~Madame butterfly~

I used the Swirlydoos January Retro Tapestry kit for this LO. The colours and embellishments in this kit are absolutely exquisite and were the perfect combination to match this picture of my DD. The Stunning large butterfly on this GCD studio pp is absolutely breathtaking. Krissy has an amasing talent for coordinating her kit pp's perfectly. I stuck with the yellow, blue and black colour combination to best show off the blue from my DD's denim jacket. The leaves are Heartfelt Creation stamps inked with forest moss distress ink.

The blue flower here is a white Prima which I misted with some homemade mist I made using faded denim reinker, perfect pearls and water. The colour came out just perfect for the LO. I also painted the lovely Dusty Attic chippie with some butterscotch Creative Inspiration paint. I also added some denim blue CI paint to the petal tips of the tiny blue roses.

I cut almost the entire butterfly out with exception of the body so that I could add some pop dots under the wings to give it some dimension IRL. I finished it off with some stickles which is very striking against the black flocking. 

Jan issue of SNR now available

The Jan issue is now available and check out who made the front page.....yip, that's my LO!!!!! How cool is that!! And it's in my birthday month... Jan 2011 will definitely be a month to remember.
Beside the brilliant choice of cover pic...LOL!!, This issue is filled with some of the most amazing artwork as well as some fantastic tutorials. There are some brilliant articles too and the mixed media section is truly incredible. Do yourself a favour and check it out HERE

~ Christmas Cheer~

This is the LO I did for the December issue of SNR's color inspiration. Wow was that a challenge for me. First off, my mojo was nowhere to be seen. I think it paniced and ran away when I got the news that I had been asked to join the staff at SNR...LOL! Anyways, I had made a commitment to do a piece so I was determined to get the job done, mojo or not!!!

The task set before us was to select one inspiration piece and 1 colour palett and create a LO using those as your guide. My inspration piece was this lovely vintage picture

And my colour palette was

I loved the negative space aspect of the picture and immediately had the idea of replacing the butterflies with some Christmas baubles.  These I first painted with some Shimmerz paint then embossed with some clear UTEE and added some stickles to the edges and had them hanging down the papper from some silver ribbon.

I also wanted my picture to look like Christmas decor so I cut a round frame from some gold cardstock and added some handmade poinsettias I made using my good friend Amarilys pointsettia tutorial. These are super easy to make and the best part is that you can colour coordinate your flowers to your LO.

~ Santa's Helpers ~

This is a LO I did for a call over at SNR. I had just started as a staffer there and the deadline for calls was a few days away  and my mojo had left the buliding!!! Needless to say,  I paniced a little....LOL! I had started working on this Christmas LO about 18 months ago but wasn't happy with it so it was packed away in my cupboard gathering dust. Because of the time restrainst, I decided I would see if I could bring it back to life. The original had petaloo poinsettias's on which I wasn't so crazy about since I've recently developed a passion to making my own embellishments so I whipped those off the page and replaced them with these great handmade ones I made using the very talented and my good friend Amarilys Poinsettia tutorial

I added a little water distressing to the corners, threw in some bling and we were good to go. It's still not a favourite LO of mine but i was happy enough with it to submit it. I can promise you one thing though, next year's Christmas layouts are going to be a hell of a lot better....LOL!

EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT - SNR STAFFER CALL

As a current staff member over at SNR , I'm super excited to announce that SNR have now posted their first ever staffer call. You can find the details for the call HERE. SNR will be accepting applications from January 14th, 2011 until February 4th, 2011.

I have only been on the staff at SNR for a few months but have already developed close friendships with the other staffers. It's a wonderful team to be a part of and I have learnt so many new things. I have tried techniques I never thought I could do and have learnt the freedom of playing with new products and techniques. Thanks to SNR I personally think I have become a better scrapping artist.

Good luck to all of you who send in applications.

BTW, there's still a few days left before the deadline for the February public calls if you would like the chance to have some of your work published. Here's where to go for more details.

Tutorial - Metal Flower

I came up with the idea for these while I was putting together my Secret Santa package for a COF I belong to over at sb.com. I wanted to create some unique homemade embellies and had just received my starter kit package from Ten Seconds Studio and was just itching to play. These are very simple and can be made using any petal shapes and sizes to obtain the finished look you want. They're also very versatile for both feminine and masculine LO's. Hey, if you're gonna put a flower on a masculine LO, why not make it a metal one!!

What you need

* Metal sheets in the colour of your choice
* Scissors - If you have a floral die cutter that can cut through metal then you can use that instead of hand cutting
* Embossing folder & Cuttlebug
* Embossing ink
* UTEE in colour of your choice
* Heating tool (not in picture)
* Non Stick craft mat

Ok, lets get started

Use your floral die cutter (if you have) or hand cut 2 large and 1 medium set of petals. I only realised at the very last step that I needed an additional large flower which is why I only have 1 large and 1 medium flower in the picture (brain cells are still on vacation...sorry).

TIP: I copied an image of a stamp onto a word document and then printed it out in several sizes to use as a template for my flower (templates used in above image)

Emboss all 3 flowers using your embossing folder and cuttlebug. You can then sand down the raised images on your embossed petals for a distress look or leave them untouched.

Add clear embossing ink to the tips of each petal on all 3 flowers. Cover with UTEE, shake off any excess UTEE and heat with your heating tool until UTEE has completed melted. For my flower I used platinum (Don't you just love that colour!!)

After you've embossed the tips of each petal with UTEE  allow flowers to cool. Using a rounded item like the handle of a paint brush, round each petal as shown above.

Starting with the large flowers at the bottom stack your flower with the petals alternating as shown above. Add any flower center you like to finish off your flower.

How easy was that!!!

Enjoy.