Something exciting….

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by Sara in Mixed Media, Yearlong Album

Tags

Ronda Palazzari, Stencils, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album

…happened to me about a week and a half ago.

I tweeted sneak peek pics of the Yearlong album cover for the class participants to get an idea of what we would be doing in class.

Ronda Palazzari, who designed the awesome Confetti stencil I used, saw the pics and sent me a direct message through Twitter, saying she loved it and could she please include it in a blog post about her stencils?

Umm, let me think about that, YES!

So today the post is up on her blog and to be included with artists such as May Flaum and Marjie Kemper is a total thrill!

And thanks Ronda, I’m so glad you like the album!

By the way, Ronda also teased me, saying that her new stencils (coming in July) were even better than this past release! I offered to give them a test run, make sure they worked ok and all, but I don’t think she’s going for it – sigh. 🙂

YLA2013 | Album Cover

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

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

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Album cover, Luminarte, Mixed media, Ronda Palazzari, Silks, Stencil, The Crafter's Workshop, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

This may be one of my favourite projects ever. The colours, the texture, the dimension, the shine and, hello! That stencil.

Seriously people, that stencil may be my favourite of all time, maybe even edging out the Pomegranate one. Yes, it’s that good. It’s so good that I could even say I’m in love with Ronda Palazzari for designing it and Jamie at The Crafter’s Workshop for making it. I love it so much that I made sure everyone in my Yearlong class got the 12×12 one as well.

Moving along, this lovely project also happens to be the album cover we are making for the Yearlong 2013 class. Obviously, as it is a mixed media album no one will have the exact same cover but I’ll be teaching all the techniques I used and showing how I got that awesome texture (hint: teabags may have been involved!).

I also used modeling paste which made the hearts pop:

And gave fabulous dimension to the spine:

The paints I used were Luminarte Silks to give it that awesome shimmer and shine:

And for those who don’t have Silks yet (I stress the word yet, they are a necessity!) I’m working on a way to use your regular acrylics and make them into a faux shimmer glaze. If it works, I’ll do a tutorial some Tuesday soon.

If you can’t already see the reason I love the Confetti stencil, here’s why:

It’s like paint spatters, and blobs of molding paste, and quirky hearts all thrown together with great, but still imperfect, border to tie it all together.

And here’s a closeup of the front so you can really see how it all came together:

The back is very similar, but the paints blended a little differently. Plus, I still think I’m going to add a small camera stamp and my signature:

I had truly planned to do an album title and some decoration but I couldn’t bear to cover this up so… I guess we’ll have to go with Happy as an album title! 🙂

I’ll be back next week with the LO for this month, so look out for that later and keep an eye on Instagram (#YLA2013) for sneaks of it!

Here we go again!

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Classes, The Paperie, Yearlong Album, YLA2013

Another year of the Yearlong Album class is about to start and I’m super pumped about this one! It’s going to be less monthly themed than in the past, though it will still work perfectly for documenting each month, and it’s going to be a fun mixed media journey!

For a teaser, I thought I’d show the cover page we’ll be doing for the album. I won’t get into all the details, I’ll keep those for class right now, but I love how it turned out!

Most of the pages we make this year will be adhered to or made directly on the page protector itself, giving us the page protector as a large pocket to house memorabilia.

As you can see, the cover page is on canvas, not paper!

We’ll be using stencils along with fun and different media…

There will be some great shimmer and layering…

And awesome texture!

The only thing not included in the class are all the wood veneer pieces since I really want people to personalize this LO. So, if you’re signed up, start hunting for bits and bobs that you want to add to make the cover page really you!

I’ve also just learned that there may be a kit or two left! We upped the numbers this year to make sure everyone who wanted to could take part and there’s still time to sign up! I’d love to see you there – it’s going to be an amazing, messy, creative, and wickedly fun year! Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on this one!

We’ll also be doing our first two page spread for the year and it’s a very cool one – follow me on twitter or instagram or search #YLA2013 to see the peeks I post while creating.

12 on Twelve | February 2013

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Sara in 12 on Twelve, Baking, Family

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

12 on Twelve, Yearlong Album

Yesterday was a fun one for 12onTwelve because we had an early Valentine’s party! Here’re the shots I got for the day:

1. M reading stories to G over breakfast

2. Saying goodbye to Daddy before he goes to work

3. Playing Lego

4. Making Valentine’s

5. The kiddies love the self timer!

6. Reading stories

7. Doing puzzles during naptime

8. Working on the Yearlong Album 2013 cover page

9. G and I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for the party

10. My Valentines!

11. Pavlova for a party treat

12. Almost forgot my selfie – got it at almost the last minute!

Did you take pics yesterday? Link me up in the comments- I’d love to see your day!

I’ve been AWOL… (and the final Yearlong Album 2012 Class)

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Sara in Classes, ScrapBook, Yearlong Album

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

kids, Salmon Cove, Scrapbook Layout, Yearlong 2012, Yearlong Album

Yes, I vanished sometime last week, totally without notice.

Sorry. 🙂

Let’s just say that a week of prep work and then two very full days of teaching, followed up by a couple of “undone but deadlines looming” projects led to me taking an unscheduled blog break.

But I have the assignments finished, photos taken, edited, and uploaded. And I have instructions written and about to be sent, along with photos, for the final January class and, more importantly, the final Yearlong 2012 class.

For the first time ever I put pictures on the pages for the Yearlong Album. My goal with this class has always been to give a base that each student’s monthly pictures could work with so I’ve never put my own photos on. This past year has been a little different since I’ve made several Bonus Pages that aren’t part of the core album. So, for the final two bonus pages I designed, I added pictures!

The first one is an oldie from my wedding day. Love the series this shot came from since it’s on the newly built deck of the family cabin. This cabin has been in my dad’s family for a very long time and although other family members have gotten married in Salmon Cove, I was the first to get married on the Sands (the beach), and, as far as I know, the first to have the cabin factor into the wedding at all. So my dad built a new deck and freshened the place up with a new coat of paint and we had a bunch of pictures there. I like these of only me at a cabin I loved coming to as a kid.