Welcome back to Punky Scraps.

Wise Words - Punky Scraps is back with a blog hop.  If you're not familiar with Punky Scraps then read on and if you're part of the blog hop then still read on....

Punky Scraps is a challenge blog run by my good friend and DT teamie, Natalie Jane.  Their aim is to gather together like-minded people who shun the clean and simple and love the inky, painty, messy life that I enjoy.  After a short break they're back with a blog hop to kick start a new challenge era.

Natalie asked me if I'd like to be part of this launch hop and I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn't want the excuse to get messy especially in the company of such talent??

I put together this little mini booklet/super card, call it what you will, and Nat has asked me to tell you a bit about what I love so much about what I do and to hopefully provide a little inspiration along the way, so here goes.

Firstly, my great love (after my family of course) is mixed media. Art journals and mini books are part of my life as you know.  I've never been one for full page 12 x 12 layouts because when I started scrapping quite frankly they scared the pants off me.  So I turned my attention to mini's and wow, what a revelation. I could tell a story in a mini.  The pages didn't intimidate me, being small, and I found interesting ways to fold and bind them together.  Recently, despite having a stack of scrapbook papers, I've found I get more pleasure from creating my own papers by painting, spraying, stamping and inking - the messier the better.

This little mini has all the elements which give me the most pleasure in life.  The whole sheet of A3 paper was sprayed with ink, sprayed again through a stencil, folded, then stamped with some gorgeous stamps from a company called Infiniment Scrap.  Then I started my process of layering and building up the story.

I make full use of my computer too and working for Sarah Hurley I get to use some amazing digital elements. I love to find interesting ways of using her elements in a hybrid fashion and the film strip is from a digital kit called Say Cheese. I printed it onto acetate to create my own overlay.

I love this little quote from Winnie The Pooh. It went perfectly with the photo.

"If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening,

be patient. It may simply be that he has

a small piece of fluff in his ear."

Cute eh?  

On the facing page I've used Dymo tape and a Sizzix bird die cut.  I also tend to cut multiple die cuts in white and store them in a box ready to be pulled out and sprayed or painted over. It saves me getting the die cutter out every time (lazy).

Anyway, I hope you liked my little mini.  Good luck to Punky Scraps and welcome back. If you're hopping on through the blog hop participants then you're next port of call is to a very talented lady called Marie Johansson and you can find her blog here.  If you're coming to my blog without having been through the blog hop then start at the Punky Scraps blog first. There is a wealth of talent to be seen along with a challenge, of course and the grand prize at the end is the opportunity to be on the design team itself.  So what are you waiting for??? Other prizes are on offer and not to be missed. 

Jaine x

More experimenting.

I just thought I'd show you one of my little experiments  (I just love those) and one of the more successful ones at that!

The experiment was to see how well recycled, clear, number 5 plastic was used as shrink plastic and I have to say it worked perfectly.  I made this ATC using the Special Teas stamps from My Stamp Box and you can see the shrink ratio clearly.  In the background I was also experimenting with a new product called Goosebumps by Tsukeineko. It's a clear texture spray which creates some wonderful resists. When sprayed you get the mottled, spotty effect and used with the butterfly stamps I managed to also create a resist.  It's cool stuff, you should try it.

Here's a closer look at the home-made shrink;

Have a good weekend.

Jaine

Altered coaster book

This little mini has been made out of recycled coasters.  The new Sarah Hurley challenge is "Altering" and this is my designers entry.  I took a piece of faux leather and lined it with some gingham fabric, then I cut a piece of card and folded it into a concertina. This would hold my coasters in place as pages.  The card was sewn onto the cover to hold it in place and this made a feature in itself.

















The inside pages were decorated using various Sarah Hurley papers and embellishments and is just waiting some photo's and journaling.  I'd already decided to use it on some summer photo's and on finishing it low and behold the sun came out and it seems we're at last experiencing a summer!!

Here's a look at the inside pages. I reduced the size of some of the papers on the computer so the patterns would fit in with my small coasters.

All of the Sarah Hurley papers can be found here in her shop and to find the challenge and be in with a chance of winning a prize, go here. There has been a small change to the challenges though and they'll now be hosted once a month rather than every two weeks.  The reason for this is because there'll be a lot of new things coming up for Sarah and the team and to give everyone a chance to breath a bit the number of challenges has been reducd.

Jaine x

All this week My Stamp Box is showing off their latest releases at CHA and among them are some brand new chipboard albums.  They're totally raw and ready to be painted, glued, stamped and whatever else you'd like to use to decorate them with.  The designers were each given a package containing some albums and told to just 'go for it' and that's just what we did.

It's no secret that I love everything to do with the house shape and when I saw this one I absolutely knew what I'd use it for.  When on holiday in Italy last year I took tonnes and tonnes of pictures of the beautiful facades there.  It's amazing how even the smallest house in the most out of the way street is painted with gorgeous trompe l'oeil paintings.  Some are simple and some are extraordinarily complicated with fake windows and doors and one even with a little gecko painted by the door.  Anyway, here's my book dedicated to the Italian facades.

Each page has been painted first with gesso then with Gelato's to add colour and distressing.  I've stamped on most of the pages to create a background to my pictures.

Here I've used a transparency and inserted it between the pages cutting it to size.

The album has some interesting windows which I've tried to make the very most of by placing my photo's in just the right place on the other page to catch a glimpse of what's to come.

I can't wait now to get started on another album.

The stamps I've used in my book are Garden Sketches, Wishing you sunshine, Bottle caps, Colorful Companions, Pennants, A Tree for all Seasons, 

On the blog they're giving away an album to one lucky person so head on over and take a look;

Jaine xx

Going for Gold

I've a feature over on the Kuretake blog today with a tutorial showing how I used my Art and Graphic twin pens to create this layout. I've got messy and grungy in the background yet subtle and pretty to colour the stamps.

The photo was taken of my daughter riding in a dressage competition.

The stamps are by Sarah Hurley and are called Woodland Whimsies, cute aren't they?

You can see my tutorial here.

Jaine x

A proud week.

This past week has been pretty frantic with plenty going on here.  The summer weather still sucks but it's not getting us down.

This week sees a new challenge with Sarah Hurley and a welcome to some new DT girls too.  There are lots of exciting things ahead for Sarah and I'm very proud to be a part of it. My tag above is for the new challenge which is 'Buttons' and I've used papers from the Retro Home collection to make it. I love this collection very much as it's given me lots of inspiration.  To take part in the challenge go here. 

School has finished and my middle daughter graduated from art school this week and now plans to go to Berlin to study graphics.  It'll be quite an adventure I'm sure and I look forward to using the excuse to visit Berlin, somewhere I've never been.

The youngest took part in her first  riding competition and did very well.  Ironically she was most anxious about the jumping part but ended up doing the best in this with an almost perfectly clear round.  It was a very proud moment. 

We've booked our holidays in the south of  France so I'm looking forward to hopefully getting some summer sun. 

Take care

Jaine x

Whaaat... a layout????

 

It's not often I actually create a layout, I've been known to make virtual layouts but using actual papers and embellishments is rare for me. In fact it's so rare my folder contains less than 10 in total.  When Sarah Hurley sent me a cd of her Retro Home papers and embellishments plus her Say Cheese digital kit, I knew I had to print out the papers and create an actual layout.  I just love the colours, the patterns and the feel of everything together. Combining the Retro Home backing papers with the Say Cheese digi elements was alot of fun and it's so inspired me that I have lots of other layouts in my head I'd like to get out.



















You can find the cd and kit here.

Jaine xx

A summery card

At the moment I have a blog post up on My Stamp Box which is a colour challenge. I've used some summery Blue's, green and bright pink to create this card inking and stamping with Funky Flowers and Garden Sketches stamps in Color Box chalk inks.

Jaine xx

Going for Gold

Well, here we are into July and with it, hopefully some summer. This weekend was very very busy but fun as on Saturday we celebrated my husbands birthday (a big one ending in a zero - he he) then the footie with lots of eating and drinking  all weekend so today I've declared a month of dieting in preparation for our summer holiday in the south of France.

Anyway, today also see's the next challenge on the Kuretake blog and the theme is 'Going for Gold'.  We've put together lots of projects using Kuretake gold pens and each one of us has done something totally different.

I've made myself a little notebook to chart my dietary progress in and on the front I used some Basically Bare pieces, a Zig Painty pen to colour the cog, the metal word Dream and the felt letters.  In the background I used my Zig glue pen and swiped glue over the raised surface before adding gilding flakes.  This is one of my favourite uses for a Zig glue pen.

Trying to capture gold in bright sunlight is nearly impossible so you'll just have to take my word for it that it shines.

You can see the other gold themed works of art here.

Have a good day

Jaine xx