Cutest Video Hop Ever 2 - Natalie with Moriah and Judah

Hello and welcome to the Cutest Video Hop Ever! 

Today Moriah, Judah and I are joining Emily Leiphart for this fun Video Hop where we create a project together - kids and mums crafting side by side! 

There's going to be lots of laughter, plenty of cute moments and of course, a bunch of PRIZES to 
WIN along the way as well. Keep reading to find out how!

My children have always loved crafting with me, and I'm proud that I might inspire them to explore 
their creative side as I believe it holds limitless potential!

In the Video Hop you're going to see over a dozen other papercrafting industry leaders who have also joined forces with their children (or in Simon's case, his mother!) to whip up some rather amazing projects.

This is the card Moriah and Judah and I created using some of the new Simon Hurley stamps, stencils and inks, along with some dies and adhesive pearls from Australian-owned company Uniquely Creative for the perfect finishing touch.

I'm pretty chuffed with the end results, and I don't just mean the finished card. An even prouder moment is when I ask Moriah what she learned along the way she can list of two or three new tricks and techniques that she picked up such as how to use a stencil, how to ink-blend, and how to 'scatter' those pearls for a balanced look. And when I ask Judah if he had fun he replies very emphatically "yes I did!!"

So how cool is that?! 

 

But don't just take my word for it, watch my video below to see how the whole card came together. 

And don't forget that this video is just one link in the fabulous line up of well-known paper crafters and their kids. You really HAVE to start at the start and do the whole journey!!

VIDEO HOP LIST

All of the artists' YouTube links are below. Hop along and get inspired and make sure you leave a 
comment on each video for your chance to WIN one of the amazing prizes below.
Please remember that comments here on the blog, while greatly appreciated, are not eligible for the 
giveaways below. You must leave your comments on YouTube. The more you comment, the higher 
your chances of winning.

Emily Leiphart

Simon Hurley

Catherine Pooler

Laurel Beard

Ardyth Percy-Robb

Jill Dewey Hawkins

Laura Bassen

Marie-Pierre Capistran

Samantha Mann

Evelin Tee

Ujjwal Gupta

Ashlea Cornell

Jenny Colacicco

Natalie Elphinstone

SPONSORS + PRIZES

We're incredibly grateful to Ranger Ink and Simon Hurley for sending Simon Hurley create products to 
several of our designers, and also to Catherine Pooler Designs for sending her inks to several of our 
designers.

Thank you so much to all of the wonderful individuals and companies who have donated over 30 
prizes for this fun event! The winners will be chosen randomly from all comments left on each of our 
videos. The more you comment, the better your chances of winning! 
Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. EST on April 17, 2019 and winners will be announced on Emily's 
blog on April 24, 2019.

Ranger Ink, 2 Simon Hurley create goodie bags

Jennifer McGuire Ink, 3 Share Handmade Kindness goodie bags

Catherine Pooler Designs, 2 ink pads per video

Scrapbook.com, $75 gift certificate + ColorCase 2-pack*

Simon Says Stamp, $50 gift certificate

Avery Elle, $50 gift certificate

Studio Katia, Two $25 gift certificates

Winnie & Walter, $50 gift certificate

Pretty Pink Posh, $30 gift certificate

Ellen Hutson, $25 gift certificate

Hero Arts, $25 gift certificate

My Favorite Things, $25 gift certificate

Newton’s Nook Designs, $25 gift certificate

Paper Smooches, $25 gift certificate

The Stamp Market, $25 gift certificate

Waffle Flower, $25 gift certificate

*Instagram giveaway

Happy hopping and good luck!!

Jot Kids: Bethany's entry

Bethany is 10 and she's a creative kid. She'll make up stories and come up with fantastical ideas and she loves to write.

She's also a real sucker for a challenge!
Meaning... she's pretty competitive ;-)

She's also got quite the memory on her, and she must ask me every school holidays if Jot Magazine has put out another Jot Kids challenge. She was thrilled when I told her there was indeed a Mood Board issued just for kids for the month of January! She wanted to work on her layout straight away!

 

She jumped on the computer first and chose some photos she wanted to scrap. This is her and Moriah and their cousins at my brother's wedding a couple of months ago and it's a great subject to scrap. She got The Trophy Husband to print out the photos she chose, and he didn't think to edit them first to improve the quality/brightness of these. But I guess that's not the point!

Next she ran to my scrap supplies to chose out some fun papers to scrap with. She wanted papers that were bright and bold and would represent all the colours of the rainbow, just as the Mood Board suggested. 

I love that when she designed the layout of her page she made sure to leave (what she thought would be) enough space to write out her journaling. Turns out she had so much more to say and her journaling spilled further downwards across the patterned paper as she finished her story.  

She's such a girl after my own heart!

Clearly she's pretty happy with her finished piece. She said "I'm going to present it just like the ladies on TV do when they have something to sell" as I try to take her photo! Crazy girl!!

If your creative kids are looking for something to do in January then look no further that the Jot Kids Mood Board challenge. The generous Anita from Flutterby Designs has once again sponsored a prize for the lucky winner. You can find all the details HERE.

Jot Kids: Moriah's entry

Of both my girls it's probably Moriah (who's 7) who asks me if she can create alongside me more often than her older sister. Bethany is happy settling down with a good book, but Moriah prefers to be doing something with her hands. She's patient and meticulous and can draw for hours.

So she was thrilled with the Jot Kids challenge was issued because it gave her a great excuse to do some making.

I explained to her the concept of the Mood Board was to be inspired by the colours or a certain picture on it and then go in your own direction to create your layout.
She had particular ideas in her head straight away. 

She looked at the rainbow colours and decided she needed to draw her own rainbow in the corner of her page. Following that it only made sense that she would require clouds and raindrops. And she finished off the little scene she was creating with a line of grass down the bottom.

She wasn't going to worry about a title, but silly me opened my mouth and declared that most layouts included one (I should have just shut up and let her be creative in her own sense) and so she wrote out "The Biggest Rainbow" in her favourite Thickers... even though it didn't have much relevance to the content of her page :-)

She is so proud of her finished piece. The hand drawn details of Judah's little bow-tie are my favourite, but she would say it's the rainbow.

If you've got some creative kids who are looking for an activity to keep them busy these school holidays then check out the Jot Kids Mood Board challenge. Anita from Flutterby Designs has generously offered a prize for the lucky winner.

The Story of Creating with Kids

Have you seen the all-new Big Picture Classes website yet? With its recent launch, I wanted to share a little bit about the site with you. I'll be teaching some classes online with Big Picture Classes this year, and I'm so glad to be able to work in such an all-around amazing place to find inspiration, advice, and creative content from experts all over the world.
If you're not familiar with Big Picture Classes, it's an online learning platform for all things crafty, offering classes that cover all the crucial topics about crafting, creating, and documenting memories that you'll need to excel and then some.  Become a member of our learning family, and you’ll get access to as many classes as you want for only $9.99 a month.  Each class brings you a variety of topics and ideas, not to mention videos, PDFs, prompts and so much more! Stop on by the BRAND NEW Big Picture Classes website to find out more about how you can learn everything you need to know to document your memories beautifully every time!

The first class I'm teaching this year has already launched and it's called 'Creating with Kids'. This installment focuses on Cardmaking. Yes I'm giving you a great big hint there! ;-)
I'm really excited about this topic. I think there's something very special about sharing your talents and imparting your passion to your kids. My girls were so chuffed to be invited to collaborate with me on this class, and every morning they were asking me "what project are we going to do today?" They pretty much consider themselves as co-teachers in this class now!

The way the class is structured is that I teach you 9 different art and craft techniques that you can do with your kids. They're fun and different and messy and awesome! They'd work great just on their own for keeping kids busy during boring weekends and school holidays. But then I take it a step further by showing you how you can take their finished pieces and turn them into 9 different greeting cards that you could give to anyone.

And no, you totally don't even need to have kids to do this class! I've had plenty of women say to me that they're excited to try out the techniques for themselves, and they're coming up with some spectacular results.

Big Picture Classes is also offering a FREE 14 day trial at the moment where you can take my class and as many other classes as you can handle during that time. So what are you waiting for?! You can find out all the information about Creating with Kids | Card Class here.

Happy Scrapping,
xx

The Story of the Clay Cloud Magnets

Have you heard me talk about the Makers' Collective yet? It's a non-scrapbooking Design Team I joined recently. Yes, I said it's not about scrapbooking! What it is instead is a subscription based system where you get sent kits to make home DIY projects. The projects are interesting and varied in nature, and I'm here to share my February project from my Makers' Box (sorry, it's a little late!)

So I totally forgot to take the photo which showed you everything that came in this kit, but obviously it has everything you need to create these air-drying clay cloud magnets, with enough supplies left over for other projects. It also comes with a complete set of instructions which make it really easy to follow along. So easy in fact, that I knew my 5 year old was going to have a ball creating her own version of the project alongside me. So that's what we did!

The templates themselves are totally adorable, and the first step was to cut them out.

We rolled out the clay to about 0.5cm thick... or as much as Moriah could manage. Then placed the templates on top and cut around them. Obviously I didn't let Moriah use this sharp knife to cut hers, all I let her have was a butter knife, which actually worked just as well.

The best part was that the clay is air-drying so no need to worry about baking it. But it takes a lot longer obviously, and we left ours for 24 hours as recommended. After both me and Moriah had made our own versions of the cloud and raindrops from the template, we still had at least half of the supplied clay left over which meant that once Bethany came home from school and saw what was going on she wanted to join in as well. She didn't want to make clouds though, she preferred a flower. We simply printed off a flower shape from Google and then she followed the same set of instructions.

Now the project kit came with a couple of suitable markers for drawing on the simple cute face on the cloud that you can see on the template. But if you know me, I'm not usually one for taking the simple way out, and I thought we could get a lot more creative with paints instead... but these don't come with the kit.

Moriah doesn't need direction when it comes to this sort of thing, and she simply painted what she felt like, which was this fabulous block pattern. Bethany, suffering from a lack of patience at that point in the game went for a very simplistic approach with her flower. Not that it's any less effective!

Strong glue and magnets to adhere onto the back was what finished off the project. After I used up the supplied magnets on one set of the cloud and raindrops, I simply cut up pieces of those flat 'junkmail' advertising magnets that you probably have a thousand of if you're like me, and stuck them on the back instead. The clay is thin and light, so those flat junk magnets do the trick just as nicely.

Now whilst I'm super late on showing you my February project, I have already done my March project as well, and let me tell you, it's completely different whilst being just as fabulous. But I'll leave that sharing for another time ;-) All the details you need to sign up for the Makers' Box for yourself can be found here.

What I will tell you about in the meantime is the celebrations going on at the Makers' Collective right now!

Which means it's also time for lots of giveaways!!

Check out all the details on how to win this (and other prizes) here.

Bethany's Fruit Series

In the last couple of weeks since I started my maternity leave and the girls have been on school holidays, something remarkable has happened. I've been spending all my time with them, and we've been doing heaps of crafting, and it's been really amazing!

Not unexpected. I never said unexpected :-)
But super cool!

We've been experimenting with different crafts and lots of techniques. The girls have always enjoyed painting the best of all, so I thought we could take it to the next level and try and learn a thing or two about the technical aspects of waterpainting.

We just starting simple. After all, the girls are only 8 and 5 and they're not really that interested in colour theory or which brush is best or what paint to buy... they just want some simple tricks to paint some more realistic pictures, but mainly just to have fun! So literally all I taught them was the idea of creating layers of colour. Starting with a lighter colour and then layering different tones of the same colour over the top.

Seriously. That was it.

Bethany got the idea into her head about painting different fruits, so we looked up examples of other people's work on Google for inspiration and then I left her to it. And over the next few days these are the pieces that resulted...

A pineapple, kiwifruit, mystery red fruit (it began life as a cherry, but we've decided it probably looks more like an apple!) and a passionfruit.  Not bad for a first effort hey?

I was so impressed even with just the first one (the pineapple) that I immediately made it the wallpaper on my phone. And the whole collection has been added to my inspiration board in my scrap room.

Since I started sharing them on Instagram it seems like a lot of you agree that these are pretty cool. And there were even requests for copies so that you could do the same! So I'm pleased to announce that at the bottom of this post you'll find the links for you to download each of the four fruit! Then you should be able to use them for whatever you would like - art prints, phone or computer wallpapers, journaling cards etc etc. Can I please just request that if you download her pictures that you leave a comment to let us know, and to tell us what you plan on doing with them? I'm sure Bethany would love to hear! And if you are on Instagram, it would be absolutely awesome if you shared something there and tagged Bethany or me into your post. My user name is 'natalieelph' and Bethany and Moriah share an account where they post all their artwork and photos with the user name 'elphiekids'.

And just to prove that anything her sister does, Moriah can do too, she came up with her own series of fruit paintings!

So proud of my two artistic girls :-)

Link to Apple pdf
Link to Kiwifruit pdf
Link to Passionfruit pdf
Link to Pineapple pdf


PS. I've also been asked what we used to create these paintings, so here's some links to the products:

Transparent Watercolour Papers Waterbrush Watercolour Paper Pack

InLinkz.com

We use this system for almost all our waterpainting for a couple of reasons. I find the colours in the watercolour papers really vibrant, you get heaps of variety in the set, they're very easy to use and because it's virtually mess-free!

In comparison, Moriah's painting was done with a cheap supermaket set of 12 watercolours in a palette, a normal brush, and plain ol' printer paper. Good results, but you can definitely see the difference.

Hope that helps?

Elphie Kids make Christmas Cards

Monday was a good day.

Monday had the happy coincidence of being a day off work for me plus a curriculum day for Bethany, which meant we could all spend time together doing whatever we wanted. You may have seen these recent adventures with the girls if you follow me on Instagram, but on Monday we all sat down to make the biggest bunch of Christmas cards you ever did see!

Here's the thing. Every year Bethany insists on giving every single kid in her class a handmade card. She also insists that they're not the same as the year before, and that she of course gets to be the one to make them. I love this idea. In theory.
Of course, if Bethany says she's going to do something then Moriah will jump straight on that bandwagon and want to go for the ride.

So how do you make 40 odd cards created by kids in the space of a single morning?
You gotta keep it simple!

I cut plain white squares of paper ready for them to decorate. These will later get mounted onto card bases, but for now it's best to keep them separate in case of stuff-ups and the need for spares. I first taught them to spray ink through a stencil to create the stars in the sky. Pink and yellow and aqua is what we used. The best thing about stenciling is that it's not supposed to be perfect anyway (or at least, that's my opinion) so if only half the stars come out then I say it's part of the effect!

Next it's stamping. My girls have been stamping from the time they could hold an acrylic block, so this is no biggie for them. I started with a single design in mind, and that was to stamp the row of buildings from this Mama Elephant Stamp down the bottom, and Kellie Stamps sentiments at the top. And that's how a great chunk of them ended up. However, the appeal of mixing and matching the other pictures and designs on the stamp sets was too great for my intrepid Bethany and she came up with a few other combinations of her own. 

I always let the kids use my Studio Calico Color Thoery Inks as first preference. Not only because the colours are so bright and juicy, but because they're water soluble and will wash off their hands relatively easily.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Because the next stage involves glitter! We're all big fans of glitter in the Elphie house and Christmas is the best excuse to get it out.

I mixed equal parts of PVA glue with water and used a paint brush to splatter each card. Yes, I made sure that I was the one doing this part! But I'm happy to let them be the ones to sprinkle drown it in glitter. I used a scrap piece of paper to catch the excess so it was easy to pop back into the jar later.

And here they all are drying merrily in the sun.
Time to wash up, get some lunch and get distracted by other activities for a while.

But come the afternoon we're all eager to see this project through to completion. So Bethany gets out her class photo and addresses a card to each kid in turn. This is her method of making sure she doesn't forget anyone. She has also made sure to have a few extra for those other special friends that aren't in her grade as well. Plus all the teachers. Yes we made a LOT of cards for Bethany!

Thankfully, Moriah was a little more down-to-earth and only wanted to make five for her best friends and teachers at kindergarten. She also addressed each one by hand as I told her each letter in turn for all of the kids names. Love her cute bold penmenship.

And that's how the Elphie Kids make Christmas Cards on a Monday off from school.
xx


Supplies:

Mama Elephant: Holiday Joy Stamp Set Kellie Stamps: Joy Stamp Set JBS June 2013 Stamp & Stencil Colour Shine Spritz Mint Green Mister Huey's Double Yellow Color Theory Ink: Inky Black Color Theory Ink: Purple Rain Color Theory Ink: Emerald City Color Theory Ink: Deja Blue Color Theory Ink: Poppy

InLinkz.com