I just love me some Primary Elements!

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Techniques

Tags

Luminarte, Mixed Media Layout, Primary Elements

I’ve mentioned here, just once or twice before, how much I love Luminarte products – Silks, Twinkling H2O’s, Modeling Creme. And I have something else to add to that list: Primary Elements.

Primary Elements are artist quality paint pigment, with the expected Luminarte shimmer. There are so many different ways to use them and I demonstrated several at the last Paperie Retreat, but I’m only going to highlight two here.

I made this first LO to promote the demo at the retreat:

I went fairly basic, just one colour of Primary Elements mixed into Clear Medium, then painted on the cardstock to make a photo mat. The Clear Medium is acrylic paint base, with a built-in binder so you don’t lose any of that fabulous shine! It’s completely colourless until you add your pigment. You can mix your own colours and intensity of colours, and how much or how little you want, totally customizable!

I then blended a bunch of colours together and mixed that into some light molding paste which I smeared over the 6×6 Heart Confetti stencil:

It made a great purply/silvery colour which looks awesome.

During the demo I showed how to mix the Primary Elements into the Clear Medium or Molding Paste, how to dilute or intensify the colour, and how to mix your own shades. These next two LO were the scratch papers I used and then decided to finish off.

The first one has a photo base of mixed colours:

and then one colour for the paste:

This final LO was actually the first demo page I made, showing how vibrant the base colours can be on their own:

I love the texture of the molding paste on this one!

There are tons of colours in the Primary Elements line and they can all be mixed to make hundreds of other colours. The Paperie carries both the pigments and the Clear Medium plus they can order any colours you might like so go check out the website and then get some and go play!

If you want to see and touch these LO’s in person, I’ll be bringing them to the Paperie to display so pop by to check out their brand new location at 10 Pippy Place and take a look.

Simple Scrapper | July 2013

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Simple Scrapper

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Mixed Media Layout, Scrapbook Layout, Simple Scrapper

We’re doing things a little differently at Simple Scrapper these days – no more monthly blog hops but there are other great things planned – like a Team Gallery! I’ll post that link as soon as it goes live. (Here it is!)

In the meantime, I’ll still post my LO’s here so you can see them.

(NOTE: click any of the photos to see them larger at my Two Peas Gallery)

I’ve already posted the Premium Member Sketch LO from this month since I also used it for my Year Long Album class:

I won’t go into details, but if you want to see how it was done, look at some close-ups, and get a mini tutorial, check out this post!

The second one was again using a new template but also my Story Starter LO and it was completely different for me:

That’s a very hybrid LO, my friends. And it’s all one photo, no paper at all, just a few wood veneer embellishments to which I added some Stickles for a bit of Superhero bling:

In general, I left it pretty simple – this was all about the story. The title itself and a bit of the journaling came from a previous post I did, if you want to check that out again.

Finally, if you want to see some other LO’s from the Team this month – and I know you do! – click any of the names over there —-> to go to the other member’s blogs or Two Peas Galleries.

And be sure to check out Aimee’s blog – I know she’s posting her LO’s this morning too so go take a look at her amazing work!

I’m hoping to be back tomorrow with some more LO’s from the last Paperie retreat – I’m waaaay behind on posting those for you!

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

Paperie Card Kit | June: Part 3

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by Sara in Card Kit, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

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Tags

Card Kit, Design Team, Mixed Media Layout, Scrapbook Layout, The Paperie

I have two LO’s left to share with you from the card kit, but I’ll only be posting one today. I have a couple of guest posts happening over on The Paperie blog through July and I’m holding onto one LO for those posts. I’ll let you know when to go check it out!

The card kit had a great sheet of pink cardstock in it that would make a fabulous card base but I couldn’t make it work for the picture I wanted to use, though I did want the pink. So I altered it to suit – in my mind, being able to change product to suit you is the number one best thing about mixed media!

I used matte multimedium to adhere some Ranger Tissue Wrap onto the cardstock. Over that I painted some layers of white gesso. Although gesso is normally used as a base and primer, one of my favourite ways to use it is to tone down colours and patterns.

I left some areas brighter, with less gesso, than others on purpose, like the title area:

I really wanted to focus to be the title and photo, so I grounded my pic with layered strips of Allison Kreft paper and some washi tape, with a bit of twine tied around the photo itself. I finished that section with a brad and a punched border, all to draw your eye into that area:

And overall, it’s pretty subtle, with just the right hint of pink for my girl and I:

This LO was about a conversation Molly and I had approximately three weeks before Gabe was born – see how I can’t get the bottom button of my coat fastened? – and she was only 20 months old. It was pretty easy to get her to promise to “always be my baby!”

YLA 2013 | June class

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

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.

Paperie Card Kit | June: Part 2

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Sara in ScrapBook

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Card Kit, Mini Album, The Paperie

Sorry for the long absence – I was fighting a cold last week and then had yesterday off so the kiddos and I spent some fun time together – but now I’m back with more from the June/July Paperie card kit!

(Click on any pictures for a larger size)

Because there was so much amazing 6×6 patterned paper, I thought that a mini album wouldn’t go astray! I used almost all Authentique but there is a sheet of Allison Kreft thrown in there too. I didn’t want anything too complicated and since there’s a super cute birthday stamp from Unity Stamp Co. in the kit, I used that as my inspiration:

Birthday’s are something I normally hate scrapbooking but I always love getting pictures of the cake so I thought a mini dedicated to Molly and Gabe’s birthday cakes would be fun!

I kept it super easy and really basic with just a cake pic, another small photo of them or a closeup of the cake, and the date. I also added their initial and age they were at the time. As an aside, all the alpha stickers I used for four LO titles and an entire mini came from the one sheet included in the kit!

I left room so I can do pages for each of them up to their 6th birthday. The nice thing is that if I want to continue on after that, this is easy peasy to duplicate and small enough not to take up any of my precious little storage space!

I’ll be back later this week with the last two LO’s I did, but if you want to see them in person, the Paperie will have them up in their new location a week from today – I can’t wait to have fun in the new space!

Paperie Card Kit | June: Part 1

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by Sara in Card Kit, ScrapBook

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Card Kit, Scrapbook Layout, The Paperie

Have you seen the news? I’m designing for The Paperie Card Kit and I’m loving it! Wendy does amazing cards so I’m using the kit to show how it can be used in other ways, like to do LO’s.

Since I love doing 8.5×11 LO’s, this kit was great fun to work on – plus the colours and papers were amazing, a great mix of Authentique and Allison Kreft. There was so much product in the kit that I was able to do 4 LO’s and a mini album with a bunch of supplies left over to use on other pieces.

Rather than overload you with images, I’m going to just show a couple of LO’s now and I’ll post the others in the next day or so.

These first two LO’s have pictures of Molly from way back when she was just a wee little one – two of my all-time faves of her.

Almost everything I used was from the kit, the only exceptions being a Crafter’s Workshop Stencil, Weathered Wood Distress Ink, and a bit of Custard Mister Huey’s Spray.

I inked over the stencil to create a background for my photo, then layered lots of the patterned paper for a burst of colour:

I finished up with some spray droplets, washi tape, and a brad near the top:

The second LO is Molly in a second-hand frog costume that she literally wore everywhere for months. It was her coat until she just couldn’t squeeze herself in any more!

The title was something she said as she was jumping in the puddles – I’m terrible at titles so this is a super easy way to get around that struggle!

Once again, I added very little to the kit – another stencil, Clay Mister Huey’s, and a border punch that mimicked the froggie spots. I lightly misted through the stencil to create some interest and a background and punched the circles to draw the eye down through the LO:

I punched half circle in the photo to nestle the “hi” button in and then added a couple more from the same pack. I also popped up the picture for some more dimension on the page:

As a side note, I try to upload everything to my Flickr account so if you ever want to see everything together, that’s the place to go. It’s also reasonably well-organized into sets too!

Back soon with another couple of LO’s – this is a limited kit so call The Paperie ASAP if you want one. They only do the card kit every other month and it’s well worth getting!

YLA2013 | May class, part 2

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

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!

You Make me Happy…

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Sara in Family, ScrapBook

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Amy Tangerine, Scrapbook Layout

Another LO from the Paperie retreat last month. With this one I wanted to use the Capture stitching templates from Amy Tangerine and my sparkly floss. It was a perfect combo for the sun and cloud design!

I had these pics of Molly and Gabe coming home from my neighbour’s house that I knew had to make it on a LO at some point and they seemed to work well with the patterned paper I had and the stitching I wanted to do.

I love how the glitter thread turned out!

And the wording on the patterned paper was perfect, it was exactly right for these photos – I popped up the main one to help it stand out:

A simple but fun one, the stitching and thread added a bit of something special to keep it from being too dull and flat while the patterned paper helped to ground the photos. And of course, I had to add a little stamping to the top left and bottom right corners – I tried to leave those corners empty but I think it’s beyond me, that’s definitely my calling card these days!

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!