Unicorn Dream | Elaine King | Sparkle

Good morning one and all

Today I am bringing you a layout using lots of sparkle as per the April Prompt over on UK Scrap Addicts Blog ... I hope you can join in too?  

Firstly I took a sheet of sparkly pink glitter cardstock and used it as a mat for my trimmed down white card background. Now I don't know about you but I find sticking to glitter card is impossible...so to get around that I used wet acrylic glue..Pinflair in this instance. 

Then I took my white card, purchased from Crafts4Eternity . I buy their card stock because they  stocks a 300gsm card that twists and warps far less when using wet mixed media.  I punched out three 'chomped' pieces of the border using a Martha Stewart punch. 

I then drew three concentric circles with a sparkly Kaisercraft gel pen purchased from Merly Impressions. These are my 'Go To' pens for journalling and anything sparkly. I then drew random little hearts using the same pen along the three lines of the circles and added lots of sequins. 

Finally I matted the photograph and added a piece of Unicorn paper (and one other) from the Dream Big collection from Simple Stores that I got from Hey Little Magpie using some of the ephemera from the collection too. I raised the photo up on foam pads for extra dimension. 

Hey presto, one quick and easy layout with lots of sparkle. I do hope this inspires you to give our prompt a try..have fun!

Hello Kitty | Elaine King | Black Backgrounds

Good morning one and all...

Welcome to my post for the UK Scrap Addicts Creative team using the prompt for March which is, as you already know, Black backgrounds! This is one of my favourite schemes so this was just perfect for me. 

So, without further ado.. here is my layout. 

As you can see I used very little patterned paper for this challenge but I did use a hot pink sheet of card-stock too. I first gutted this so I had enough to mat my photo with some left over for another project. Both sheets of card were bought from Merly Impressions 

Once I had done this I trimmed the black card down and mounted on the hot pink. To set out the brads I used a PinkFresh template. I changed it up a bit by adding the large brad in the centre to anchor my twine, instead of (as they suggested) winding the twine around lots of the outside brads. 

Once I had done this I layered the photo on some scraps of pink themed patterned papers and added the title. These are Thickers that I got from a kit from Lottie Loves Paper last year. 

I added the pink polka dot Rosette and some pretty embellishments from my stash.. a quick and simple layout! 

Simple but quick, and, in my opinion effective... not to mention a great way to use us those brads! 

Elaine

XX 

Chilly Day: Punches: Elaine King

Good morning everyone! 

I hope today is a little warmer than when this photo was taken! Brrr! 

Anyway, today I am bringing you a layout created using some of my punches. It was nice to dig them out again..It is something I often overlook..how about you? 

To start with I chose this collection of Simple Stories, Winter Wonderland. Sticking with the UK Scrap Addicts January theme of No Cardstock.. (I know, I know, its the Feb prompt I'm supposed to be promoting..lol) I started with a piece of the wood grain paper to use as my background. I bought this collection a while back now from Pretty My Page..the shop run by UK Scrap Addicts very own creative team member Lisa-Jane. Se still has a little left in stock..and they are reduced..woohoo! She is moving over to concentrate on her fantastic cut files now so there are bargains to be had!

Anyway..back to the layout.. I then took some long pieces of patterned paper and punched along the edge of the longest piece. I then layered them along the left hand side adding a piece at right angles along the bottom and adding some punched tags tucked under he top at the far left. 

Next I mounted the photo and used foam tape to lift it off the page for added dimension. 

Once this was placed I punched little bunting flags and added it to some bakers twine along the bottom. 

I then punched several snowflakes and scattered them around the edges of the photo and added several stickers from the collection too. 

Quite a simple layout but I managed to use four different punches..shown here. 

Why not have a go yourself and let me know you've got on? 

Have fun

Good morning scrappers! 

This morning I would like to share with you a layout I have made using your September Prompt of 'Paint' for the UK Scrap Addicts Blog 

Now, of course, the ideas for this are endless and it is an easy process to liberally daub paint, either acrylic or watercolours, on to the background paper and see what effect you can achieve. Of course one of the most difficult things about adding any sort of wet medium to your cardstock is that it will have a tendency to curl..which can be very annoying! To counteract this I used tape to stick down the edges to my glass cutting mat before starting adding the moisture to the paper/card. 

I used a heavyweight white card for my background which is 300gsm. I bought this in bulk from by 'go to' supplier Crafts4Eternity.  Of course you can use specialised watercolour paper for this but it does work out quite expensive and if you follow this simple tip you can use regular cardstock just fine!

Now, I'm no artist, but to me the techniques I used were very basic and I can explain a little of how I created the Lavender stems very simply..just follow along. 

To start I took some inexpensive watercolours and mixed some pale mauve paint using reds and blues and a pale grey/green colour. I watered this down quite heavily and painted soft fluid strokes of the two colours horizontally across the page.  I then gently gently painted the stems/leaves onto the background card in upward movements in random directions using a slightly darker, less watered down, grey/green colour. You can see here how I painted across the masking tape that I used to stick the paper to my mat. 

Then I mixed deeper mauve colour using red and blue and started on the flower heads. To create these I used 'bobbling' movements with my paint laden brush in elongated triangular shapes. It really wasn't scientific..just keep your paintbrush moving in these shapes. You will see that these are varying shades of the purple I mixed as each flower head has a different amount of water added to my brush each time. This adds depth and field to the painting. 

Once I had painted all my Lavenders, and allowed it to dry, I removed the masking tape from the edges. Undoubtedly this will remove some of the layers of the card beneath so at this point I cut a border off the edges and matted the entire piece on a piece of dark mauve cardstock. 

I next set about creating the photo clusters. First I die cut two circular photos of varying size. I then used a selection of flowers and leaves to create my clusters and  added the title using Puffy Sticker Alphas that I bought from Lottie Loves Paper 

I hope you like what you see and that this simple tutorial gives you confidence to have a go..what have you got to lose? Do let us know what you think too!

Elaine

xx

UK Scrap Addicts| Monochrome layout

Good morning Everyone

Thanks for joining me on my first blog post since becoming a member of the UKScrap Addicts Creative Team.

Today I am bringing you a layout using a monochrome colours. There was some discussion in the team as to how we would define Monochrome, but essentially we all agreed that using just one colour, regardless of how many tones there were, and, if you would like to, adding in a tiny amount of black in amongst the colour was the definition. I hope that helps?

So, here is my layout.

For this I decided to use one of my all time favourite collections from Kaisercraft that I originally sourced from Merly Impressions, one of the leading Kaisercraft suppliers in the UK. This collection is called  Indigo Skies and, of course, is predominantly blue! Lol

To start my layout, I used a starry stencil using texture paste that I had added a little denim coloured distress ink too. 

I then used a 3" piece of the collection paper to pace at the left hand side where I then added two further strips of paper too. I then set about fussy cutting several flowers from the patterned papers and created a cluster at the bottom left of the photo and added a tag and some strips of paper on the right.

I added several enamel dots and a twirl of blue and white bakers twine in amongst the cluster and added a couple of wood veneers that I had coloured with distress ink too. 

One of my favourite 'techniques' and one that gets overlooked a lot, is to literally take a few 'chomps' of punched edge from the sides too. Once I had done this I trimmed the paper down to 11" x 11" and backed it onto a piece of blue cardstock too. 

I do hope you will join in our challenge this month..especially as we are in the month of National Scrapbooking Day too! Go on! Have some fun and do let us know what you've been up to.