It's been ages since I did a digital layout.

Wow, it's the first of December already tomorrow so I'll be starting the first page in my 12 days of Christmas journal. I can't wait to get going with it, I have a feeling it's going to be really truly exciting. I have lots of ideas to try out.

Today I was playing around with my Tinseltown cd by Sarah Hurley.  There are loads of brilliant and fun images and projects on it but most of all I love the papers. The colours are just so different.  The only problem for me has been in the printing of them. I find whenever I print a full background paper I get lines running across the page. I've tried with new ink cartridges, best quality paper, all sorts but nothing works, so 'till now I've been using the elements and stamps.  That's no hardship but I really wanted to use the papers properly.  Then I had a bit of a lightbulb moment and decided to use them digitally.  Well why not, it's a digital cd - right?  Sarah, please forgive me for not using it in a hybrid way, believe me I'd love to but I just had to try it out digitally.  This layout only took me 10 minutes and absolutely everything except the stitching and journal text is from the cd rom.  I'm pretty pleased with it and as most of my evenings will now be by the fire, laptop on knee, I might actually try out a few more. 

Check back in the morning for a new Sarah Hurley challenge and later on for the first page of my 12 days of Christmas journal.

byeeee

My Stamp Box and Canvas Corp blog hop.

I was lucky enough to be sent some wonderful Canvas Corp products recently as they are partnering My Stamp Box this term.  Their products are so cute and just dying to be painted, inked, stamped and sewn onto.  To celebrate this partnership we're having a blog hop, the first since the new members of the DT joined us.  So without further ado.....

"Welcome to the Canvas Corp and myStamp BOX “Partner Blog Hop”!


If you have just happened upon our event now, please begin your journey on the Canvas Corp Blog blog here
Many of our wonderful designers are joining us today to show off some inspirational creativity. See how well Canvas Corp and myStamp BOX products are working together!


START AT: Canvas Corp

Marsha Valk
Linda Abadie
Sue Sykes
Jeannie DeGruccio
Jaine Drake - YOU ARE HERE ;)
Janet Zeppa
Els Brigé
Jolene Johnston
Cassie Box
Isolde Pyncket
Agata Pfister
END HERE: myStamp BOX Blog

We are giving away some amazing products from both participating companies. All you have to do is COMMENT on all designers blogs along your journey to WIN. Our two Hop winners will be drawn from all participants and will be announced on the myStamp BOX blog and Canvas Corp blog on Monday, November 28th, so all comments are due by Sunday November 27th at 6pm EST. Good Luck!

And here is what I did with Canvas Corp and myStamp BOX's products

I've made my Christmas journal in what other than canvas. It's been painted with acrylics, stamped with Funky Circles stamps from My Stamp Box and sprayed ink through a stencil.  I used a Canvas Corp Chalkstock ATC to write my title on using a Chalk pastel Writer from Kuretake and used My Stamp Box Border Lines stamp to create the quirky border around it.  I also used a canvas star from Canvas Corp and use some Canvas Corp string to tie my book together.

Now it’s time to HOP along and find out what the next talented designer has created. Your next designer is Janet Zeppa


Don’t forget to leave a comment below for a chance to WIN one of our TWO product giveaways!"

A match made in heaven with a sneek peek.

This is a little sneek peek of a project I'm showing tomorrow as part of the blog hop between My Stamp Box and Canvas Corp. 

One of the things in my Canvas Corp parcel was a pack of chalk board card.  Absolutely perfect for using with my Chalk Pastel Writer from Kuretake and the colour went beautifully with the rest of the project.  These two are a match made in heaven. The chalk card is cardstock with a double sided black chalk board finish.  The Kuretake Chalk Pastel Writer is a pigment ink pen with a chalk ink finish.  These two should get together ;)

 

Stamping on die cuts

It's my turn to post on the My Stamp Box blog today.  These are the cards I've made for the blog post showing pepping up your die cuts. 

My Advent Calendar

Last saturday I gave a workshop to the Mozaik group where I showed them how to make this advent calendar.  The most work was in cutting all 24 little boxes so most people had prepared theirs at home before they came.  The fun came though in decorating the box fronts with stamps and papers and on several of the boxes I added small photo's.  As it was such a big task, no-one managed to finish on the day but I look forward to seeing photo's of their advent calendars once they're done.  As I told them, there's no stress, they have until the 1st December to get it finished :)

Family mini album

This project was made in answer to a call by My Stamp Box to create something with Family as the theme.  What better than a mini album full of family photo's.  Maybe this is what started me on my recent obsession with houses, I don't know.

Anyway, I had intended to print out my photo's in black and white anyway so I could use strong colours on the pages but my printer had run out of certain ink colours and the washed out grey tones were all I could manage. Instead of wasting the print I went with it and used my alcohol markers to colour in parts of the photo's, sort of hand tinting if you like.

The canvas pages were coloured with water colour crayons and stamps from My Stamp Box and overlays from Hambly in between the pages.  The photo of the door on the front isn't my front door I have to say, but one of my discoveries in Italy.

The book is up on the My Stamp Box blog at the moment along with other projects from the dt so go over and enjoy.

Little brooches

As you can see house fever hasn't died down any!!  My attention has now turned to making brooches for Christmas.  My free motion machine embroidery needs alot of practice but I enjoyed the process alot.  I have a few other designs in mind so the machine and fabrics are still out on my table. 

For the new challenge at Sarah Hurley, we want to see buttons on a project so I submitted the two brooches above, presenting them on the tags which have been downloaded from the Tinseltown cd - easy.

Little house fever.

I seem to have little house fever at the moment and have taken an absolute fancy to these little things.  So much so that I've suggested the next workshop for the Mozaik Scrappers is to make little houses to hand on the Christmas tree.  So the Yahoo group don't feel left out at all, we've set up a swap so I've been in production making 7 more to post out.

As you see, I couldn't resist and even added one to my art journal just for fun.

Armistace Day and the poppy.

11th November 2011 or 11/11/11 how cool is that? 

Not to forget the significance of this date in history (that is the ending of WW1 and the remembrance of all those lives lost in wars since) I journalled a page of Remembrance which in England is celebrated by wearing of a red poppy.

I usually stamp my titles or opt for stickers but this is the first time I've used a pen, in this case a black Scroll and Brush pen by Kuretake.  I also used it to draw the stems.

 

Little christmas houses

Another super cute Christmas project featured on the Tinseltown cd rom by Sarah Hurley, is a full template to make these little houses.  They come in several different colours and designs and are ready to cut and stick.  I decided to put my own mark on them and on the first one on the left, I highlighted parts with my Promarkers, added my own embellishments and cut a roof from corrugated card.  I also put a hole through the roof to add a ribbon so it can be hung on the tree.  For the second one, I cut out the windows and added some doodled flowers around the door.  I glued some felt  to the roof to look like snow and put a gift bag inside containing a few cookies.  I stapled this to the ribbon which comes through the roof.

New journal page and clearing junk.

How shameful, over a week and no blog post.  Actually I've been throwing out junk and cleaning up my basement store room.  I've made a huge difference as far as the store is concerned but the garage is now full of stuff waiting to go to the recycling centre.  To make matters worse, our street has been opened up like a zipper and we're unable to bring the car up to the house making it a real effort to put anything in the car.  So the recycling will sit in the garage until the road works are finished - uhhh!!

I did have a couple of projects on my work table, one of them sat there for days and every time I passed by I added something else to it.  It's now finished and I'll be showing it later on in the month. 

I also finished a journal page in my altered book.  Lena had chosen the theme 'Wet' which quite frankly stumped me totally.  Then whilst looking through my stamps from My Stamp Box I saw the Wishing you Sunshine stamps set and had  a flash.  I don't know why I didn't think about it earlier but hey ho, there we are.  I found the perfect image from a magazine and used some ink sprays and watercolour crayons to add colour. 

Officially thinking of Christmas.

Its now November the 1st and I can officially start thinking about Christmas.  It's been in the shops now for weeks and really, I find it all too much.  Last week I was looking for last minute Halloween stuff and couldn't find anything at all so I came to the conclusion I should have been looking in the summer!! 

Anyway, I'm allowing myself to fully embrace Christmas now it's November so my blog will be full of it I'm afraid. 

Sarah Hurley has brought out a new CD for Christmas called Tinseltown which has the most adorable images you can possibly think of on it.  She's designed, papers, toppers, stamps and full blown projects too.  My first project made using the CD is this journal project which is all on the CD.  All you have to decide is how you're going to put it together.  I backed mine onto stiff card and used fabric to create the hinges.  It could be used to add your photo's from Christmas or used as a journal and document what Christmas is to you and your family. 

I just love the colours Sarah has chosen and on the CD she's added some of the same elements and pages in different colour ways. 

The CD is available to buy here.  You'll be able to see lots more ideas using the images by the other DT members from now on at the Sarah Hurley web site.