~ Jarrod ~ SEPT DIY CHALLENGE TUTORIAL REVEAL

In honour of my oldest son Jarrod's birthday month I decided to select tutorials that could be used for both masculine and feminine LO's for the Sept DIY Challenge over at sb.com which I proudly host. I have chosen the masculine route for my example LO. These tutorials are optional twists that could earn you extra votes, depending on how many you use on a single LO.

For the first tutorial I selected my dear friend and extremely talented Lisa Valentine's Masking Tape background . This is such a fun and extremely easy technique to use and the finished effect is just gorgeous!!!! For my LO I used pine needle, faded jeans and black soot distress inks but this technique looks absolutely fabulous done using browns. You get a real weathered leather look which would work great on a vintage LO.
I used mine to frame the photograph of my DS.

For the second tutorial I selected a video tutorial for Dried Satin Roses I found while browsing through some flower tuts on YouTube. What's great about this tutorial is that you can make them as feminine or as masculine as you like. For my LO I chose to use plain black but I have done these before layering various colours or even 2-3 shades of the same colour which can look really gorgeous. Just be sure to use satin or a similar fabric because lighter fabrics will burn/melt too quickly with the heat gun.

I recently made the best aquisition ever. I bought Tim Holtz's Compendium Of Curiosities and am just loving trying out his techniques. I started off with the easier ones just to build my confidence because I felt a little overwhelmed when I first studied the book. In this LO I tried out the masking. I used the pine needles distress ink as my bg colour and then applied the masks to the paper and used black soot distress ink to shadow the mask shapes.
This is obviously one of the easiest tecniques but I absolutely love the finished look. I'll definitely be investing in more masks.

And here is my very first attempt at embossing. I used faded jeans for the bg and then embossed some flourishes onto the bg using black soot distress embossing powder.
I just love the unfinished distressed look of this embossing powder. It definitely suites my style and I'm extremely excited about embossing more in future.

I also embossed these wooden letters for my title. I first inked the chips with some pine needle distress ink and then embossed them using the black soot distress powder again. As you can see the distress powder has release crystals which don't melt and rub off showing the bg colour. This gives an aged weather look which is GORGEOUS IRL.
Stay tuned for more projects using Tim's fabulous techniques and if you don't have your own copy of "Compendium of Curiosities" yet, I highly recommend you invest in one.

~ Adorable Dreamer~

August has not been a very good scrapping month so far for me. I've been terribly ill with this awful flu doing the rounds which has completely drained all my energy making it difficult to scrap or even make flowers which has fast become my favourite hobby.

I did however manage to complete 1 LO which I had intended on doing the beginning of the month to use as my "example" LO for the August DIY challenge I host over at sb.com.

The only requirement for the challenge is that you have at least 1 embellishment or piece of bg paper that you have made yourself from scratch. As a bonus I give particpants an oportunity to earn 5 EXTRA votes by providing 3 tutorials each month. You can earn 1 extra vote for each tutorial used on the SAME LO and if you make an embellishment using your OWN tutorial you get 2 extra votes.

WINNER GETS A RAK FROM ME so if you enjoy making your own embellishment then come and join the fun.

I thought I'd try making a LO using ALL 3 tutorials supplied for August just to prove it could be done. I also used most pinks for the monochromatic challenge (week 2 - PINK) The twist option for that challenge was to make your own flower which worked out perfectly.

The first tutorial is by Byondbzr who was July's winner. As the winner you get to have 1 of your own tutorials featured for the following month so Rebecca chose to use her wax paper flowers which are super easy to make and require very little time. Mine don't quite look like Rebeccas but I like them all the same. I painted the wax paper with cerise craft paint then glimmer misted over that and then added some "Angelic" shimmerz paint to add some real sparkle.

To make this adorable pink fabric bloom I followed my very own No Sewing fabric bloom tutorial which I was inspired by the new range of Prima blooms to create. They really are super easy to make and all you need is some fabric and a hot glue gun. I used a prima flower for the center which I inked the very tip of the petals with pink chalk and then I painted over that with some more of the Angelic Shimerz paints to add sparkle.

I used SIMPLY PAPER's (Vicky's) fabulous Elegant Ruffled Flowers
tutorial for these paper flowers which are so gorgeous IRL. Vicky is one of the most talented artist's I know and has some of the most beautiful paper flower tutorials. My flowers didn't come out quite as beautiful as Vicky's but I intend on trying them again until I perfect the technique.

I decided to give the wet distressing technique another try and even though I still have not quite perfected it, I'm certainly doing a lot better than when I first tried it. I must admit that my recent aquisition of a heating gun helped considerably. It's a lot easier to get the creases just right when you have a heating tool to dry the paper immediately. Again, I shall continue to work at perfecting another technique I just LOVE.

I'm PUBLISHED!!!!!

A few months ago I decided to pursue my goal of being published and emailed some of my LO's to a local South African scrapbooking magazine called Scrap Affairs to see if they would be interested in my work. They were kind enough to publish one of my LO's in the very next issue and I thought that would be it. I was then absolutely delighted to find out I had been selected as a Scrapbooking Diva and would get a 2 page spread. The issue has just come out and I just had to show this off...........I'm sooooo excited!!!

I was jumping up and down in the store isle when I opened the mag and saw this. This is far more than I was hoping for when I sent that email.