Cameras at the Ready!!

If you're at all like me, it was your love of photography that led you to scrapbooking. As the craft revolves around photos and taking snaps, I often snap up any camera-themed embellishments and stickers as they are easy to work in to page, whatever your theme. It will be no surprise then, that when I spotted this Crafter's Workshop 12x12 template, I couldn't wait to get my mitts on it!

I'd never really been drawn to the templates before as I'd always associated them with making backgrounds using messy pastes and mists and paints which, although always look fab, my backgrounds are usually patterned paper. However, when I saw this I knew I wanted to use it to make my own embellishments.

Here's how:

First I'd chose which camera I wanted to use, and trace it onto my chosen patterned paper:

 I'd then begin to trace cut out the "detail" pieces of the camera from other patterns (great for using up scraps!)

 Once all layered up and stuck together, I'd add in pen details:

 And my finished patterned camera would be ready to go on my layout!

 They can look at bit strange and obscure during the piecing together stage,

 but adding the black doodled outlines really brings it together and makes it look like a camera:

Here's my first page, documenting about how we can look forward to family bike rides and make use of the beautiful cycle track just across the road from our home now that my step daughter has mastered riding her bike without stabilisers.

For my second page, as well as making camera embellishments, I also used the template to make my own journalling card. I began by selecting my patterned paper and tracing one of the camera tempaltes using a brown AC Slick Writer pen.

I popped it into place on my page, and then drew journalling lines across it with a black pen:

 Hey presto, one camera-shaped journalling card ready to go:

Here's my completed page, Reason to Smile. It tells the story of lovely Sally Anne, who was my soft bunny toy as early as I can remember. She used to go everywhere with me, as this photo circa 1984 shows, and I once nearly screamed an aeroplane out of the sky when I discovered she was not coming to Spain with us - the only thing that calmed me was the reassurance that she had stayed behind to help my Dad and Grandpa move everything to our new house while we were away! She had been gone (but not forgotten!) for years, so I was over the moon to find her in pretty good rooting, tooting, cow-girl condition in a bag in my mums attic when she moved house last year. Sally Anne and Natalie Anne were reunited!! She now sits pretty in my craft room, although does get treated to the odd day out - last Summer I held a Teddy Bear's Picnic for my class; each child brought their favourite Teddy, and I took Sally Anne in to meet them all!

I also used the template to make a quick birthday card; this time I popped a bit of 3D foam in between each layer to add a bit of depth.

I also added a pearl and a crystal to this one to add a bit of detail:

 There are lots of lovely CHA arrivals in the shop at the moment - why not grab a template with some new papers to make your own embellishments to coordinate with your pages :)

Getting messy!

Hi, Tracie here,
I have recently been trying my hand at Art Journalling and I suppose it was only natural that some of the techniques I have been playing with have found their way onto my scrapbook pages.

The shop has an amazing range of masks and templates and they are so versatlie, they can be used on so many projects and in so many different ways!

I love the way you 'build' a background for Art Journalling, and using the same principle but with the addition of some scrumptious papers, can give your layout a really unique look.

For my first page I used the hexagon mask with Tim Holtz tattered rose ink and using the same ink I stamped randomly with a script stamp.

The paper I used were the absolutely gorgeous Pink Paislee Cottage Farm and Basic grey Serenade
 mixed with some Websters pages Modern romance embellishments (those ribbons are LUSH!!) and rub-ons.

I loved the little heart from the simple accents but the colour was a tad too peachy for me so I just dry- brushed some white acryllic paint over the top to give it a much softer look.

For my second layout I used Simple Stories Vintage Bliss! 'Bliss' is the word for this range! I just loved working with these.

Out came my trusty Gesso and this time I used the Crafter's workshop life shapes template, once the paint was dry I stamped all over with the American Crafts Amy Tan yes please stamps

I couldn't resist cutting out all the little butterflies to create a frame for the photo of some of the lovely ladies at my local crop on our 2nd anniversary. I handstitched these in place because I wasn't sure I'd end up with a circle and not a squiggly mess if I used the machine! I'm not altogether sure it's a circle as it is but I'm claiming artistic licence here!

So that's it from me for now, hope you all have a good Bank Holiday weekend and that the sun keeps shining for you!

More ideas for masks...

When I read that Sarah and Lianne were on their way to CHA in the summer, I hoped (and requested!) that they would order some of the Crafter's Workshop templates for the shop.  My wish came true and as soon as they hit the store, I popped some in my basket for this month's blog work.

I love how you can create your own backgrounds with masks by just using some mist or ink, but I also wanted to explore the effects created by using different media and also going beyond backgrounds and finding other ways to incorporate the patterns into my pages.

The three masks that I worked with were:

Tile Texture

Chickenwire

Chickenwire Reversed

Layout 1: Say Cheese

I firstly took the chickenwire template and very lightly inked, with a black distress ink, through the template onto my background paper.  I did have a bit of a practise first on a scrap though, to work out how much pressure and ink to apply to create such a subtle effect.

Using the same template, I decided to try embossing a die cut shape to make my own embellishment.  So with an asterisk shape which I cut from kraft card, I stamped with a watermark ink and sprinkled with aqua Zing! embossing powder (details of all products can be found at the end of this post). 

This created a pattern on the shape which coordinated perfectly with the Echo Park papers that I had picked out for the layout.

The completed layout which documents how difficult it is to get the 'perfect' photo of my three children as they get older:

Layout 2: Feed the Chickens

The chickenwire templates also inspired me to make an embellishment.  Using the Reversed Chickenwire template, I painted through the template with some brown acrylic paint onto a piece of kraft cardstock.  With the paint, I  could make some areas darker and thicker than others and add some texture/lines with the brush as I applied it.  Using my die cutting machine, I designed a tag shape with a chicken shape placed in the centre of it.  I then laid the tag with the negative chicken-shape over the painted card, moving it around until I was happy with the pattern showing through.  If you look closely you will see that I tried to find a join in the lines to fit where the eye should be.

My children love to feed the chickens at a farm that we often stay at in Wales and this tag made the perfect embellishment for my layout all about how much they began by just feeding the chickens but on our most recent visit, actually went right into their house to find freshly laid eggs for breakfast.

Layout 3: The Big Ones

Whilst making my chicken tag, I also cut out some people tags too.  I experimented with using a watermark ink through the Tile Texture template both on top of the people shapes and also onto some scrap kraft card.

I heat embossed after covering with a layer of pale blue and pale pink embossing powder.

Whilst the embossing powder was still hot and a liquid, I sprinkled some aqua onto the blue and some dark pink on to the pale pink before heating again to set both colours.  This created a mottled effect as shown below.

I've kept the embossed people for another project, but for my last layout, I used the pattern on the kraft card to back the cut out people-banner tag shapes.

Not wanting to waste any of the embossed pattern that I had made, I also used a Martha Stewart pinked circle punch to make some small embellishments to keep for another time too.

 

The blue boy and pink tags feature as embellishments on this final page.  I repeated the banner shapes across the centre of the page with strips of the patterned paper.  I took this photo of Evie and Oliver a few weeks ago on Evie's birthday.  I love how happy they look together and made a page about how close they are and how much Oliver needs his big sister now that he has started 'big school'.  They're now collectively known at home as 'the big ones'.

I hope that I've given you some ideas for using masks/templates in some different ways on your layouts or other projects.  As ever, thank you for reading.

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