Papermaze DT - December PT III

The below post went live on the Papermaze blog earlier and is my last project for Papermaze.
I had such a fabulous time with them but all good things must come to an end.

I am TOTALLY into papers that have musical notes or old newspaper clippings printed onto them - why, I really don't know but I just cannot pass them by and have to have them.

Imagine my delight when I was presented this month with a selection of Bo Bunny's Et Cetera line - a paper line after my own heart *swoon*

For the following layout I went to town with an array of circle punches and made good use of the Symphony paper. After distressing the edges with some Chalk Inks from Clearsnap, I stared to randomly place the circles on my background and also raised some of them with the aid of adhesive foam dots.

Cutting various bits and bobs from the Et Cetera Cut outs paper and adding a little bit of punchinella and American Crafts chipboard thickers and my layout was completed.

Now I need to get me some more musical note papers :)

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Papermaze DT - December PT II

The below post went live on the Papermaze blog earlier.

Today I would like to show you how fabulous and effortless you can create a quick page with the papers of Simple Stories' Life Documented line.

To create my layout I made use of the following papers:

• 100% Real Life
• For The Record
• Journaling Card Elements #2

In order to get a little dimension onto my layout I adhered a few circle punchies with some adhesive foam pads to the background and also added flowers on top of a journaling strip with adhesive dots.

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Papermaze DT - December PT I

Below post went live earlier on the Papermaze Blog.

I would like to share a page with you which I created with the help of the fantastic Simple Stories papers. This manufacturer has been around for some time now and their designs are made in such a way that your pages are put together in a doddle.

This page came together within the matter if 15 minutes and I think the most time I spent on one single thing was to cut the banner from the papers. With the aid  two different sized circle punches, I removed the "date" circle from its outer lines and adhered them separate from each other to the background for added dimension.

Before I started adding the cut outs from the Life Documented, Life is Good and Journaling Card Elements #2 to the cardstock, I added some stamping to the background with one of my favourite Kaisercraft stamps.

To finish the layout off, I doodled a frame around my main cluster of papers and added some flowers and pearls.

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Papermaze DT - November PT I

The below post went live on the Papermaze blog earlier:

This month I have been playing with Bo Bunny's Et Cetera and Simple Stories' Life Documented lines and they are just so perfectly combinable with each other, it's almost spooky!

I started off with an 8.5 x 11 sheet of white cardstock and gave it an aged look by spritzing some "home-made" walnut spray onto it. If you have an empty spray bottle and one of the Distress Ink Reinkers from Ranger Industries, just add some water and a few drops of the reinker to your empty bottle and you have a perfect walnut spray.

I then cut a few pieces of paper from Bo Bunny's Et Cetera Cut Outs and Symphony, as well as Simple Stories' Life Documented and layered this randomly onto the cardstock.

The final touch was a piece of trim onto which I added a sentiment using adhesive foam pads.

And there you have it - a mixed manufacturer layout

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Scrap Your Crap....

...is back!!!!

I am so excited that we have started our challenges again and we just announced our new DT.

Check the announcement out HERE

And hopefully we will see you all taking part in our monthly challenges again?I know I ave missed them like crazeeeeee.

On a more upsetting note, I was shocked to find out yesterday that Papermaze were hit by a fire to their premises and lost most of their stock.

Thankfully nothing happened to Vanessa and her family, but my thoughts are with them while they are working on rebuilding their business.

Papermaze DT - October PT II

We have been super busy this month over at the Papermaze Blog and the below post went live just recently.

I hope you enjoyed last months sketch as much as we did and we are excited to bring you another one this month.

Sketches are such fun to work with as it really is up to the individual on how they look for inspiration from the blueprint. I generally start out with the intention of doing an exact replica of a sketch but in then end my projects tend to take on a life of their own :)

Without further ado, let's have a look at the October Sketch for you:

And here is my example:

Products used:
Papers - Authentique: Original, Foundations Bi-Fold
Stickers - American Crafts: Lullaby, Dymo tape
Embossing Powder - Stampendous
Die Cuts - Spellbinders: Creative Tabs by Donna Salazar Designs

You can see Wendy's take on the sketch over at the blog

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Papermaze DT - October PT I

We have started a new feature over at the Papermaze blog to showcase two scrappers using the same sketch.

You can check out the post by Wendy over HERE and see my take on the sketch below using the awesome papers from Authentique.

** click on image to enlarge the view **

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Papermaze DT - September PT IV

Below post went live recently on the Papermaze Blog

This month I had the pleasure to work with he papers of the relatively new company Authentique. TO be honest, the pictures of their products do not do them justice: I was blown away by how fabulous the patterns and quality of the papers are.

When I had the papers of the Uncommon line in my hands I could not wait to get started....fantastic card stock quality papers and gorgeous patterns, which scream to be used for a vintage look.

I wanted to scrap the picture of my Mum, Auntie and Nan for ages but never had the right papers at hand, until now :)

With the use of adhesive foam pads, I raised some of the punches shapes and hand cut flowers to give the layout more depth.

And I also added one of my tags, which I create a few months back (see THIS post) to the layout...I knew it would come in handy to have them prepared!

I love how the colours grey and pink work fabulous with vintage photographs.

But what do you think fits well with this colour combination?

Products used:

Papers - Authentique: Foundations Bi-Fold, Gifted, Unique, Special

Cardstock - Bazzill

Stickers - American Crafts: Lullabye

Mists - Cosmic Shimmer

Papermaze DT - September PT III

Below is a fun tutorial which I created for the Papermaze Blog this month.

Today I would like to show you, how you can create you own custom made flowers/blossoms from patterned paper.

I don't know about you but I always find that I very rarely seem to have the perfect colour fit embellishments for my projects at hand. That's where your handmade embellishments come into place - they are fun to create and leave you with a sense of achievement, when you look at the finished project and think "I made that flower!!!"

First gather a few supplies in addition to your papers:

Wet adhesive

Flower shaped punch or dies

Ink pad (optional)

Mists (optional)

Pearl, brad or bling (optional)

Embossing tool or burnishing tool (optional)

For this tutorial I have chosen to make use of the Cuttlebug Flowers die set, which is perfect for layering you own blossoms.

My chosen papers are

Love, Elsie - Claire Gossip

Love, Elsie - Forrest Ranger

Love, Elsie - Claire Diary

Cut out as many flower shapes as you wish (I always like to create a few "spare" blossom for later use) and lay them out in front of you.

If you like, you can spray them now with some mists, or enhance their edges by running an ink pad along. Alternatively, just leave them as they are.

I then like to carefully roll the end of my embossing/burnishing tool in circular motion along the middle of each flower. If you don't do it too hard, you will soften the middle of the paper and the edges should slowly raise up by themselves.

Or you can just carefully crunch the flower upwards and unfold it a little afterwards.

Once you have crumpled/burnished all your layers, adhere them on top of each other like so (you only need a small amount of glue in the middle section).

If you want you can add either a piece of bling, a pearl, a brad or a button in the middle and your blossom is ready.

See, really easy and the results are definitely worth it. Besides, it is a good way to make use of any scrap paper that you have lying around.

Papermaze DT - September PT II

Here is my second post for this month on the Papermaze Blog.

Good morning and welcome to another post, featuring the wonderful papers from the Love, Elsie product line - which came out at the beginning of 2007.

Today's layout features a combination of old and new, showing that it can be so much fun to breathe some new life into some older papers.

Let's start with the new, as I sprayed a generous helping of various Cosmic Shimmer mists onto a piece of white cardstock, and also onto the flip side of the Forrest Ranger paper. On the screen it looks kind of cream but in reality it is BRIGHT yellow and would have taken the focus away from the photographs.

After the mists dried, I started layering my papers, added the pictures and highlighted one of them with a metal tag frame.

A few fussy cuts from the paper and a random arrangements of pearls, bling, brads and buttons and the layout was finished.

** click on image to enlarge **

So, what do you think? Do these papers really look THAT old? I think they are still as awesome and fun to work with as they were in 2007.

If you have some papers left in you stash from that year, show me what you do with them - I'd love to see!

Products used:

Bazzill Cardstock in white

Love, Elsie - Forrest Ranger

Love Elsie - Claire Gossip

Love, Elsie - Claire Diary

Chipboard buttons - Roxxie

Alphabet Stickers - Claire

Ticket - Jenni Bowlin

Papermaze DT - September PT I

Below is my recent post for the Papermaze Blog.

Today I would like to take you back a few years in time - four, to be exact.

What do you remember of the year 2007?

In sports: Lewis Hamilton made his Formula 1 debut

In music: Rhianna took the Number 1 spot in the UK charts for a total of 10 weeks with her hit Umbrella

In foods: a pint of milk was available for 42p, a loaf of fresh bread for £1.04, a pint of beer for £2.25

And in the crafting world the fun and funky paper collection from KI Memories -  Love, Elsie - had everyone squealing with delight. In 2011 we all get excited about Echo Park and Bella Blvd but it really was Designer Elsie Larson (formerly Elsie Flannigan) who got us all hooked on cute and whimsy.

This month I want all of you to go a rummage through your old stash - dust off those papers from years gone by and see for yourself that they are not really that outdated. The Love, Elsie collection is as fresh looking as it was four years back.

For my layout I mixed and matched papers from the Claire, and Jack & Abby collection and added quite a few of Elsie's adorable chipboard buttons and stickers.

** click on image to enlarge **

What I really loved about the packaging for the chipboard buttons, is the fact that you get a 3.5" x 4.5" piece of cardstock with a lovely grid pattern, which you can re-use - as I did here:

So, are you gonna join me this month in using up your old supplies?

I always find it a good enough reason to go shopping for some new stuff afterwards :)

Products used:

Jack & Abby - Words

Claire - Diary

Claire - Gossip

Chipboard Buttons - Roxxie

Alphabet Stickers - Claire

Mini Alphabet Stickers - Making Memories Tina Alpha

Ticket - Jenni Bowlin

Papermaze DT - August PT III

The below post has recently been published on the Papermaze Blog.

Today I would like to share a quick post on how to create some easy embellishments from your scrap left overs.

** click on each of the images within the post to enlarge their view **

The above three tags were all done using scraps and stickers from the Watermelon Gazpacho line of Jillybean Soup. They can easily be used to adorn layouts, minibooks or cards - just make sure you chose your sentiment stickers accordingly.

Here are now the tags individually for you to view.

Enjoy!

Additional products used:

• Cardstock: Bazzill
• Plastic Flower: American Crafts Greenhouse
• Pens: Uniball Signo, Zig Millenium
• Other: Pins

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