Guest Designer - Caroline Lovett

Today we welcome our second guest for May...

Hi my name is Caroline Lovett and I am the organizer of the Scrapstars craft retreat. I live in Leeds, in the heart of Yorkshire in the UK and I’m an avid Scrapbooker. I was first introduced to scrapbooking in 2003 when I saw a demonstration. I immediately knew it was for me as I had always been the “photographer” whether that was with my family, friends and even going back to my school days. I loved the creative aspect of scrapbooking, and to be honest it was the first craft that I had ever really tried, but also I loved the idea of recording our memories. I even went as far as to have my own shop for a while, where I had the pleasure of introducing and teaching Scrapbooking to lots of people. For the past six years I have organized the retreat to get my extra crafting fix, I love the inspiration the teachers bring with them. I am constantly scrapping and have a number of albums on the go. If I have a lot of photo’s from a “big holiday” I tend to make three or four 12x12 layouts and then slot project life sleeves in to my albums, and use these to store all of the extra photo’s that I take www.scrapstars.co.uk

I was really pleased to be asked to “guest design” for UK Scrap Addicts and when I discovered I would be following a sketch challenge that put me at ease. I find following a sketch takes all the “stress” from Scrapping, all you have to do is find some nice coordinating papers and your half way there. It’s a great way to form the basics of a layout and then you can tweak it to suit yourself. I decided to follow Laura’s sketch, and started by creating a watercolour background. I had seen this effect on a layout by Tracee Provis, and then was lucky enough to be shown how to do it by Morag Cutts at Scrapstars. Take some packaging waste or a cello bag, apply ink pad straight on to it pressing about 3 times, spritz with water and then literally place the cello bag ink side down onto your cardstock, pull away quickly, or if needed press some small areas down with the tip of your finger. I also used kitchen towel, so soak away any “strong” areas.

I’m a fan of mixed media, and am getting braver all the time, I usually think to myself, the worst that can happen is I end up throwing away a piece of card. I believe it was Susan’s who mentioned Gorgeous Grunge (15th April). If you are averse to mess or always feel that spritzing goes everywhere, I can strongly recommend this set, or any other “distress” type stamps, at least the effect is placed exactly where you want it.

The sketch shows a 4x4 photo being used so I cut three coordinating papers from Maggie Holmes - Chasing Dreams, at four and a quarter inches, I inked and layered these, and then reverted to a little fussy cutting. 

Finally I added the tag as in the sketch and various bits and pieces to embellish. It was fun to fussy cut (it’s been a while) and also I dug out some old pins. I tried out a “new to me” product, Nuvo Crystal Drops, which hold there form as they dry and look much like an enamel dot (the black ones on the layout).

I hope that you like the end result, it has been great fun creating it, I hope that you feel brave and decide to splash a little ink around. Thanks for reading, Caroline.

Thanks for joining us today Caroline!