It's a Creative World

WEEKEND WORKOUT 5 - MUSIC

                

                                         
 Hello, Ali here,

It is my turn for the Weekend workout this weekend, and I've decided to combine my love of scrapbooking with my passion for music!

I have what some might call an eclectic taste in music, ranging from Punk to Dusty Springfield, Linkin Park to Paloma Faith, I love it all!

 
 

When the scrapbooking mojo decides to take a holiday, it is often a tune or two that will help me to get back on track, either the song title, album name or even a snatch of lyric can inspire me to create a layout or two, in fact, I do have a song lyric album full of lyric inspired Layouts!

 

I hope you enjoy our weekend workout-and that you can find some musical inspiration.

x.x.x.x.x
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Dolly here - and what a great challenge Ali has set.

I love the idea of a page made using a musical theme for inspiration.

People are often surprised when they find out my favourite album of all time is Bat Out Of Hell. I'm a not very secret rock chick at heart!

It was fun to combine my love of that album with my love of my wicked little Bengal boy. Many people know that Fiki and his sister are nicknamed the CFH (Cats from hell) as when they were little they really truly were little monsters.

So the page inspired by the album should come as no surprise.

 

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

Hello, it's Eleanor, and these weekend workout challenges are really working for me, haven't lost any weight yet, but I've certainly been using up some stash!

I'm afraid this song is not particularly deep and meaningful, just a bit of fun which seemed to suit the photos, and I'm sorry if you spend the day with this catchy little song in your head, tee hee.

Lots of my own style of chicken scratch stitching (using up those old fibres we all used to collect) and a crochet EGG, made from white dishcloth cotton, tea dyed.

Seems I must be on a roll, for I managed another song inspired layout, a simple one, just holes, stitching and a handcut (had forgotten how much I love handcutting) title:

Here it is upside down, to save any cricked necks:

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

 Hiya Claireliz here, with my take on Ali's Challenge.

I love using song lyrics or titles on my pages & as soon as I saw this challenge I got a certain tune stuck in my head. Its by the Libertines & called What Became of the Likely Lads? The picture that goes with it is one taken on my 18th birthday (waaaay back in 1998). Its me & my closest 3 friends, we don't see each other as much as we used to which is why the title seemed appropriate to me...

 

I would also like to add that the one on the far right (as you look at the screen) is my hubby, he wasn't then, we were just friends but about 5 years after this photo was taken we got married; the one on the other end was our best man & the one inbetween hubs & I was one of our ushers.

C xx

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

Dinky Art Journal

Hiya, how lovely is the weather? I've been sitting in my back garden doodling & colouring in my dinky art journal , so I thought I share a couple of the pages with you....

When the journal is finished it will be part of the my Project 30 (remember the chest I started filling last February when I turned 30 - its still not finished lol)...

I used some of my Tim Holtz stamps on this page

 

Its a very small journal measuring only 7x10cm, it's one of the Mini Moleskein collection...

 

I love the Stampotique Originals stamps & am starting to have quite a good collection (but always want more lol) so the Stampotique characters appear quite often in this little book...

 

I wasn't in a very good mood the day I made this page featuring the Queen of Hearts, things weren't quite going my way...

 

This is one of my favourite pages in the book & I think its one of the better ones too

 

I can certainly see an improvement in my art journaling from when I started thsi book & now have several more journals on the go.

I'll have to try to take some stage by stage photos next time, but I tend to make a load of backgrounds, leave it for a while then go on a doodling & glueing frenzy & finish several pages at once. Note to self: Must try harder.

Thanks for stopping by IACW today, hope to see you again soon

C xx

Guest designer post by Giselle. An album in an evening

I am absolutely delighted that Giselle agreed to do a guest designer post, we met through scrapbooking and I have always admired her scrapbooking style. An album in an evening sounds really difficult so I am looking forward to learning how its done.

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

  Hi everyone, my name is Giselle and I'm really pleased that Debbie asked me to be a guest designer for IACW. I have been crafting in one way or another for as long as I can remember but scrapbooking is now my firm favourite. Especially since I became a grandma 10 years ago, because I now have the best excuse to scrapbook - documenting the lives of my three favourite little boys! I make pages about the little things, like trips to the park and the big things, such as achievements at school and losing that first tooth! 

I live in North Somerset with my long suffering husband, who fortunately understands what this hobby of mine is all about. We have 2 daughters, one is a primary school teacher and the other is a photographer - now how lucky is that having an endless supply of photos to 'work' with?!

I like putting mini albums together mainly because it's often too difficult to choose just one or two photos but also because they make such great gifts for any occasion.

One thing I must add is that scrapbooking has given me so many new and wonderful friends, none of whom I'd have met if it wasn't for our mutual love of recording the lives of our families, using lots of gorgeous paper & messy glue!

AN ALBUM IN AN EVENING

To put together an album when you're short of time, it's a good idea to have a page design that basically has the same layout but which can be altered to suit the orientation of your photos. Using a range of papers from one manufacturer helps as well, it takes the guesswork out of matching colours and patterns!

For this album, which measures 6" x 6", I used Prima's Reflections Collection. I also added various embellishments to decorate the pages - flowers, chipboard, lace trims, rub-ons, numbered clips and lots of brads. You can never have too many brads!

I converted all the photos to black and white to avoid colour mis-matching and then printed them all the same size to fit the 6" x 6" pages but with enough space to place 3 squares of co-ordinating patterned paper. Using a square punch is great for this as you don't have to bother measuring & cutting the squares by hand.

Each left side follows the basic page design so there is cohesion throughout the album - one photo and 3 squares of patterned paper. Each right side page had a blank area for journaling which is a particularly good idea if you are making the album for somebody else and cannot provide the relevant info.

This is where a co-ordinated range of papers comes in really useful because whatever pattern you choose will match the opposing page. I cut a few details from the patterned paper, such as the butterflies, which if embossed or covered with Glossy Accents also make good embellishments.

    

You can decorate the inside covers with any left over photos that you want to include and the front page could hold the title, date and any details you'd like to record about the event.

By making the basic elements of your pages all the same size and preparing them with their patterned squares, then gathering up the photos and all the embellishments, it's a breeze to put this album together in just a few hours. Once all the pages are assembled you can easily go back over them adding little bits of decoration here and there.

Another lovely thing about this design is that the overall look is completely different when you use other styles of patterned paper, such as a graphic American Crafts, a floral Prima or a grungy Tim Holtz, so you can use this as a base for lots of other albums.

Learn by my mistakes

I realise I risk stating the obvious with this post, but it is something I feel really strongly about, based on my experiences over the past few weeks and have to flag it up again.

So many of us love scrapbooking and, for me, it is the perfect hobby. It combines my love of photography, my love of recording tiny details and having each ‘memory’ captured and my need to try and be artistic.

I am proud to call myself a scrapbooker and have been proud to do so for the past 8 years. I buy my acid free paper, my acid free scrapbook albums, my acid free glues and embellishment. I am a scrapbooker. I know what acid does. I avoid it when I am scrapping.

Why then have I made such errors of judgement?

I have ruined so many of my photos needlessly and thoughtlessly and I want to urge you all to resist the mistakes I have made. I HOPE I am preaching to the converted really and that you have shown way more common sense than I clearly have. Plus, many of you will be younger than me and so even if you have made the same errors they might not be quite so bad.

For the past couple of weeks I have been working to try and save as many of my old photos as possible. I am from an era where photos were carefully mounted in the sticky photo albums with very non-acid free glue and covered with totally non-acid free plastic film. They were, in effect, being put in a storage system designed to destroy them very quickly. And destroy them they did.

 

My childhood pictures are, by and large, OK as they were stored in their original photo packets. That is apart from the ones that I chose as ‘ the best ones’ when I was in my 20s and put in brand new shiny corrosive sticky albums. I pretty much ruined those. My teen photos from the 70’s and 80’s are pretty much ruined. They have discoloured, have stuck rigidly to the backing to the extent many cannot be removed and, when I do get them out, they are coated with the glue on the back and curled beyond belief.

 

I even put recent pictures in albums when I should have known better.

All photographs may deteriorate over time. Treasured black and white images take on stains and spotting. Color prints yellow and crack with age. Old Polaroid snapshots fade. Home-printed digital images become murky in just a few months. Proper photo storage using acid-free paper and cardboard products can extend the life of precious photos by reducing the deterioration that comes with time.

Archivists recommend storing photos in acid-free paper or plastic sleeves which are laid flat in boxes also made from an acid-free material. If photo albums are preferred, they should be manufactured from materials that are safe for long-term storage of photographs.

Acidity is measured by pH, a scientific formula that ranges from 0 to 14 with a pH of 7 considered neutral. Pure distilled water is considered neutral. A pH of less than 7 is acidic and a pH higher than 7 is called alkaline or basic. For example, battery acid has a pH of 0 and vinegar's pH is 3. On the other side of the scale, milk of magnesia has a pH near 11. Acid-free paper and storage products are treated with a buffering agent to neutralize the processing and naturally occurring acids. The resulting products have a neutral pH ranging from 7 to 9.5 and won't damage photographs during storage. Museums, libraries and universities have successfully used acid-free products to protect historical documents as well as photographic images

I have now removed all of my photos from their albums. I can’t believe we had some 40 albums to sort through. The photos are now all labelled, categorised and in storage boxes until I work my way through all of them.

 

I am scanning all of them, so I have digital back ups of the images. I am then either scrapping with the originals or, if they are too badly damaged and discoloured and faded, enhancing them in a photo program and then scrapping digital prints of them.

 It is possible to restore the pictures, but it is time consuming. I am no expert and if you have really special photos then you may need to get expert help to restore them properly. An expert could get far better results than these.

Below are some examples - and these were by no means the worst examples i have. I have some that are so spoilt there is no repairing them.

 

 

 
 

and even one from the mid 1980s so discoloured after what is a relatively short time in a bad environment.

 

So, don’t make the mistake I did. Get your photos OUT of those albums before it is too late.

 

Crochet Easter Eggs with a free Pattern...

Hi folks, Mandy here...

A little while ago I posted about some crochet stitch markers I 'd made.  I'd made them to help me speed up with amigurumi style crochet where you crochet in a continuous spiral & must mark the rounds.  At the time I'd been working on an egg pattern for Easter.  Well, the egg pattern is finished and I've made 3 so far which are decorating my craft room...

 

The buttons are only pushed in with pretty pins.  The eggs turned out quite big at 3" (made with double knitting thickness bamboo cotton yarn) and I think I perhaps needed a bushier twig as they look huge!

Help yourself to a free pdf download of the pattern.  There's only one stitch used so it's good for newbies to crochet but you will need to mark the rounds (just tie in a piece of contrasting cotton or make yourself some stitch markers!)

Download Free Crochet Pattern amigurumi crochet egg

 

Happy Easter!

Mandy.

 

Weekend Workout 4 - SKETCH

Hi, Dolly here.

Weekends are all about having fun and chilling out and so I have a very simple chilling out challenge for you today.

I have made a sketch for you which is nice and simple. Dress it up or keep it plain, whatever takes your fancy. It is based loosely on a template I had from Pickleberrypop

 

 But it is more than a sketch.

I further challenge you to scrap something which is relaxing. Perhaps pictures of you or someone else relaxing, chilling out, taking life easy.

And don't forget, share what you create. We have!

This is my take on the sketch.

 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello, Eleanor here, with my interpretation of Dolly's weekend workout sketch.

21 years ago this week, I was certainly relaxing, enjoying, or so I thought, the last month before my second baby was born. She, however, had a different plan, and arrived early, speedily, rather small, at home, in the middle of the night (half an hour from start to finish, and the ambulance crew and midwife were way too late!).

So here's my card for her, based on Dolly's great sketch, and including, as usual, a crocheted motif.

My tip for anyone who, like me, struggled in the past with crochet - use COTTON yarn whilst you are getting the hang of it. I'm using the King Cole Bamboo Cotton again, and it's so much easier than using a wool or acrylic yarn which has fibres and splits easily.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my daughter Dee:

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

Hiya Claireliz here with my take on Dolly's sketch

I love this photo of my daughter with her two favourite bears & it fit nicely with Dolly's added challenge of scrap someone relaxing or taking it easy

 

I used part of the large central sqaure from the sketch for my journaling. I used Banana Frog Paperchains stamps to create the bunting, which I have attached with 3d foam pads. The journaling reads: You're so sweet cuddling up with your bears Snuffy & Mr Muffles, you have some great adventures.

I really hope you play along & join in the fun, if you do leave us a link in the comments & we'll pop by to say hello.

C xx

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

Hi, Mandy here.

OOooh... I do love a good sketch!  Here's my LO about an evening bonfire we had on the beautiful Welsh beach of Fairbourne.  My ds kept the fire going even though the driftwood was pretty wet and the fire kept wanting to go out (hence all the smoke).  We did get it just right to toast marshmallows and had a perfect evening, watching the sunset over the water.  The photo below was taken on the dining table with a cream wall behind, which I think makes it look a bit odd (sorry about that!).

 

I so enjoyed following Dolly's sketch and it came together really quickly :)

The circle wordart on the LO is available as a free pdf download here on IACW (check the left side-bar), so help yourself to a set of words that fit into a standard 2" punch.

Have a great week-end.

Mandy.

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

CAKE STANDS ~ By Guest Designer Jayne Loughlin

Hiya My name is Jayne loughlin & I am so pleased to be a Guest designer on IACW ...hopefully I will get asked back too :) I am a mum of 3 girls & a Granny to a lovely Grandaughter Lexie. I am happily married to my so forgiving husband (he might get on my nerves a bit but he has to put up with my craft stash left all over the place & my little fads taking over the house even though I have a craft room :)) So hes not all that bad :)

 My First passion is Scrapbooking and I have lovely crafting friends due to this passion. I also make Tiaras & Jewellery & dabble in Knitting, Fabrics, paints, Card making & just started a few new crafts .....Mosaics & Felting though i'm still experimenting with these.

 

Anyway enough of me I really wanted to do something different with you today and thought I would show you a few different ways of making Cake stands(see above) seeing this site always has yummy Cake recipes on. There's a Drilling method & a Non Drilling method for the scaredy cats amongst us..... ***Be aware I am new to this so if it goes wrong i'll have to show you all something else...you are learning along with me :) lol. The advantage of this is if I can do it anyone can and WE can learn from MY Mistakes

 

Drilling Method: You will need at least 2 Plates, China graph Pencil or marker, Scrap paper for a template, Masking Tape, China drill bit & drill,Scissors, Cake handle (got mine from on line auction site)

Directions:

You need to Mark all your plates centres so draw around your plates onto paper, cut out & Fold in half & half again, Place onto your plates & mark the centre dot.

  

Next a vital piece of info ... Add 4 pieces of Masking Tape to the centre of the plates again (use your Template above to remark the centre dot if it isn't showing under the masking tape.

 

Take your drill bit and start drilling over the centre dot directly through the masking tape...this stops the drill bit slipping. If it starts getting a little hot & burning you can add a little water along the way every now & then as lubrication directly over the hole being drilled but be careful as you are using an electric drill. Keep drilling slowly until all the way through.

Do the same to the next Plates... i got a bit hooked and decided to do a saucer too !!!!

Screw the Handle pieces through the plates according to how many plates you have. Most Handles come with Rubber washers this makes for a tighter fit. You can make some little Felt ones just punch felt with a eyelet punch & trim into circles. Don't forget these wont wash though :)

There now all you have to do is fill with cakes.

 

 

Non Drilling Method: Plates, Small shot type glasses or Sundae dishes or a tea Cup, (Beads, flowers optional), Clear Araldite Glue, China graph Pencil or marker, Scissors, Paper for Template.

Directions:

First you need to choose your Cup/Glass & plates make sure they 'FIT' together aren't too rocky & look appealing.

Next you have to make sure your plates are squeaky clean. Try & use a larger dinner plate for the bottom and a smaller side plate for the top. It is ideal to stick to two tiers if using this method as it will be difficult to wash if any taller. The plates do not have to. match.

Take a piece of paper and draw around each plate like in directions of drilling method above.., Cut and fold in half & half again to find the middle. Mark the centre dot out onto the bottom of your plates.

Take your glass or cup (again squeeky clean ones) Fill with anything you wish if using glass...Beads, Flowers or leave blank. You must remember that if any water gets into the glass at a later date Non colour fast Dyes might run & spoil the effect. (i saw in a mag they were using Tea Roses , This is not a great idea) Mix the Glue as described on your Glue packet & add a ring of glue around the Glass or teacup bottom rim.

 

 Glue the Tea cup or glass onto the top largest plate ,Leave to dry.

Now add glue to the Rim of the Glass/cup that is stuck to the plate in the previous step.MAKE SURE you have glue all the way round with no gaps as you want a seal all the way around. Stick the top plate onto the gluey glass/cup. Press down and leave to Dry. There you have a quick fix for a Party :)

Hope You enjoyed this .... Very scary posting on here with so many tallented Crafters :)

Julie and Co.

Hello! Alexa here, but only for a handful of words, because I'd like to present to you our Guest for today, the multi-faceted and multi-talented Julie Kirk. Creative scrapbooker, witty and entertaining writer of stories, and mixed media art-journaller, Julie blogs, makes, designs and writes for magazines, and I'm delighted to hand over to her for today's It's a Creative World inspiration. So without more ado, step forward, Julie and Co.!
********************************************************************************************************************

Hi there.  How are things in your creative world today? As I’m new here, I’ve brought a few friends along with me, for company. They’re a sweet bunch really, once you get to know them:

They were all created by putting a simple, old, masking and stamping technique to a fun new use. So allow me to share with you my step-by-step ‘Stamped Photo-booth Fun’ tutorial so you can try it out too.

Begin by selecting two or more character stamps. They don’t have to be from the same set [the owl and the dinosaur are from two different brands] just choose the most interesting combination of characters from your existing stamps or the ones most appropriate to the recipient of the card or the theme of the scrapbook page. Start with Step 1 (below, right) ...


... then continue with steps 2 and 3.


Next, steps 4 and 5:


Follow with steps 6 and 7:

Think about having your characters change places; hide behind one another; drop in from above or the side … even wander out of frame! Now use your colouring-method-of-choice [I used ProMarkers] to breathe life into your photo-booth posers.  Then you can age them to give the effect of some well-loved photos which have been carried around in a wallet for the last 20 years! (Steps 9 and 10 below).

What you do with them once you’re finished is up to you. I decided to cut mine into individual images to fit them on to greetings cards (below, right):

Similarly they’d look great kept as a strip and placed down a long thin card or bookmark and they’d make perfect little framed gifts too if you tailored them to suit a particular couple, family or group of friends. And of course … they make a unique addition to a layout:

If you hop over to my blog http://notesonpaper.blogspot.com/  you can see more of this zebra + bluebird combo who make up a key feature on a 12x12 scrapbook page. 

If you try out any ‘Stamped Photo-booth fun’ of your own, I’d love to see what you make. Just give me a nudge at my blog http://notesonpaper.blogspot.com/   or via Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/notesonpaper and I’ll pop over to see you and your take on my tutorial.

 Thanks for reading my post today and a big thank you to It’s a Creative World for having me … and my photo-booth friends visit for the day.

 Happy creating everyone!
Julie.

 

 

 

 
 

 

Decorated Box.

Have you got a stash of kits hidden away, that you just had to have but have never put together?

I have and decided now is the time to start going through them and making those I still like and passing those on I don't.

The kit I've just made is by Handles Fabric Art. (I'm not sure if they're still trading but produced kits with self adhesive fabric and lace, along with beautiful variegated ribbons.)

Constructing the flower:

 
You use a simple running stitch and the ribbon is wired so you can "frill" the petals easily.

The completed flower:

 
the middle was made using stamens and seed beads.

Next I covered the box,

 

I then stuck the flower and laeves on the lid, white lace leaves were included but I decided to colour them with distress stains in Forest Moss and Peeled Paint.

 

Thanks for looking Lynne x

My name is Katie and I have paint-a-phobia!!

...seriously I do!!! I think about painting something and I come over all peculiar!!

Colouring with Copics or pencils no worries- inking something to within an inch of it's life- not a problem- pop open the cap of a tube of acrylic paint and I want to run a mile!!

I guess the problem started WAY back when I was unable to paint or draw things the way I imagined them in my head, kinda made me mad-mad at the paint, it wasn't my fault of course!!! *sheepish grin*

So I was thinking that this was ridiculous because I've seen fab pages and I REALLY want to overcome my fear of paint, therefore I decided that as it was Lent I'd set myself the task of doing 6 painted pages in my old, dusty, unloved art journal!!

So I first painted squares of acrylic paint randomly onto a page :

Next I took an indelible marker (a paint style one) and did a few squiggles around the blocks of colour.

- OK so far so good, The sqiggling seemed to pull the page together a bit more - this was going alright!

Then I found some sequin waste and splodged some ink through- that was cool, I'm liking this effect!

Then I freehanded a sun and a lil' house on the page with my ink pen and added a couple of stamped images and some paper tape! 

Yikes I was on a roll and you know what - I'd ENJOYED myself!!

So I decided to press on quickly with another page before the FEAR crept upon me again!

I was REALLY going to face down my fears this time I was going to use...YELLOW PAINT *blurgh*

I DON'T LIKE YELLOW- look at my artwork- I don't DO yellow!!! 

So I painted the WHOLE page yellow and even my daughter said to me ' but you said yellow makes you feel yukky' LOL

I then took some Tim Holtz masks (Cogs and Iron Work) and applied acrylic paint over them, randomly changing the colours as I went.

Next I took black paint and added a big square on an angle on the page and squidged the paint through one of those school alpha stencils that come in geography sets!

I tried flicking some red paint with a toothbrush but ended up covering my face and glasses (what am I like?!) so then I resorted to using the MOST awesome stamp of all time from Stampotique called Splatter Long it TOTALLY looks like splatters of paint and it's so much safer!!

So then I had a graffiti style page and I was rather chuffed with the end result!

So all in all my painting experiment is going really well- I have to say that using paints on a 6x6 page is far less intimidating now than when I started which is a result!

FORCING myself to use the paints and play with them has made me feel far more comfortable using them and I actually *ahem* enjoyed myself and have done MORE than the 6 pages I planned!

I think that's rather a result!

My name is Katie and I'm not such a paint-a-phobe anymore!!

Couple of quick Blog links for inspiration:

Christy Tomlinson

Are you Flowin?!

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Made by Nicole