'Uniquely You'......... Serendipity by Blue Fern Studios

 I have been playing with some fabulous papers from Blue Fern Studios. This is the first time I have worked with these papers and I just cannot get over the wonderful quality of each sheet and the stunning designs on them, what a pleasure it's been ( I can see a new obsession brewing here!)

The photo's of our youngest were taken on a sports award night that she attended and was awarded Sportswoman of the Year. The photos were taken before the ceremony and so I will now also be having to scrap the photos of her with the awards too!

I started off with a sheet of Serendipity - Chronicle as the background and took a sheet of Serendipity - Imagination which I cut a random wavy edge around and also inked up the entire edge with a dark brown ink pad.
 On the right hand side I tore a line in towards the centre of the page and then rolled the edges back.  I chopped up the sheet of  Serendipity Calling Cards, chose the ones I wanted for this page and gently inked the edges. These were then used up for layering around the photos

In my kit I had a sheet of Bazill Cardstock called Lagoon and because of the small tints of blue in the actual papers, I thought I would use the cardstock to create some flowers to adorn the page. I punched out several flowers, spray misted the die cuts with water and allowed them to soak in for a while, before then scrunching each one up and putting to one side to dry for using later.

Once they had dried out I layered them up and stuck a nice big flat backed gem in the centre ( I LOVE a bit of bling!)

I don't know about you but I really love using chipboard embellishments on my pages, they are so versatile and can be left plain as they come or can be inked, painted, glittered etc to dress them up. I took these Blue Fern Studio Berry Stems dabbed them with an Aqua Acrylic Dabber and then gently sponged some tiny patches with some gold acrylic paint. I also added some little crystal bling on some of the berries.

I quite often like to add butterflies to my pages, so I printed out some onto white card and then coated with Sprinkled Sugar Stickles. 
I also used a beautiful chipboard Romantic Page Dangle which I painted in brown and over dabbed with some gold acrylic paint. Using some jute twine I criss crossed stitched across the torn section on the right hand side of the page and layered the chipboard dangle over the top, adding crystals, a butterfly and also another handmade blossom.

 I finished the page off by adding a few crystals here and there and also using a bottle of Mercury Glass Stickles , I used various round items as a stencil and dotted the Stickles in blobs around them.

I enjoyed using these products so much and cannot wait to play with them some more, if you pop over to Papermaze you can see all the products I have used , especially the beautiful papers in the Blue Fern Studios ranges.

Thanks so much for looking at this post, I hope you have a super scrappy week.
Warmest wishes
Anita x

M is for Mixed Media over at Scrapology

We are scraplifting our very own design team member LINDA this month by creating a page using many different mediums together on one layout.
 I REALLY enjoyed playing with this page and adding all the various layers of paint, mists, webbing spray etc

 We started off with a 12 x 12" peice of greyboard, which was painted with Gesso.

 

 I then used a harlequin mask and some Sparkle Medium in Turquoise ( thanks Linda)......
and then just went wild with Cosmic Shimmer Sprays, some sprayed, some dribbled....silver webbing spray, large chuck glitter flakes, sequins, crystals, blossoms, buttons and headed pins. I also added some denim and organza scraps.....gosh I DID enjoy all the mess and sparkle.....and discovered in the process of creating this peice....that a little really DOES go a long way.....a LONG LONG way....but it doesn;t matter does it....because everyone likes a bit of sparkle in their lives ;)


The photo is of my 2 gorgeous girls, taken in the springtime in 2011, at Abbots Wood, when we were out on a walk looking at the Bluebells.


  If you pop over to Scrapology you can see all the beautiful designs that the DT came up with, they truly are stunning.....and each so very different! We would LOVE to see you enter this months challenge....you have plenty of time to join in the fun and get messy/sparkly/inky/shimmery :D. Warmest wishes ANita xx

T is for Texture Paste....Feb Challenge at Scrapology

This month over at Scrapology we are lifting a beautiful layout by Heather Jacob  and we are being challenged to use Texture paste on our pages.
 I have never used this product but have often admired other peoples work using it. Well what can I say?? I LOVED playing with it and I really REALLY enjoyed making this layout. I cannot remember the last time I felt like this about a page and I know it probably sounds daft, but I really feel like my mojo could well be rolling back to me....hopefully :).

Probably helped that I played with my absolute favourite colours too lol and also broke out some old OLD stash that I have had for a long time....that little plaque is from the very early Basic Grey days...not sure if its Motifica or Sublime, but it is def old lol.

I used a 12 x 12 Harlequin mask to spread the paste through and added in some teal acrylic paint in patches. I broke out my old seed and bugle beads and glued down in patches too....waste not want not! LOL....looks a little like eyelashes doesn't it.

A sprinkling of bling, blossoms and yummy AC Thickers ( again in my absolute fave colour!!)

I printed out some butterflies that were over on the awesome Swirlydoos site and then 'Stickled' them up.

Here is Heather's original, beautiful page that we were lucky enough to lift....gorgeous isn;t it!

And here is the sketch that we worked from.

Why not pop over to the Scrapology blog and look at the beautiful examples by the DT....we would LOVE to have you play along with us for this months challenge and you have until 5th March to enter

 

Jill at Cardinal Colours has come up with another fabulous prize this month.

Embossing Paste in Matt Black
and Glossy White
and some
applicator sponges.

                                                           So....come on, get 'pasting!'

A layout....a haircut....and a water fight!

**WARNING** this is a heavy photo post ok..........
.......... still here? Right ok, then I shall start with a layout. This is one I made a few weeks ago and is using papers from the American Crafts 'Classics' Range. I just fell in love with the colours, especially the tealy/turq one......


I cut the flowers using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die, curled the edges of the petals and then popped an 8mm Teal half pearl into the centre.

I paper pricked the swirly pattern onto the paper and then covered each prickhole with some lush Teal Liquid Pearls which I bought from the wide range of colours at Cardinal Colours


These papers were really lovely to work with, some of them have a pearlescant finish to them and all of them are double sided.


Now onto the haircut!
Chloe has been growing her hair for what seems like an absolute age and it had grown to a fairly long length....as you can see here!


On tuesday we went to my cousins house for a hair cut.........
and this is what she came out with!!!!!! Gorgeous eh :)

Although I am not sure how much I like her looking older than her years LOL.xxx

Yesterday she had her best friend round for the day and they were up to various things....as the day went on it got hotter and hotter.....


so what better way to end it than with a water fight!!!


The water guns came out and battle commenced!


And then it was a case of filling a jug and emptying it! ( warm water of course!!)


Then back to the guns again....before they ended up actually throwing buckets of water at each other LOL....a good time was had by all.



We also had some great fun with bubbles and a hand made bubble maker....will share that at a later date.
Off to cut hubby's hair now and then to the hospital to visit my Dad before we hit the beach for the evening and enjoy fish and chips.....
Wishing you a lovely evening too ( and wondering why it is that weekends pass so darned quick and yet weekdays at work do not!!!!!)

Warmest wishes Anita..xxxx

Websters Pages and Wooly Ruffles...

hello there :)
I hope you are having a lovely weekend so far( even though the weather is pretty pants!) I have been busy making a good start on 18 flannel reindeer that I am making for my Nephew and Neice's school Christmas Fair...they are filled with yummy chocs....just got to finish putting bells onto their antlers and they will be done! ( need to get some more bells though)
Also I have been doing a fair bit of knitting too. I made this scarf a few weeks ago and thought I would get the girls to take a couple of photos so I could scrap them at some point. I am so NOT a knitter LOL( I knitted lots of small squares several years ago and sewed them together to make a jumper.....it was more like a sleeping bag!!!), but I must admit I am thoroughly enjoying creating these ruffly scarves.

I fell in love with these Websters Pages papers a few weeks ago and ordered some after being totally and utterly inspired over the past few months of looking at the lovely blog of Jo's

She is a fantastic scrapper and superb card maker( aswell as being a lovely, lovely blogger) and she has used Websters a lot in both crafts, please do pop over and enjoy some time floating through her inspirational posts.
I am totally in love with the colour Teal ( you may already know that lol) and on a trip over to Crawley recently I found this beautiful trim in a fabric shop, it would have been so rude to come out without buying some wouldn't it! I also had the sequin trim in my stash, which I thought went well with the page.

Out came my beloved Ice Stickles and I spattered them EVERYWHERE lol.
I had some large creamy coloured paper flowers and wanted to match a couple to the papers

, so I coloured a couple with a Marine Promarker..... I love the depth of colour, so rich.
I used 2 sheets of the same Hollywood Vogue papers and made the large circle using the reverse side and cut out and Stickled the other elements and then layered them up with foam pads. I then just added some fancy pins, crystal sprays and some gold dots

I have to say I really enjoyed creating this page and now I really REALLy want to play with some more Websters pages.....so THANK YOU Jo for your wonderful inspiration!

Have a super weekend and thanks for looking.

Warmest wishes Anita..xxxx

A dash of lime........

I have been fiddling and faffing about last night and today with a couple of cards and thought I would share them with you here. For quite some time now my favourite colour has been shades of teal, turquoise and a liberal splattering of lime, I love the freshness of it and if you open my wardrobe door you will be met by a sea of these colours. For my birthday my sister gave me the most gorgeous light teal handbag from Next and my best friend, Sue , gave me amongst other things, a gorgeous interchangable watch set, it has 4 straps in varying colours, but so far hasn't made it away from the turq strap! I have teal/turq crocs( and I don't care that lots of people hate them!!! My feet feel fab in them!!) and have recently bought 2 lovely lightweight teal scarves...so yes, you could say I LOVE it! Anyway, I digress....so I decided to make some cards. I was drawn straight to those colours and this is what I came up with.



I love the cheeky little Magnolia Tilda Snowman, he is sooo cute and I can see him appearing on several cards for Christmas in an array of colours this year.






The other card is just a blank at the moment, not sure what occasion it will be for, but both cards are very sparkly with lots of Stickles on.














After I finished the cards I wanted to make some jewellery and was totally inspired by the cards and the colouring in them. I made 2 more Bag Charms( based on the design of the Blue and White one from the other week) with some of the new beads I bought a couple of weeks ago and also made a silver and lime nugget bracelet with a toggle clasp on it, so quite a productive day really.






I also got all the kits sorted and packed for this weeks classes at Jills ( Cardinal Colours).....I really think I may *need* to get me some more of those delicious E-Line Prima crystals and Pearls tomorrow or thursday night whilst I am there....well it would be rude not to wouldn't it???? Right, I am off to do the washing up....and maybe make something else beady.....