The Best!

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Tags

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!

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 | 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

What a Charmer| My Favourite Things 2015

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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

≈ 5 Comments

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!

Distress Renewed – Distress Ink Part 2

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, ScrapBook

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Tags

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!

May | YLA2014

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, Mixed Media, Yearlong Album

≈ 1 Comment

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!

Art Journal pages – finally!

04 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by Sara in Art Journal, Mixed Media

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Art Journal, Dina Wakley, Mixed media, Ranger, The Crafter's Workshop

Yeah, so the posting of my Art Journal pages just didn’t happen yesterday. C’est la vie, I’ll show them to you today!

Our Art Journal night was all about colour and it was fun, fun, fun. As a side note, Dina Wakley’s book Art Journal Freedom is a fabulous reference book for colour theory – and a bunch of other things too!

Out first page was about monochromatic colour, though mine ended up being more analogous, which was fine with me:

Some reduction stenciling ala Dina Wakley, a pop of contrast colour through a Ronda Palazzari stencil for The Crafter’s Workshop, and some awesome Dina Wakley Media stamps for Ranger. I also added a pop of colour on one of the hearts:

I also added a doodled border with my new favourite Sharpie White Paint Pen – it’s all kinds of goodness.

The second page was all about split complementary colours:

I used Silks glaze so my complementary colours are quite muted. I like it but I think I’m going to go back in and punch it up a bit. I already did that a little by flicking deep orange paint splatters but I want more. This page isn’t really finished yet, I don’t think.

I added a cut out face from Dina Wakley’s stamps and painted circles which I then journaled in.

Like it overall, but it definitely needs something more. We’ll have to see…

Also, go to Julie’s blog today – she’s got her weekly Art Journal everyday post up and you can link up and/or see lots of inspiring pages over there!

February | YLA2014

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

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Tags

October Afternoon, Ranger, Studio Calico Wanderlust, The Crafter's Workshop, YLA2014

This past weekend I taught the second Yearlong Album class for 2014. More fun times with sketches and I broke out the new Tim Holtz Distress Marker Spritzer too!

Everyone was given a pack of new October Afternoon chipboard stars and hearts for this month’s class and I’m totally in love with them:

Aren’t they great?

We layered up some of the fabulous Wanderlust papers, along with some Simple Stories diecuts (stamped with my fave roller stamp):

And had fun playing with the aforementioned marker spritzer and my favourite The Crafter’s Workshop stencils to ground our photos. It all came together in a great double LO:

As always, people went their own way – used different papers, added extra photos, changed up the LO to suit them. I think that’s my favourite part of this class, everyone takes what I do and then bends it do it works for them – awesome!

I’m a busy bee again at the moment, trying to get some LO’s and canvases done for May classes so keep and eye on my Instagram and Twitter feeds for peeks of all that!

I’m planning to post some Art Journal pages tomorrow that I started in Cathie’s class last week – it was another excellent one and I love what I did! Check back tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have that ready for you.

Oh, it was a fun evening!

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by Sara in This & That

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Amy Tangerine, Dina Wakley Media, Dylusions, October Afternoon, Ranger, The Paperie

I know I promised the last of my Card Kit projects today but I went shopping last night and I’m going to share my spoils, along with some entertaining pictures showing why I needed to shop!

So this:

is my brand new bag. Isn’t it pretty? I had to have the new bag because something (aka my cats) happened to my old one and it looks like this:

See the scratches and cat hair? It also looks like this:

See, there’s one of the guilty parties in the background. Evil.

But wait. It gets better. I can also now do this:

Yup. Entertaining for you; hard for me and my plans to actually keep my supplies inside!

So I took my birthday money and off I went. But since it seemed all big and lonely, I needed to fill it! Truly, the bag was asking… 🙂

So I got some alpha stickers:

and flair:

and more flair:

and shiny washi:

Excuse the dry hands – I hate winter… 😡

I also picked up lovely new stamps:

and gorgeous new Ink Sprays:

Sigh. Big happy sigh. It was fun. And the best part? All of it came from The Paperie, my local scrapbook store! Love shopping small and local and I’m lucky we have such a great shop here.