Jot Magazine Issue 18

I'm well behind in sharing and blogging, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to promote the latest issue of Jot Magazine. You know... just in case you've been living under a rock and haven't seen it yet! 

I had a few projects featured in the free digital magazine. My favourite was this layout I created about Judah's language development. The theme was actually about journaling, and since I had a lot to say on this subject I needed to make a crazy amount of space on my page to fit it all in!

But I didn't want the layout to be boring so I made the journaling into one of the feature points of the whole page. To create this effect I first traced around some giant chipboard letters, and then handwrote all my journaling around the outlines - stopping words half way through if necessary to make them fit nicely. I erased the outlines at the end so all I was left with was the impression of the word 'word' ;-)

The other things that made me happy about this layout is that I used up a really old Jenni Bowlin Studio kit to make it - and I still believe it looks as fresh and fun as if I'd used new product! And see the trees? They were leftover Sizzix "Woodland" diecuts from a failed first attempt at this card I made for a Mood Board challenge a couple of months ago.

The second project I made for the Issue was for the Pocket Pages gallery. I've never made a pocket page before, but you know me... always up for a challenge! And it was super fun!

The way I figured it was that I would at some point give this away, and I wanted the recipient to be able to pluck out any of the 3x3" cards and use them as embellishments in their own album. But at the same time I wanted the whole page to have a cohesive colour scheme, so I stuck with these green, red, yellow and woodgrain tones.

I took the opportunity to also have a play with some new supplies, and I especially love that little card with the moustache and tie. It's created with a new Sizzix die called "Looking Dapper".

And lastly I made a double-page spread for the Project Life gallery. I always use a new Issue to prompt me to hurry up and make another page for my album! This is the January spread for my 2017 album, so clearly I was really behind at the time.

The good news is, currently I'm up to Easter... so I'm slowly catching up to real time!

I used a combination of Studio Calico's January Documenter Kit "Roman Holiday", and the Bella Blvd Illustrated Faith collection "You Are Loved" to make the spread and I'm really enjoying the green, pink and black&white combo here.

Meanwhile, the whole issue is a whopping 188 pages in total so there's clearly a truckload of other inspiration to check out. Did I mention it's FREE?!! LOL!

You can download your copy HERE.

Sizzix Triangle boxes and a GIVEAWAY

I'm pretty amateur when it comes to gift-wrapping. I always have grand ideas of making it look amazing, and I've even got a whole Pinterest board dedicated to it. But in all honesty I'm usually leaving the gift wrapping until the last minute, and so it usually just becomes throwing it into whatever bag I've got in the cupboard already! 

Recently I've had occasion to give out a few thank-you gifts, and for those I really do want to make them look special. These are usually just small token gifts - a few chocolates, a soap, cosmetics and the like, and so I only need something small to wrap them in. That's when I turned to my Sizzix Triangle Gift Box die, and I whipped up these boxes in no time at all.

The die comes with the pieces to make the box, the edging, the tag, the leaves and the heart as well, so you can make it in such a variety of colours as you mix and match the different bits. On this first box I also used the Mini Swallow die to take it up another notch!

On a different day, for a different occasion I've also made this other version. I love digging through my older stash of papers for projects like this. Papers that I probably won't use on a scrapbook layout (because they're no longer really my style) are great for this sort of thing, and it makes me feel good to be using them up!

Sizzix Lifestyle are running an awesome competition at the moment where you can win your very own Big Shot Plus (this is the HUGE one!), as well as all these dies from their latest release. Anyone that is OUTSIDE of the USA and Canada can enter this competition, and it's open until July 14th. The link to enter is here! Good luck!

Neat and Tangled June Release

The June release from Neat and Tangled is pretty darn awesome. I reckon it's my favourite bundle of products in one hit so far!

 

And speaking of bundles, this is the first month where they're offering you the chance to purchase the whole release as a bundle too (it saves you 10% off the retail price of buying everything separately), and you can find it in the shop HERE.

Now let me show you what I've made so far.....

The first card uses the Bloom Stamp set and matching dies to create the floral border and the large sentiment. I love how the extra flowers that come in the set correspond to those in the border so you can have them popped up separately.

And that cute little bird? That actually comes from the Beach Day set but I couldn't resist adding him here like he's singing the phrase at you ;-)

My second card started with the Flamingo Floatie stamp and die - I'm such a sucker for flamingos at the moment, and as usual I embossed them in gold glitter. I seem to be doing that a lot lately!

And for the background I used the Rice Paddies stencil. That's what it's called, but it also represents many other fluid or marbled patterns found in nature. And when I used this slightly darker blue ink over the lighter blue cardstock I found that it created the perfect pool ripples!!

It just so happened that the Welcome Home stamp and dies came at just the right moment for me personally. We just moved house one week ago and so we've started that process of updating everyone with our new address. Having a few of these super-cute tags on stand by for our 'special' friends has been really handy - the address is on the back.

And since our new house is by the beach, the Beach Day stamps and dies came in handy again for some extra embellishments to create this little scene. I used the new sequin mix, called Sherbert, to represent some sand - don't you think the colours are just perfect for this?

I'll finish off with just a sneak peek at the card I've made for the Neat and Tangled blog this week. Clearly I was inspired by my tags to use a similar type of design, but in the corresponding video I'm going to show you not only how I created my card, but I'll share some stenciling and watercolouring hacks for the budget-conscious crafter ;-)

You can find my blog post already up, HERE.

June mood board at Jot Magazine

June already! And winter is upon us!
I guess winter does make me think of crisp white frosty bejewelled colour schemes (a bit like snow!) and so this current Mood Board at Jot Magazine really does fit the bill.

Here's the card I made up as an example:

The two images in the mood board that inspired me the most were those gold rosette pinwheels in the bottom right corner, and the pearl jewellery the girl is wearing.

I had need of a winter wedding card so this was perfect timing for me, and so I wanted to keep my card very regal and elegant. I started with the background of white on grey - using my Neat and Tangled Scalloped Cover Plate Die to cut out a white 'lace' to overlap the pale grey background.  Actually, I attempted to make my own grey marbled paper... but as you can see it didn't quite work out!!

And then I wanted these really thick chunky textural gold flowers all overlapping one another, so I did a bit of a handmade job on those as well. I took some of that cardboard/chipboard you sometimes get in your scrapbooking order to prevent the papers from getting bent... and painted it with gold acrylic paint. Then I used my Sizzix Bigz Tattered Florals Die to perfectly chomp out all those little flowers.

Are you feeling inspired to play along? Anita from Flutterby Designs is our generous sponsor once again, so you know there's going to be an awesome prize on offer!
Check out all the details on the Jot Magazine blog right HERE.

Krumspring Star Power and the New Release!

You might remember how I said that during May we were highlighting a different Krumspring stamp set each week? These were some of the older releases, but still very classic designs and they deserved some attention!

I wanted to share with you the card I made with the last feature stamp set called "Star Power". It's got some of Maria's signature geometric patterns in it, including one giant star..... which ironically I didn't end up using on this card because I wanted to do something a little bit different ;-)

Instead, I focused on the lots of other smaller stars you can find in the set, and I turned them into a night sky scene above a city. Why a city? I have no idea! Maybe because I was also desperate to use my new Sizzix Cityscape dies designed by Tim Holtz and this seemed like a good opportunity!

Can you tell I've been practicing my ink blending?
I needed to!

In other news, the newest release stamps have just gone live in the Krumspring shop and you can buy them as one bundle (there's 4 new sets) or individually of course. But you know you're always going to save money when you bundle them together. Speaking of saving money.... 

This is valid until June 10th!
And let me share with you just some of the sneaks of what I've been up to with these stamp sets already...

Firstly there's this fabulous Funky Pineapples Set which I am absolutely IN LOVE with! I stamped some out and started colouring them before I even had a plan in mind for what I was going to do with them! LOL! 

Then there's the Awesome Triangle Wizard Stamp which is another classic Krumspring design and makes for great backgrounds. I used mine to stamp a border onto some handmade Project Life cards which I got all of the kids to write some journaling on for the welcoming page to my 2017 album. 

You can actually see the whole page and lots more detailed images on the Krumspring blog HERE. 

And lastly for now I'll leave you with this simple little tag I whipped up using just a single heart stamp from the Monkey Madness set. Isn't it funny how sometimes the most simple of images or ideas can sometimes be so very effective? I do so love me some rainbows!
But certainly, I will still have some gorilla-oriented projects coming up real soon too!

xx

Dude, you are so old!!

The Trophy Husband had a birthday just recently, and the Ephie Kids and I thought it would be hilarious to use the Krumspring 'For My Caveman' stamp set to whip him up an appropriate card. I even coloured him with grey hair for the occasion!

Actually, the real pun is in the sentiment right? Ironically, that actually comes from a different stamp set, called 'You Pixelate Me', but pairing them together was a natural train of thought on my behalf ;-)

Turns out The Trophy Husband also loved the idea so much that when it was his turn to attend a mate's birthday party the following week, he commissioned me to make a very similar card. He requested the dinosaur from the same 'Caveman' stamp set this time though, and I was very happy to comply.

I created a little scene for my dinosaur with some Thinlits dies from Sizzix. The tree is from the Green Garden set (661375) and the grass and cloud are from the Great Outdoors set (661228) which is a bit of a favourite of mine ;-)

I'm really enjoying the creative outlet of mixing and matching my supplies recently - I must be getting adventurous!

More melonisation

So remember how I was telling you about the awesome #melontierchen challenge on Instagram, and I shared the first attempt at a tag I made, but I thought it was too subtle? Well, I remedied that by having another go, and this time 'doing it right'!! 

You see, the idea is to colour an image to look like a watermelon, and there are of course, variations on that theme. But clearly the mainstay is going to be one section is red with seeds, and the other section is green, perhaps stripy green.
I am totally in love with this cute concept!!

Plus, I also had the new-release Neat and Tangled stamps in my hands finally, and that unicorn from the Magical Day set was just begging to be melonised!

But what's even funner than melonising your favourite images? When your kids want to join in the fun too! Both my girls took part in the challenge last time it was on, and both couldn't wait to give it a go this time around as well. They each had very specific ideas in mind about what they wanted to colour, and strict instructions on what I needed to make their images into!

First up was Moriah (she's 7) who wanted to colour a giant flower. The Sunflower set from Krumspring was perfect for the occasion because of it's large central area, as well as the many many petals, and she painted it with liquid watercolours.... without the water ;-)

Then she told me it had to be made into some sort of shaker card with lots of sequins, and so we collaborated together to come up with this tag.

Then Bethany (she's 10) jumped on the melonising band-wagon as well, and she requested the cute squirrels from the Neat and Tangled 'My Favourite Nut' stamp set. She wanted to try a few different combinations of colours to figure out which worked best, and I love that she's used an ombre approach to both her red and green colours!

Being the avid reader that she is, she requested I make her squirrels into bookmarks. Since I had made a shaker tag for Moriah I went with a similar idea and filled the bottom of her bookmarks with a little vellum pocket full of glitter. Granted, the vellum makes it look like coloured sand... but the thought was there!

Why not try melonising something yourself?
xx