"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! 

Mixed media layout "No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you..."

Hiya fans :P

Had the chance to scrap another layout this weekend. And this one is sooo sweet, it'll hurt your teeth... 

Ready? Set... Go!

Here's a close-up so you can see the quote I used. "No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you. After all, you're the only one who knows what my heart sounds like on the inside."
I typed that myself on an old typewriter. Mounted the quote onto a wooden frame, which I coloured purple with Inka Gold. Then I covered both frame and text with one step crackle medium. (Way thicker on the frame ofcourse, I needed my quote to remain visible! So I brushed that area thinly.) Patience is the key here, do not try to speed the crackle process up with your heatgun, because you'll end up with broken bubbles.
So, once dry I inked it with some aqua ink.

You also see part of the angel's wing I stenciled. I used glass bead texture gel mixed with a pearl medium. The tiny butterflies are mirrors, which I gave a layer of pearl alcohol inkt first, and afterwards I covered them with glass beads texture gel.

The blue heart you see peeking out from underneath it all was also a mirror. I gave that a coat of the same mixture I used to stencil my big damask swirl with. A blend of crackle paste and an aqua blue Dylusion spray ink/mist. In my opinion the paste didn't crackle as much as I hoped for. But the stencil was hard to handle because it was so big and I didn't want to risk smearing too much in unwanted places, so.

I used modelling paste to stencil the text on the top left and bottom right. Afterwards I sprayed and inked those parts, as well as the rest of the page lightly here and there, with lilac and blue. 

Almost forgot to mention that I practically distress every page I do, by tearing up the edges and sides with a

 special tool. I ink the sides too.

The flower wreath is a piece meant for home decor. I bent it into a heart shape and added blue flowers to the existing pink ones.

I suppose that's all there really is to it! Let me know if you want to learn more. Comments are always very welcome.

Happy scrapping! 

"Cute" Mixed media layout

Hi all,

It's time for another update already. This next layout was a simpler one for me.

I had a small and normal sized picture of Connor wearing a brown and blue striped hat, really showing off the intense blue eye colour he used to have back then. 

The paper I wanted to use was light and dark blue. So I started by colouring the bottom piece brown. With a Lindy's Stamp Gang ink spray and a regular ink cubicle.

First I figured out where I wanted my pictures, then I stenciled the feathers with a brownish Inka Gold. I've said it many times, I know, but I looooove my Inka Golds. They're pleasant to work with, nice and creamy, and the result is always sharp and shiny.

So this is what my page looks like after stenciling the feathers.

After the stenciling I decided to add a little stamping in brown and blue, with some brick and wood like patterns.

Then it was embellishing time! A few ribbons here and there, a few words I sprayed with London Blue Dylusions Ink. Some felt circles, real feathers and other small knick knacks. An owl I secretly wrecked because I wasn't patient enough. (Do not speed up crackle paint by drying it with your heatgun. It will only bubble, not crack. Also don't spray it with spray ink before it's dry. You'll have no control over the end result. Which is why I hid most of my owl with feathers, LOL.)

Here's a small close up that'll hopefully show you how well the Inka Gold feathers turned out.

Let me know what you think! Questions and comments are always welcome!

Happy scrapping!

"Butterfly Kisses" Mixed Media layout

Hey all,

As promised im back to show you my latest layout. It's called "Butterfly Kisses". On the picture my boy Connor is 3 weeks old and being kissed by his nephew.

I didn't take step by step pictures because I didn't have my phone with me. Also, it's a good thing I didn't because my initial idea went horribly wrong. 

The paper is by 7Dots, Nature Walk. For some time already I had sought out the backside of this particular paper to scrap with this picture. The backside was black with a sandy coloured swirl. Very pretty. I wanted to use the Prima Finnabair doilie stencil with black gesso to begin with. 

So I tried. Upon removing the stencil I had one big, black blob :'( I decided to smear out the black gesso but that was horrendous. So I decided to flip the paper over and work from there. Strange enough it all came together rather quickly after this debacle! 

I glued some strips of old sheet music to the paper with gel medium and dried them. Afterwards I  wiped some white gesso over them because they were too yellow.

I stenciled my doilie with black PAINT instead of GESSO :P

I stamped the border swirls and parts of a text stamp with black ink. 

Tried out my glass beads texture gel and crackle paint and crackle paste on the wooden chalk tags. And later on almost every other surface ;)

Layered the picture on a piece of blue patterned paper and some cardstock. Added the blue denim rose ribbon, which I coloured partially with black mist. 

I guess that's about it! The picture above shows some of the materials I've used. If you have any questions or comments, please dont hesitate to leave me a reply.

Happy scrapping!