are a necessity!) I’m working on a way to use your regular acrylics and make them into a faux shimmer glaze. If it works, I’ll do a tutorial some Tuesday soon.

If you can’t already see the reason I love the Confetti stencil, here’s why:

It’s like paint spatters, and blobs of molding paste, and quirky hearts all thrown together with great, but still imperfect, border to tie it all together.

And here’s a closeup of the front so you can really see how it all came together:

The back is very similar, but the paints blended a little differently. Plus, I still think I’m going to add a small camera stamp and my signature:

I had truly planned to do an album title and some decoration but I couldn’t bear to cover this up so… I guess we’ll have to go with Happy as an album title! 🙂

I’ll be back next week with the LO for this month, so look out for that later and keep an eye on Instagram (#YLA2013) for sneaks of it!