I hope you all had a wonderful (inter)national scrapbook day on Saturday. i sure had a weekend filled with loads scrapping goodness and lots of laughter.over at scrapbook challenges we had a really fun blog hop filled with puzzles. the sketch was broken up into pieces and each design team member got a puzzle piece to reveal a bit of their layout. well today is reveal day here for the entire sketch and my full layout. so i hope you will enjoy this one. remember you can always play along and become a member to stand a chance of winning some awesome prizes.

and here's what i did with the sketch...

i used some photos of our spring blossoms on some of the indigenous trees in our garden. i love the vibrant colours and wanted to finally create a layout using them. i used the beautiful prima paper range, then threw in some basic grey and teresa collins. i love how they all worked so well together with a pop of yellow accent colour.

for my paint splats i used watercolour paint. the brown spots are distress re-inker and once the water colour paint hit the brown it did its funky little reaction with the water giving a beautiful mix of colours. the curiosity words is a tim holtz stamp and a favourite of mine.

i hope you are having a creative week filled with lots of goodness. remember to check the scrapbook challenges website to see the new sketch reveal for this week.

and here's what i turned it into. if i can just add - my family totally doesn't get what i do creativity wise. but on this project my mom actually said she loves i, and best of all i didn't even had to explain the whole Easter egg box thing - she knew what it was. so there's still hope afterall!

the original plan was to cover the roof in moss - but since i ran out of moss on another project i decided to try and find something in the store room instead. well what would you know? the perfect alternative - some flower decorating stuff! i say stuff cause i really have no clue what to call it! but it was a beautiful grey silver colour and worked wonderfully with the prima papers and flowers.

a beautiful pink sprig of flowers from prima! yes prima indeed!

and some 7gypsies quotes! what would a project be without some 7gypsie humour.

...some inks and perfect pearl mists and ranger goodness had to follow.i also joined the prima papers on the edges using some tim holtz paper tapes. the bird card is from a sheet of graphic 45. and since my mom is a bird artist i had to add some birds to this little project.

and a whole bag full of old watch pieces found its way out of storage and i couldn't resist adding some time to this masterpiece.

 i also added a strip of Tim holtz border die-cuts coloured using the totally awesome sunflower perfect pearl mists. delicate and yet so very Tim like.

our challenge projects had to include a quote or saying and i found this totally awesome quote that so applies to both my and Jayson's moms. truly meaningful!

and another glimpse of the full gift box house.

i absolutely loved working on this project! and although it is totally not functional anymore after having hot glued the lid closed - i think it is a pretty something that can be looked at and bring a smile just because of it's prettyness. oh and did i mention that i was relieved to start using some of those flowers i have been hoarding for 15 years. and no the pink bottle has not dropped in fullness at all! mmm...a trip to woolies may be in order! hope you have a wonderful long weekend! FYI it really is much prettier than any picture could ever begin to show you :-) thanks for stopping by!

a while ago i made this set of 3 mixed media canvasses. i loved how they turned out...i guess no one else did but that's another story. but i thought i would share them here as we are about to set out on another mixed media canvas journey. a couple of really awesome friends and i are getting together to play. there's so much enthusiasm amongst them and i can just see the gorgeous art works that will come from a morning of play. this is a picture of the 3 grouped together -not sure i have space on my walls for them though.

blue - is covered in dressmaking pattern sheet and then layers of blues and gold from Ranger's paint dabber group. the multi functional empty bird-cage by tim holtz takes centre stage. and don't you just love that stamp...my heart has wings!

purple - so not my favourite colour but nice. a tim holtz grungeboard bird negative becomes the perfect stencil to be gold leafed. the bird sits above a strip of sheet music covered in bee's wax and nails. yes life is filled with people who sing beautiful tunes in front of you but given half a chance they bring out the nails...i have learned that the human tongue is a terribly hurtful thing.

i found a whole jar filled with these rusty old nails in our shed on the farm - i love their rusty vulnerability

pink - oh so pretty. covered in pink and gold paint with a bee's wax envelope that carries my hopes, dreams, fears and sadness in life itself.

the wax envelopes consists of several layers of patterned papers and then dipped into wax for that stunning glassy see through look.

i hope you like what you see. here's to creative play and being free!

its been a while since i made this project inspired by tim holtz. somehow it is not speaking to me to add more stuff - you know the feeling when you desperately think and feel that a project needs more...but actually it already says what it needs to say, and in fact it really is complete. so i decided to share it here anyways...the project consists out of recycled masonry boards decorated with patterned paper and canvas. it also features a couple of vintage things...like the pencil i found when cleaning out some of my brother's toolboxes, as well as the little rusted paper clip. i love things like that!

this glass decoupage plate i found at one of my favorite shops to browse...and it says
"things are looking up" - and they really are!

i used the pencil as i found it...i really do think my brother used it as it is....all 1.5 inches of it!

i loved how the painted canvas turned out...a combination of chocolate brown and
naples yellow!

and the other half of my rusted tin used on another projects elsewhere. the little angel i pulled off a piece of ribbon. and since i collect angels and love them this one had to find a place on my project with special meaning!

i have all these things or rather projects that i want to display on a single wall together - but i hardly have an inch of open wall space inside. so...i am hoping that my new studio will be done by the middle of this year so i can decorate and play on the walls to my heart's content! but for now...i am waiting for some kind of solution painted onto the cement counters in the kitchen to react with the lime....and its NOT! the effect is really beautiful if only it would work!
oh well...plan B...

every year in January it is time for a new set of birthday invitations for my mom. each year i try and make something nice, something that she will like. having said that, my mom is not a fan of my weird creativity and more than often frown upon my paper and colour combinations. so i try and play it safe. but this year i did throw in some tim holtz patterned paper for good measure. I made little matchbook invitations with a current favourite bird stamp from Glitz Design! love those girls!! they are simple and quick but at least they are in the post and that is all that matters for now.

a fun layout featuring some of my current favourite products as well as my favourite colours to work with at the moment, yes i know they do change quite often! on this layout i used some of Tim's patterned papers along with distress inks on the hearts and his die-cut butterfly, mask and grungeboard letters. the layout is based on sketch 228 from scrapbook challenges.

my chipboard hearts were first covered in old dictionary paper and then inked using distress ink. i layered and popped some of the hearts and also glazed them to create a play on texture.

added some interest on the background patterned papers by masking directly onto them.

and created a banner for my subtitle which was stamped with one of my favourite stamps reading "my heart has wings".

hope you are having i creative holiday! today i kept myself busy mounting some new stamps from Darkroom Door onto easy mount and then stamped a couple of them and just played with whatever was on my desk and within arms reach. i have loads of new class ideas and playing with some techniques as well...quite brain quite!

Saturdays challenge over at Scrap and Stamp Saturday was all about girls...sugar and spice and all things nice. What I like about getting these prompts and participating in them is that I grab some unfinished layouts and then work on them...yes i have quite a few of them...things that were started and then i got sidetracked. This is my version - I used a background and base that i started last year and all i added was the photo, title, sewing, bows, journaling, and bling. The rest were all done.

I combined two colours of making memories stickers for my title...not something i really do or like - but this wasn't too bad.

Tag #12

If only I had some grunge paper…oh Santa where are you? Well I wanted to make some of these paper rosettes so thought it may look cute on the tag as well. I used my mixture of colour wash and perfect pearls to spray the book paper rosette. I love how the spray nestled in between the folds and left a sparkly blue strip in between. The background stamp is a PSX Christmas script. The vintage Santa ornament I got from my sister and he was the perfect centre piece.

Tag #11

For this tag I changed it almost totally…well sorry tim I just don’t like your reindeer stamp and well don’t have any other reindeer stamps, so opted for this one from Stamp City – a real classic. I used the Prima flowers like tim did and because I don’t have the I-top brad maker (not sure how much you would use it to be honest) I made my own epoxy brad. Took a chipboard button and covered it in music paper, then added about 5 layers of glossy accents – the trick is to leave each layer to totally dry before adding the next one. I do like how it turned out though.

Xmas tag #10

Right up my alley! I love this tag Tim!! Now if only I can get my hands on some of those vintage baubles he collects. As we don’t have any big metal sheets with sticky backs…I used my Nashua tape and simply divided my tag into 3 parts to that my tape would cover the widths perfectly. I also don’t have the refillable alcohol ink pens so I simply used the bottle – nothing wrong with that – it worked fine and I could even do the straight lines where the tape meets up with each other. I added my faux stitches using my tiny attacher and then added 3 metal star studs.

And here’s a tip….if by any chance you don’t have a black archival ink pad around to remove some of the colour off the top of your letters….use black STAZON! It worked just as well. I simply rubbed my ink pad across the raised parts and then took a baby wipe and rubbed.


Xmas tag #9

For this tag I replaced Tim’s film strip ribbon with some negative strips. I added some photos from his doo-dads instead of the smaller printable ones he offered. For the bigger picture I did use his photo although not crazy about the screaming child – I can just hear these kids crying and screaming and throwing tantrums in the shopping malls….
I managed to dig out some of the old EK success letters that almost look like typewriter keys with some imagination. The rest is pretty straight forward – needless to say I loved making this tag.