Fun Times Mini book | RamblingsofGeo | Mixed Media

Hello everyone,

Today i am bringing you a mini book with mixed media pages. Its a slight cheat as i had a pre-made scrapbook in a tin which i bought from everycraftsapound.com at the Farnborough Craft Show. 

There is also a process video linked below for you :)

I'm using this minibook to document my recent trip to the Gogo getaway retreat that i went on with a few of my friends. I thought it would be a great way to document the trip! I have also used some bits from my left over kit for the mini book as another reminder of the weekend. 

I used a Heidi Swapp Colour shine in Teal for the back grounds, my technique was spraying it onto a damp piece of plastic, smooshing it around and then pressing it onto the paper. 

I then mixed up some Shimmerz Dazzlerz paste in Spun Sugar, with some Shimmerz paint in the colour Going Peach Side. Once this was mixed i pushed it through a Bramble Fox stencil  which has a mixture of little Stars, which i used on the pages, also has circles and stripes etc.

You can see that i also added sequins for some extra texture, the sequins used were from Spiegelmom scraps. I had a pack called Tweaky Teal, and a pack called Bursting Sunrays. I love how they add extra sparkle to my book.

On a few pages i used the Shimmerz texture paste that you can see below, it was so easy to mix up to make a coloured texture paste, i think i am going to be addicted to using texture paste to all my layouts now!

I hope that this mini book gives you some inspiration to use mix media on some layouts in the future!

Click here to watch the process video!

Happy Parrot | Amy Kattenbelt | Fussy Cutting

This month we focus on fussy cutting. I selected a paper from the Vicki Boutin Field Notes collection with lots of beautiful feathers. I fussy cut them and rearranged them into a heart shape. I hope this simple layout inspires beginners to give fussy cutting a go. You can sit and cut the patterned paper whilst watching TV and then create an easy layout.

Check out my quick process video to see my layout being created.

Family | Amy Kattenbelt | No Cardstock

Over on the UK Scrap Addicts this month, you might have seen we have been challenges to create a layout without using any cardstock. Now, this was quite a challenge for me, as recently i have been enjoying using white cardstock to create mixed media backgrounds. Let me share a few ideas I had about this challenge....

So I decided on picking a patterned paper to use as my background in replacement of a mixed media/cardstock combination. By picking this ledger style paper, that has a lot of detail and faux stamping on, i really feel that it made what was a very quick and simple layout look effective and interesting. This would also work well if you are yet to dabble in the world of mixed media (I totally understand its not for everyone, in fact I used to say it definitely wasn't for me at all until last year!...so do think about giving it a try...but i digress...). I also used a large photo to help cover up more of the page to make this challenge less daunting....and if you look at my paper choices carefully you will see that several of the papers have a very subtle pattern (watercolour wash effect) which helps stop the page being overly busy.

Other methods i had thought of using was that i could pick a very neutral plain (maybe a small repeating pattern) background and simply treat it as if it were white cardstock...maybe adding some white gesso to the centre and then working from there.

Or I thought i could create my own pattern using patterned paper if that makes sense. Using stripes of paper to create layers, or using 4 papers (maybe in 6 inch squares or 4 triangles) to create a complete 12x12 background.

Or i considered using two or three patterned papers layered horizontally. I do this a lot...i like to have 4 inches of paper at the top, then a 1 inch strip of a contrasting paper followed by 7 inches at the bottom of yet another paper.

I've done all of these ideas in the past. Please do pop over to our Facebook group and share your No Cardstock layouts with us, I would love to see your ideas.

And finally, I will leave you with my completed layout and close ups. Do also check out the process video, its only a few minutes long and you can see for yourself just how easy this type of page comes together.

Embrace Life / Sheena Rowlands / Stamping

Hi there Scrap Addicts x Sheena here again.

This month we have been challenged to create using stamps. I don't know about you but I tend to collect stamps rather than use them! So I had a look at the ones I'd most recently purchased - they were Vicki Boutin stamp & die sets & challenged myself to use them on a layout.

Embrace Life.

Back in August I'd visited the Frida Kahlo - Making Herself Up exhibition in London. It was a fabulous collection of photos, artefacts & clothing telling her story but photography were prohibited. Luckily they had this sculpture there & I took advantage for a few quick photos.

To recreate her flower head dress I water coloured paper using Vicki Boutin  Art Crayons to get a range of different shades of yellow, orange and pink.

Once dry I stamped flowers over this with similar coloured inks picking the parts of the water colour paper I liked the most. Then using the corresponding dies I cut them all out. I got a little carried away & made over 50 flowers!

Next I set about arranging the flowers to create a Frida type head dress, then sticking them down some on foam pads around my 2 photos. 

I kept the rest of the page quite simple just adding a little machine sewing, chipboard title and journalling. All papers used & title are from various Paige Taylor Evans ranges.

I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed stamping out these flowers & I need to try and use more stamping on my pages & have a good look through the stamps I own.

We look forward to seeing what you create with stamps over on our FB group.

Till next time x

Wipeout | Amy Kattenbelt | Small Photos

SO in this month of October, UK Scrap Addicts are working with the theme of 'small photos'. I decided for my layout i would create a grid style sketch to work with. Grid designs are a great way to use several small photos on one layout. I really hope you might give this sketch a go too. Using small photos is great when you are trying to tell a story, or when the photos you really want to document are low quality - in my case as the people were moving they were pretty blurry and couldn't have been printed in  a large size. Be sure to come and join us over on our Facebook page and share all your small photo creations with us!

You can see how the layout was create, in real time, over on our YouTube channel.