Art Journaling Creations

Hi there. I've been in a bit of an art journal mood lately, getting my hands dirty and ruining more than one manicure, but it's also been lots of fun experimenting and just putting all the rules aside.

Sometimes, when you're not in the right mind to do layouts, this is the best way to get your creativity going and to use all those sprays, paints, stencils, stamps and inks that you've stashed away.

I started in a moleskin notebook, but have found the pages way too thin and had to glue several pages together to get a good thickness. I think they have journal books with heavier papers, but I've not been able to find them here. In the end, I searched through some good art supply stores and found a couple of heavy weight drawing books and will start more of my pages in there from now on. In the meantime, here are a few of the pages I did in the moleskin.

 Colour Your Life

Dare To Dream

Love Life

Sending All My Love

So go ahead and dig out all the products that you don't usually use for your layouts and splash a few pages with colour.

Thanks for dropping by,

Eighth Birthday Joy

Hi all.  I think you've probably figured that I'm not a huge double layout per, but once in a while, there comes a layout that has too many photos to do in just one page. Birthday pages are just that. Too many photos you want to scrap and record, and this time I had a great birthday paper collection to work with.

One of the things I love about My Creative Scrapbook kits (and I've been subscribing to the kits for five years now), is that they always bring out a birthday themed collection every year, around March or April. Having the kit come during this time period means I won't procrastinate about scrapbooking those party layout.

Eight Is Great

This paper line is so much fun, with bright colours, patterns with balloons and candles. I hand cut the uneven green scallop for added detail. I also broke out some of my oldest scrapbooking tools: patterned scissors to add interest to the circles.

I cut the balloons out of one of the papers and added stickles on the dots to match the title.

The MCS kit came with one paper straw, which I cut up and added "flames" to. Wish I had another one though, so I could have eight candles.

Products Used

Patterned papers, tags and blue glitter dot chipboard letters from R Memory Keepers Hip Hip Hooray! collection

Bingo card tags from Jenni Bowlin

Jeweled brads from Echo Park

White, blue and yellow cardstock from stash
Baker's twine

Thanks for stopping by,

Love and Happiness

Hi. How was your week? It's been a good week here; pretty uneventful, which is how I like it. Birthdays are over and it's back to normalcy, so I managed to get a couple of layouts out and complete a cake order for Friday.

Here's the first one that is based off a Prima layout by Cari Fennell. She did this for a live Prima ustream tutorial, and I wanted to do something similar. Whether you work off a sketch or scraplift off another layout, they both serve the same purpose; providing inspiration and ideas.

Love & Happiness

I love the soft colours in this layout, with the pale pinks and hints of pastel blues. I used raw canvas instead of burlap for my backing material. The funny thing was, I didn't have a photo for this layout when I started. It was only after I was almost done with it, did I hunt for a photo to add to the page.

I sprayed the raw canvas with some muted pinks and blue, drying it, before adding the molding paste over a mask. After that, I edged it with distress ink and also used a pattern stamp randomly around the page.

 I wound jewelry wire around a cylinder before securing it around the accent flower with good glue. I coloured the wooden words with distress paints.

I attached toothpicks to the banner stickers before placing them behind the flowers.

I placed some lace borders on the left and some hand made tags above the photo. I love the crystal and pearl decorative border.

Products Used

Patterned papers, die cuts, ATC cards, flair buttons and stickers from Prima Marketing Delight collection

Flowers, wooden word icons, Say It In Crystal and Pearls border, metal clip and typewriter key paper clips from Prima Marketing

Paradise Stencil from Crafters Workshop

Distress ink and distress paints by Tim Holtz for Ranger Ink

Background stamp from Kaisercraft

Lace Trim stamp from Penny Black

Lace, wire and canvas from stash

Thanks for looking,

Trips and Birthdays - Update

I spent a few days early this month in Sydney with hubby. We were able to meet up with most of our Sydney friends and get some down time. I had a couple of days to just browse vintage stores and old bookshops; something I've been dying to do for a while but hadn't found the time for. We also don't have a lot of them in Hong Kong, so it was a real treat.

We flew back on Monday; hubby's birthday and were rewarded with an upgrade to business class. Yay! Hubby travels so much, that he gets upgraded more often than not, but not usually when I'm travelling with him, so that was a nice treat for me. We arrived back in the afternoon and went out for dinner with friends to celebrate hubby's birthday.

We also just celebrated Miss C's 8th birthday. Goodness. Eight. It's no wonder I scrapbook. I know I can't stop time and it's the best way to review the time that has gone by. I think we've started a new tradition, as we went for afternoon tea at the same place as last year and then ended up at her favourite sushi restaurant. This was on Friday and on Saturday, we had a party at ours. Miss C wanted a Furby party, which of course means Furby art time, Furby games, Furby get together (we had everyone bring theirs) and last but not least, a Furby cake. I can hear you saying, wow, what can be worse than having a house full of noisy Furbys? I actually find them funny and adorable even if they wake you up in the middle of the night because the cat brushes against them and it was fascinating watching them chatter to one another and dance to the music during the party.

Miss C blowing out her candles.

Furbys all in a row, singing and dancing.

A few samples of the Furby art canvases the girls did.

It was all followed with a sleepover with her two best friends, chatting and giggling all night and not sleeping until almost midnight. The next morning, they were already awake at six and demanding pancakes. On a Sunday...

In the end, Miss C had a blast of a weekend and to see the smiles on her face was well worth it.

Hope you had a good weekend too.