Mini chopping boards mixed media Christmas presents

Hey everyone! 

Over here in the Netherlands Christmas is over and we're having a lazy day with our own family of three. Hope you had a lovely Christmas surrounded by loved ones. We did. Sort of ;)

Only a couple of days before Christmas I decided to turn these cute little amuse chopping boards into finnabairesque gifts. (For measure: they are a bit smaller than my hand.)

I took a picture of the crackle paste coat I applied at first, but that has vanished somehow. Unfortunately this crackle paste as well as the 13Arts magic powder do not go give me the crackle effect I desire, but at least I have some structure. I let this dry overnight before I proceeded.

So sorry I didn't take any pictures of the next steps but basically they're quite simple.
Pick out the embellishments you like. I took the first letter of the names of my uncle and aunt, our host and hostess, R and Y.
She owns a bird so I went with that theme for her, and he's sort of a locksmith so that was my theme for him.
Added some drywall tape (mesh) on his, some lace paper on hers. Some micro beads (nail caviar) on both theirs.
Then I painted all of it with black gesso. Dried it with a heatgun, then sprayed both with various glimmermists (drying in between steps) and finished it with different shades of Inka Gold.
Added some chain and a key to his, and some pearl string with a little 'made with love' charm to hers.

Honestly, I like the result! And asides from a little more preparation and drying time, they're made almost as quickly as a card. If you know the receiver will appreciate (your) handy work, it's a much nicer option.

I'll leave you with some pictures and close-ups.
If you want to keep up with my work, like my facebookpage Less is bore!
         
                    Happy scrapping!

"Santa Baby" Mixed Media layout

Hi all!

Can you believe that ever since I took up scrapping almost 12 years ago, I have never ever created a Christmas layout???? Even though I have tons of scrapping embellishments and suitable pics, I just never did a Christmas layout. They felt lame somehow.  

So... I decided to do my first one ever and make it a very non-traditional Christmas layout.

Boy, did I fail at that :P LOL! 

No matter how hard I try, I can't keep things subtle. Or clean and simple. Noooo... 

My layout captures ALL the Christmas layouts I should have made during those 12 years in ONE. Sprinkled with glitter, gold and snow. Covered in puke from Elfs that ate way too much christmas candy...

And to think it all started out with this beautiful and delicate piece of Scrapberry's paper from the Legend series. That, and the sweet picture of 11 old month Connor I took to send as our family Christmas card.

At first I stenciled some Tim holtz swirls to the left side, using modeling paste. Dried them. 

For the other stencil I cooked up a special blend of modeling paste, pearl medium and 13Arts magic powder. (Hardly visible effect afterwards with those thin lines, but the reverse stencil I used at first was too much.)

And here's where every little bit of hope for a subtle layout vanished... I used a red and olive/moss green glimmermist. Okay. Now how was I going to blend those? Connect them? Downplay them? 

By adding golden Inka Gold on all the raised areas. (That's when I got stuck using golden embellishments for the rest. Silver nor copper just didn't seem right.)

With my 'jingle bells jingle bells jingle bells' stamp, I stamped 'jingle bells jingle bells jingle bells' in black on different areas of the page.

Now my background was done, it was time to decide what to use and how to alter it.

Since I was elected the lucky winner of the entire Scrapiniec Monograce Alphabet (with the promise of scrapping a layout with every single letter...) my title would be 'Santa baby', using the 'S'. 

I sprayed it with red mist, added some golden micro beads (nail caviar) blended with Gel Medium and later on some white crackle paste (as I do not own any snow paste). Once finished I lightly painted the interior swirls silver/gold.

Obviously I altered many more items. Gave letters ink sprays and glossy coats, topped off with crackle paints, micro beads and 'snow'. 

The oval wooden frame and wooden snowflake were treated with Mega Flakes. They do lend a beautiful, rich effect, like being real precious metals. (Very messy to work with though. Even for me.)

The big flower on the bottom left was originally white, I gave that a red mist spray as well. Added a little black ink on the edges, 'snow' on the tips and gold Inka Gold on the leaves/petals as well. 

Added some ribbons to the bottom, some 13Arts glitter leaves to the left, some golden embellishments, a few ancient christmas light embellishments, frosted berries, a little Santa hat, you name it...

I'll leave you with some close-ups and the remark that I loooove comments. But I'd love it even more if you would 'like' my Facebookpage Less Is Bore! to keep up with me.

Happy scrapping! 

"Enjoy today" Mixed Media layout

Hi all! Finally got a chance to finish my layout and blog about it.
These pictures are technically not so perfect but I turned them into a collage with an app and that gave it a whole different effect. These pictures were too much fun NOT to scrap!
The journaling tells that it was a regular day when Connor and I walked to the nearby store for groceries. We walked by a square tower every time, with a little border around it Connor likes to climb. One thing led to another and we were doing 'peek-a-boo' around the corners soon. How much fun Connor had is clearly to be seen on the pictures.

I started out with a lovely paper sheet from 13Arts. Mixed Finnabair teal mica powders with clear gesso to use through a stencil with circular shapes.

Leaving me with this effect. (I wanted to sort of stick with the circle theme because of the 'bubbliness" of the picture.

Then I decided to mix my recent favourite medium glass beads texture gel with a dark blue Inka Gold. However, applying this through a stencil with small holes is not easy. I wouldn't advice it ;)

The outcome was nice though.
I sprayed some silver glimmermist through a stencil with small dots. I punched holes in the top and bottom of the page. Later I taped yellow patterned paper to the back and filled in the holes with silver crackle paint.

The big swirl and text are from Scrapiniec. Basically I altered every piece of chipboard/wood/plastic before I adhered it. I used turquoise Inka Gold, glass beads texture gel, gold and silver crackle paints. 

I added some turquoise stars and yellow and turquoise iridescent circles, some big broad blue ribbon and glittery blue swirls as a final touch. 

Here are some close-ups so you can see the textures.

Hope you like it! Comments are always appreciated! You can also follow my facebookpage Less is Bore!

Happy scrapping! :)

"Less is Bore!" Mixed media tray (canvas)

Follow me on facebook! "Less is bore!"

Hi all! 

Because I felt that my blog needed an actual scrapped banner instead of the digital one I had, I made my own in a Finnabair mixed media style. 

A wooden tray was all I could find in the desired size. I turned it upside down though, which seemed easier for stenciling. 

First, I coated the tray with white gesso. Adhered a piece of 'open' ribbon to the left and then stenciled different stencils using modelling paste. I stenciled the 'art is..' text, some bricks, a church window and damask.

The wooden frame was covered with a mix of modeling paste and '13 arts magic powder'. I added this a bit on the left corners too, to make the transition from the ribbon to the background more smooth.

Unfortunately it didn't provide me with the crackle texture it should have. Need some practising with it, obviously. 

When that had dried I added some more frames, embellishments and letters. Covered everything in gesso. Multiple layers on the colored letters.

When that had all dried I decided the top right corner needed more embellishing. Covered those in gesso too.
For more structure I added glass beads texture gel on some things and crackle paint on others.

I let it dry and added several different colors of mists. I used some Lindy's, Dylusions, Tattered Angels; whichever colour suited my idea. In between colours I dried with my heatgun! 

 

After the first session of spraying I wasn't very pleased so I added another colour and just kept changing things until I was happy. 

When I was finished I rubbed some golden colored Inka Gold on every single part that stood out or was textured.

I added some more crackle medium on the letters and some embellishments. The sometimes multiple layers of different colours mist provided me with some lovely, surprising effects!

Later I used a cream colored Inka Gold on my letters because they didn't stand out enough, as you can see in the picture above. 

I'll leave you with some close-ups. I'd love to hear what you think! And I'm always happy to answer your questions!

Happy scrapping! :)

Mixed media canvas, "Leaves" challenge by Scrapki wyzwaniowo

Hiya there, 

Hope you're having weekend already, like me :)

I had some recent fall pictures of my boy Connor that I wanted to scrap, and I saw the november challenge over Scrapki Wyzwaniowo! The challenge is 'leaves'. You can still join in, so go on over there and have a look!

scrapki-wyzwaniowo november challenge

Because this particular layout will be a gift, I glued it to a canvas. Which gave me the opportunity to use much thicker embellishments, yay!

Connor shows it right here :)

I started out with this piece of paper from Kaisercraft in currogated cardboard look. With my big foam tree stamp I stamped a tree with brown Tim Holtz distress embossing powder.

Honestly I started embellishing after this already, but I should probably pretend to tell you that I did some stamping next with a text stamp and brown ink.

I splattered some ink sprays all over the page. A very wrong red one too. Which turned my sweet forest scene into a forest massacre... :'( 

Managed to fix that up some by smearing some Inka Gold copper over those particular areas. In retrospective I wouldn't have splattered so much because it takes away from the total design. In my opinion. But if you have a different opinion I'd be glad to hear it ;)

Basically I used a lot of leaves... Even metal ones. The words/sentences (one is from 'scrapiniec') are painted with Tim Holtz copper crackle paint.

I added a little wooden fox, mushrooms, some slices of wood, a bird, some acorns.

Thanx for reading and commenting! Happy scrapping!