flights of fancy cards.

Delicate blooms, beautiful soft swirls of water coloured images, butterflies galore is all you need to make a few beautiful cards. The new Prima Fairy Rhymes range of papers are perfect for just that – the beautiful soft designs offers a peaceful palette of dreamy colours and delicate imagery, and teamed with the stunning flowers from Petaloo it truly is a winning combination. 
 The grouping is perfect for Romantic souls, vintage personalities and feminine creatures young and old – everyone who is anyone will appeal to this stunning combination. So what better way than to combine the delicate designs of Prima and Petaloo to make stunning everyday cards? I even included some packaging from the Prima mini swirls as part of the card design. It fits perfectly and neatly tucked away in the background. To off-set the soft colours and delicate design I included some silver thread that loosely floats underneath my embossed butterflies, peeking out from under the flowers as added texture.
 To make the embossed butterflies float I only adhered them in the body part only using some 3D Zots. I also added some sparkle to the centres of my flowers using Crystalina glitter glue – this is a great way of adding a little bling to an already perfect bloom. The easiest thing is to use a beautiful piece of paper and some pretty blooms and you can make cards in minutes. So why not give it a try – we would love to see your creations using this product combination.
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. i just returned from a rather chilly Bloemfontein filled with wonderful classes and good friends! and oh my not to mention unpacking loads of new stock! I look forward to blogging about the new shop and all the extra Project Life details i am going to scrap!
 Products used 
Petaloo Mixed Blossoms - Antique Rose (8 Pieces) [C1836-059] 
Petaloo Forget Me Nots - Antique Beige (16 Pieces) [C1837-053] 
Petaloo Forget Me Nots - Antique Rose (16 Pieces) [C1837-059] 
Prima Say it in Crystals - Life Time Mini Swirl [PM 563981] 
Prima Fairy Rhymes Double Sided Paper - Secret Garden [PM 950361] 
Therm-O-Web Zots 3D 200 [TW 3786] 
Couture Creations Glitzin Glamour – Crystalina [ADCO 721971]

project life combined with scrapbook challenges sketch 350.

I am slowly getting caught up with my version of project life - week 2. And it just so happens that today is the day we can start ordering the "real project life" stuff here in South Africa. As i said before, it will never take over my traditional scrapping but i am really in love with the fairly quick and easy way i can include all those experiments i normally throw away and everyday stuff i collect.
this week i teamed my left side with a single page layout designed for Scrapbook Challenges. I love how it worked out. and as you can see i in my ignorant and sheltered life discovered TYPO by accident. i happened to look for a photography shop in Brooklyn Pretoria and the center which had 2 very good shops now have none but they do have a typo. so it turned out to be a good and a bad day.
i love the quality of their bags and in general the way they think - not to mention their products - right up my alley - and the pricing is not bad at all! I included the bag into my layout but still need to figure out what to do with it on the back. I am leaning towards doing a long piece of journaling on cardstock and adhering it to the bag - maybe with some machine stitching.
i also found these amazing digital wood grain images and also photographed a few pieces of wood around the farm - LOVE! I used the wonderfully versatile 24/7 range by Simple Stories for my accents. I ended up dismantling the dimensional stickers and ended up with 3 of almost everything - now there's value for money. the foam dots pulled apart really easily and the residue cleaned up well with my TW 4087 Therm-O-Web Adhesive Pick-up Square.
The pink heart is one of my favourite Hero Arts stamps embossed in Blush American Crafts Zing embossing powder. I embossed 2 layers - adding the second layer of embossing powder while the image was still hot. this gave me a nice solid embossed heart. I also did some stamping directly onto my photo using Brilliance ink and a swirl stamp.
hope you are having a wonderfully creative week. thanks for stopping by and leaving some love! you are appreciated and loved!

my scrap space aka studio.

Welcome to my little piece of heaven. It may not be perfect but it’s mine and I love it. I don’t have a dedicated craft room where I can make a mess and shut the door – reality is that my work space is in my living room. Yip! In your face all the time! You see my real craft space is built attached to the garage and house, but it lacks the very important part of uhm a roof and a door. So let’s just leave it at that. Instead here’s a little tour of where I spend most of my days…
 I have a large work table that used to be joined by another vintage huge table until I recently split them up because the more space I had the more I would fill it up. So now I am confined to scrapping on the one table and have dedicated the other table to my Cricut machine. in front of my desk is bench my brother made years ago with fluffy pillows and a nice soft comfy seat and throw – it forms part of the lounge area and also conveniently hides the mess sunder my desk (blush it’s true). Behind my desk is another large cupboard filled with my other most used stuff and overflow stuff like adhesives, melt art, chipboard letters, ink pads and plastic packets. To the left of the cupboard is a small unit with my printers on and underneath my buttons sorted by colour in jars and a large tin box with my punches in. My laptop is towards the left of the table on the edge – I am able to do what I need! And if I look to the right from my computer I am in the lounge. Very convenient!
On my desk are 3 jars of washi tapes sorted by colours of course for visual prettiness. I only keep my most used tools on there and that includes my paper piercer and sewing stuff and a basket of my favourite and most used stamps. The rest of my stamps are stored in our bedroom in a chest of drawers. My acrylic and cling mount stamps now live in the unit you will shortly see.

this ugly and hopefully soon to be painted and distressed unit and its friend houses my most used stuff. I have acquired a couple of recycled and repurposed vintage ammunition (yes as in bullet) crates. I added pretty handles to them and tied a descriptive tag to each of them with the contents. They hold my inks, Mister Huey mists, AC embossing powders, microbeads, glitter glues, 6x6 paper pads, distress ink pads, blank tags, adhesives etc.


I love how the wooden crates enable me to pull it out of the cupboard and place it on my desk – once I am done it all goes neatly back – out of sight! Since everything is always in your face it is important for me to try and keep everything nice and neat! Did I just say that? Let me assure you – it doesn’t always happen!



In the opposite corner of the lounge is a drawer unit also on wheels (I move stuff around a lot). On top is a pretty display with my paint brushes. In the drawers are my Cricut cartridges and other random stuff that still needs to be sorted. 
for more photos and info on my scrap space you can head over here 
hope you are having a wonderful creative weekend and thanks for stopping by!

scrap africa challenge.

This weeks' challenge over at Scrap Africa is a fun one and right up my alley!The challenge is to use texture paste, a stencil and inks. 
*Remember* to head on over to scrap Africa and play along - there are some great goodies up for grabs and we would love to see what you do with this challenge.
For my tag I used an old Heidi Swapp circle mask (yeah i still have those) on my background. I added some texture paste through the mask and let it dry - by the way i worked on a smooth white cardstock that works really well with inks and paints. Once the past was dry I used a combination of Mister Huey inks and water colour paint to add colour to the background. And lastly i inked the edges using Walnut stain distress ink.
the pretty sentiment sticker that worked really well with my colours is from Amy Tan - to mimic the pink paint splat on the bottom left of the sentiment I used some pink water colour with a water brush and added my own splats all over. Love that pink!
the rhinestone and pearl swirl from Prima were the wrong colour so I used my alcohol inks to change the colour to suit my project - quick and easy. I simply dripped the alcohol ink directly onto the swirl and the inked spread itself out to colour the entire thing!
a few finishing touches and there you go! I love all the different elements thrown together to form a unit - and i love tags. they are quick and easy to make and so much fun to experiment with different looks. We have a long weekend here in South Africa and i am still faffing around in my work space sorting things and purging! What a great feeling as i get rid of things i probably will never use in my lifetime. Plus my in tray of projects and articles are still full and I am working my through it all. i love what i do. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend and a blessed creative week ahead.

Heat embossed sticky accents in a flash.

Heat embossed sticky accents in a flash I love quick and easy accents for cards and layouts. The problem is I also love heat embossing. But sometimes it’s just too much effort to gather all the supplies needed for heat embossing. If you are lucky enough to have a set up studio area and everything is always on display – it’s a different story, but even then I have yet to find that person with the perfect studio to make use of techniques all the time. So if it’s something that can be done easily we are more likely to do it! With the Sticky foam squares from Purple Turtle I can make square embossed accents in a few seconds. The fact is that with heat embossing you need a sticky surface for the powder to adhere to before heating it up – right? Well that’s exactly what sticky squares can offer. The sticky surface lets the powder stick to it before heating it with your heat gun. This is the quickest way you can emboss and make fun little accents for layouts and cards. No mess no fuss – just simple. For more info on the products used head on over to The Wholesaler
Tips and tricks 
• Do not hold the heat gun too close to the foam squares. You do not want to heat it up too much so that the sticky bit on the back separates from the card front
 • The embossing powder will melt quickly
 • Because you are making use of the sticky part on the foam square, you will have to add a clear embossing ink over the first layer if you want to add another layer of embossing
 • The single layer of embossing gives a textured look to the squares which I like for added texture and dimension
 • Sticky foam squares can also be used with other techniques requiring adhesion No more excuses for not wanting to emboss – adding a little embossed texture to your next project is worth it.
the texture of the embossing is combined with the texture of the flowers for a beautiful look
I love the mottled texture this type of embossing gives - the single layer embossing powder settled into a 'separated' state for a funky look
Products used 
Purple Turtle Sticky Foam Squares - 12mm x 12mm (96) [PT 33SQR 12MM] 
Simple Stories 24/Seven Double Sided Paper - Journaling Element 1 [SS 3110] 
Teresa Collins Summer Stories 6x6 Paper Pad [TC SUM110] 
Petaloo assorted flowers Zing embossing powder [27144]

Capture that 24/seven.

Capturing memories are fun! And we often have so many great photos, fantastic trips, good memories and special occasions captured on film (so to speak) that it’s not always easy to have them on display. It’s great to scrapbook them but how many of you actually have an album or two out on the coffee table for the kids to peruse whenever they want to? I can honestly say that I really have layouts all over my work area and the lounge for that matter, so there’s always a memory floating around for anyone to see. Having said that… I am always on the lookout for cute ideas and things that can be altered with photos that can permanently be on display – but also changed at a whim when I get bored. I have a couple of framed photos in the lounge all in the same frames so they are pretty great and we see them every day.

Then I found these cute little photo cubes at a discount store the other day – and all I could think about was how amazing they would look stacked up in different configurations all over the house. They could hold different memories, can be dressed up with a couple of easy stickers and pretty paper, or even just photos added without any decoration. They are super cool, versatile and economical. Did I mention they would make for great gifts?
24/7 memories
So I grabbed a cube and took out the inside, which is really just a plain white box and used some of the beautiful 24/7 range of papers to add to each side of the cube. I added some sewing to the paper squares and decorated them before I adhered them to the cube. I used the sticker sheet and some cut-out elements to decorate the sides and photos for a quick and easy project. This would make for a great activity involving the kids – they can decorate some photo cubes for their rooms in matching colours.
I also spotted this cute “earth globe” and having wished for a vintage one for my home I settled on this little guy. The colours on the map were just not me so I pulled out my pot of chalkboard paint and took to it without thinking. I cut a camera from one of the sheets of paper and sprayed it with water to soften the fibres in the paper which will make for easy handling and shaping around the contours of the globe. While the camera image was still damp I adhered it to the globe using gel medium and left it to dry thoroughly. A few more decorations and a scribble or two with chalk and I had a funky and fashionable travel item to display with my travelling photo cubes.

I hope you are inspired by the versatility of this beautiful range of products. The 24/7 collection by Simple Stories must be one of my all-time favourites (along with so many others) – it truly is a range that can be used for everyday memories and travel pages alike. Happy scrapping and memory displaying!
Products used
24/Seven Double Sided Paper – Snapshots [SS 3104]
24/Seven Double Sided Paper - Good Stuff [SS 3107]
24/Seven Double Sided Paper – Today [SS 3106]
24/Seven Double Sided Paper – Hello [SS 3109]
24/Seven Fundamental Stickers [SS 3102]
Glue Dots Memory Book [GD05029-300]
Tombow Mono Multi Glue [TB 62191]

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