Julie Nutting May Challenge - Wooden Dolls

Hello Bloggers! It was a long weekend here this weekend, and we spent it doing hard yard work, so when last night came I was itching to get a little scrapping in. While looking through my Pinterest board of this month's challenges, I decided to play along with the Julie Nutting Facebook Group challenge for May, which is to use her mini dolls or wooden dolls on a project.

In both stamp and mini doll form, I love Shay's grace. I started off by colouring the doll's skin using a wet paintbrush and watercolour pencils, and her dress with Metallique paint.

I selected one of the Journaling Cards from the Time Traveler's Memories collection, and wanted to make sure my wooden doll stood out. One of the butterflies from the birds wooden icons in a box set coated in Stickles made a beautiful, glittery set of wings, and the Love ink bottle from the Sationer's Desk collection made the perfect pedestal. I finished her off with a harp from the Princess collection Metal clips, and some of my very first Prima flowers, these adorable little blooms that came in a glass bottle. 

Here is the challenge for May:

Prima Supplies

Julie Nutting Mini Doll

Wooden Icons In A Box: Birds, Stationer's Desk

Time Traveler's Memories 3x4 Journaling Cards

Metallique Royal Red, Brass Hardware

Julie Nutting Watercolor Pencils: Hair and Skin Tones

Prima Botanical Mix: English Garden

Princess: Metal Clips

More Than Words May Challenge - Moments and Clocks

I had a lot of fun playing around with the More Than Words challenge this month, partly because it was a great chance to try out my new Prima Rust Paste set. You know when you have one of those scrappy products that you just can't wait to start playing with? Rust Paste was it for me.

The theme for the challenge this month is "Moment", and to use clocks on your layout, so I started with the Roman Clock Face - Large from Blue Fern Studios, and primed it with white gesso before adding some Light Patina Metallique paint here and there. Once dried, I started adding the various colours of rust paste. Just look at all that glorious texture! As a finishing touch I added some green and purple paint, then touched everything up with the Gold Rust Paste.

Blue Fern Studios' Serendipity collection's beautiful vintage feel was a nice complement to the rusty clock, but even after I'd tucked in some corrugated cardboard and torn the edges of my paper layers, I was having trouble getting a unified feel between the grunginess of the clock face and the soft feeling of the paper. Rust paste to the rescue! Using a stiff-bristled paintbrush, I applied the two darker colours of rust around the edges of the paper using a pouncing motion. I love the outcome - the layers feel very integrated to me now.

The Checker Bits chipboard was heat embossed using Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel, then I used a finger to brush on some of the Gold Rust Paste to help integrate it into the layout.

Given that the challenge was to use clocks, plural, I dug through my stash for some extra timepieces. The pocket watch below is one of the Vintage Trinket Clocks mounted with a clock face metal clip from the Cartographer collection.

Nestled into my cluster is one of the resin clocks, coloured with Artisan Powders, Color Bloom Sprays and Rust Paste.

For the "Moment" portion of the challenge, I selected a phrase from the Serendipity Calling Cards paper that sums up the picture I used perfectly. We'd invested in family photographs, and I had all sorts of grand plans for beautiful, composed family shots. And we got those, but also some great candids, and those shots are some of my favourites, because when I look at them I can feel the love, goofiness and playfulness that is our family dynamic. I definitely hadn't planned on this shot, with Elliot hanging off my head while I try to stop Brennan from sliding off my other hip, but I love the picture of this moment.

Thank you to More Than Words for a great challenge as always! There is still plenty of time to play along before the end of the month - click on the image below to be redirected to their blog.

Thank you for stopping by!

Products Used:

Prima

Media:

Métallique Paint: Light Patina

Opal Magic Paint: Violet Green

Rust Paste

Artisan Powder: La Chapeliere, Parthenay

Color Bloom: Gold Foil, Soft Teal, Deep Teal

Chalk Edger: Dark Rust
3D Gel Medium

Flowers:

Tales of You and Me (586263)

Leaves (578411)

Archivist (580490) (580865)

Archivist Chronicle Butterflies (580445)

Embellishments:

Shabby Chic Treasures - Clocks (892081)
Vintage Trinkets - Clocks

Cartography Metal Clips (572976)

Timeless Memories Say It In Crystals (579401)

Louviers Chains
Glass Beads: Butter

Blue Fern Studios

Serendipity Collection: Imagination, Calling Cards, Chronicle

Sanctuary Collection: Botanical Garden

Chipboard: Roman Clock Set Large, Checker Bits

Other

Silks Paint: Mallard Green

Stampendous: Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel

Altered Bird Cage

Hello fellow crafters! How was your weekend? We seem to have skipped right over spring here and straight into summer, and have been enjoying July-ish temperatures. And that means it's time to start enjoying our deck and yard for the summer, with BBQs with friends, lightsabre and waterballoon fights and long evenings.

And on that note, I have a great little home decor project to brighten up my patio. I always have my eye out for items to alter, and picked up a plain white decorative birdcage that needed some sprucing up. And I'm so happy with how it turned out.

I started by covering everything with a coat of white gesso, then added white crackle paint liberally. Once this was dry, I set to work with my sprays, and added some additional touches of crackle paint after the fact (to prevent the spray reactivating and colorizing this second layer of crackle, I sprayed everything with a sealant first).

The picture below allows you to see all the layers of colour and texture.

I wanted the interior of my cage to look like a secret water garden. I started with a piece of paper from the Timeless Memories collection cut to fit. I used a rock stencil to trace the rockery pattern, and coloured in the negative areas left by the stamp with a plain pencil. To create the pond in the middle I used a sunburst stencil and modeling paste, and followed it with sprays, then created a stream into the pond and out the other side using glass beads.

Microbeads and glass beads create a dripping faucet, while I used Flower Soft for moss. The circular lamp from the Wall Lamp made a perfect well cover.

There are fairies frolicking in my garden!

These Prima resin fairies add such a touch of whimsy. They were coloured using a thick, opaque water-based paint.

I love Prima vines, and I used several different ones on this project, cutting some of them apart and mixing and matching the blooms.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Prima Supplies Used:

Media:

- Gesso: White

- Crackle Paste: White

- Modeling Paste: Light

- Color Bloom Sprays: Soft Teal, Summer Sky, Tea Stain

Paper

- Timeless Memories: Freedom

Flowers:

- Winthrop Vines: Topaz, Pearl, Tourmaline

- Button Vine: Songbird

- Cradle Robin

Embellishments:

- Glass Beads: Cobalt Blue

- Micro Beads: Splash

- Shabby Chic Treasures: Antique Garden Sink

- Resin Icons in a Box: Fairies

Stencils:

- 6x6 Pebble Stone

- Bloom Collection: 6x12 Circles

Prima May BAP

My girlfriends and I took a girl's weekend recently, and when I saw this month's Prima BAP sketch with its Polaroid-style photos, I instantly knew I wanted to use a couple of selfies we'd taken during the trip for this layout.

I combined some old Prima favourites (Time Traveler's Memories papers, older flowers and bark butterflies) with some new goodies (Metallique paint, Artisan Powder, Adhesive Rub-ons and Foil) for this layout.

Here is the gorgeous sketch:

This whole layout began for me with the Polaroid frames. I happened to pull out a couple Time Traveler's Memories 3x4 Journaling Note Cards along with my papers, and found that had a handy border around the inside that would be perfect cut into a frame (as you can see from the closeup below of one of our goofy selfies. We definitely need more practice perfecting our "duck lips" ha!). 

Setting the frames aside, I started on my background. As in the sketch, I used two different sheets of paper (No. 70 and Forever Roses), though it's difficult to tell from the final layout. I started by coating everything in clear gesso. To emulated the large splattered area in the sketch, I smeared a coating of crackle paste on the background, pressed in the die cut doilies (you can see these peeking out underneath the clusters) and sprayed on some Gold Foil Color Bloom while it was still wet, then left it to dry overnight. Once the crackles had formed, I brushed on Artisan Powder in La Shapelier and Parthenay and wiped away the excess with a wet wipe, then added some additional colors of Color Bloom spray to give it a nice, weathered appearance.

I added some strips of paper and both the Rough and Smooth Leather paper. To add some contrast and color, I added stamping with the Checker stamp and black ink, and applied Metallique paint through the 6x6 Checker stencil using a foam dauber.

I added some adhesive rub-ons and gold foil to both clusters.

Then it was time to embellish.

I finished it all off with a title fussy cut from another of the Journaling Note Cards.

Thank you so much for stopping in today.

Prima Products Used

Papers:

- Time Traveler's Memories: No. 70, Forever Roses, The Traveler,

3x4 Journaling Note Cards

- Artisan Parisian Leather Paper: Rough (990411), Smooth (990404)

Dies:

- Metal die (572792)

Media:

- Gesso: Clear

- Crackle Paste: White

- Color Bloom: Gold Foil, Tea Stain, Soft Teal,

Deep Teal, Worn Leather, Boysenberry

- Artisan Powder: La Chapeliere, Parthenay

- Chalk Edger: Branch Bark

- Art Alchemy Paint: Métallique Royal Red

Flowers:

- Cassie (561819)

- Vinetta: Nature Garden (555887)

- Encore: Turquoise (561352)

- Mini Sachet Rose (565954)

- Something Blue: Best Man (575335)

- Cartographer: Globetrotter (574543)

Embellishments:

- Lightbulb: Friends

- Adhesive Rub-Ons: 971304, 971359

- Prima Rub-On Foil: Golden Girl (585631)

- Cartographer: Brads (990145)

Stamps/Stencils:

- Checker stamp

- Checker stencil 6x6

Two Birthday Cards

Good morning, Bloggers! I'm sharing a couple more birthday tags I made for the boys' friends parties using Julie Nutting doll stamps. I made both of these with Prima Royal Menagerie papers and 3x4 Journaling Cards.

The first one is for a sweet little 5 year old girl Colby has been friends with since they were babies. Unfortunately, she had the stomach flu and had to miss her own birthday party!

I added wings fussy cut from one of the Journaling Cards, and propped them and the doll stamp up with foam dots to add some dimension. The butterflies to the left are fussy cut from two of the journaling cards.

 

The journaling cards are the perfect size to stamp and cut out pieces of clothing for the dolls without having to cut into a 12x12 sheet of paper. Because they have a little extra weight, they give a little more bulk to the clothes. I dressed the Hunter stamp, for Brennan's friend's 8th birthday, with some great, boyish prints from the journaling cards.

I added shading to both dolls by using a Chalk Edger around each piece, then added additional shading with the light and medium skin toned alcohol markers.

The Fun Time stamps provide some easy embellishments for boy cards.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Prima Products Used:

Julie Nutting Tag Pad

Julie Nutting Stamps: Betty, Hunter, Fun Time

Royal Menagerie Papers: Bicycle Built For Two

Royal Menagerie 3x4 Journaling Note Cards

Chalk Edger: Tin Can, Branch Bark

Alcohol Markers: Light Skin, Medium Skin

Prima Design Team Call 2016

It's the most exciting time of the year for many crafters - the Prima Design Team call! I debated about whether to submit my application this year, as I haven't been as active in the scrapbooking community over the past 16 months following my decision to step down from my Design Team commitments in December 2014 so that I could spend the last year of my dad's life unencumbered by other responsibilities. But the truth of the matter is, that even though I haven't been posting as much, I have been crafting my little heart out in the background, and am eager to jump back in with both feet. The Prima Design Team has been a long-held dream of mine, and this year's DT call is a siren's call I can't refuse.

Without further ado, I present some of my Prima projects for your review.

Craft Arena One:

Cards, Tags and Layouts

 

 

Craft Arena Two:

Home Decor, DIY

Craft Arena Three:

Mixed Media, Altered Projects, Jewelry

 

Craft Arena Five:

Videos, Step by steps

Links to all of the tutorials I have done - videos, step by steps and a UStream show, can be found on my blog here.

You can also click on the photos below to be directed to the corresponding tutorials for these two projects.

If you've stuck through this post this long, thank you! I know from reviewing all of the other Prima DT blog posts that the competition for the Prima DT is fierce again this year, and based on the quality of the artists applying, I know the 2016/17 team will be another amazing team, whomever is chosen. Best of luck to all of you who are also trying out.

Jackie

Prima February Sketch layout

If you're wondering if you read that right, you did; looking for inspiration I went back through some old sketches I'd saved for such a purpose, and this one from Prima's February BAP challenge caught my fancy.

The picture is one of my favourites of my beautiful sister Emily drinking wine in Greece. I combined fussy cut papers, flowers, resin swirls and leaves to loosely emulate the heart shape from the sketch.

I started with a lot of background work to fill in the area covered by the circle in the sketch, adding stenciling with light modeling paste and then misting overtop with Peony mist. I found that the stenciling was getting lost in the background paper, so added some outlining in Storm Cloud Color Bloom with a very fine paint brush, as you can see in the photo below. I also added some resist canvas borders colored with Color Bloom sprays, and then liberally splattered the background.

I wanted to use the resin swirls as the focal points, top and bottom, for my heart shape, so I needed them to stick out. To accomplish this, I misted them with Color Bloom Spray in Summer Sky and Cobalt, and once that was dry used Artisan Powder in Vausseroux to highlight the depressions.

The "Happy" arrow from the Say It In Crystals Words added a nice finishing touch to the photo, along with a Typewriter Key paperclip and little wooden bird.

This is one of those layouts that just makes me feel happy. The trip we were on represents a pause in an incredibly difficult time in our lives, as our dad's health was declining and we were stealing ourselves for the painful months to come. Greece was an escape for us all, Dad included, and I cherish our photos from that trip.

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you had a chance to do something fun for yourself on International Scrapbook Day. Our day was jam-packed with baseball with the kids, but I did manage to get some crafty time for myself after they were all in bed.

Prima Supplies

Papers

Garden Fable: Lover Momentos, Birdhouse

Engraver: Cartouche

Media

Chalk Ink: Black Coal, Old Road, Shabby Tote

Artisan Powder: Vausseroux

Color Bloom: Yellow Mustard, Gold Foil, Boysenberry,

Cobalt, Summer Sky, Storm Cloud, Peony
Art Basics: Light Modeling Paste

Embellishments

Resist Canvas Borders

Resin Swirls (892487)

Say It In Crystals Words (570446)

Something Blue Paperclips (573058)
Wood Icons In A Box: Birds

Flowers

Soprano E (561659)

Manhattan: Fifth Avenue (577667)

Nikko: Michio (582067)

Capistrano: Smoothie (577407)

Royal Menagerie: Maud (583361)

Stencil
Doily 12x12