Distress Stains

Have been hooked onto youtube recently watching Tim Holtz demonstrations at CHA 2011. And I was so hooked that I managed to persuade Joyce to accompany me to buy the distress stains as I wanted to try them on tags. These are my only collections, and perhaps one day.. just one day, I will be able to own the whole collection.

I don't really like how the tags have turned out. I am still finding my way through how to mix and match other stuff (e.g. Webster pages, more feminine touch) with Tim Holtz series (more masculine style). I like the contrast, but not sure how to blend them together such that they have the contrast, and yet they match.

This is my favourite tag.

 

The rest...

Materials Used: Manila tags, Distress Stains, Webster Christmas Pattern Paper, Prima Flowers.

 



Morning Inspiration

It hasn't been an easy week at work recently. In the midst of finding my way out from all the frustrations, I decided to create a mindless background over the weekend. This background was created by using the ranger alcohol inks. As you can see, it's really mindless. I simply just drip them where ever I liked and haven't really thought about how it is going to turn out.  

Tip: Sometimes when the colour turns out too dark, drip some blending solution to dilute it. The blending solution also helps to create beautiful patterns. The best part of the blending solution is that it also helps you to clean away any mistakes that you've made.

After the mindless activity, my mind was blank, I couldn't think of what to do till this morning.

Since, it was a morning inspiration, I decided to do something orangey. It was again by some luck that I managed to find some old scrap paper from my scrap pile, some old orange flowers from my scrap flowers and... tah dah... this layout in simply an hour.

Everything in the layout was from scraps. The flowers have been bought 2 years ago. I have no idea where did the swirls came from. The ribbon was some left over from some projects. And the best thing, I've used my circle cutter which I haven't used for the longest time.

Just as I completed the project and the title, I recalled I've got something similar when I first started scrapping.

In comparison, I think I have matured quite a bit in scrapbooking. Became more adventurous to try out different techniques at the expense of money. * Wink

Materials Used: Prima flowers and swirls, Bo Bunny 2009 Gift of love, Hambly Screen Prints, Ranger Alcohol Inks, Cardstocks, Thickers.

Timeless with Tim Holtz

Finally a piece inspired by all the Tim Holtz videos over the weekend. This is quite a technical piece and I'm very happy the way it turned out.

The background of the paper is created through misting using a random lace paper. I have wanted to use Tim Holtz alphas as a mask. However, to my horror, I do not have the alphas. It should be on the top of my to buy list this week.

The border of the frame is my favourite. It's created using the Tim Holtz kraft glassine paper. I've bought this for the longest time and haven't got time to get to something creative. Anyways, using the tips from the video, I embossed the kraft glassine using Tim Holtz Sizzix embossing folder and inked the whole thing with walnut stain before sticking it onto a chipboard. Since I find it a bit dark and boring, I decided to ink and embossed the edges with Stampendous Aged Gold. Surprisingly, the aged gold does looked aged here. For the final touch, I decided to drop some gloss gel medium to make it looked complete. You can try a more rustic and crackle feel by using rock candy crackle paint. I was caught in between which to use, and finally decided to go crackle-less as there has been lots of crackle recently.

 The frames are affixed to one another by using eyelets and twine. Each little corner then has its little own story.

At the top corner, I've decided to use just a little create ribbon, topped with a Tim Holtz little paper clip and Bingo number (7 years of marriage) and of course, my favourite Tim Holtz film strip.

 At the top right corner, I've used the Tim Holtz key and hole sentiments.

At the bottom corner, another one of my favourite, the Tim Holtz timepiece together with one of his philosophical tags.

The other bottom corner is also completed using some cut out flowers from Kaiser Craft pattern paper.

The background of the frame was created by a Kasier Craft transparency and a Tim Holtz resist paper, inked with worn lipstick.

Hope you like Tim Holtz as much as I do.

Materials Used: Tim Holtz kraft glassine, Kaiser Craft transparency and pattern paper, Tim Holtz sentiments, Sizzix embossing folder, distressing inks, Authentique stickers.

Happy Birthday Chloe

Sorry for the lack of updates. Only if anyone is reading this at all.

It’s Chloe’s 4^th birthday last Saturday and we had a party at home. As part of the party activity, we had a scrapbooking corner for the all the children and guests. Sadly none of the adult guests, except Karen, was willing to take up the challenge.

This is the layout to be created.

Lots of preparation work to be done as the cutting of all the embellishments was all done before hand and pack into packs.

There isn’t much to share about this layout as it’s quite a kiddy project. Probably just one thing to take note, when working with glitter paper, your tape glue will not work. You need to use a liquid glue to glue your pieces together. And as usual, foam dots do wonders to a layout as you can create dimensions with it.
Also, the flags were created using Staz On ink on transparencies. Staz On is the only ink that will stay on your transparencies. Sometime next month, I might share the different types of ink available and its usages.

These are some of the work created by the children. They enjoyed themselves pasting the embellishments all over the layout, forgetting that they need to leave a space for the photo.

However, I thought this was quite cool too. A different perspective.

Beautifully Clean

My motivation behind this layout was hoping that it gets selected as the cover page of a certain scrapbooking magazine. Hence, there is minima layering and distressing in this layout. This is something I am not very used to as I often make mistakes and layering/distressing are my ways of covering up.

Anyways, the idea is clean and aesthetically appealing design; steering away from the top of the page, 5" x 7" photo with straight eye contact. Hopefully I got everything right and could only wait for good news now.

See, I can't be perfect. I over tore the paper and had to use a Tim Holtz MT tape to cover it up. Oh how I love Tim Holtz.

One way to save money in scrapping is to mix cut out flowers from papers and embellishment flowers. In this way, the bunch would look bigger, but effectively you're not wasting money using too much "real" flowers.
Swirls are the best way to make your layout sparkle. You need not to use the whole piece that you bought from a pack. They can be measured and cut before you placed them on your layout. This way, you save money too.

Materials used: Fancy pants, Baby Mine papers, Authentique Papers, Webster pages, Thickers, Prima flowers.