Love : Elaine King: Grab Five

Good morning all

Today I have pleasure in bringing you a layout made using five of my favourite crafty items in line with the December prompt to 'Grab 5" items from your stash and create a layout. 

Now, I confess, sometimes my Mojo goes walkabout..and for just some occasions, I have a jar with  slips of paper in it with lots of suggestions. This prompt was therefore right up my street! 

First I took my five slips of paper. My selection was as follows: 

1) Patterned Paper

2) Pearls

3) Flowers

4) Punches

5) Die Cuts 

Currently I am making an album for a friend who recently got married and so my first thought was to make a layout for this album. I am mostly going to be using Kaisercafts Misty Mountain range which I got from Charmed Cards and Crafts so this was my first selection. I knew I would be making clusters of floral embellishments so the choice of both flowers and pearls was a lucky one! Lol

I was then wondering how I would include both punches and die cuts?.. so I then chose a sketch that included some bunting so I knew that I could use my punch that I got from a Stampin' Up demonstrator. All I had to do then was choose which die cut to include and I thought this 'Love' one was just perfect as a title for my friend looking at her Mum. 

I hope that you like the idea of choosing five items to kickstart your creativity too. Do pop in and let us know what you have chosen to use!

Helping Hands | Elaine King | Small Photos

Good morning all

Didn't you just love this months prompt over on the UK Scrap Addicts Blog? I love to use small photos as it is always great way to use up several photos at once.  Here is the layout I made this month using the prompt 

When I am doing this I usually use a photo editing app. In this case I used Pic Collage so you can make lots of photos fit into a grid. I find that most online photo printing services will offer a 'square photo' option these days. I have discovered that the UK photo printing services of Snapfish offer a 4" square option and Free Prints offer a 5" square option. In this case I used the 5" option from Free Prints rather than print the photos out myself. 

To make this layout I used 4 photos that I had set into a square. In these apps you can often choose a background colour too. In this case I chose a cerise pink background which I echoed by using a cerise pink piece of cardstock as my background. 

Once I had cut apart my four photos in the grid I used them with a page kit from Crafts4Eternity 

I made some home made embellishments using washi tape for the central square and highlighted some of the black that features within the patterned papers. 

I made a cluster in the bottom left with more punched black card and some die cut circles that served as a journaling spot. 

I then punched a 2" heart for co-ordinating card and covered in sequins too. Each of the squares that were not photos were cut and layered to give each a cerise pink frame too. 

To finish I added flowers from my stash and some black puffy alphabet stickers that I got from The Works. 

My only dilemma is the title.. should it be Helping Hand..or Helping Hands??? You decide!! 

Penshurst Place | Elaine King | Paint

Good morning scrappers! 

This morning I would like to share with you a layout I have made using your September Prompt of 'Paint' 

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!

xx

Today | Elaine King | Tic Tac Toe

Good morning all

Today I am delighted to bring you a layout featuring our monthly Tic Tac Toe challenge card here

To start with I cut the black circle background paper that I first obtained as a free cut file from the UK Scrappers forum. They hold a wealth of free files for your own use so why not pop in for a look to see what's available?

I then chose my photo and selected a collection of papers that included black in. I came across this Simple Stories, Bliss collection,  that I bought from Craft4Eternity as a monthly page kit.

I cut a selection of three strips from the Enjoy the Ride sheet and Remember to Shine page too. I then punched several 1 & 1/4" circles and placed these in a circle around the edge of the placement of the photo. I then mounted this on co-ordinating card-stock and mounted this on foam pads on top of the circle of circles to give dimension. I have drew some 'stitches' on all the papers too. 

a 

To embellish I used several flowers from my stash and a journalling card along with some stickers from the Bliss sticker sheet and a chipboard butterfly and bird from the same collection.

The Today title was made using a sticker and then mounted on a piece of yellow paper scrap which I then fussy cut around.

The little flair badge was for a collection that I bought from Lottie Loves Paper. I added some strips of washing tape in co-ordinating colours and the pink arrows were cut using my Silhouette Cameo.

I hope you like what you see.. don't forget to pop over to the shops mentioned above. ..they hold such lovely pretty things to stroke!!! Lol 

Summer Smiles | Lou Thompson | Tic Tac Toe

This months challenge was to use the Tic Tac Toe grid. You must take any line of 3 items from the grid, up, down or diagonal, and use these as part of your work. I have chosen the rainbows, circles and different alphas.

I thought about how I wanted to incorporate the circles and remembered these lovely wooden circles I had. I also came up with the idea of decorating the circles using papers with the colours of the rainbow. I used a circle punch to make the paper shapes and then applied to the wooden circles using double sided tape.

I wanted to further the idea of using circles so also used a Finnabair stamp set to add some more circles to my background

A selection of alphas were used to create the title for this layout

A cluster was created in the bottom right corner using ephemera, stickers, chipboards and flowers.

The wooden circles were stuck to the page to create a base for the photo. The photo was matted with some different coloured papers and then stuck to the page, careful not to stick right to the edge of the photo mat. This was so I could then tuck in stickers, chipboards, acetate, enamels and ephemera. Foam squares were applied to some pieces to add further dimension.

And here is the finished piece. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It's a really fun, summer piece that works great with the photo. I hope you like it and see you again next month :)

Beautiful | Elaine King | One 6 x 4 photo

Good morning all

Thanks for joining me again on my journey showcasing British suppliers in the UK Scrapbooking industry. It gives me so much pleasure to support these small businesses and share my experiences with you all. 

For this month's prompt the Creative Team were tasked with creating a layout using just one 6 x 4 photo. As this is something I do regularly I wasn't fazed by this challenge but I wanted to share some techniques with you that may inspire you to get involved too. 

To start with I took several pieces of scrap white card stock and cut them into rectangles and layered them on a white background. I adhered them with medium gel and spread texture paste using a pallet knife to create texture. I also used a stencil with the same texture paste to add further interest.

Next I took some Tim Holtz Distress Oxides, (bought from Crafts4Eternity in Weston Super Mare) and added some pink and grey and misted with water to give it a splattered look. Once dried I then took an inch off each edge and layered the white cardstock onto a pink sheet of card (having gutted it first to use later).

I then took some scrap of pink and grey patterned papers an arranged them over the top of the textured rectangles with some die cuts I'd had for a while in my stash that one of my dear friends had cut for me. We got to know each other through the UK Scrappers forum and I am still an active member there. It's a shame more people aren't so if you have a spare few minutes, why not pop over and say hello? 

Anyway.. then I used some Prima washi tape, also sourced from Crafts4Eternity from one of their add ons from a monthly page kit, and layered this too. 

Finally I added the photograph that I had matted on  the gutted pink card and decorated with flowers from my stash. The little word expressions to the left of the photo are from a sticker sheet from Kaisercraft called P.S. I Love You as is the little heart above the photo too. 

I do hope you like the layout and it gives you some ideas how to use some of your scraps and add dimension. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Guest Designer - Jen Hart

I'm delighted to share todays guest designer is Jen Hart... 

Thank you so much UK Scrap Addicts for the opportunity to be a guest designer this month I love your ethos of showcasing UK Scrapbooking

My name is Jen Hart, I live, work and scrap in and about, very gratefully and happily, beautiful North Devon. I am a single mum of three amazing peeps: Lauren 19 at University in London, Louis 16 working as an Apprentice Painter and Decorator and Alex navigating Year 7. They simultaneously fill me with love, fascination, utter surprise, sheer terror and did I mention love  

I have an amazing friendship group that I met through UKS and have become my very best friends and we try and meet up at least once a year to retreat together, we chat every day, they have taught me nearly everything, I love them and they inspire me no end

At work I lead a brilliant team in a Tesco Express store and they simultaneously fill me with love, fascination, surprise, terror etc  I am very fond of them all

I love to scrapbook, i'm a newbie stitcher, i'm a proud weightwatcher, i'm a newbie gardener, i'm a keen diy'er, I love to walk (I am currently walking the Somerset and North Devon parts of the South West Coast Path). My Cup Is Full. 

I loved both the mood boards that are being showcased this month but this one is my favourite as it is full of my favourite colours and sparkly stuff.

I used a sketch from Creative Scrappers to start me off (no 305) and decided to swap out the stars for flowers and see where that took me. I love sewing on my layouts so I decided to do that first for the first layer of texture, I've put some of the photos and a couple bits of video of the steps together on a video to watch here: it's my first video like this, I've learned loads and would like to get good at it.

I used Kaisercraft Wildflowers paper collection from Merly Impressions in the UK, some Ali Edwards Craft The Story stamps, a Cathy Zielske Fit stamp and Cardstock, Nuvo Drops and general supplies from Hey Little Magpie. I also used Lucy's patterns from Attic 24 to crochet the leaves and hydrangea petals.

I also often make a companion project life page and sometimes a journaling 6x12 page to pop in between. The big hike that I did warranted a few more details for my album so I did...

I added in a QR code to link to some video footage as all my family love coming across those in the albums

Some of the journaling, I will have more I think.

And the reverse of that page; I generally add in another photo or two and use up some embellies and fave paper.

Thanks very much for looking at my scrapbooking

If you haven't already had enough, the video of my walk along the coast path is here:

Thanks for sharing with us Jen.  To see more of Jen's workvisit her here: Blog Instagram Pinterest YouTube