it's time for another sketch challenge over at scrap Africa.i loved working with this sketch - maybe because of my thing i have with circles - i just love them! and maybe because i used most of my scraps from a left-over layout done the week before.

here's the original sketch by evgenia...

i used the beautiful Prima paper - perfect for fussy cutting and layering with different elements like tags, stickers and washi tape.

i used some mister Huey ink to splat on my background picking up on the colours in the patterned papers and stickers from simple stories. my title was done using stickers and dressed up with a little heart sticker and a diamante.

don't forget to play along with us this challenge - you can win some awesome stencils and a chipboard pack - plus we would love to see how you interpret this sketch! so head on over here to see what the other design team members have done and play along...wishing you a creative week filled with colour!

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]

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 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!

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.

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.