It's a Creative World

Digital Template 02

Hi

Dolly here again.

I know a lot of people liked the idea of having a digital template they could use to make a page.

These templates are incredibly easy to use and then you can jazz them up and personalise them as much - or as little - as you like.

If you are not into digital then you might like to use it just as a sketch to base a page on.

This is the sketch

 

 

I used the template to make two pages - one of which was for my free 5210 project running throughout the year on my blog.

Who said digital had to look flat!

Digital pages look fabulous printed out and I now have several purely digital albums. You can get them printed on line or, if they are smaller albums, you can print them at home. The choice of paper makes the world of difference. I have an Epson printer and I use Epson Archival Matt papers for my digital pages and the result is fabulous. I am a big believer in using the right paper for your printer so try different medias on your printer and see what works best.

If you would like to use the template you can download it HERE

 Download TEMPLATE 02 IACW.

It is a fully layered PSD file in 300 dpi resolution.

Fritillary Sunday

Hello Joy here,

this has been a week of contrasts. On Tuesday this was my view,

and on Sunday this was my view!

From Times Square to the village of Ducklington, Oxfordshire, where every year they celebrate Fritillary Sunday. In the village there is a field that, in spring, is filled with Snakehead Fritillaries.  A beautiful flower, which is very difficult to grow.

 

The field is full of photographers like myself lying down for a good view.  Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day.  As it was the last day of the school holidays we decided to have a picnic on the village green. I made our favourite picnic loaf to take along.

PICNIC LOAF

a medium foccacia bread or a poppy seed bloomer

Your favourite pesto

1 ball of mozzarella cheese

4 slices of ham

100g mushrooms - cooked in a little oil until soft

a handful of rocket leaves

Method

• Slice the loaf horizontally across the middle and spread with pesto - approx. 2 tbsp on each side.
• layer the ham, cheese, mushrooms and rocket. Put the top of the loaf back on.
• wrap in tin foil and bake in a medium oven for 15 minutes.
• Keep the loaf wrapped up and take to the picnic warm.
• cut into slices and serve.

The flavours all blend together beautifully and it is easy to eat.  It is at this point that I would usually insert a picture of the lovely picnic loaf but the children had wolfed it all down before I got the camera anywhere near it!!!

I hope the sun is shining where you are and you can get out and enjoy it.

Joy xx

Paper Roses.

Ali here,

 

it seems at the moment,all over Blog land there are tutorials showing how to make paper flowers,grungeboard flowers,crepe paper flowers,ribbon flowers and fabric flowers. These are paper roses that are created the way i was taught many,many years ago how to make flowers from tomato peel! However,i found a wonderful lady who posted a tutorial on how to make them,so with her very kind permission,here is Nancy Burke's Paper Rose tutorial-her blog is full of wonderful work,well worth a look-see.

Nancy Burke.

These roses really are simple to make,yet give a lovely dimensional lift to your work.

 

 

SIMPLE THINGS APRIL HONESTY

The creative team have been working on their April projects on a theme of HONESTY,

so let's have a look:

Caz is learning to art journal.

 

and each page will also be journalled about what the word means for me

here and now.

And honesty is all about the little white lies we tell. Can't just be me can it??

Oh yes I did it today.....YIKES no I didn't, I forgot, but I WILL do it tomorrow!

 

 Loved creating this page, I love my butterfly fairy stamp with her pretty crown and beautiful wings :)

Caz
xx 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eleanor has been working on another 8 x 8 inch quilt square,

using machine stitching, hand embroidery, organza fragments and sequins,

to make an honesty plant, botanical name lunaria.

I have loved this plant, also variously known as money plant, silver dollar, and

moonwort, since childhood, not only for its fragrant rich flowers ranging from

deep purple to magenta, but especially for the flat, round,

transparent seed cases which remain once the seeds have long gone.

(The transparency is the reason for the name 'honesty',

and the moon shape of the seed cases the reason for 'lunaria')

I have exercised some artistic licence here, in showing the papery shiny seed

cases, with seeds still intact inside, for the seeds actually fall away

with the outer covering, so I haven't been strictly honest!

Seed case detail:

I really enjoyed the challenge of making these 3D; the sequins are completely

securely enclosed within the 2 layers of organza of the seed cases,

which lift clear of the background fabric,

and yet are firmly attached to the stitched plant stalks -

and honestly one of the most fiddly, but rewarding, crafty things I've ever done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over to Debbie.

This month Debbie found a really lovely quote.

"To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education."

I used embossing folders and inked my background,

the black card has been sanded to show the inner core,

which is a beige colour.

I have added the letters cut with embosslits onto foam dots,

and the flower is made from text cut from a book.

Debbie x

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Over to Dolly

 

I wanted to keep my album based around flowers and nature and struggled to find a link with honesty.

I debated using the honesty plant, but i would have had to use a stock photo from the internet

as I didn't have a photo of any honesty, and .... well it just didn't seem quite 'honest'! 

So I went with a photo I took a couple of days ago and used honesty quotes

and definitions on the page.

 

It is a digital page which is now all printed out and in the album.

I print my pages on Epson Archival Matt card as it has a perfect finish,

but would recommend that if you are printing your own digital pages

you play around with different cards and papers until you find the one that works for you.

 

 

Dolly x

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

Hiya Claire here

One of the main things I'm doing with this album is keeping it simple

& not using a photo on every page, to prove to myself that you can still scrap without photos.

I wanted to find an honesty quote that I could relate too & this one was perfect,

as whenever I have to tell a fib of some sort (not something I do lightly)

it always plays on my conscience like I've done something naughty & am about to be found out -

not a nice feeling. I've also included a dictionary definition of Honesty.

Claire

xx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's Mandy:

It doesn't seem two minutes since I began this 'SIMPLE THINGS'  fabric book

and already we're onto word number three...HONESTY. 

Well, since I've had a theme of using quotes on my pages there really was

only one quote I could use... it was something my Mum said as I was growing up...

"Honesty's the best policy". 

Well, I researched who'd said it before her & discovered a couple of famous folks

(including Shakespeare) but my page is really about my Mum & how she taught me

to be honest, truthful and have integrity. 

The older I'm getting and especially since my eldest will turn 18 this year,

I have been reflecting on what an amazing woman she is and also a great parent. 

We aren't much for 'soppy stuff' so this page

(although quite simple - in line with 'simple things')

is actually quite expressive for me. 

I altered the photo in PSE5 so that the background was black & white

and me & Mum were in colour, then printed it out on canvas, together with the text.

I sewed a simple running stitch on the photo for emphasis and used my

sewing machine to do 'messy stitching' around the page edge. 

I made the shabby flower with ribbon & jeans fabric and added a simple red clip with ribbon tied on. 

I have been enjoying working with fabric... makes a change from paper!

from Mandy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, Kel here, and what intrigued me about this month's theme was how often I 

veered towards a secrecy theme rather than honesty. Revealing? 

 I can see the border pulled up a little bit when I was scanning. Not surprising 

really because the border is made of dozens and dozens of little torn pieces of 

Japanese masking tape. I kept it simple - I'm trying to keep this 

journal very free, just laying my thoughts out on the paper. And because 

I'm working on prepared pages, primed with collage and paint, it does make it 

easier. This page was already very pretty with a lot of plum showing through 

and a recognisable stem of thorns. I started jotting down words and phrases 

that sprang to mind on the theme, and as I say, they tended more towards

keeping secrets than being open and honest. Interesting. I do find 

myself often compelled to lie for no reason, little white lies in absolutely 

ridiculous circumstances - I resist of course, but I wonder at the impulse!

 The letters of the title are deliberately clear, like the truth, while scribbling 

covers most of the text and even the images - maybe like that web of 

deception.

xx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi all! Remember me? It's Michelle here, and last month, quite fittingly!

I ran out of TIME to complete my time entry and get it posted ... well at least I'm HONEST :)

So not only do I have my Honesty entry to share with you in this post,

but I am going to sneak my Time entry in here, too.

 

Whenever I think of time I think of the Salvador Dali painting of melting watches

and wanted to use that as the base image for my entry.

At the moment I seem to be acutely aware of time and think that them upstairs

have their finger firmly pressed on the fast forward button of my life

so I thought it fitting to use a picture of me then and now, my mind fills in the blanks :)

I have made a side stepper card for this entry, I like the way the piece has space inbetween

for all the clock parts printed on acetate to mark the passing of time.

I also scanned and printed the 'painting' a couple of times and cut out some of

the images to layer them up to add to the 3D effect.

And the cover wallet is a piece of paper I designed myself using the

collage button in the fabulous (and free) picasa programme from google.

Collect some images, press the button and see what paper you can create!

And now to HONESTY and I'm all up to date on my word journey with

the creative girls ... phew!

I think the cover of my little fabric book says it all! I love the honesty of a child

and sometimes think if we could be as honest, as adults,

maybe we wouldn't be in the pickle we find ourselves in sometimes

and the world may be a more harmonious place!??!

I have made fabric transfers of all the little people in my life by printing images

on overhead projector sheets and applying gel medium to the calico.

Laying the projector sheet onto the material and burnishing in place the image transfers to the fabric.

I used some of my Glitz stamps to add more decor to the pages

and journalled lines with a laundry pen, I will add journalling when I get a new pen, this one ran out!

And the journalling will be an honest phrase that I have recorded from each little person!

I stitched the canvas squares onto coloured fabric, and then stitched the pages together.

I decided to make a fabric book as it reminds me of the fabric books you can get for children.

I also left lots of threads hanging and frayed the material a bit as I like

the aged, distressed feel it gives.

I hope you are inspired to play along with us all,

I love all the creative girls entries

and am always astounded by all the different ways we interpret things

and the creativity that ensues!

And so to Create ... well that's why we're here right? ...

after all it's a creative world!

Until next time happy crafting

love M x

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, as you've heard, over the coming month we will be working individually

on the word

CREATE

Do join us!

love from the team at IACW.

~~~~~~~~~~xxx~~~~~~~~~~

Project 30 update

Hiya Claire here.

You may remember back in February I started something called Project 30 to mark the fact that I turned 30 this year. Well I've done a bit more to the Grungeboard journal book & have started 2 other mini books to go into the chest that will hold all the mini books & projects relating to Project 30... although I still haven't decided how to decorate the chest. All of these little projects are as yet unfinished as I want to work on them all throughout the course of the year & see how things unfold

 

One thing I have noticed this year is suddenly I have oodles of confidence, I'm normally one who lurks at the back of a crowd, not making eye contact & not saying much but not anymore, no longer afraid to speak my mind, & just be me I'm grabbing opportunities whenever they come my way & making positive changes throughout my life & it feels good.

I've always had my own style when it comes to clothes, I don't really follow the crowd as it were, I know what I like & stick with it, besides it all comes around again, I was wearing skinny jeans in the 90's & still wear them today... only now they are fashionable, the only must have in my wardrobe are leather jackets & I have lots, one for every occassion.

This is one of the mini books I've been working on & its all about my love of writing

to be honest, I have no idea what set off my love of writing as I hated school, but a couple of years ago I just started writing a journal... I'm not even sure why, & it just sprang from there.

I now have an astounding 72 notebooks, Journals, diaries & notebooks in my collection & I have a feeling I won't stop there.

In this next mini book I wanted to record my hopes, dreams & ambitions.

I will be using one of my favourite quotes in this mini book & here it is...

Consult not your fears but your hopes & your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried & failed in but with what it is still possible for you to do.  Pope John XXIII

Well thats all for now thanks for stopping by to see us, & please come back soon

Claire

xx

Deck of Daydreams

Kel here, with a closer look at the journal cards I showed you earlier this month. Thanks for stopping by! 

I made sixteen of these in a class taught by LK Ludwig. I don't want to give away all her secrets, so if you're interested and want to learn more, do check out her website as she runs classes online. I will show you some of my cards and talk a little about the techniques though.

 

We spent the morning painting backgrounds. We scraped and stencilled and stamped and spritzed, adding paint and taking it off, never letting it get too thick and keeping the surface nice and smooth. In the afternoon we looked at ways of adding our images to the cards and how to work into those images.

This is a photo I took in Barcelona, looking out of the cafe window down onto street performers along La Rambla. I love sitting watching the world go by from a coffee shop and this card will have a quote about solitude or some journalling about that simple pleasure. The photo was added with a gel medium transfer right onto the paint and the coffee cup was brought out with white coloured pencil and a sketching pencil.

This picturesque piece of shoreline is in Porlock, Somerset. The glossy photo is covered with a thin layer of tissue. I then doodled on it with white and black gel pens. It looked pretty bad for a while, but I carried on working, with Neocolor II crayons (their spelling, not mine btw!). I love the painterly way it turned out. The greatest thing I have ever learned about art is to keep on working through the ugly. If it stays ugly, you haven't lost anything, but if you push on through, you may get something far better than you were expecting.

I love this photo of a broken sign, bare trees and an old brick wall. Because the contrast between the different elements was quite low though, people have struggled to see in the photo what I always have. Working onto a tissue layer, using colouring pencils to lighten, darken and brighten different areas allowed me to bring out what I wanted in the picture. Wouldn't it be fun to work on a photo in photo editing software and at the same time work on one with your colouring pencils and see which one you preferred in the end?

This dear buddha from my Dad's house was transferred to watercolour paper with a gel medium transfer. There are lots of ways of doing this, and different techniques bring different results as you would expect. He hasn't been developed much yet, and I think in this case, I won't. I just went over the bright white torn edges with a yellow crayon to blend them into the background.

I forget where I took this photo, because I do have a lot of tree photos! It's a gel medium transfer straight onto the paint. It looked pretty, but a little unfinished until I decided to extend the tree image onto the background with colouring pencils. As you can see from the quote, I may well end up with a stack of quotes and reflections on solitude. I promise you I am not antisocial, but I certainly find solitude both inspiring and restoring.

The question now is what to do with them. One option is to bind them together in a book. I know a couple of bindings that should work, and LK Ludwig's cards looked fantastic all bound together with a very clever binding, so I may have to try to work that one out.

I am quite tempted to keep them loose though, as they are so tactile and fun to shuffle. Also, when they are all journalled with quotes and thoughts I think they could be a little magic - have you ever stumbled across exactly the quote you needed on the day you needed to hear it? If I'm keeping them loose, I will need something special to keep them in - maybe a box or pouch, custom made to fit. Hmmm, something to be getting on with...

xx

YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Hello, Eleanor here, with some fabric postcards.

 

I've been painting, printing, stamping and stitching on pieces of cotton fabric

6"  by 4"to send as postcards.

I diluted some pearlescent acrylic ink in a small mister and sprayed the background pale turquoise.

On one I stamped a couple of butterflies, some flowers and a sentiment,

and then machine stitched selective parts of the designs.

On a second blue background I stitched a ricrac rainbow, stamped a bluebird and a sentiment

and did a little more machine stitching.

For my third (always make 3) postcard, I used piece of a vintage embroidered tablecloth,

purchased in an op shop for 50 pence, stamped a butterfly and a sentiment

and connected the two with machine stitching.

For the reverse I designed a 6 x 4 inch postcard back in Photoshop, printed it on cotton,

method on my blog, here, and then put it back to back with the pretty piece and zigzagged all the way around to finish.

Ready for posting:

Cheerio for now

Altered Mirror

In February I did a workshop with Tim Holtz, Suze Weinberg and Claudine Hellmuth

I made a decorated mirror using techniques taught by each of them.  My daughter really liked it and as I didn't want to part with the one I'd made at the class, I made her one inspired by what I'd learnt.

 

A close up of the rub on owl

Close up of gesso scribble

The mirror was great fun to make, why don't you try altering something to decorate your home with?

Lynne x

Altered book

I found this book for a pound, and I loved the cover, its covered in fabric and the cover is really sturdy.

 

I covered the embossed writing and flowers with gesso.

Although its not completely covered it gave me a base to work on, and I knew I would be covering the parts that were showing through.

I used acetate stamped and then covered with inks and floor polish, glitter and tissue paper on the back. A technique taught to me by Hils. Click here to see a clearer explanation of the technique. 

I had made lots of different colours using this technique, so I started arranging them like a collage on the front of the book.

 

I started to cover the back, and decided to try a patchwork layout. It was a good way of incoorporating all those tiny scraps of paper that I love, but are too small to use.

I covered the edges with music note paper first. I used decopatch glue to stick the triangles on and then painted a thin layer over the top to protect it.

 
I decorated the spine in the same way using a repeating pattern of triangles. 

Now I have to decide what to do with the inner pages, but I hope this has inspired you to try colouring acetate and perhaps covering a book.

Debbie x

 

Spring is in the Air

 

Hi - Dolly here full of the joys of spring. 

 

 hope that wherever you are you have started to see some Spring sunshine and are enjoying the wonder of nature bursting forth after a fairly dreadful winter.

If you are like me and get very excited about Spring you probably have a whole mess of photos about it and this is a quick easy way to use them up.

It is a simple maze book celebrating the season.

There are many sites showing instructions for maze books and I DO NOT claim the design as my own. I am simply collating my own pictures and instructions for this little mini book idea.

The book is made from one sheet of cardstock, some scraps of card and patterned paper and a length of ribbon and is extremely quick and simple to make.

The more accurate your folding and cutting, the better the finished book will be.

• First take the sheet of 12 x 12 cardstock and fold into 12 3” squares, folding 
in half and then in half again lengthwise and then unfolding it and refolding it in half and in quarters width wise.




 

• Use a bone folder to make the creases so they are sharp.
• You should end up with a sheet of card looking like this. The red lines denote the lines you are going to cut. Cutting these three cuts, as accurately as possible, will give you the one continuous sheet which forms the maze and will then fold up to make your book.
• When you have made the cuts it will look like a large M (or W depending on which way you have it turned) as shown in the picture.

 

• 

Fold it up into a 3” square and put to one side.

Next cut two squares 3 ½ “ from thick scrap card. These will be the base of your covers.

Cut two squares of patterned papers 4 ½”

Glue the squares of card on the reverse side of the patterned paper and then trim off the corners as shown in the diagram.  Glue the folds of patterned paper and fold over to cover the base. NB it will not cover all of the base card but when you stick the maze book in it will all be covered.

Lie the two covered covers next to each other with the wrong side facing up and leaving a gap of approximately ½ “ between them. Run a strip of glue horizontally across the centre of both covers and stick a length of ribbon across. The ribbon needs to be approximately 20”long. This is what will tie your book together.

 

• Take the first page of your folded cardstock maze and stick it to the inside of the front cover. Stick the last page of the maze to the inside of the back cover and you have your completed maze book.

 

• All that remains is to decorate it as you wish and you have a quick simple book that would make an ideal gift for any occasion.