Minc | Beyond the Basics

I'm such a fan of the way Big Picture Classes run their business. You sign up for a monthly subscription, of which there is commonly a code to get the first month free (and there is ALWAYS a free trial period anyway) and then you're able to take as many classes as you can handle! And since they are constantly adding new ones I doubt you'll ever run out of options.

At the start of December I added my third class to the lineup. This one is called "Minc | Beyond the Basics" and it's all about sharing new techniques to try out with your Minc machine that go beyond just using the pre-made embellishments you can purchase. In fact, it's actually more about experimenting with what you've already got in your stash than about having to go out and purchase specific products. In fact, I've even heard you can use the same techniques with a laminator (shhhhh!!)

For example, one of the techniques I'm teaching is how to add foil highlights to your stash of commercial Project Life cards. Can you see the mint foil on the globe card above, and the aqua foil on the raindrops? If there's one thing I learned from this class it's that photographing foil is really hard to do!

I'll share a couple of different methods for getting the whole rainbow of foil colours onto your projects such as cards. You know me... I can't help but include all the bright colours at once. 

And then I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone by creating a framed print for the girls room. Tricky to capture the holographic foil highlights in this watercolour painting, but in real life it's quite eye-catching ;-) I'll show you step-by-step how I did it in Lesson 2.

Some of my lessons are video tutorials such as how to use your traditional stamps and digital stamps to create fun backgrounds, and also this one which shows you how to take your kid's drawings to the next level by foiling them!

You can check out all the Minc | Beyond the Basics details here, or simply browse through the wide selection of other classes on offer here.

PS. Studio Calico also happen to have some Minc supplies on sale at the moment if you need to stock up on a few things! ;-)

The Story of my First Teaching Experience

Well... at least my first scrapbooking teaching experience!

I laughed a little inside whenever someone at work asked me what I was doing on my annual leave. I would reply, "traveling to Port Lincoln to teach at a Conference" because I knew they would automatically think it was something in the medical field and it would impress them immensely! Not suggesting that teaching scrapbooking is any less impressive.... just that.. well a lot of those doctory folk just don't really get it!! LOL!

 

So last weekend was the Escape 2 Create retreat in Port Lincoln and it honestly rocked my world! If you're an Aussie reader then you probably know all about this retreat and how awesomely popular it's become. I mean, the tickets to book a seat at this year's retreat sold out in about 2 minutes flat! And that's 80 seats! Even more frightening than that was the fact that they asked me to be a teacher at it, alongside such amazing talent as Kim Archer, Celeste Vermeend and Gina Rogers. I jumped at the chance but I'll let you know I was more than a little nervous!

I'm showing you the layout I taught because I wanted to show you how far I pushed the participants and what a challenge I set them! Not one, but two origami techniques with complicated instructions to verbally convey. I knew they could handle it though, and they were all committed to going on the journey with me to master these techniques. Thanks ladies!! And a great big thankyou to the good people at Jenni Bowlin Studios who worked with us to get a lot of the products for this page.

In fact, if anyone at the retreat has a photo or a blog post of their attempt at my layout can you either leave a comment or email it to me? I'd love to see all the finished products, and I'll include them at the bottom of this post.

(photo credit: Louise Nelson)

Just wanted to leave you with a little glimpse into the retreat (you can read a full commentary of the weekend's events on the E2C blog here). Here's a photo taken of me whilst I was teaching. Obviously I wasn't quite prepared for the photo, but it does sum up what it was like. There was a LOT of laughing! It was honestly quite a lot of fun!

I'll be back a little later with my versions of the other 3 lady's classes which I took. There was no way I was passing up an opportunity to learn something from these 3 masters of the art, and they pushed me in directions I never would have taken by myself.

So it looks like I've already got my next teaching gig already lined up! Have you seen the announcement of this today? Big Picture Classes are combining forces with Studio Calico to launch an epic event on National Scrapbooking Day. The aim is to flood Instagram with 10 000 scrapbook layouts using the hashtag #NSD10K on May 3rd, whilst also enjoying free classes from 10 recognised experts (well... at least 9!!) There will be an exclusive Studio Calico kit released on the day, but in the meantime you can enjoy the benefits of massive savings on some of their past kits.

All these kits are on sale now for $10 each, but you have to register for the event first! It's super easy to do, sign up here. It's FREE! You need to do it quickly though, already a couple of the kits have sold out.



ETA: Here's just one of the amazing layouts made by someone taking my class at Escape 2 Create. This is by the talented Kim Moloney... check it out....

The Kelly Gang

It's school holidays at the moment which means I got to spend a whole afternoon with my two favourite 'students'. Olivia and Georgia came over for a bit of card-making and craft last week and we had a few hours of fun.

Olivia (she's 15) made some cards.....

Pinwheels might just become my new thing. I love how happy and bright this turned out.

Putting some techniques into practice here - stamping, embossing, inking, punching......
This card (above) and the following two cards were lifted from one of my favourite card-makers Jen Shears. I tell you, that woman never fails to inspire :-)

Learnt how to do some rolled fabric flowers.

and some simple hand-stitching. Great work Olivia.

And then Georgia, my 9 year old wanted to do some home decor items (well..... bedroom decor really) so she made this monogram for her door, as well as a few strands of my version of Polish Chandeliers to hang from her light fitting (but unfortunately I didn't get any photos of that - they turned out really nicely though)

I hope they had fun.....
I did!

The only bad thing about teaching is

that you don't get to keep the beautiful creations yourself at the end!

We're good friends with a family from church who have 4 gorgeous children aged between 9 and 17 and when they found out I was into scrapbooking the girls were really interested in having a few crafty days together. So today was the second day I've had with them 'teaching' them how to make cards.

I was much more organised this time and had a few ideas up my sleeves, complete with sketches and supplies and what-not, but happy to still go with the flow. Which is good, because as I was blog-hopping while waiting for them to arrive, I came across this stunning card from Karen from The Bald Dragonfly that I immediately wanted to do myself.

So instead, I incorporated it into the 'teaching schedule' and we made this one:

I want to stress that I didn't make any of these cards myself, these were all done by my talented 'students'. The one above and the following three were made by my 16-year-old. How awesome is she?
 

How cute is that cupcake? It's covered in sprinkles. Click on the image to see more detail. 

 This one may look familiar since it's a different version of a card I showed you not that long ago here.

This rosette is actually a badge, so you can remove it and wear it. It reminds me of those children's birthday cards you buy with the badge saying 'now I am 2'. But we were actually thinking of Mother's Day!

And these two cards were made by my "just turned 9-year-old". Talk about amazing!

I told them I would post them on my blog. They're pretty excited.
I am too. My first students!
Hi Olivia
Hi Georgia
:)