Happy Birthday!!!

A very very happy happy birthday to Let's Get Shabby - a super yummy and cool challenge blog featuring all things shabby and vintage! (I like!)

I am very very honoured to be invited to be their guest this month as part of their Birthday Challenge!

And Michelle of Purple Onion Designs is offering a seriously SUPER DUPER PRIZE for this month's challenge!!! (won't give away the secret here)

So hop on over and check out the lovely inspiration from the talented "Let's Get Shabby" design team (some of their work is shown here) and join in!!!

And here's what I designed for the birthday challenge!
Look out for more "Let's Get Shabby" fun soon - there'll be more yummy goodies and birthday celebrations!

July Sneaks are Out

July class sneaks are out on the laines blog. Go sign up!!! I'm really looking forward to seeing all of you again in class - this long holiday is turning me into something of a slug...

And here's something I made in my pre-slug days (aka last month):

Mini Album: "Free Spirit"


We played with the Melody Ross chip art tool from g.c.d. in class (its used on the brown semi-circle chipboard piece) and it was good fun hammering on the classroom floor!

The kids are making the most of the last few holi-days and I think I will join them. Tomorrow....back to work!

At Last.....

It was like squeezing blood from a stone this month....but I....AM....DONE!!!!

Mini Album No. 1: went totally stamp crazy trying to catalog some of my favourite stamping techniques past and present (I tried to show you a bit of everything below). I still haven't put the photos in yet and it needs some journaling to really 'finish' it but at least it is 'done'. This one was very painful.....but very satisfying - so of course its my favourite.


Mini Album No. 2: Lots of Jenni Bowlin papers and happy heartwarming colours. I really like how the tree turned out and I am very pleased with how chunky this feels.Aaaahhhhh.....feels good.

Tuesday Tutorial

I just found these photos on my camera - I'd intended to use them when teaching this layout in class but I forgot all about them and turns out we didn't really need them 'cos we managed to get it done anyhow.

So, I guess, now I can show YOU instead - haha. Just in case you wanted to know.

FIRST: I stamped with acrylic paint onto a transparency. (I used corrugated cardboard and a Tim Holtz stamp). (you could actually stamp directly, but I wanted the rectangular shape)WARNING!!! If you are going to stamp using acrylic paint, wash immediately after you stamp otherwise it is VERY PAINFUL trying to get the paint out of the stamp (trust me on this one). Rubber stamps work better.

AND THEN: I pasted some Tim Holtz alpha stickers around the rectangle and dry brushed the same coloured acrylic paint around it. (After painting, I immediately regretted not putting everything a bit more to the right, but.... I'll just have to deal with that later)
AND THEN: I added some paper (to give a little 'quiet' from the mess behind) and tore away the right edge of the layout and added some Creative Imaginations wood paper to balance off my 'mistake' with the positioning earlier.
AND THEN: It still felt a bit too 'clean', so I dry brushed more paint on the edges, and stamped some little words peeking out here and there among the paint. Some twine for texture and title and its done.
I was looking back at some of my older layouts and I realise that I do stamped backgrounds A LOT!!! Strange that I only just realised that about myself....