May | YLA2014

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, Yearlong Album

Tags

Classes, Dina Wakley Media, Ranger, Studio Calico Wanderlust, Yearlong Album, YLA2014

I just realized that I never shared the May LO’s for the Yearlong Album class and I soon have the June ones to show – oops! 🙂

We had fun, and a bit of mess, last month playing with Dina Wakley Media paints and one of her techniques, reduction stencilling:

For added interest and texture we spattered paint, added enamel dots, and made use of some die cut negatives:

Finally, we added our title, some Studio Calico vellum alpha stickers, and a bit of flair for extra dimension:

I’m pretty sure all of us in the class were in love with the SC vellum alphas – I think they need to make them in every colour!

For the rest of the summer we’re moving the class to Tuesday nights so no one has to miss out on weekends away – we get so little warm weather that we need to take ever moment possible to enjoy it!

Summer Fun

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mini Album

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Classes, kidart, Mini Album

This coming Sunday I’m teaching an awesome kids class at The Paperie – a summer mini album!

It’s going to be bright and full of fun techniques like dry embossing, heat embossing, and making our own stencils.

At the end of the class, everyone will have an album ready to fill up with summer pics – no other work needed! It’s a great size to bring along on vacation too, which means they’ll have something to work on in the car, or on the plane, or when it rains.

Plus, everyone goes home with alpha and word stickers, washi tape, and enamel dots so they can embellish and play if they want to.

So if you have kids who need something fun to do on Sunday, or want to have some crafty fun, give the Paperie a call and sign up!

Totally Dylusional….

05 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Sara in Cards, Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Techniques

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Classes, Dylusions Ink Spray, Mixed Media Layout, The Paperie

A while back I blogged about a new class series I was teaching called Distress Renewed. This is going to be bimonthly and a few weeks ago we had our second class. This one was all about Dylusions Ink Spray – one of my most fave products!

Our first LO was all about using Dylusions to make a watercolour background with resist, complete with misted ghosting and bleach out clouds:

The second layout was showing the blendability and fun properties of the sprays:

Love how water ghosting works on these!

I also had fun with my new-to-me vintage typewriter and the alpha stickers included in the class for the title work on this one:

Finally, we made card fronts using a bunch of techniques:

water ghosting

bleachout and colouring

gel medium and crayon resist

watercolour painting and scribble

white gesso pastel

black gesso magic

And that’s it – fun times getting messy and inky! Next class will be all about Distress Paints and I can’t wait to play!

What a Hoopla!

26 Monday May 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, This & That

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Classes, Home Decor, The Paperie, Tim Holtz fabric

First, I’m sorry for the long absence – I was away visiting my brother and his wife and their brand new baby!!! When I got home it struck me that I had 7 classes, three sets of design team projects, and a guest blog post due by the end of June – eek! Happily, I enjoy it but I had to hunker down and get a chunk of that done before I could post here.

But now I’m back and today it’s all about the Home Decor Hoopla at The Paperie this past weekend. It was their 10th anniversary and so we had a Hoopla class, some great sales, cake, and lots of fun! We’ve done a Holiday Hoopla the past couple of years at Christmas where you get to make gifts, one from each of the Design Team Members. This year we expanded to a Home Decor idea and it was by far the best one yet! Five items, completed, for $50 – you can’t beat that, my friends!

Cathie had a quick and super simple item but it really looks amazing – coasters with the new Dina Wakley stamps!

I think these would be awesome as a wall or office hanging for your favourite girl – or woman! And I’m looking around for the right stamps to make them for Gabe too – perfect sentiments for boys as well as girls!

Lori helped us make this fabulous burlap table runner:

I love the texture, it was fun and easy, and you can personalize it by adding any extras you want. I, of course, added dots:

Mary Ann, our resident Silhouette guru, came up with this etched vase:

Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it but Tina stood in and did a great job teaching us how to get it all perfect! And sorry for the dirty glass – I guess I should have cleaned that before the picture!

Rae Lynn tweaked a Pinterest idea and we made a framed family tree:

Isn’t it gorgeous? What an awesome idea and so easy for gifts!

I added grass and popped up my clouds for some extra dimension and love how it turned out:

And my project was this wreath using the Tim Holtz Eclectic Elements fabric:

I love wreaths and have several that I change put over the year so it was fun for me to teach a project that I love to use in my own home.

The fabric was perfect for the roses on the wreath – great patterns and pinked edges:

We all had an excellent day with tons of fun. If you’re around these parts in December you should definitely look into taking the Holiday Hoopla!

I’ll be back soon with the LO’s from my last Distress Renewed Class – Dylusions Ink Sprays. Lots of inky fun in that one!

I’m a Superstar!

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Sara in Canvas, Classes

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canvas, Classes, Mixed media, The Paperie

I love making canvases. Love. It.

And, not surprisingly, my kids love to paint canvases too. The combination of both lead me to design a new kids class for The Paperie – a junior edition of my canvas classes!

This is a beginner one, we won’t be using molding paste for example, but it still has lots of texture and interest. Truth be told, I will probably add molding paste if we do another one but I left it out this time to challenge myself and because it takes a long time to dry, especially in a class setting.

See the textures of the paper collaging and canvas? I love how the base layers turned out!

I used gold and silver mist and gold paint for shimmer:

And I added a phrase with alpha stickers:

The fun part? You get a sheet of alphas so you can make any phrase! This would be awesome as a Girl Power canvas, or Boys Rule. Why not even a teacher gift – I’m sure they’d like it more than another mug! 🙂 And it would make an awesome gift for mom or dad, a real keepsake for sure!

Call The Paperie for details and to sign up. This class is for kids of all ages so don’t be left out if you’re a more “mature” one!

Home Decor Hoopla

31 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Classes, The Paperie, Tim Holtz fabric

The past couple of years at Christmas The Paperie has had a holiday hoopla – each of the designers teach a different homemade gift idea and you go home with six ready-made presents plus the instructions on how to make them do you can do more! Genius, right?

Well, it’s always been so much fun that this year we decided to do a Home Decor Hoopla and it’s timed just right for Mother’s Day! Our first Home Decor Hoopla will be this Saturday, April 5 and trust me, if you live close enough, you’re going to want to make a point of doing this class. I really think it’s the best one we’ve had! Among other things there will be a fun photo holder, a table runner, and an etched glass vase. I’ve seen them and friends, they’re amazing.

My contribution? It’s this:

A 12″ grapevine wreath with Tim Holtz fabric flowers. I love how it turned out and the nice thing is that you can add more if you want, or jazz up the bow, or add sparkle, anything. Really, once you know how to put it together, you’ll be hooked and making them for everyone and every occasion! And isn’t that Tim Holtz fabric awesome?

There’s still room in class and it’s only $60 – that’s $10 a gift, peeps, can’t beat that fabulous price! Hope to see you there!

A little bit Distressed…

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Classes, Distress Ink, Ranger, The Paperie

Do you have some favourite products that you sometimes forget about? Me too. And that thought, along with a conversation I had with my friend Rae Lynn, led to a new class at The Paperie which debuted Monday night!

The first in this bimonthly series was all about Distress Ink. I, like many people I know, have them all, love them all, but they have fallen to the side a little as fun new products come out. To renew the love I taught two layouts and 6 card fronts full of different techniques to get our Distress Ink mojo flowing again!

The first LO is basic blending with a bit of “spritz and flick” to add dimension:

I used buttons and paper strips for layers, dimension, and fun:

The second LO was all about using Distress Ink in a watercolour-y way and I love how it turned out:

The 6 card fronts used stencils, layering, water ghosting, faux watercolour, and ink blending. They were fun! To see them all, check out my Flickr stream.

ghosted and stamped images Next time we do a Renewed class it’s going to be all about Distress Paint so come join us and find out how much fun they can be!

come on – let’s do this! | YLA2014

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Yearlong Album

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Classes, Sketches, Studio Calico, Wanderlust, YLA2014

A couple of weeks ago the new session of my Yearlong Class started up again and so far it seems like we’re going to have a ton of fun!

All the classes are sketch based this year and we’re lucky enough to have had Mary Ann design all the exclusive sketches for us – you can only get them in this class! If you like sketches or want to learn more about how to use them to suit you, this is the last chance to sign up and get in on the good times.

Our paper this year is from the Studio Calico Wanderlust collection and I wanted to show a bunch of colours and patterns to start off the year, which led to this cover page LO:

That big black and white block was meant for a 4×6 photo but I liked how it looked on its own so much that I think I’m going to leave it as is – designer’s perogative! 🙂

The initial kit includes some amazing resist alphas stickers and cork hearts:

And some fabulous gold alphas and flair:

The January LO is fairly simple but I taught how to stretch a sketch and alter it to suit your photo needs:

We used more of those resist alphas with some enamel dots:

and gold letters with October Afternoon labels:

and finished it off with great Project Life arrow stickers:

I think there may be one kit left so if you want to get the amazing core kit and initial instructions and then join us for the rest of the year, now is the time to go for it!

As always, I’ll be posting to twitter, instagram, and Facebook with #YLA2014 so keep an eye out for sneak peeks close to the end of each month.

Seasonal Canvas | Winter

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Sara in Canvas, Mixed Media

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canvas, Classes, Mixed media

At the last Paperie Spring retreat I taught a canvas class where we made a Spring canvas. It was a hit and so for in store classes this year the owners and I decided I would teach a set of four seasonal classes. The first one was this past Saturday.

We had a great group, about 6 of us, which is a nice size for a mixed media canvas class. This time the canvas was winter so of course, I needed a snowman:

One of the problems most people had to work through was covering the layers. One person, after we had the first layers of items down said, “I love it! I’m done.” And then we added about 5 more layers on top of that! The number one thing I tell students in canvas and mixed media classes is this: Don’t get attached to it – we’re covering it up!

I love to add rub-ons to my canvases and the Tim Holtz remnant rubs worked great for this one, especially to spruce up the top of the snowman’s hat:

My favourite part of this canvas is the texture of the snowman himself:

I think he turned out just right!

To make this class even better, we had an awesome mix of people who all had great ideas and fun products. One person had fabulous shimmery stuff that we all added to our snowbank to make it sparkle. Someone else had a swirl stencil to mimic the look of swirling snow. And yet another person had a bunch of different quotes to share. I love classes that gel like that so thank you to all the canvas peeps!

Next up, a new spring canvas – want to join us? 🙂

A bit of this, a bit of that….

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Sara in Card Kit, Classes, Mixed Media

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Classes, Mixed media, Simple Scrapper, The Paperie Card

I know I’ve been pretty quiet around here but I’ve been a busy bee behind the scenes designing and making and playing! My goal for this year is to have classes, kits, and creative team work designed, prepped, and ready in advance – and not to be doing it at the last second. That being said though, I seem to work well under deadline pressure!

Right now I’m getting ready to post my work using the February Simple Scrapper Members templates:

and story starters:

Plus I’m working my way through The Paperie‘s March Card kit:

And I just finished designing the canvas for The Paperie’s first ever Canvas Class: Junior Edition!

I’m so excited to see what all the kids do with the instructions – I know none of their canvases are going to look even remotely like mine and that’s the really awesome part of this class!

On top of that I’m mulling ideas for the new Yearlong Album class while waiting for my supplies to come in and I’m trying out things for my Seasonal Canvas: Winter class. Here’s the Spring canvas from last year’s retreat class, no peeks available yet for Winter though!

And that’s it – for now! I still have more card kit projects to do and a little something fun for Scrapbook Steals so there will be lots more eye candy soon.