Art Journal page - Unique

Good morning

Today I am sharing an Art Journal page that I created as a break in my Christmas card making.

I had been thinking of doing this technique for a while now. I have heaps of metal embellishments and am trying to use up my stash.

You can see the video here.

I added some Mont Marte Modelling paste through Kaisercraft's "Script" stencil.

I used Atelier Heavy Gell Gloss to attach the metals to the page and then set it aside to dry.

Next step was to cover the whole page with Gesso and let that dry as well.

I sorted through my mists and decided to go with pinks and purples. The colours I used were, Glimmermist - Iridescent Gold, Fully Purple, Basically Bare, Black Magic & Gold.
Dylusion Ink Spray - Bubblegum Pink and Lemon Zest and Chalkboard - Chalk.

I sprayed with these colours until I had the look I was trying for, this required many coats which were dried between each application.

The two feature pieces were given a coat of Gesso, sprayed with colour and set aside to dry before I attached them to the page using craft foam and my hot glue gun. The gems were attached with clear drying glue.

I added more detail to the background using a dotted grid clear stamp with StazOn Jet Black ink and Encore Gold ink.

I felt that the background needed more colour so I used a Kaisercraft clear stamp "Bubblewrap" and Archival Chrome Yellow to add more of the yellow to the background so the yellow of the butterfly looked like it belonged on the page.

I added a border to the page using both black and white acrylic paints in a fineliner bottle.

The title is a clear sticker from The Craft Stall

Don't forget you can see the process video here.

Thank you for spending your time here with me today

Till next time
Hugs
Julie

Three of my Christmas Cards for 2019

Good morning

I have been back from Egypt for one week now, sometimes it feels like I have been home for months and sometimes it feels like I only got home yesterday. Hopefully I will get back in the swing of things soon.

Today's post shares with you three Christmas cards I have made this week of the 30 I have to make for the year. These three bring my total made so far to 15.

All of the cards use papers from my DCWV Merry & Bright paper pad and some gold cardstock from my stash

I recorded the process and you can see the video here.

So let's start with this card. It is a 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" top opening card.

I chose three patterned papers. I cut one to 5 1/4" x 4", two pieces of the black paper, 1 @ 4 3/4" x 3 1/2" and one @ 1 1/2" x 5 1/4" and the third patterned paper to 2" x 5 1/4".

I used my Prima distressing tool and a black ink pad to distress all of the patterned paper edges.

I used a die to cut each bauble out 3 times from white cardstock. I then glued them on top of each other to create four nice thick baubles to embellish my card.

Double sided tape was used to attache the 1 1/2" piece of black patterned paper to the 2" piece of pink paper, then using glue I attached the baubles and the gold twine so the baubles look as though they are hanging from the twine. This panel was then attached to the larger black patterned paper that had been attached to the background piece of patterned paper.

The twine was then attached to the larger panel and wrapped around to the back of the patterned papers.

This panel was then attached to the card base using self adhesive craft foam.

To create the "Merry Christmas" greeting I used an Elizabeth Craft Designs die and some gold cardstock and attached this to the lower part of the card, using glue.

I cut the card bases for the next two cards from a sheet of white cardstock. They are 5 1/4" square.

The second card has three patterned papers also, the largest is 5" x 5" The lightest paper is 2 3/4" x 5" and the pink paper is 2" x 5".

Once again I have distressed all of the papers with my distressing tool and black ink.

I cut a piece of the gold glitter mess so it was about 5" long by it's full width (which is less than 5")

I used double sided tape to attach the largest piece of patterned paper to the card base, laid the mesh on top of that and then attached the next two layers of patterned paper using glue. The glue behind the 2 3/4" piece pf patterned paper holds the mesh in place.

The greeting was once again cut from the gold cardstock using a die I bought on the internet.

I made the baubles to embellishments the final card using two Kaisercraft stamp sets. One is from the Sparkle stamp set and two are from the Merry Christmas stamp set.

I used Versamark clear ink to stamp the images and then heat embossed them with fine gold embossing powder.

I then fussy cut each bauble and added a star shaped brad.

The black patterned paper measures 5" x 5" and the pink measures 2 1/2" x 5".

I mounted the pink patterned paper on a piece of white cardstock that measures 2 3/4" x 5" to give the patterned papers some separation.

The edges of all of the papers has been inked with a black ink pad.

The black patterned paper is attached to the card base with double sided tape and the white cardstock is attached on top of it with self adhesive craft foam for a little dimension.

Finally the pink paper is attached onto the white and then the baubles are placed on the pink paper.

I have used the "Merry Christmas" on the middle baubles as my greeting.

These three cards are very simple and easy to make so I hope you try them out. You will be amazed how different they look when you use different patterned papers.

If my description is a bit hard to follow, don't forget that you can see me make these cards on my YouTube channel here.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my Christmas cards today

Thanks for dropping by

Till next time

Hugs

Julie

Easel Christmas Cards

Good morning.

I am back after two weeks in Egypt. What an experience. Loved every minute of it.

I have made two easel cards and one "M" fold Christmas card to share with you today.

You can see the video here

Lets start with this one

I cut 2 pieces of cardstock 5 1/4" x 10 1/2". One I scored at 2 5/8" and 5 1/4". The other one was scored at 5 1/4", 6 3/4", 8 1/4", 9 1/4" and 10 1/4".

Fold the first piece so the 2 5/8" score line creates a mountain fold and the 5 1/4" is a valley fold.

Fold the second piece so the 10 1/4" scoreline is a valley fold and then alternate mountain, valley etc until you get to the 5 1/4" scoreline which will be a valley fold.

I chose two patterned papers but you could have as many as you like.
From patterned paper no. 1 I cut 1 @ 5" x 5" and 2 @ 5" x 3/4".
From patterned paper no.2 I cut 1 @ 5" x 5",1 @ 2 1/4" x 5", 2 @1 1/4" x 5"
I then distressed and inked all of the edges of the papers.
You can see from the photos below how I have placed these papers

To make the little bar that holds the card open I cut a piece of cardstock 5 1/4" x 3/4" and a piece of patterned paper 5" x 1/2". Distressed the edges of the patterned paper and inked the edges of both pieces. I used foam tape to attach this to the card 1 1/4" from the bottom flat edge.

The tag decoration on the card was cut from the cut apart sheet in the paper pad and mounted on a piece of gold cardstock. I then added a gold eyelet and some black crochet cotton. I used d/sided tape to attache this to the back panel of the card.

The Santa face is a stamp that I have had for quite some time. I have stamped it with my Versamark Embossing ink and then added black embossing powder before heat setting. Watercolour pencils and a water brush were used to colour the hat pink and a gold gel pen filled in the holly leaves and berries. Once I had fussy cut the face out I attached it to the centre step of the card.

The Christmas trees on the front step of the card were stamped on white cardstock using Kaisercraft's Sparkle stamp set and Versamark ink. They were heat embossed with gold embossing powder and fussy cut.

The greeting was cut using black cardstock and Elizabeth Craft Designs 745 Merry Christmas die. This was attached to the front flat section of the card using glue.

This card looks similar but it does not have the base running under the "steps", you can see what I mean in the side on view of the card. This card does not use as much cardstock either.

Cut one piece of cardstock 5 1/4" x 12" and one 5 1/4" square.
Score the longer piece at 1 1/4", 2 1/2", 4 1/4", 6" & 9"
Starting with the score at 9" create a mountain fold and then alternate between valley and mountain folds until you get to the 1 1/4' score which should be a mountain fold.

Attach the 5 1/4" square piece to the card base so the back of it rests between the 6" and 9" folds.

I chose three patterned papers this time. From patterned paper no. 1 I cut 1 @ 5" x 5" and 1 @ 1" x 5".
From patterned paper no. 2 I cut 1 @ 1 1/2" x 5 and from patterned paper no. 3 I cut 1 @ 1 1/2" x 5 and 1 @ 1" x 5"

I inked the edges of the papers and attached them to the cards as per the photos below.

All of the decorations on this card are die cuts cut from gold cardstock.

I have used Memory Box Snowflake Ornament, no name Christmas trees and the same greeting die as I used on the previous card.

They were all attached to the card using glue.

The final card for today is slightly different.

To make the base of this card I cut a piece of cardstock 5 1/4" x 12"

I scored it at 5 1/4", 9 1/2" and 10 3/4".

Starting with the 5 1/4" fold make a velley fold , a mountain fold and then another valley fold.

This card also has two patterned papers, from patterned paper no. 1 cut 1 @ 5" x 5" and 2 @ 4" x 5".
From patterned paper no. 2 cut 4 @ 1" x 5"

Ink all of the edges and attach the patterned papers to the card base as shown in the photos below.

to create the panel that hold the greeting cut a piece of black cardstock to 3 1/4" x 2 1/2", a piece of patterned paper to 3 1/8" x 2 3/8" and a piece of gold cardstock to 2 1/2" x 1 3/4". Ink all of the edges and layer them on top of each other.

Attache this to the front of the card as shown in the photo.

The greeting for the inside of the card is a Kaisercraft stamp from the set called Merry Christmas stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Once I had fussy cut the image I attached it to the inside of the card using glue.

The decoration on the from of the card was die cut from black cardstock using Memory Box Snowflake Tree die and attached with glue also.

Thank you for spending your time here with me today.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my cards. If you would like more detail check our the video

Thanks for dropping by
Till next time
Hugs
Julie

Pink Christmas Cards 2019 Cards 1 - 3

Good morning

I bought a DCWV paper pad called Merry & Bright and I thought I would use this pad to make my Christmas cards for the year.

This post talks about the first 3 cards.

You can watch the video here if you would like to see how these cards came together.

I have used a cream pearlescent card for the base of these cards. I cut a piece of cardstock 5 1/4" x 10 1/2" and folded it in half.

All of the patterned papers have been matted on black cardstock that is 1/8" larger in each direction than the patterned papers

I cut a piece of patterned paper 4 5/8" square and run it through my Big Shot with a Cuttlebug embossing folder that created aChristmas bauble pattern. I ran a Versa Color Old Rose ink pad over the embossed pattern to help it stand out more.

A second patterned paper was cut to 2" x 5" and a third piece measures 1 1/2" x 5"

I used a Penny Black stamp set called Winter Wonderland to stamp a Christmas tree on a piece of the off cuts from the card bases. I then used Zing Black Glitter embossing powder to heat emboss the design. I trimmed the cardstock to a tag shape, added an eyelet and threaded some crochet cotton through the eyelet.

The 4 5/8" and the 2" pieces were added to the paper with double side tape, attaching a strip of lace under the 2" piece. The 1 1/2" piece was attached to the card using foam squares. The tag was then attached on top of the card using glue on one half and foam squares on the other half.

The greeting is created using my computer and printer, then I swiped my Old Rose ink pad over the greeting before mounting it on black cardstock. This was attached to thecae at the bottom of the tag.

A piece of patterned paper was cut to 5" square and attached to the inside right of the card. I stamped a verse inside the card using a thINKing Stamps stamp. It says We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in the shape of a Christmas Tree.

The second card is very easy and straight forward. I have had the patterned paper that had the Christmas trees printed on it for about 5 years. I can not remember the brand of the paper but I think it could be Kaisercraft. The colour went well with this paper collection so I fussy cut three trees out.

I cut a piece of patterned paper to 5" square and attached that to the card base. On top of that I added a piece of Organze mesh with Glitter that I had trimmed down to fit.

The Christmas trees blended into the background more than I wanted so I mounted them on an off cut from the card base. I used foam squares and glue to attach the trees over the top of the mesh so the glue would hold the mesh in place also.

The greeting is computer generated once again, attached to a piece of cardstock and then attached to the card using foam squares.

The final card for today has two layers of patterned paper that have had their edges distressed and inked. The pink paper is 5" square and the black paper is 4 3/4" square. These have been attached to the card base using double sided tape.

I used a Magnolia stamp to stamp the trees on some white cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed it with Gold embossing powder. I fussy cut the trees and attached them to the card front with foam squares.

The greeting was generated on my computer and matted on the two patterned papers. This was then attached to the card with foam squares.

I used Starlight Rose Scribbles (similar to Stickles) and added spots to the trees to give the look of Christmas tree decorations, I also added gold star stickers to the tops of the trees.

Three simple but effective cards for Christmas.

Don't forget to check out the video here

Thanks for dropping by today.

Till next time

Hugs

Julie

70th Birthday Cards

Good morning

I was asked by a friend to make 2 birthday cards for her Mum who was turning 70 and she wanted to include some photos in the cards. One was to be from her and her husband and one was to be from her children.

These are the two cards I made for her.

You can see the video here.

The first card is the one for the children to give their grandmother. I made a twist and pop card using a tutorial I saw on YouTube by Alicia McNamara at Papercraft Secrets. You can see her video here.

Each of the cards are 6" x 6" and cut from 300gsm White cardstock.

The papers used on this first card are a 6 1/2" paper pad from Kaisercraft's Secret Garden range.

I chose 4 papers and attached them to the inside and outside of the card base.

Inside I have the pop and twist section that I have made from white cardstock. I cut a piece 4" x 12" and scored it at 3", 6" and 9" and then folded it so I had a mountain fold at the 6" score line and a valley fold at the other two score lines. 

I then covered three of the sections with patterned paper. I did not put any patterned paper on the first section because the photo I was going to attach there was the full size of the panel. The photos for the other sections were smaller so I attached white cardstock photo mats to the patterned paper so the photos would stand out nicely from the background.

I die cut a couple of different sized scalloped hearts using my Do Crafts Scalloped Hearts die and used them to lightly decorate the photo panels. I was careful to not add too much bulk because I wanted to be sure that the card would close properly when the photos were added.

The actual mechanism that attaches the pop out piece to the card is a bit difficult to explain and you can see it clearly in the video but I will try explaining it here.

Start by cutting a piece of cardstock 8" x 3", using a pencil make a mark at 2 1/4" and 5 3/4", rotate your cardstock and make a mark at the same measurements on the opposite edge. Score at 4"

Rotate your cardstock on your scoreboard and score at 1 3/4" on the 3" edge.

Use a pencil and ruler and lightly draw a diagonal line between two of the marks you have made on the cardstock. One mark at the top and one at the bottom. Do the same with the other two marks so you end up with a pencil line cross that intersects at the centre point of the mechanism. Score along both of these lines

Make a mountain fold of the centre score line that runs through the 8" length

Then make a valley fold for the two diagonal folds.

Fold the centre of the mechanism up into a mountain fold at the same time as you bring the two ends down and towards each other. This makes a shape like a house with a pointy roof. The bottom part of the house is in two sections

Measure up 1 1/4" from the bottom of one of the legs and draw a line across then flip the house over and draw a line 1 1/4" up on the opposite leg.

Attach double sided tape to each section from the bottom, up to the line.

Take your folded pop up section and place it between the two leg and lay it down. Use the tape to attache the two parts together being careful to centre the pop up piece between the leg section.

Using your ruler and a pencil make a mark at the 3" mark on the inside fold of the card base.

Attach the pop up piece with the point of the roof on this mark. I used both d/sided tape and glue just to be sure it would stick well. Once you have one side stuck down, close the card to attach the other side.

As I said this is a bit hard to describe and hopefully I have covered all of the steps but please if you are going to try this, check out the video first.

To decorate the front of the card I have covered it with some tulle, then used Tim Hotlz's Tattered Florals die to create a flower (the process for this is in the video as well) a doily, some leaves I have cut from patterned paper using Tim Holtz's Tattered Leaves die and some fabric leaves from Manor House.

The greeting is clear stickers from Kaisercraft that I have attached to some patterned paper, mounted on some foam squares and then attached to the card. The 70th was cut using Apple Blossom Large Numbers and Suffixes die and some of the patterned paper. To finish the card off I added a few blue sequins to the card front.

The papers for the second card are from 13@rts. The chipboard is from Little Birdie, the resin was made by me and the paper flowers are also from 13@rts I think. The lace is from my stash, given to me by my Mother

I decided on a "shabby chic" look for this card. I tore the two patterned papers so they were slightly smaller than the layer they were to go on top of and then inked the edges with a Cinnamon ink pad from Versa Colour.

I had a piece of velum with gold text on it so I added that as my top layer.

I trimmed the chipboard down to fit across the card and then attached it to a dark piece of patterned paper so it stood out from the background nicely.

I attached all of these layers to the card base, also attaching the lace under the chipboard backing as I went.

Using the flowers and fussy cut leaves I formed my floral cluster and attached it with my hot glue gun.

I also used my hot glue gun to attach the resin heart.

To create the greeting I used a stamp that came with a magazine I had purchased and my black Stazon ink and stamped onto a piece of white cardstock that had been die cut into a label shape. Once again I used my hot glue gun to attach this.

On the inside of the card I used some patterned paper to mat the photo and attached that to the left hand inside section and on the right hand section I attached some patterned paper where my friend can write her personal greeting.

Whoa what a long post. If you have read all the way to hear, thank you for staying with me.

Don't forget to check out the video. If you enjoy my videos I would love it if you would subscribe to my channel.

Until next time

Hugs

Julie

Theatrebugs September 2019 Layout

Good Morning,

Today's layout uses a piece of cardstock that I actually created over 12 months ago.

I went to a Scrapbooking Retreat some time ago and one of the things I bought while I was there was some Colour Blast Colour Pastes. These are thick colours that hold their shape and have an iridescent sheen to them. I used my palette knife to swipe the pastes across a piece of white cardstock. I was going to use this sheet as the background for the layout but found it too distracting. The colours of the paste I used are Singing The Blues, Lipstick, Royalty, Sunshine, Sienna and Envy

You can see the process video here.

I tore the coloured cardstock into strips to use on the layout. To create the background I used a 12" x 12" piece of white cardstock and a 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" piece of purple cardstock which I layered on top of each other.

I then used The Crafters Workshop stencil called Dream Girl and some Mont Marte Modelling Paste to create some white texture on the purple cardstock.

When this was dry I used double sided tape to attach the pieces of torn cardstock to the layout so they would lay behind the photo.

The edge of the photo was filed with an emery board and the the edges were inked with Versa Color Violet ink. A piece of self adhesive craft felt is used behind the photo to give it some height when it is attached to the page.

I had recently purchased a tiny sewing machine from Aldi so I used that to stitch around the edge of the purple cardstock with white thread. I found the machine way too noisy and hard to use so went to my normal sewing machine and added the black stitching to the coloured strips and a zig zag stitch over the white stitching I had just done.

The background needed a bit more depth to it so I used an assortment of tiny stamps along with some Jet Black Stazon ink to stamp randomly over the page. The stamps are an assortment of hearts, arrows and flowers.

The title was cut from black cardstock using my Kaisercraft DD700 Alphabet Upper Case dies. I have attached the title so it runs vertically along the left hand edge of the layout. A coat of Glossy Accents gives the title a lovely glossy finish and helps it to stand out from the stamping on the background.

The final step for this layout was to punch some hearts from the purple strip of Colour Blast cardstock that I had not used on the background and add them to the right hand edge of the photo.

I am sure you would enjoy watching the process video. It is not very long, only about 7 or 8 minutes and will give you all of the detail.

Thank you for visiting my blog today.

Till next time
Hugs
Julie

We Can All Fly Art Journal page

Good morning,

Today's post is about an Art Journal page.

I really enjoy doing these pages and try to do at least one per month.

I created a process video and you can see it here.

I have used a page from my Happy Planner notebook. To prepare my page I stuck two pages together for some extra body to the paper as it is only notebook paper and gave the front a coat of white Gesso. I always leave the back of the page blank so I can write down the products I used because when I come back to it in the future I can never remember what products I have used. I have heaps of pages that I really like but can't repeat because I have not written on them what I have used.

The background of this page is created using Gelatos. I scribbled them onto the page and then used my finger dipped in water to spread them across the page and blend them. The colours used are Lime, White, Lemon, Green Tea, Pistachio, Blueberry, Mango, Metallic Blueberry, Spearmint and Cotton Candy.

I used a clear stamp that looks like circles of thread with Encore Gold, Stayzon Jet Black and Archival Fern Green, Watering Can & Cornflower Blue inks to stamp randomly all over the background

The next layer for the background was some Mont Marte Modelling Paste through a 13@rts stencil. I can never find the names on the 13@rts products so not sure what it is called

While I was waiting for the background to dry I used a sheet of white cardstock that had a coat of white gesso and Color Crush powders in Pineapple, Wheat Grass and Blue Heaven along with some Colour Blast powders in Lemon Zing, Olive Grove and Cool Mint to make a green mottled paper to create my tree. I drew a tree shape on the cardstock once it was dry and cut it out with my scissors. I ran it through my Big Shot with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and then gave it a spray with some Glimmermist - Iridescent Gold

Using the same cardstock I stamped two of the birds from Tim Holt's Crazy Birds stamp set using Stayzon Jet Black Ink. I coloured the birds with Distress Inks using Mustard Seed, Candied Apple, Dusty Concord, Picked Raspberry and Carved Pumpkin. I used a finger dauber to apply the colour.

I then cut them out using the matching dies.

I attached the tree to the page using Matisse Matt Gel Medium being careful not to get any on the background because the gelatos are water activated and will move around if I put matt medium on them. I cut a trunk for the tree from a piece of scrap paper and attached that as well.

I used Stayzon ink once again and stamped the birds onto the page where I wanted them to be so I would have the fine detail like legs etc and then attached the coloured birds on top of the stamped images.

Because I wanted to use my Faber Castelle Big Brush Markers to do some shading I sprayed the page with a Matt sealer and then shaded around each of my focal points.

I used an assortment of foliage stamps to create some grass at the bottom of the page to ground the bird and tree.

An assortment of black permanent markers were used to add details to the page as well as a border.

The quote was printed from my computer on normal printer paper and attached to the page using matt gel medium. The border around the quote was done with a black Fude ball pen.

Final step was to water down some white acrylic paint and make some splatters all over the page. I then used a baby wipe to wipe the splatter off of the birds.

So there you have it, a bit long winded but you can check out the video on my YouTube channel, it might be a bit easier to follow.

Thank you for spending a part of your day here with me today.

Till next time
Hugs
Julie

Kaisercraft Wonderland Christmas Cards

Good morning friends.

Today I am going to share with you three Christmas cards I have made using Kaisercraft's Wonderland range.

I stumbled across Kaisercraft's store in Adelaide's city centre and couldn't believe my eyes. There are two other Kaisercraft stores in the Adelaide suburbs but they are a long way from my suburb and the city is only 15 minutes away. I love Kaisercraft papers so you can imagine I was doing a happy dance when I found the city store. I have already paid it a couple of visits.

Last time I was there I picked up the 6.5" paper pad and collectables from the Wonderland collection and the clear stamp from the Peace & Joy collection because I wanted to start on a few Christmas cards and I didn't want to use the traditional Christmas colours of red and green.

I have a video on my YouTube channel showing how these cards were made, you might like to check it out.

All of the cards are 5.25" square and made with card bases I have cut from cardstock.
I have used WorldWin Treasures - Sage for two of the cards and White for the third card.

All of the patterned papers and embellishments have their edges inked with black ink.

I chose a piece of patterned paper from the paper pad and trimmed it to 5" square. I then cut a piece of velum to the same size and ran it through my Big Shot using and a Cuttlebug embossing folder that gives the background an all over pattern of baubles.

I cut a Memory Box Snowflake Ornament die using gold cardstock and then mounted that onto some green patterned paper. I cut some thin strips of the same gold cardstock to make the "strings" that the baubles hang from. I attached the strips to the velum with glue and the baubles with foam squares. I also cut the Merry Christmas sentiment from the same gold cardstock and attached that to the velum with glue. Using glue behind the embellishments and sentiment I attached the velum to the card base on top of the patterned paper.

I decorated the inside of the card with a tag from the embellishment pack, that said "May all your Christmas wishes come true" and a gold heat embossed tree that I stamped using the stamp set onto velum and fussy cut.

This card uses one of the green card bases. I folded the front of the card back on itself to create a Z fold card.

I used the same patterned paper to cover the inside of the card and the front panel.
I cut a piece of the green cardstock to 2.5" x 4" which I covered with the same patterned paper that I had used on the rest of the card.

I chose three embellishments from the pack and layered them onto the left hand side of the card front.

The sentiment also comes from the embellishment pack. I gave it a light coat of Zig 2 way glue and then sprinkled fine glitter onto it.

On the inside of the card I attached another die cut from the embellishment pack which says "Believe in the Magic of Christmas and the word "Joy" from the stamp set that had been stamped onto velum, heat embossed with gold and then fussy cut.

The last card for today has got three layers of patterned paper as a background, each layer is 1/8" smaller than the one below it. The edges of each layer have been distressed using my Prima Distressing Tool before being inked. They are then attached on top of each other. I have used double sided tape to do this but you could use foam squares on one or all of the layers for more dimension if you wanted to.

A strip of green cardstock that is 1.75" x 5" has been added to the left hand side of the card front and a 1.5" x 5" piece of patterned paper has been added on top of that.

The Christmas tree, star and greeting are from the embellishment pack and have been added to the card using foam squares.

For a little bit of sparkle I covered the Christmas tree using my clear Wink of Stella brush.

The inside of the card has a double strip of patterned paper like the strip on the front of the card.

My three cards for today do not use traditional Christmas colours but I think they look very Christmassy. I hope you agree.

Thank you for spending some of your day here with me today. Don't forget to check out the video,
you will see just how easy it is to make these cards and hopefully be inspired to start on your Christmas cards for this year.

Till next time
Hugs
Julie

Northern Lights Layout

Good morning.

Today's share is a layout.

The photos in this layout were taken on North Terrace in Adelaide in February 2010.
Yeah I know, long time to get around to it.

Each year they project images onto the buildings along North Terrace and this is what we can see. The images change constantly and it is quite fascinating.

I have created a video showing how this layout was put together.

As there are three 6" x 4" photos on the page there is not much room for anything else so I have gone with a layout that is quite simple and has no embellishments at all. I did have more photos and contemplated using a pocket or something similar to hold the others but decided that these three photos showed the event perfectly.

All of the patterned papers have been matted on Kazazz - Apricot cardstock so that there is a 1/16" border all around.

The background orangey lightly patterned paper came from a paper pad that I tore apart some time ago and I did not keep the cover so I cannot tell you what brand it is. I trimmed it down to 11.5" x 11.5" to sit on the 12" x 12" plain cardstock

The next layer is from 7 Dots Studio's Domestic Goddess range - 12th Teacup and has been cut to 8.75" x 9.5".

The purple layer is from Prima Marketing and is from the Indeed Collection - Fairy Garden. This is from 2009 according to the branding strip. This is cut to 10.5" x 6.5".

The strip at the bottom is another Prima Marketing paper (2013) Sunrise-Sunset Collection - Corona and is 1.5" x 12".

I have used an emery board to file around the edge of each of the photos before attaching them to the Apricot photo mats.

The title is cut from some black cardstock using my Scan N Cut and has a coat of Glossy Accents applied to give it a nice shiny finish.

As I said this is a very simple layout with no added embellishments, but it looks full and in my opinion does not need anything extra.

This layout was made using only papers from my stash and is a very small step towards using up my abundance of supplies.

Thank you for spending some of your day here with me today.

Why not pop over to my YouTube channel and check out the video, it is not very long.

Till next time

Hugs

Julie

Imagine Art Journal Page

Good morning.

Today I am talking about an art journal page I have created.

This is the first page in my disc bound notebook. I purchased a Happy Planner Notebook to use for an art journal. I was not sure about the thickness of the pages before I bought it so I was not surprised that I have to stick two pages together to make it sturdy enough for my liking. I did this with Gel Medium.

My plan is to leave the backs of the pages blank so I can write on there the products I have used. I have got plenty of pages that I do not know what I have used on them so if I want to reproduce the technique I don't know where to start.

You can watch the video here if you want to see how this page came together.

To start my page I covered the background with book paper using Atelier Heavy Gel Gloss. The text was very dark so I gave it two coats of Gesso. This actually turned out to be too many, I should have stuck with just the one coat, as when the Gesso was dry and the inks were applied on top of it the text was completely covered.

I used Distress Inks as the base colours for the background. The colours I used were Broken China, Twisted Citron, Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed and Scattered Straw. I applied the colour with a blending tool.

Using Dylusions Mini Stencil - Diamonds In The Rough I applied some Broken China and some Black Soot Distress Inks randomly through the stencil.

More dimension for the background was created by stamping. I used Kaisercraft's - Stains clear stamp and the Black Soot Distress Ink first and then the same stamp with my Encore Gold Ink

Next I used both Black Soot and Broken China Distress Inks, with a Deep Red stamp called Water Droplets Background, randomly on the background.

Now that my background is finished I gave it a coat of Boyle's Clear Matt Spray sealer. The Distress Inks re-activate when they get wet and I did not want them moving around  as I continued with the page.

For my focal points I used Kaisercraft's Child Play clear stamps. I cut the centre out of the largest circle stamp to make two stamps and with my Stazon Ink Jet Black I stamped the circles onto my page. I wanted it to look like some of the circle were behind others so I cut a mask so I could stamp on top of any circle and not have the overlap show.

The centres of the circles got two coats of Gesso so that the colour I applied to them would be true.

I used acrylic paints, Duncan Sunshine Yellow, Duncan Sunrise Orange and DecoArts Christmas Red to fill in the centres of the circles, blending them together as I went.

When the acrylic paint was dry I used my Fude Ball pen to doodle on the circles and doodle a border around the page. I thought the Fude Ball pen was waterproof (it says it is on the pen) but I found out it was not when I wiped over it with a baby wipe after it was dry and it smudged.

I wanted to add some white next so I used some Scribbles SC110 in White (this is similar to Stickles but from my ceramic days) to add dot and lines to the circles. I also used some watered down white acrylic paint in my Fine Line bottle to draw around the circles and around the page.

To finish the page off I used some Sizzix - Background Weave rub-ons on the background and a Kaisercraft SB522 Inspiration Rub-On which said Imagine for my title. The title does not stand out but it is there if you are looking for it.

Wow this is a very long post so if you have made it this far thank you for sticking with me.

The video is quite short, I try to keep them all under 15 mins, so why not pop over and check it out.

Thank you for spending some of your day here with me.

Till next week
Hugs
Julie