Hayley recently hosted an artistic envelope swap on our Rubber stamping South Africa group. Needles to say the results were amazing and made for some interesting conversations at the Post Office. The purple envelope is my design. For the base I used a layer of gesso on book paper scraps and then added a layer aubergine paint dabber. I stamped with bubble wrap in the same aubergine for some pattern. the house is made up of a stamped image, collage pieces and printed tape measure.To finish it off i added some more stamping around the edges with a favourite flourish from Fancy Pants. the envelopes are C5 size so we had enough space to work on...

this is Hayley's amazingly colourful envelope...

and one by Penny with loads of flowers stamped...
...and yes for those who notices i did send myself an envelope through the post. although i must say i am quite disappointed as the PO workers obviously neglected to put some effort into their stamping. you would think they would come to the party and add some serious postmarks to these beauties to help along the process....

today's layout features the gold perfect pearls splattered across the bottom edge. it makes for a nice subtle difference in colour and texture and the gold really stands out against the patterned paper. mix some perfect pearls with a bit of water on your palette. the consistency should be something like a creamy paste. load some onto your paintbrush and lightly tap the paint brush onto your finger to create the splats. remember to do this step before adding your photos - or make sure you cover your photos with scrap paper...

experiment with different colours onto different backgrounds for stunning effects...

supplies: card stock KI Memories. Patterned paper Webster's Pages, 7Gypsies. Tags, brads, scallop paper by Making Memories. Perfect Pearls by Ranger Industries. Other Buttons, thread and rub-ons.

Thursday's class layout features some perfect pearls in gold. i think i have fallen in love all over again with perfect pearls - after the weekend's play with UTEE and pearls. perfect pearls really are versatile and there is so much you can do with it. we are also working on a perfect pearl class for later next month at sweet scrappins. so if you are interested watch their blog and mine for some dates and join in the fun... as usual the layout will go public after class on Thursday...hope you have a super creative and inspiring week ahead.

so here's the layout...the girls made stunning versions today! The silver strip on the left is the invisibles paper sprayed with Clearsnap Smooch Spritz. I love the silver...although i have to say that one small vile of smooch does not go a long way...it literally gets chowed up in thin air...so be warned. this one strip used half of the vile...so can you imagine if i tried spraying the whole 12x12 inch sheet....i don't think so....i will have to mail my friend Carol from Clearsnap and have a word with her...mmmm

a scrap piece of paper folded into a tab and a single sewn stitch added as detail

the 7Gypsies tab was also sprayed using the silver smooch spritz. i really liked the metallic look it left behind - although when you handle it a bit too much it does come off onto your fingers

yesterday we did a class at sweetscrappins Pretoria. I was really excited to get to teach people who are willing to learn and who got so excited about the possibilities once you start up your melting pot. so this morning early i cleared out the left over UTEE from my pot and made this...the left and right are two CD halves covered in UTEE and stamped - the stamp was inked in bronze Encore pigment ink. I then dripped some UTEE on top and added micro beads. Lastly i added some gold and kiwi perfect pearls. so it really was a positive day with lots of play and people who were excited about using their melt art on cards and layouts...