All that glitters is not gold…

Hi Everyone

Sam here, with my first layout as a DT member of the UKSA team…

If you hadn’t already noticed, the theme for April is ‘Sparkle’.

Now, I can’t deny that I have a real phobia of glitter – I think it’s because it reminds me of sand. Like sand, it gets everywhere, so it’s a scrapbooking product that I tend to avoid like the plague! I simply couldn’t face using any, so my ‘Sparkle’ was going to have to be introduce via some other means…

I found I’d got some Starlights paint, including White Gold, which I knew gave a true shimmery effect, so I decided that my layout would incorporate gold elements along with some co-ordinating sequins from my stash.

My eldest step-daughter is in New Zealand currently where this photo was taken. I thought the quirky seat on the wall that had become a painted swing was fabulous, along with the cupid and combinations of greens, teals and hot yellow. It’s not a colour combination that I’d usually scrap with, but was so inspired by it, I decided to dig deep into my scrapbooking stash and see what I could find.

To my delight, I realize that the Maggie Holmes ‘Carousel’ collection featured some of these tones. And, I’m sure that you can relate to just ‘saving a piece of paper’ because it’s too nice to use syndrome? I’d been suffering with that over the big top paper, but as it was just black and white, it meant that I could paint it to complement the photo and add sparkly details too!

I tend to mix white gesso with paint when I’m creating a background on a printed design, as it works in much the say way as preparing a background that’s going to be subjected to techniques such as the packaging one.

After fussy cutting the kites and the scallop detail for the big tops, I used sequins to add detail, with little French knots to each centre.

I found I’d got an unopened set of enamel charms, both of which were set into a gold metal, so this added to the sparkle along with my title.

Until next month…

Love and sparkles

Sam X

Delightful Day | Terri Morris | One 6x4 Photo

Well here we are in the 6th month of the year, seems like only yesterday we were celebrating new year. I'm desperately trying to use up some of my older stash (so I have an excuse to buy more!). This month we are focusing on using a 6x4 photo on our layout. The current trend seems to be very much in favour of using smaller photos (3x4 or 4x4) so it was a nice change to be challenged to use this size.

I added some gesso to the wordy patterned paper and added water colour and mists to the background using the packaging technique although much of it is actually covered by the photo and ephemera.

I've never quite known what to do with the pompoms from the Maggie Holmes 'Carousel' collection but grouping three together in a few areas on this layout gave it some much needed texture. 

I added lots of layers of paper, chipboard, puffy stickers and stamping to create groupings of embellishment around the main photo. I've used a few random pieces like the big wheel but as it was a Museum of Illusion I thought it fitted in quite nicely with the story I was telling.

Thanks for visiting the blog today and don't forge to show us your layouts on our Scrap Addicts Facebook Group or by tagging us on Instagram.

Happy Crafting!

Your Happy Place | Sarah Jayne | Large Photo

Wow!! What a month of scrapping large photos inspiration it's been here on UK Scrap Addicts so far!

Today, I'll show you what I got up to when I scrapped a large photo for the first time ever! Yep, honestly, in my 12 years of scrapbooking I can't recall ever scrapping with a photo larger than 7" x 5". So, thank you to UKSA for helping me step out of my comfort zone with this one!

Here's the process video:

For my layout I had a few photos printed in 10" x 7" size and chose one that had lots of plain background area that I can use for embellishing. I planned to embellish right on top of the photograph.

I used some of the larger embellishments from my stash and from the August Lottie Loves Paper Kit.

All the patterned papers and lots of the embellishments are from the brand new "Carousel" collection by Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper and I mixed it up with a few embellishments from her previous collection "Chasing Dreams".

I kept my embellishment clusters to three areas and repeated several of the elements in each of the 3 clusters.

And here's the finished layout:

When I'm not at my scrapping desk, you will find me in my office uploading lovely new stock to the Lottie Loves Paper website or on the LLP Social Media accounts (listed below) or busy packing up kits for the Lottie Loves Paper kit club. I'd love you to hop on over and say Hi if you have chance.

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Thanks so much for joining me today and Happy Scrapping!