The Best!

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Distress Ink, Perfect Pearls Mist, Ranger, Stampendous Embossing Enamel

Just before I headed off to Vancouver to see my brother I went to a four-day scrapbooking retreat at The Wilds. The Paperie hosts these twice a year and they are a must-do! I admit, I planned my trip around it!

I was actually super productive this time around, something that usually doesn’t happen for me and to be honest, I don’t really care. For me, it’s more about the break and having an awesome girls weekend while doing something we all love! To get lots done this time was a huge bonus!

Two of my favourite LO’s came about due to a challenge I took part in. I used a couple of Halloween pics so I’m going to share these now before we get too far past that time and into full-blown Christmas!

I bought some foam Thicker words at the Retreat and they were perfect for these LO’s:

To make both LO’s, I picked three different colours of Distress Ink and blended them to get an ombre look, starting with the lightest and working my way up. I used the small round ink blending tool from Ranger, I like it better than the large one, and went over the colours a lot to get a seamless and smooth colour blend. I find that if you start light and keep adding colour, you are less likely to get lines from both the tool and between colours. If you look carefully, it seems that I have more than three colours on the page but that’s because of the overlap while blending.

To get the shimmery, bleached out dots I simply sprayed Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mist in my hand, flicked it onto the background and after a few seconds, rolled my paper towels over the top to pick up the excess mist.

I used the exact same technique for Gabe’s picture, with cool colours instead of warm.

For the stars on both pages I used either diecut cardstock stars or wood veneer. I covered them with VersaMark and then sprinkled on Aged Silver Embossing Enamel from Stampendous. It’s the best antique silvery colour and is my fave lately, along with the Aged Gold.

Distress Ink techniques are by far my favourite – these inks can seriously do almost anything, I think they have magic powers! Let me know if you try this out and have another fun technique to share with me, I’m always looking for new ones!

Cheers!

amazing dear | My Favourite Things 2015

16 Friday Oct 2015

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

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diecuts, Distress Ink, Simple Stories

I’m super duper late today but it’s still Friday so it counts, right? 🙂

Here’s the latest Fave Things LO’s – some of my personal faves from this year! We did a quick wash of Distress Ink – of course! – and layered. layered, layered!

For the first one, we only used Simple Stories diecuts:

I make the diecuts work by cutting and/or hiding the pieces I don’t want to see, like this banner:

We also used Crate Paper cork stickers from a previous month and added some metallic pink phrase stickers to the mix:

For the second LO we used a lot of Amy Tangerine paper scraps and then added a few diecuts to finish it off:

I love all the levels and depth in the layers!

For both, we added a finishing touch of a few sequins and stars for some shine:

Pretty simple, but so fun to do – I love sitting down and layering up diecuts and paper scraps!

There are extra pictures at Flickr, including pics of the envelopes we matted the photos on – we used them to hold mini albums of extra pictures, a favourite trick of mine, since I’m a one photo per page lover!

Hope you enjoy!

Cheers!

hello love | My Favourite Things 2015

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Distress Ink, Mixed Media Layout, My Favourite Things, Perfect Pearls, Ranger

I think the August class of My Favourite Things was one of the most popular so far – everyone loved the technique (which I originally got from Jennifer McGuire) and everyone’s turned out so beautifully but all so amazingly different.

I love how the ombre turned out on this one! Molly’s favourite colour these days is blue and since the Distress line has so many incredible blues, I decided to use a bunch! What better way than ombre? You can’t see it, my photography skills are just not up to the challenge, but the shimmer of Perfect Pearls over the Distress Ink is amazing!

We embellished up the LO’s this month with cork stickers from Crate Paper, some paper strips from Amy Tangerine, and more rub-ons from a few months ago.

The second LO is the exact same technique but with a different shape, ink colour, and Perfect Pearl colour.

Still more cork and rub-ons for the title and journaling work – I love how those pieces all came together!

We also mixed a few colours together on this one; you can see the blend if you look closely. It added great depth without breaking up the visual of one colour tone.

And now we’re almost there – on Friday I’ll have you all caught up with My Favourite Things so make sure you check in for that!

Cheers!

Simple Scrapper | October 2015

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Simple Scrapper

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Distress Ink, Mixed Media Layout, Simple Scrapper

Yay, I’m all caught up! Whew! 🙂

I had fun with this month’s LO’s – the templates and Story Starters were, as always (I know I say it every month) fabulous! Jennifer and her Team behind the scenes knock it out if the park each month with the templates. Although I’m not a digital scrapper, I love that they come as a sketch and also as a layered Photoshop template; it means I can use pieces on my traditional layouts too.

For my Story Starter LO this month I used a fun picture of my scrappy friends and I at a Retreat our local scrapbooking store, The Paperie, puts off twice a year. It’s an awesome time – 4 nights and 4 days at a hotel with great people. Sometimes we get lots of stuff done, other times, well, we just have fun and relax! A few retreats ago the store started bringing props for pics and we have taken full advantage!

It may have been fairly late and there *may* have been some wine involved. Just saying….. 🙂

I had fun with Distress Inks and water to make the background panel and then used OCtober Afternoon plus several colours of Kelly Purkey alpha stickers for the title work:

One of my favourite tricks is to outline letters with a black pen to make them pop out against a busy background. It’s amazing the difference it makes!

My template LO has lots of white space but still uses lots of paper – a great way to use up those favourite bits and pieces you might have left over.

Some epoxy Freckled Fawn hearts and Amy Tangerine alphas gave it some shine, and a wash of watery Distress Ink grounded the whole piece. And then I just layered and layered paper scraps that I had distressed:

And there they are! Make sure you take a look at my sidebar for links to the rest of the Team and see what they did this month. You can also check out our Pinterest page for a quick overview!

I’ll be back Friday with some My Favourite Things LO’s – we did some fun techniques over the summer!

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 | September 2015

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, ScrapBook, Simple Scrapper

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Distress Ink, Mixed Media Layout, Perfect Pearls, Ranger, Simple Scrapper

Back, as promised, with more Simple Scrapper LO’s today! These are using the September Premium Membership materials – both templates and Story Starters.

I used a fun Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls technique on both my LO’s this month – they’re super shimmery and colourful in real life!

One of the slight twists I used this month was with the doilies – I layered two and flipped one backwards so it has just a subtle pink tint coming through. The white wasn’t quite right, the red was too deep and the pink I had wasn’t the right shade. Flipping the red doily over worked perfectly!

I used my favourite Amy Tangerine Kraft Thickers for the title and added some detail to those and the cork hearts with my white paint pen:

The Story Starter LO has this year’s annual cabin pic of my kiddos and my best friend’s kiddos – she added an extra one to the mix this summer!

Every summer we spend two weekends at our family cabin with this crazy crowd and have the time or our lives! Unfortunately we missed a weekend this year because I was delayed due to weather on my way home from Mexico. I’m not complaining – we got four more days of sun and got to see some family during our stopover – but I did miss our second weekend together.

I punched circles from a previously made watercolour background paper and added wood veneer chevrons that had been coloured with a Sakura Stardust pen:

I don’t have a decent picture of the border, but I simply drew two lines and scribbly doodled in between to frame out the piece.

And that’s it! Check back Wednesday for the October LO’s using the all new materials from Simple Scrapper. Also, don’t forget to take a look at the 2016 planner Jennifer has designed – it’s really awesome and it comes in five different sizes!

As always, if you have any questions about how I did something, just ask and I’ll try to answer. If you want to know pretty much exactly how I made the shimmery background, check out this video from Jennifer McGuire!

Cheers!

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

Beanie Baby | My Favourite Things 2015

14 Thursday May 2015

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Distress Ink, Mixed Media Layout, My Favourite Things, Ranger

One of my all time favourite products are the Ranger Distress Inks. I use them all. the. time. And one of my favourite ways to use them is as if they were watercolours. And look at how gorgeous that works out::

I added some awesome Amy Tangerine Thickers directly on the photo for the title:

And on both LO’s I added tons of stars, sequins, and gems:

The second LO uses the same technique but the placement was quite different:

I still used the Thickers and coloured them with my Sakura Clear Stardust pen for some shimmer:

And for both LO’s, I added hidden journaling behind the photo:

As always this year, the pictures are black and white for a couple of reasons:

1. I like the look of black and white these days, and

2. I can use whatever colours strike my fancy to make my backgrounds.

We have another class next week and will be using an awesome new product! Make sure you check back for those layouts!

Cheers,

Sara

Distress Renewed – Distress Ink Part 2

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

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Classes, Distress Ink, Mixed Media Layout, Ranger

I’ve been having great fun with this bimonthly class at The Paperie – Distress Renewed. This month, due to popular request, we went back to Distress Inks again and I dug deep to come up with some new ways to use them. I think I succeeded!

The results were two new ways to build backgrounds, one in a watercoloury (that’s a real word, I swear!) way and the other using a new blending technique.

The blended ink background has double stencil layers, some water dripping, and ink splats. Lots going on but still not too busy:

Layers with alphas and stickers from the element sheet:

Now, can I be honest for a minute here? I’ve never been a fan of the Tea Dye Distress Ink – it just didn’t work for me. Until this LO:

See those orangey splats? Tea Dye. Awesomeness. Love, love, love.

The watercoloury background used about 12 different colours of ink:

The perfect mix of Old Paper ink and Perfect Pearls powder for ink splats with shimmer and defined edges, plus circle stamping:

And of course, sticker layers!

I love these Distress Renewed classes – it’s as much fun for me to find new ways to use my products as it is to teach them!

Back early next week with the first in my Seasonal Mini Albums class – Summer!

Cheers!

A little bit Distressed…

07 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook

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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!

Distress Ink Backgrounds | Scrapbook Steals

12 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by Sara in Scrapbook Steals, Techniques, Tutorials

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Distress Ink, Scrapbook Steals, Tutorial

Remember back when I used to do a Tuesday Technique? They were fun, right?

Well, I didn’t have time to keep doing those each week but luckily for you, Scrapbook Steals does one each and every Tuesday on their blog!

Today, and once every month, I’ll be the How To-sday blogger over there and today is my first post – Distress Ink backgrounds.

Go take a look and try it out – fun times will ensue, I promise!

KP Weekend!

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Cards, Classes, Techniques

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Distress Ink, distress paint, Distress Stain, Dyan Reaveley, Dylusions Ink Spray, Gesso, Kelly Purkey, Perfect Pearls, Ranger, Stencils, The Crafter's Workshop, Tim Holtz, tissue wrap

This past weekend, The Paperie hosted Kelly Purkey and we all had an awesome time!

Krista and I were lucky enough to share the teaching floor with her and do classes so there were lots of different styles and projects for participants to make. Kelly taught a LO class, plus a mini album from scratch. Krista did a completed Dear Lizzy Daybook mini and I did a tag technique workshop. Since I don’t have any pictures on LO’s or in albums yet, I’ll show you the tags I taught and be back another time with the other goodies!

First of all we played with Dylusions Ink Spray and gesso, plus the Tim Holtz Easter Blueprints stamps (CMS144):

I love the texture the gesso provides!

Then we used Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls powder to make a great background that we layered with the Vintage Things Blueprints set (CMS152):

Hello, Perfect Pearls and silver gel pen:

We did a soft background using Distress Stains, the Sewing Room Sizzix Bigz die, and some tissue wrap:

Love the dimension the tissue wrap adds:

Finally, we all played with the brand new Distress Paints! We marbleized, stenciled, and painted:

And added some amazing mirrored sheet letters to finish it off! Unfortunately, I only have this one cell phone picture of this tag but I’ll update with better pics tomorrow when I get my tag back.

It was a bit hairy at the end of class, trying to get them all done but all in all, I think we pulled it off and everyone liked their tags – whew! Plus, they all got to take home a new Distress Paint and a 6×6 Crafter’s Workshop stencil of their choice, pretty sweet!

The weekend as a whole, starting Friday night with a wine & cheese, leading into classes all day Saturday and then a crop, ending with another full class day on Sunday, was fabulous! I think everyone was pretty tired by the time it finished but it was worth every moment. Plus, we got to get a jumping picture with Kelly at Signal Hill in front of Cabot Tower – the icing on top of a very good weekend, even if we did freeze our faces off to get it!