Pimp Your Thickers!

Hello all. Happy October... can you believe how warm it is at the moment? Hope you all have something wonderful planned for the weekend... but if you don't hopefully I can provide you with a little inspiration to get your creative juices flowing.

This month I chose to work with the stunning Bella! Paper Boy range from Ruby Rock-It. As soon as I saw the fab designs, and the glitter papers, I knew they'd be perfect for scrapping pics of the terrible trio... lol!
Don't let the fact that these are 'boy' papers put you off buying them, with the exception of a couple of patterns, the range is really versatile and could easily be used with so many photo themes.

My first LO is of Thing 3 doing what he does best... being incredibly cute, cheeky and funny! We had a fun afternoon in the garden and I got this fab photo of him hiding from the camera. The Sphere paper is really quite busy as a whole sheet, but the octagonal design makes it really easy to cut into strips, which I did to edge the page. I layered strips of different patterned papers with a couple of the Fancy Pants, Off to School chalk stickers, and a strip of Pink Paislee mistables scalloped trim.

When it came to adding a title I had a bit of a 'wardrobe' moment! A cupboard full of clothes and absolutely nothing to wear.... or in this case, a box full of Thickers and nothing that was just right for the LO. So I decided to 'pimp' some pink pearl chipboard Thickers I was not likely to use any time soon.

Here's a little step by step as to how I changed the alphas to suit my LO.

Firstly I used a fine emery board to sand the pearly finish, leaving a nice matt base.

I then painted the alphas with white acrylic paint... they needed a couple of coats to make sure the pink was covered.

I used black ink to stamp onto the alphas once they were completely dry. I used an alphabet border stamp that I bought from Sarah's cards ages ago and had forgotten about.

I then added a thick layer of glossy accents putting the alphas to the side until they were dry. I left them over night to be absolutely sure I wouldn't be tempted to touch them to see if they were dry yet... you know you've done this too!!!

Once they were dry the alphas were ready to add to the LO. I also used a mix of yellow teeny alpha stickers and white stickers from Making Memories.

I just love how these turned out, and they were so easy to do. So I had another go for my next LO...

This time I had a 'happy accident' with my title. I used a grid pattern roller stamp and turquoise ink (an ink pad I stole borrowed from the boy's craft cupboard). I gave them a coat of white before stamping, but when I added the glossy accents, the ink bled. Once they were dry they looked like turquoise glass with a feint grid pattern... and actually looked pretty cool. As the grid pattern was now very subtle I used some black ink  to roll the same design lightly over the top. I think it works well.

I created a wrinkled/textured background for this LO, by firstly stamping with bubble wrap and acrylic paint onto white card. My original intention was to have that as my background, but when it was done it was just too 'in your face'. I covered the whole LO with a coat of diluted pva glue and added 2 sheets of white tissue paper, not worrying about the wrinkles. To added a bit more texture I also added a sprinkling of white embossing powder and heated until it melted. I used the same grid roller I used on the alphas on the background, gave the corner a spray of green mist and machine stitched around the edge before adding any patterned paper. 

To complete this LO I used some Jenni Bowlin Star stickers, and some Air Mail baker's twine, and dipped a pen lid in paint to stamp random circles onto the page.

My last LO has a very different feel to the previous 2, even though it uses paper from the same range. I did lots of very random machine stitching over the base of this LO to represent the box designs Etch A Sketch are well know for. By using a poloroid stamp onto red card, and punching some circles from white, I created mini  etch a sketch frames for my two photos. I used the Teresa Collins Stampmaker machine to make my own guinea pig stamp.... I know I've said it before, but if you are in two minds about getting this tool, I'd say do it... it really is a so easy to use and perfect to make the stamp you absolutely do need to complete a LO but might not be able to find to buy. If you are interested in one of these, and they are out of stock, just contact Sarah or Lianne and I'm sure they'll be able to order one for you.

I used the same pink pearl thickers, this time painting them red. I stamped over the red with black and used a grid stamp from this Glitz distressing set. Once the ink was dry I used a white gel pen to highlight some areas and fill some of the areas in.

With very little effort I have created 3 customised titles for my LOs. This technique would also be perfect to use when you don't have enough letters from one set to make your LO. You could easily mix different colours and different fonts, but create a unified title by 'pimping' them all in the same way.

Why don't you have a go at customising some Thickers... please share with us anything that you create that has been inspired by what you see on the blog, and we'll pop by and leave you a comment.

~*Glitz Design - Afternoon Muse*~

Following on from my previous post, here are my final two layouts using the gorgeous Glitz Design – Afternoon Muse collection. 

First up is ‘Almost Five’.

 I loved the bunting on the patterned paper, ‘Banner’. I simply created the majority of my layout on the bottom left hand side of the patterned paper to allow the beautiful bunting to be seen. I cut the ‘Block’ patterned paper and layered a strip of ‘Stripe’ (which I edged with an edge punch), and ‘Banner’ (also scalloped using an edge punch) and attached my photos. I embellished using some of the excellent value for money buttons (in the Sherbert Fizz colourway), some pretty Aunty Sarah’s bloomers and a few pearls to add a little sparkle. 

 [Please click on the image to view it larger]

My final layout is ‘May Angels Lead you in’.

Last Wednesday David and I went to see one of my favourite bands, Jimmy Eat World in Cardiff and we were treated to an absolutely amazing gig and I couldn’t wait to get home and scrap my photos. 

 [Please click on the image to view it larger]

For this layout, I created some little, extremely easy flowers. They are simply made from four little strips of paper layered over each other with a button centre. I think they are quite effective as a little embellishment created using co-ordinated patterned papers guaranteed to match your layout J I also used some guitar picks which I bought at the merchandise stand at the gig. 

Thanks for stopping by the blog! Gems xx

Let the Good Times Roll...

Hi all, Gems here on my first blog post :) This month for my blog work I got to play with the gorgeous Glitz Designs – Afternoon Muse collection. I love the muted tones and generic patterns which proved to be perfect for a whole variety of types of layout. 

Here is a page I created documenting mine and David’s first Zorbing experience! 

[Let the Good Times Roll] (Click on the photo to view it larger) 

 

I used the following products:

Glitz – Afternoon Muse – Stripe

Glitz - Afternoon Muse - Polka

Glitz – Afternoon Muse – Floral

Glitz – Afternoon Muse – Block

Glitz – Afternoon Muse – Journaling Stickers

Jillibean Soup – Alphabeans – Diced Damask

Glitz Design - Teeny Alpha – Parchment

Adornit – Tiny Alpha

Aunty Sarah’s Bloomers - Star Fruit – Brown

Sarah's Cards Buttons - Sherbert Fizz

Maya Road – Pleated Ribbon

Pearls in Lemonade and Water Blue

The layout itself was very simple to put together and doesn’t take very much explaining. 

Firstly, I edited, resized and printed my photos in Photoshop then simply cut the patterned papers into layers I was happy with and got to embellishing the page. I cut the journaling sticker in a way so that the journaling block was visible both above and below the photo.

I typed my journaling onto a Word document, printed and cut into strips.

The Maya Road ribbon adds dimension to the page, as do the flowers I simply finished off with a button centre. The stars are stickers from the Jillibean Soup Alphabet sheet.

Thanks for popping by, and I will be back tomorrow to share two more pages I created using the beautiful Glitz Design xx