What a Charmer| My Favourite Things 2015

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, My Favourite Things, ScrapBook, Techniques

Tags

Alcohol ink, Classes, Mixed media, Ranger

I stuck with my plan and used Ranger alcohol inks for this month’s Favourite Things class. These inks are made for use on non-porous and slick surfaces where they move and blend beautifully. Although I do like using that technique, my favourite is to use the inks on porous elements, like watercolour paper and sticky back canvas.

The first LO was simple blending of colours to make a striped effect. I love the intensity of the colours – I can’t get such richness with any other product I’ve found yet!

There were some awesome colour combos used in class for this! Although I generally use black and white photos when doing mixed media and/or colourful backgrounds so I can go with whatever colours I want at the time, many people brought colour photos and picked inks to work with them. I love seeing all the different preferences and ideas!

Once the majority of our background was done, we used Alcohol Blending Solution and extra ink to add some splatter and texture:

We finished it off by inking enamel chevron stickers to use as embellishments:

The second LO was made by using the alcohol inks over a stencil:

We brought the chevrons back in on this LO but with wood veneer instead. We still coloured them with the alcohol inks and then added some shimmer because I’m obsessed, lol!

I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible blogger lately – I know I’ve been totally AWOL! – but I can’t seem to get around my own self lately; I think winter is taking its toll! I do have posts for tomorrow (some fabulous “guest artists” will be featured!) and on Friday I have something fun to share so come back and check out all the eye candy!

Cheers!

Always Remember | My Favourite Things 2015

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, My Favourite Things, ScrapBook

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Classes, Mixed Media Layout, My Favourite Things

In 2009 (I believe) I went to the owners of The Paperie and asked to teach a yearlong class – one that people would sign up and commit to for an entire year, once a month. Although I’m sure they were more than a little hesitant, they went for it. I’ve been teaching the Yearlong Album class ever since.

If you ask anyone from the original class most will probably say it was their favourite one. I was into some basic mixed media back then, when it wasn’t the popular thing to do and it was much harder to get product, and boy, did we have fun playing! That first year it was a small 8×8 album, if I remember correctly, and we used every single little bit in our kits. Right down to the paper pad cover and sticker sheet leftovers. We literally had nothing left. It was actually kind of stressful for me, lol!

We moved onto a 12×12 LO plus pocket page system the next year. Then an 8.5×11 album. 2013 was all mixed media and last year it was sketch based. 5 years of albums and photos. And I loved every minute of it!

But it was time for a change so this year the class has been overhauled. It’s now called My Favourite Things and that’s exactly what it is – all my favourite items, techniques, and stuff! Plus, you no longer have to commit for a full year; it’s month to month so it works better for those people who travel or know they’re going to miss a bunch of classes. We’re also focusing on journaling and how I add it in, since I hate doing it! What hasn’t changed are the awesome people (thank you to all of you who have stuck with me from the beginning, or who have come back after taking a break, or who are brand new this year) and the fun times we have in class. Plus, there’s new product, and what’s more fun than tearing into a brand new package of stuff? Nothing!

The first 2015 class was last month and we played with one of my top 3 faves – Distress Inks!

Our cover page used one of my favourite colours in the Distress line, Evergreen Bough, and a wet on wet watercolour technique.

We added lots of layers with some October Afternoon speech balloon and label diecuts:

Some shine with Studio Calico silver star rub-ons:

And a bit of bling with embossing powders on the Thickers:

The layouts were made with the use of Distress Ink though a stencil and then more ink through another stencil layered over the first:

My journaling trick here was to use a quote – I do that all the time! Google is my friend!

We also used hidden journaling here, written on one of the speech balloons and tucked in the top corner:

The second layout used the same techniques but we added in some drips too – I love drips!

The water and stencil layering, plus a glitter pen and some enamel elements added lots of texture:

So we’re off to a good start! If you want to join us anytime, just give The Paperie a call and they’ll sign you up. If you want sneaks of what’s coming up in class, I try to post them to Instagram with #FaveThings2015. I’m still debating exactly what we’re doing this month but I’m leaning heavily towards alcohol inks!

Cheers!

Simple Scrapper | March 2015

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, Simple Scrapper

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Mixed Media Layout, Simple Scrapper

Back again with more for Simple Scrapper! I say it every month but really, they team outdid themselves and I love this company more and more all the time. Amazing people, super talented Creative Team, and fabulous product. Case in point, I did an entire LO in twenty minutes this month – trust me, that’s a bonafide miracle!

My Story Starter this month – the theme is You’ve Got Mail (social media/technology) – uses an old film pic from waaaaay back. It’s my friend Karen and I doing the “laundry room dance” on some street in Winnipeg. Those were fun times!

I made this one on a sheet that I had used for cleaning off my stencils after using them on another project. Between that and the kraft doily, there’s some awesome texture going on!

My template LO from this month is one of my favourites in a long time – and it’s the one that only took 20 minutes!

Of course, using my all time favourite Balzer Designs stencil and one of my fave colours for the background helps, but really, this one is all about that picture. Gabe draws one of him and I every time the windows fog up and I love them!

I pretty much emptied a whole pack of puffy stickers from Freckled Fawn for the embellishments and added their enamel hearts and a few cork hearts as well:

To see what the rest of the Creative Team has designed, check out the Gallery and the Pinterest page – lots of eye candy! And to see what’s going on at Simple Scrapper this month, check out our page for March (the gallery is here too!). Want more inspiration? Here’s the Gallery Archives!

Cheers!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Simple Scrapper | February 2015

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, Simple Scrapper

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Tags

Mixed Media Layout, Simple Scrapper

I’ve been missing in action. It’s that time of year when I’m cold and completely, utterly, totally sick of winter and I just want to hibernate until spring. You know, blah time. Ick.

But this past weekend was my birthday and we celebrated in grand style which kind of pulled me out of the winter doldrums. And I’m back, very late, but back with February’s Simple Scrapper Creative Team work. Check back tomorrow for the March layouts!

The first is inspired by February’s Story Starters – the theme was What Kind of Day Has it Been.

The fun part of this one is where the journaling is. I’m sure most of you know by now that I”m not a journaler and when I am, I usually hate having it actually on my layouts. So for this one I used the perforating blade on my Cutterpede:

And wrote the journaling on the back of the photo mat!

Come on now! How much fun is that! It’s especially awesome if you have a lot to say, or something personal to say, and nowhere to put it on the main layout.

I finished it off with some doodling and embellishments at the top. I covered the heart stickers in Rock Candy Distress Stickles for a little shine:

My second layout used one of February’s new Premium Membership templates and a background I made while prepping for a class I taught a while ago. I keep all those backgrounds and either cut them up for embellishments or use them on later projects, like this one:

I typed up my journaling (yes, it’s on the front for once!) which is actually a couple of quotes I combined, and then used silver Thickers for a couple of the words to make my title. My favourite part is the silver snowflake:

I had some silver doilies on hand and used my scissors and a decorative corner punch to turn it into a snowflake embellishment! Simple, but I love how it turned out!

If you want access to your own inspiration, including five new templates, 12 new Story Starters, and a full length e-magazine every month, plus all the previous templates, Story Starters, and magazines, go sign up for a membership. Trust me, totally worth every penny!

Cheers,

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Yer Best Kind, b’ys!

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Sara in Cards, Mixed Media

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cards, Mixed media, Valentine's Day

Hahaha! Are all the non-Newfoundlanders confused yet? Roughly translated, that means, “You are all the finest of people!” Want to know some more traditional Newfoundland phrases and words? Check this out!

There’s actually a reason I started this post like that and it all has to do with Valentine’s. A local company here, Newfoundland Chocolate Company, made special Love Bars this year and they were hugely popular. As in couldn’t keep them in stock and they have been sent all around the world popular. And they’re delicious – milk chocolate (normally not my thing) filled with salted caramel. Seriously yummy!

They made several different labels – Luvs Ya, Kiss me Luh, Me Trout, and of course, Best Kind (side note: the most popular was Arse on Dat, hahaha!). I grabbed a bunch of Best Kind bars and made cards for the parents of the kids I look after.

I had some watercolour paper I had painted and embossed and demoed on so I used that for my punched green hearts. Then I used old glitter wrap for the other hearts:\

And inside, a sweet treat!

I love how they turned out – they still make me giggle, lol!

Cheers!

December and Final Page | YLA2014

13 Friday Feb 2015

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

≈ 1 Comment

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Mixed Media Layout, Prima Color Bloom, Yearlong Album, YLA2014

This is it! The last Yearlong album class ever and the last LO’s for 2014.

This one used loads of Simple Stories stickers for the banners along the top:

And the words along the bottom:

And the circles around the photos:

Then we finished everything off with October Afternoon chipboard stars and gold mist spatter:

The last page of the album mimicked the first with the paper choices and colours:

But we added in a subtle crayon resist with Prima Color Bloom spray:

And we used the spray for regular misting plus a spatter effect:

And that’s it! I filled two complete albums, which means I need to do another cover page and final page, but there is another year in the books.

I’m super excited and stoked for the new class this year, My Favourite Things. I’ll be posting sneaks on Instagram and Twitter with #FaveThings2015 and there’s already a couple there, like this one:

Hope to see some of you there, it’s going to be awesome!

Cheers!

November | YLA2014

11 Wednesday Feb 2015

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

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Mixed Media Layout, Yearlong Album, YLA2014

We’re almost at the end of this album and for once I thought I’d do a fairly monochromatic layout. There is a bit of colour but it’s all fairly light and tone on tone.

There is a super fun, and messy, technique on this one using stickles. If you look closely you can see glitter all around the small squares I punched out – Stickles!

I love the sparkle it brings, highlighting just those pieces. Of course, I did go in with my favourite Sakura Stardust pen to outline the title and chipboard hearts, plus add some shimmer to the wood veneer stars – you can’t have too much sparkle after all!

Cheers!

October | YLA2014

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

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Mixed Media Layout, YLA2014

I sat down to do my final Yearlong Album post and realized that I hadn’t done several months – my mind is leaving me, obviously! So, rather than post the last one, I’ll catch up here this week and have them all in order for you. If you want to see what we’ve done this year just type YLA in the search bar and/or check out the Flickr album.

Here’s October:

We had fun with one of my favourite techniques – Distress Ink and water for a blendy, watercoloury background. I also added another favourite in there, shimmer!

And of course, layers of paper, die cuts, pop dots, stickers, and embellishments:

We finished off the page with some doodling and a cluster of stickers with the date:

Check back tomorrow for November’s page and don’t forget to check out (and sign up for!) my new yearlong class – My Favourite Things. We’re starting this month and it’s going to be all my favourite techniques and products, plus some of my tried and true journalling tips. Trust me, some of the new product ordered in for this class is amazing! I can’t wait to get started!

Cheers!

Seasonal Canvas | A Year of Mixed Media

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Sara in Canvas, Classes, Mixed Media

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canvas, Home Decor, Mixed media, Seasons

A while ago I posted that I taught my last Seasonal Canvas class – the fall one – and so now I have a full set of four. I have to say, this might be one of my favourite classes ever! The finished product of each canvas is beautiful but to have all four together is just awesome.

Don’t they look great? I did a little kitchen rearranging to fit them in on a wall that doesn’t get direct sunlight. I used Luminarte Silks for the paint on each of these and unfortunately, they’re not light stable. 😦

That being said, it was ok in this case because they fit perfectly here just above my scrapbooking island in the corner of my kitchen.

If you want closeups all the canvases are in my Flickr gallery and your can also check out the blog posts for Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.

Cheers!

Distress Renewed – Alcohol Inks

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Alcohol ink, Mixed Media Layout, Scrapbook Layout

My love for Alcohol Inks has been seriously reinvigorated after designing this class! As a matter of fact, it was so much fun that I played around with some of the techniques on a Secret Santa gift – a canvas – that I’m making:

I actually had to go buy more colours I’m that excited to play with them again!

We had such an awesome fun time last night at class one participant was even giggling with glee as we spattered Ink about. I think if we spent two hours flicking different colours on page she would have left happy!

The first page is pretty simple – some Translucent embossing paste and then a layer of Alcohol Ink:

We added lots of layers with book paper and stickers:

And then we added some more!

The second LO was the most fun to do:

Awesome drips:

And texture:

And splatter texture:

I wish I had photos of the LO’s the class did because they were amazing! The colours they picked were gorgeous and the way everything blended was awesome. Unfortunately for me, that means I have a lot to live up to for the next Renewed class, gulp!

Hopefully, some of you will join us – it’s fun, creative, and a great night out with friends.

Cheers!