Loves Tea & Paper

TSF DT Reveal: Bo Bunny Snowy Day (part 1)

I loved working playing with the Bo Bunny Snowy Day collection. It has far more versatility than the title might suggest... 

On this layout, I started with a coloured cardstock background - how extraordinary for me, right? 

(Remember if the photo seems small on your screen, you can simply click on it, to see it larger.) I loved how these colours worked with our denim themed family photo! 

I created lots of texture - you know how I like texture - by working with a variety of materials. On the background page, I used a stencil and scraped bead gel medium through it. It dries clear, but raised and lumpy, because of the beads, of course. Once it was dry, I coloured over it with my gelatos and moved the colour around with my finger, rubbing it in the spaces between the raised circles - sort of like an emboss resist technique, but with the medium as the resist instead of heat embossing. Neat, eh? Other elements creating texture are the layers of horizontal strips, and those cool large canvas triangles, which got a tint of colour from the gelatos, and then a bit of contrast with the pearls. 

I also made this simple wintery card. I added dry embossing to that great patterned paper to add texture and "snow". A bit of ink and gelatos accent the card, along with some super smooth seam binding ribbon. The sentiment is fussy cut from another patterned paper in the collection. 

I will be back tomorrow with some more Snowy Day fun - I hope you'll be back too!

Thanks so much for popping by.

Blessings,

Ann

 

Birds of a Feather reveal : February kit

This is part 2 of my reveal for Birds of a Feather kit club. 

With the hearts and colour scheme for the February kit, Valentines Day is easy to capture. But I like stretching the purpose of my papers and so I created this layout, using this photo taken on my birthday:

The colour combinations in the kit worked perfectly for this summer patio shot. 

I love texture and the Pink Paislee artisan frame provides lots of it! I left it plain white to help keep the focus on the photo. The Maya Road burlap flowers add lots of texture and because I love to play with different mediums, I added beaded gel medium to them, along with the pink Perfect Pearls that comes in the kit to the white flower. It adds some fun. 

I used a few of the Maya Road hearts as masks and misted around them on the Fancy Pants lined background paper and then created a little cluster in the upper right using the Fancy Pants border tapes, a PP artisan heart, and a chipboard heart that I painted with the Perfect Pearls and then overstamped. I love those chunky Pebbles baubles and added a few of those along with some sequins from my stash.

 

I also created this simple card using my favourite sheet from the kit, that heart/flourish Fancy Pants paper, a piece of chipboard that I decided to leave naked as it works with the greys in the paper, the perfect pearls again (love that stuff!), and a hand-made flower from the text paper. 

A Few More to Show You

I was going through my photos and realized there are a few more cards and pages that I have not shown you yet. 

This one was created in response to a menu challenge - a few specific ingredients had to be included on the layout.
This layout was in response to a challenge to create a page about handling change. A lot of the story is told on the tags across the top about how a lot of the change in my life is brought on by my hubby.

I made this card using stamps and gelatos on watercolour paper.

 I made this card  by stamping and then colouring with Copics, trying to make the dog look fuzzy. Still learning and having fun! 

I think that's everything from 2012 all caught up now, except the pages I've been doing for my December Daily - yes, I'm still working on that and maybe I'll show you some pages soon! 

Thanks for popping by! 

Blessings,

Ann

Merry Christmas!

This one is simple, just playing with gelatos, a Silhouette cut image, and stickles.

Merry Christmas! 

May you accept the gift God gave you, and then be a gift to others, sharing love as you go about life! 

Blessings,

Ann

A Few Birthday Cards

December is busy with Christmas preparations and crafting, and we also have the pleasure of celebrating birthdays, too. 

Here's a card I made for my bff:

I got my media supplies out and had a ton of fun making this. There are 3 stencils, acrylics, watercolour paints, mists, stamping, stabilo pencil, and gelatos. 

Then, I kept on going and made a birthday card for my dad:

The sailboat is a chipboard piece from FabScraps that got treated with gesso, gelatos, stampers big brush, and marker. The backdrop is mists, stencils, watercolour paint, and gelatos. 

Thanks so much for dropping by! 

Blessings, 

Ann

Christmas Cards

I've been making Christmas cards off and on for a while now and thought it was time to show you some. 

Sometimes Sarah and I make cards together and we have fun offering each other challenges, such as, let's each make a card that uses a stamp, this ribbon, and stickles, etc. This fireplace is such a card - We had to use a stencil, a banner, and stickles. This is what I came up with. 

My bff and I co-host an annual make and take night with some cardmaking friends. We each come up with a card, and then prepare and bring the supplies for the others to make one. It's a fun night where each of us goes home with about 6 or so cards. This is one of my designs. Lots of splendid silver on this. 

This is the other card I designed for our make and take night - embossing, puffy pen, fun little punch and pop of layered red ribbon add up to this clean and simple card.

I participated in a card swap with some My Sketch World friends a month or so ago. After learning to colour with Copics on glittered 2 sided tape, I made these, colouring the ornaments on my cards in different colours. The pine boughs were cut using the Silhouette. 

See how they were all a bit different, but mostly the same? 

I'll be back again with a few more layouts. Thanks for popping by!

Blessings,

Ann 

Celebrate Christmas Online Crop at Two Scrapbook Friends

Do you have some time to scrapbook this week, before the onslaught of December busy-ness REALLY sets in? The designers at Two Scrapbook Friends have an online crop running to provide you with some creative inspiration! 

If you aren't yet a member of the Two Scrapbook Friends forum, sign up is really easy, and once you are signed in, visit this thread to see how to participate in the challenge and be eligible for prizes!!! 

I cooked up 2 challenges for the crop. 

The first is to use Polaroid frames on your layout - these are so popular right now and are suitable for new or old photos. You can recreate the Polaroid look using chipboard frames, stamps, hand cut them. For my sample, I used my trusty scissors, ruler and trimmer to create mine:

This layout features a brand new line from Echo Park, This & That Christmas. A sketch my bff had from PageMaps is the starting point. I used ink and a TCW stencil to create the woodgrain background, which I love against the wood panelling patterned paper. A star was also created with mist and stencil. 

The banner was created with a variety of stickers from the EP diecut sticker sheet and I added a bit of doodling to them to create more visual interest on my design.

There's that misted star in the background behind some fussy cut ornaments that I doodled on and raised on double sided adhesive. I added Crystal Effects for some lovely gloss and stitching to anchor them to the page, and create the illusion that they are hanging decoratively.

This last detail just shows the layering created around the title. One of the EP patterned sheets is created around a countdown theme, and I used the 1 block in my title, aloong with stickers, patterned papers, and foam alphabets.

I created a second challenge, a recipe challenge, for cardmakers. They need to combine a white cardstock base with dry embossing, fussy cutting, and stamping on their card. 

Join us at the Two Scrapbook Friends forum for some fun, games and cropping inspiration!

Happy Birthday!

Sarah's birthday was last week and this is the card I made for her. I used the Splendid 6x6 pad for this, and this month's sketch over at the Authentique blog (they post a card and layout sketch every month, if you like playing with sketches). 

I don't think I need to tell you that I am a self-taught colourer. I own a few Copics, but have never taken a class, or even watched a video. I think I'll have to make time to, though! The skin is using a Stampin' Up (Tombow) marker and blender, so the ink on this digi image started to bleed a bit. Looking at it in now, I realize the gal could have used a little blush tone too. Must really learn more! But you can't learn by not trying, so I'm still proud of my effort. I think it is not a bad amateur attempt, all in all, and Sarah liked the card, which is what it is really all about, isn't it? 

Supplies: 

Authentique Splendid 6x6 bundle (Magnificence); digi image unknown; Copic and Stampin' Up marker; Stampin' Up stamp and ink; Faber & Castell pen.

 

TSF DT Reveal: My Mind's Eye Indie Chic (part 4)

After making the layouts, I got to work using up some of the scraps to create these:

I used the rest of the pearl decor in the upper corner and strips of scraps to create this card. 

I wrapped some remaining seam binding on a gluber to create the flower and layered it on several more layers of patterned paper scraps. I tried miniaturizing the folded chevron strips and even though I didn't quite get the points formed, I like them. Not to waste any of the bling, the last pearls accent the die cut sentiment and splay from the flower in a vinelike way. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing my creations using My Mind's Eye Indie Chic and thanks to those who leave comments. I read them all and genuinely appreciate the time you take to leave them! 

 

Supplies: patterned paper, pearl decor, diecut, garland - My Mind's Eye Indie Chic Saffron; seam binding; stamp - American Crafts; 

MSW Labour Day Crop

Welcome to the long weekend! 

Over at My Sketch World, we're hosting a Labour Day crop online! If you are around this weekend, why not play along. If you are away, don't worry, you'll still have some time after the weekend to get stuff done for the deadline.

I was asked to pose the first day's challenges. We are spelling the words labor and day through our challenges.

The card challenge uses the letter "L", and L is for love. Here is what I made:

I gave this fun side step card  to my honey for our anniversary this week. The patterned papers are Echo Park's So Happy Together (yes, I had a just a few scraps yet). On the step side of the card is a sentiment that I cut with the Silhouette. I layered some of it on a piece of transparency to have it float. One of my cardmaking friends, Jan, used sequins to create bird wings and I loved the idea so I used it here. I also used my scissors to give those birds' tails some feathers.

Next comes the letter "A" and A stands for autumn, so I created this autumnal layout:

I PLAYED on this layout that contains old photos of my hubby Brian and our sweet Sarah. It was a lovely fall day when these photos were taken, as we were heading out for a walk.

I used the Silhouette to cut the leafy background and laid it on a sheet of white cardstock and started misting. When I lifted the background, which I had thought was just going to be used as a template, I was not happy with the background because the white space didn't really indicate what it was supposed to look like. I adhered the green background down and allowed the mists to peek through.

I dabbed adhesive from a glue pen onto the leaves and then rubbed on some foil leaf to add some coppery glimmer to the leaves. 

These leaves were also cut with the Silhouette and then misted with spray inks. 

The layout is loosely based on a Lucy Chesna sketch. 

I hope you'll pop over to the forum and play along!