Merly Impressions DT Call

I have been lucky enough to be on Merly Impressions design team for the past year and I have had such a fabulous time. Chrissy is looking to increase the size of the team so now is your chance to shine! It is only open to the UK because of postage costs, but I know there are many talented UK scrappers out there! You can find all the details here.

Last month I played with the Lulu and Roy collection which has quite a varied mix of patterns and colours. I really loved the mix of patterned papers - I found them so easy to work with.

The collection includes some amazing stickers including this border sticker. What better way to start a layout? You can see I embellished mine with some gauze and die-cuts to add some depth and texture.

Under the photos I wanted to add more depth without going overboard. So some ribbon and papers help to create that texture without detracting from the photos.

You can see all the details on my post over at Merly's blog or you can just go ahead and shop for the collection here!

I hope that you'll take a look at the DT call and enter! Merly Impressions is such a great company with amazing products. Good luck!

Inspired by Prima

I recently discovered Live with Prima which is absolutely brilliant viewing if you are crafting. I watched whilst getting out my scrap supplies and I was totally inspired by Frank Garcia to use some mixed media techniques.

Although Frank had created an album, I thought I would try some of the techniques he used on a layout plus a few of my own.

One thing of my own was embossing. I used Versa mark ink to cover this clockface, before sprinkling on UTEE and Gold embossing powders randomly. By heating again, I was able to drop in some microbeads. I love the random effect it gave the edge.

I carried this technique on other elements of the layout.

I used more elements from the Lyric collection which has heaps of detail and things to cut out.

I layered stamping, texture paste and inks, but I did it my way as I can't do too messy!

I tucked in anything that I could lay my hands on to create more texture, including canvas strips, tape and paper strips.

I grunged up my letters too, first with gesso, ink and then stamped with a script stamp to tie it altogether. Such fun!

Anyway, thanks Frank for your inspiration! Your shows are really fun to watch and he is just so sweet :) Here is Franks' post of his amazing project.

Thanks for stopping by.

Late Spring

I think spring has finally sprung in our neck of the woods. It has been so unseasonably cold and dank for the past month or so that it's only now that the blossom and spring flowers are appearing. So you've got to get spring fever from somewhere - for me I've gone flower mad!

I carefully cut around those pretty roses and peonies(?) from Prima's Tea Thyme paper to use as my starting point and layered with the scrap pieces from my sketchbook layout (Pixie Glen).

The real fun bit was adding the flowers and trinkets layering them up so that they appear to grow up a trellis.

I tore away the corner so that I could tuck more little elements and roses in. This way you can add more without overwhelming your photo.

Who doesn't love a bird cage?! I cut around mine and have it 'hanging' from my embellies,

Finally the adorable little bird house and swallow compliments that spring feeling.

Thanks for popping in. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Sketchbook 365!

Sketchbook365 has a new sketch up today.  It's based on a layout from the April/May issue of Scrap365 by Gabrielle Pollacco who is absolutely awesome!

Here's my take on the sketch.

I took the main elements of the sketch and made it work for me. I used Prima's Pixie Glen as the base for my layout. I've have had this paper in my collection since it was launched but it was just too nice to cut!

The paper definitely called for a shabby chic finish so it was great to go to town with my distresser and gesso.

 I added small roses around the frame just to emphasise the paper. I added gauze and string for more texture as well as tiny weeny leaves.

The adorable birdie is Shabby Chic treasures (Ingvild Bolme). I love the way he is perching on the flowers!

To give everything a little more shabby, I stencilled the background and picked out some of the brickwork.

The Tea Thyme Trinkets are simply fabulous. I added a heart trinket of my own.

Check out all the inspiration from the DT here. Don't forget that the Sketchbook DT call is still open.

Thanks for popping in.

Lulu & Roy

Things are returning back to normal after a manic few weeks (or is it months?!)
They say if you want anything doing, always ask a busy person. I think that would be me!

Anyway, I will share a layout that I did for Merly Impressions last month using Lulu and Roy.

The collection features quite an eclectic mix of patterned papers and matching stickers and embellishments. I have to say that as the papers were quite different to my normal palette, I wasn't sure how I would manage with them, but in fact they were really easy to use!

For the main area, I layered up the collectables, stickers and mixed them in with strips of patterned paper, gauze and leaves. It looks so effective over the black cardstock.

I adore the border stickers  that are on the sticker sheet. It is a fabulous way to add more interest and a good excuse for more banners and embellishments without overloading the layout.

I think leaves are overlooked by many people but they really do set off any flowers that you have. It's a good idea to scrunch them to give them texture and really enhance a grouping.

You can find all the supplies that I've used over at Merly Impressions here. Be sure to pop on over to the  Merly blog for lots of inspiration from the team too.

Thanks for stopping by.