Cherish .. with Alz

Morning peeps!

Important notice

Our challenge now runs from the first day of the month to the last!!!  :)

Today I'm sharing my first layout for the current Scrap Matrix challenge ..

Cherish

 

 

I was inspired by the soft photo of the baby in the moodboard ..

 

 

 

How could I not be? That baby is such a cutie patootie don't you think?? Anyways I have some photos of our friends' little girl Selina from when she was just a wee little baby. I'll be scrapping another photo of her soon and you'll see that she's grown just a tad. In fact, I think she's three now. But I'm terrible with dates and ages and stuff.

Moving on. lol. I really wanted to keep my page 'soft looking' (if you know what I mean) so decided to keep to a monochromatic colour scheme with a slightly shabby chic feel. I knew the Maja Design Coffee in the Arbour vintage pink tones would be perfect, and I love using patterned paper for my backgrounds, so used the Raspberry Cupcake. Oh and the Maja Design papers are just beautiful .. a lovely heavy weight, soft to the touch, perfect for distressing, and the patterns just sublime.

Although the Raspberry Cupcake would have been perfect just as it was, I wanted to add my own touch to the background.

I did this by applying white gesso with a brayer (you can find one in here) adding some Finnabair Texture Paste White Sand with Aall & Create stencil #10. Once all this was dry I reapplied the white gesso with a brayer over the texture paste. Then, once that was dry, I flicked on some Rose Bud irResistible spray.

I love, love, love the irResistible sprays. They dry almost glossy or even plastic-y and 'sit' on the surface as opposed, I guess, to being absorbed. Does that make sense? This colour (Rose Bud) was perfect for adding just a little pop of contrast.

Although I have other Maja Design Coffee in the Arbour papers I could have used for layering, I wanted to play with my Tim Holtz Distress Inks and Victorian Velvet was a perfect match for the Raspberry Cupcake paper. I dyed tissue paper, gauze and seam binding by squishing the ink pad directly onto them, spraying with water and working in the ink. I repeated this process several times to get the exact saturation of colour I wanted.

You can see I ended up tearing the tissue paper. Oops. I knew it wouldn't matter though as I could easily hide the tear in my layers. If you look again at my finished layout you'll notice I didn't end up using the gauze. It just didn't work. It was making the page too bulky and besides, didn't Coco Chanel say something about 'taking one thing off', meaning, I think, that simplifying things makes them more beautiful or classy or whatever?? Never mind. The gauze just didn't make it onto the finished page.

I also used the Distress Ink to colour a Chipboard doily border and Chipboard swallow. I painted the chipboard pieces with white gesso first so that I'd get the true colour of the Distress Ink shining through. Whilst the ink was still wet, I applied Glossy Accents. The Glossy Accents mixes with the Distress Ink, resulting in a lovely variegated, watercolour-like effect. I treated another chipboard piece, a flourish, exactly the same but I just wasn't happy with it and, in the end, these three pieces of chipboard on the layout were just one too many. So I left it off. But you can see it in the top right corner of a photo above. I'm setting it aside with the gauze to use on another project down the track some time.

Talking about setting things I don't use aside, a while back I sprayed a length of Embossed Paper Lace (White French Lace) with a Lindy's spray. It ended up not working for whatever project I was planning to use it on. So, I set it aside. Whilst rummaging through products to use on this project, I came across it and noticed the reverse was perfect for this layout! Bonus!

eeeek!

perfecto!

So I had my layers set and it was time to embellish. Keeping it simple, I used my chipboard pieces (duh lol!), I tied a double bow with the dyed seam binding, and added some Petaloo flowers .. Mini Paintables White Blooms and Fuchsia Botanica Minis.

I kept my journaling fairly simple; just a few words and a name and date. I printed these onto white cardstock with a free typewriter font I found online ages ago .. 1942 report. Then my title, which I also kept simple, using the word "cherish" from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chitchat stickers - Verbiage. Finito!

Don't forget Scrap Matrix has changed its challenge format. We now run our challenges from the 1st of the month to the last of the month. So you have until midnight on the 31st to get a pic of your project uploaded to the Scrap Matrix Shares Facebook page. Plus we'd love to know what products you've used which are available at Scrap Matrix .. I'm not alone in wanting to be inspired by your use of varying products!

Other than a few close ups ..

.. that's it for me today. I sooooooo look forward to seeing what you create for this month's moodboard challenge.

Happy crafting!

Cheers .. Alz  :)

Scrap Matrix products used:

Maja Design Coffee in the Arbour - Raspberry Cupcake

Aall & Create stencil #10

Finnabair Texture Paste - White Sand

irResistible spray - Rose Bud

Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Victorian Velvet

Chipboard doily border

Chipboard swallow

Inkssentials Glossy Accents

Embossed Paper Lace - French Lace White

Petaloo Mini Paintables White Blooms

Petaloo Botica Minis Fuchsia

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chitchat stickers - Verbiage

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"I photograph" .. with Alz

Morning peeps!

I'm so very excited to join you with my first official Design Team member project ..

I photograph

I was inspired to create this layout by the current Tic Tac Toe challenge which, for a fun twist, also challenges you to create a monochromatic layout.

I've used the far right vertical line .. pretty patterned paper, lace and paper flower. My background was created on a very pretty piece of patterned paper from the Blue Fern Studios Wanderlust collection (Mountain View). I didn't have any fabric lace so used Embossed Paper Lace (love this stuff!), and the flower I found laying around my desk gathering dust, literally.

To create my background, I ripped some pages out of a dictionary I picked up for just a few dollars from one of our local op shops and, using a good old fashioned glue stick, randomly stuck strips of varying sizes down.

Once the glue was completely dry, I started picking off the bits that hadn't stuck down. I find this gives a really soft and random edge to the dictionary paper.

I was going to use some of the Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays and wasn't completely sure how they would react on the old dictionary paper versus the Blue Fern Studios patterned paper so, using a baby wipe for a soft and diluted, finish, I applied white gesso to my page.

Next up I sprayed the background with two yellow Linda's Stamp Gang Flat Fabio sprays. I started with the lighter colour first as I hadn't planned to use quite so much of the second, darker colour but it was just so yummy (Pineapple Paradise) I couldn't stop! I did end up with some lovely depth of colour though.

Once all this was dry I created a cascading, stamped image which I thought suited my photo perfectly, with Aall & Create stamps and a Jet Black Ranger Archival Ink Pad. I stamped them on scrap white paper first to cut out the images and create masks. I've used this technique previously (see here for step by step pics).

I also used an Aall & Create stencil (#8) with Ranger Texture Paste (I used the Opaque Matte) to add some texture to my page. I love this stencil and see it being used on so many of my pages.

So anyways, that's my background done and dusted. Next up it was time to stick down my photo and get on with embellishing. Frequently I'll use layers behind my photo but decided to skip that step for this page. It just didn't seem to need it.

I used a Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paint in Nougat to paint a strip of white French Lace Embossed Paper Lace, a paper flower from my stash, and one of the chipboard flourishes from the Blue Fern Studios chipboard packs (Mini Flourishes). I tucked the Embossed Paper Lace in behind my photo and added a Petaloo Mini Paintables Butterfly. In this instance I didn't need to alter the butterfly, but look forward to altering the other seven left in the pack (such good value).

I created a small embellishment cluster in the lower left corner of my layout grounding both the Embossed Paper Lace and my photo, using the Blue Fern Studios chipboard mini flourish, my painted paper flower, and two metal leaves. Vicki has a great range of metal in store; you can find it all here. At this time I realised the colour on my chipboard flourish was all wrong so I got out my Prima Watercolour Pencils and coloured it yellow.

Finally it was time for the finishing touches. Whilst I had the Prima Watercolour Pencil out I coloured in some of the stamped Aall & Create images. I flicked around some Black 13@rts Ayeeda Glitter Ink and stuck on some of the yellow 2mm Molossi Crystal Gems. I used Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chit Chat stickers to create my title "I photograph" and printed my journaling using a free typewriter font I found online .. 1942 report.

So that's my first monochromatic tic tac toe layout done and dusted! In case you've forgotten (this post is very long after all lol) I created the layout for the current Scrap Matrix challenge to create a project (not necessarily a scrapbooking layout) using a line from the tic tac toe box ..

But remember, it must be monochromatic, which means one colour with neutrals. I don't know about you, but I interpret neutrals to mean black, white and creams. Oh and you have until the 14th of May to upload photos of your project to the Scrap Matrix Shares page on Facebook. Please remember to add your photos to the Tic Tac Toe/Monochromatic April album.

Oh and heh please do let us know which Scrap Matrix products you've used. We all love seeing how different peeps use different products in different ways. That's a lot of "differents" lol!

Anyways that's it for me today. I look forward to dropping in again soon to share another monochromatic, tic tac toe layout with you.

Til next time, be cool!

Cheers .. Alz  :)

Scrap Matrix products used ..

Blue Fern Studios Wanderlust Mountain View patterned paper

Lindy's Stamp Gang Flat Fabios - Bonjour Butter and Pineapple Paradise

Aall & Create stamp sets - #42 and #43

Aall & Create stencil - #8

Ranger Archival Ink Pad - Jet Black

Ranger Texture Paste - Opaque Matte

Paper Artsy Fresco Finish Acrylic Paint - Nougat

Blue Fern Studios chipboard - Mini Flourishes

Embossed Paper Lace - French Lace, White

Petaloo Mini Paintables Butterflies - Cream

Metal leaves .. see here for more metal

Prima Watercolour Pencils - The Basics (yellow #16)

13 @rts Splash Glitter Ink - Black

Molossi Crystal Gems 2mm - Yellow

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chit Chat stickers - Verbiages

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