Tam's got Mail......dear Mama

Hi everyone, Tam here today to share my layout for the current 'You've Got Mail' Challenge at Scrap Matrix.

 

I love this theme......so many options.  As soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do.

 

You see I've had these precious letters that my daughter wrote to me a couple of years ago. They are just beautiful, heartfelt and so very precious to me. I actually carry a copy around with me in my purse at ALL times.  I often sit and read them, and I think they bring a tear every time.

 

Anyway, I really wanted to preserve these letters, and now I have!!

 

Here's my layout.....

Yep, in that hand made envelope sits the letters.

So let's see how this came together......

 

I began with a gorgeous paper from 7Dots 'Writer's Block' Range.  The script feel is just perfect.

 

I knew I would add lots of colour.....yep it's gotta have colour, so I added a thin coat of clear gesso to act as a barrier/sealer to protect the paper.

Whilst this was drying, I grabbed another sheet from the 7Dots 'Writer's Block' Range.  I chose a darker colour, as a contrast to the  background.

I grabbed an envelope that I had laying about the place, and I opened it up, and used this as a template.

I traced it and cut it out

 

 

 

I then taped it back together.....such a simple way to have a perfectly co-ordinating envelope.

 

 

 

 

 

Now it's time to add some colour to the layout..... you know how much I LOVE colour!

 

 

 

 

For this part, I used the 'clear packaging' technique.

 

I began with Dylusions 'Polished Jade', and spritzed some onto some old packaging, I also added some water.

 

I then turned this over and splodged it onto my layout. (super technical hey!)

 

 

 

 

I then repeated this process with Dylusions 'Lemon Zest'.

 

Then just a hint of  Dylusions 'After Midnight'.

 

*Make sure you dry in between each colour*

 

 

 

 

I then added some string to my page.

 

 

 

 

You will notice that these are vertical on the page, however, on the final layout they are horizontal.

 

When I got to the very end of the layout, I changed my mind and decided that this needed to change!

So I swapped the string to vertical.

I just felt it 'tied' in with the layout more (he he see what I did there)

 

 

 

 

I then added a few stamps to the background. 

 

I used AALL & Create #60. I used the circle/script/word section of this stamp.

 

 

 

 

I grabbed a Dina Wakley flower stamp and stamped this onto white cardstock using an Archival Black Ink.

 

I again used the 'clear packaging' technique to add colour to these stamped images.

 

 

 

 

 

I cut these out and began layering and tucking in and around my photos using both the flowers and lots of 7Dots Tags, again from the 'Writer's Block' collection.

 

 

 

 

For my title, I decided to use a tag I made from 7Dots paper.

 

I stamped onto it using these very cool Idea-ology Alpha Stamps.

 

I added some hand-writing, so that the tag read 'Dear Mama, Love Paige'

 

 

 

 

I then attached this to the envelope, making sure it could still open and close.

 

 

 

I added a few embellishments, including some 7Dots die cut elements from the 'Air Mail' range, a gorgeous German Scrap Pen Nib, and a cute metal envelope charm.  This just finished off the tag perfectly.

 

 

 

 

Aren't the pen nibs just gorgeous!!

 

 

 

 

Now it was time to add in more layers.......embellishments, tags, stickers, pen nibs, and the stamped flowers and leaves.

 

 

 

I added some journaling to a 7Dots tag, and some word stickers from 7Dots too.

 

 

 

 

Here's the word stickers and embellishments I used.

 

 

 

 

I then spritzed some of these little white flowers in the Dylusions 'Vibrant Turquoise' and 'Lemon Zest', and scattered these amongst the layers too.

 

 

 

 

Love the colour combo, and the overall effect.

 

 

 

 

This layout has a special place in my heart, and I'm so glad this challenge was set as it forced me to create a forever keepsake.

 

What special keepsake/ephemera could you scrap, thus preserving the memories forever?

 

Head on over to our Facebook Shares page to add your entry, and let us know what Scrap Matrix Product/s you used.

Just pop it in the 'You've got Mail' Album.

 

Here's a reminder of the challenge:

 

 

 

That's it from me today.

 

I hope this has inspired you.

 

If you'd like to see more of my work head to my BLOG.

 

I will leave a list of the products used below.

 

See you again soon.

 

 

Scrap Matrix Products used:

 

7Dots Writer's Block Paper - Epilogue

7Dots Writer's Block Paper - Sincerely

7Dots Writer's Block Tags

7Dots Writer's Block Word Stickers

7Dots Air Mail Elements

7Dots Lost and Found Word Stickers

Dina Wakley Stamps

Idea-ology foam Stamps block lowercase

AALL & Create Stamp #60

Dylusions Ink Spray - Polished Jade, Lemon Zest, After Midnight. Vibrant Turquoise

Mini White flowers

German Scrap Pen Nibs Black

Envelope Metal Charm

String

Clear Gesso

Black Archival Ink

 

 

 

You've Got Mail Art Journalling - With Karyn Schultz!

Hi Scrap Matrix Lovelies!!

It's Karyn here and this month I'm lucky enough to be a guest DT member for Scrap Matrix!! Very exciting!! Thankyou so much Vicki and your fabulous Design Team! 

The Scrap Matrix challenge for October is "You've got mail". I decided to create an art journal page.

Here is the "You've got mail" challenge inspiration pic. 

 

I've used a small Dylusions art journal (Scrap Matrix has a large range of journals here ) and I've used Distress Oxides to create my background.The colours I've chosen are Faded jeans, Broken china, squeezed lemonade and twisted citron. I've used a painting with plastic technique to apply them to my page where I stamp the inkpad onto some plastic packaging, spritz with water then "smoosh/stamp" onto and around my page.  

 

I do this with each colour separately and let the colour dry between each layer. Then I add splats of each colour. 

 

I also colour some tags to use on my page. I stamp each of the colours onto my craft mat, spritz with water then smoosh the tags into the colour. I let each colour dry then add another colour until I'm happy with the look. 

 

I wanted to add some texture to my page and the tags so I coloured some white texture paste with the Distress oxides - stamp the ink pad onto your craft mat then add texture paste and mix well. 

 

I've applied the coloured texture paste through a Prima flower stencil across my page and on the tags in places. This is a great way to create coloured texture pastes customised to the colours of your page. Add more colour for a darker effect. The same tinting technique can be created using oil pastels, Scribble sticks, mica powders, acrylic paints and even watercolour pan paints. 

 

 

 

Once this had thoroughly dried I added some stamping using the #2 Aall and Create stamp set and Aall and Create stencil #9. I then created some clusters for my page using tags, German scraps embellishments and sewing thread as well as the star of the page - a stamp! 

 

Here are some closeups of my page. 

 

Thanks so much for stopping by 

Crafty Hugs xx

Karyn

Its a new month - October Challenge ...,,

Hi everyone . WOW it is October - where has this year gone - not long and we will be having Xmas!!  This month we have an awesome challenge - " You've got mail" .

There are so many possibilities with this theme - the papers, special letters or memorabilia you may have, a cute little love letter, a fab parcel, a collection of postcards, stamp shaped chipboard, metal letter trinket, stamps - and the list goes on.

Lets see what the design team have created for this month:

 

To be eligible to win a gift voucher from Scrap Matrix, all you need to do is create a project inspired by the moodboard and upload it to the "You've got mail" album on our facebook  Scrap Matrix Shares Page

Dont forget to comment on your photo, telling us at least one product that you have used that is available at Scrap Matrix Store.

You have until midnight 31st October to upload your project - cant wait to see what you all create.

Remember our design team will be doing blog posts on these projects, detailing how they have created them in the coming days, together with new projects to get your mojo flowing.  

We will also have a special guest this month sharing what they have created - so dont forget to come back and check that out.