Laura Rumble - Crafter

One of my favourite card makers to watch on YouTube is Laura Bassen.  This video inspired me to make a layout... I started off gathering a rainboow of cardstock.  When making your own rainbow you are in charge of the colours so I made sure there was extra green and no pink!  I cut squares that were about 37mm - I was lining up to a mark on my mini guillotine which just happened to be 37mm.  I then chopped each square in half, and one of the resulting triangles in half. The gathering and chopping process took a little under an hour.  I then assembled the triangles on a sheet of stickit adhesive.  This bit took about 30 minutes I guess.  I had my Silhouette cutting a few cut files at the same time and it passed pretty quickly and was strangely therapeutic.  Next step was to arrange them in a pattern on the centre of a 12x12.  To add extra interest I popped a few up on foam pads.  I varied the height of the foam pads too so some...

Scraptember are holding a cyber crop this weekend and one of the prompts was to make a rainbow laout.  I didn't need to be asked twice, rainbows are my favourite! I always think of Sarah Costain when using a black background.  She really is the queen of black backgrounds. The rainbow splatters are all made with Shimmerz products.  I love that these paint pots can sit unsed for more than a year and then rehydrate to their shimmery best in less than 10 minutes!  The hearts are from Colour Cast Designs.  (Like Shimmerz another fabulous company run by lovely people on the other side of the world... and makes me hate postal charges!)  I only order from Colour Cast once every 12-18 months... which come to think of it is probably a good thing!!  Because of this I tend to think of these acrylic pieces as precious and hoard them, so I'm pleased to get these big hearts used within a month of recieving them. The everyday moments is cut from a PL...

Taking part in some stash busting fun in Scraptember . I don't use as much patterned paper as I'd like.  I'd like to use as much as I buy... but that might be wishful thinking!!  Anyway, that thought led me to draw up this sketch. I went through my yellow/green and mint/blue paper boxes and pulled out a stack of papers.  I arranged them in colour order and cropped them all to squares.  I thought I was going to be super accurate but that didn't happen.  They are roughly 12mm larger each time but after the third one I just started eyeballing it.  In the sketch the squares are rotated 22.5 degrees each time; on my layout I just turned it "a bit".  Once I'd got my twisted stack complete I pondered what else needed adding.  I really don't know... enamel dots?  A title?  Journalling?  In the end I went with a tiny tab with his initial on it.  I'm intrigued to see if anyone else plays along with this sketch and how ...

I don't know about you but I get overwhelmed when ALL of the new collections come out at once.  It's especially bad after Creativation when American Crafts releases what feels like 100 collections at once.  There also seems to be a supply thing and if you don't buy straight away you miss out forever .  I wonder cynically if that is all part of the plan.  Then there is Cocoa Vanilla and Pink Fresh too... mustn't miss out on them either.  This time I decided I would place one order for all things under the AC umbrella.  Lottie Loves Paper is my shop of choice and I had a good browse and made a list.  Then I crossed off most of the things on the list when I realised how many sheets of paper that would be!  I settled on 5th & Monaco (paper pad, ephemera and stickers), Paige Evans (one sheet of the pastel diamonds) and Maggie Holmes (four sheets of paper and the sticker sheet).  I was so excited by 5th & Monaco and yet it has sat there un...

Pop over to Pretty My Page HQ to see this layout revealed...

I don't have many photos of my Nanny and Gramps together so when I came across this one I wanted to scrap it straight away.  I have no idea of the date and I'm not fussed either. I chose to use the one and only patterned paper I allowed myself to buy from the latest Paige Evans collection.  These diamonds remind me of quilting and my Nanny is a quilter (or was when she was able).  I was selective in which diamonds I cut out ignoring the pink ones.  I arranged them in 3 starbursts and added sewing to hold them in place. The title is an acrylic piece from Colour Cast Designs.  I must have had it for 3 or 4 years?  Crazy hoarder!  The mist in the background is Mint To Be Spritz from Shimmerz.  It's my new favourite but I've said that about all of the other colours too! As the layout progressed I realised I wanted something over to the left of the page so added a strip of the diamond paper.  This time I couldn't avoid all the p...

This layout started with a scrap of paper.  I can't tell who it is made by or how long I've had it.  I can tell you I wish I had more! It's a muted grey, orange, turquoise and mustard stripe with a fab mottled texture.  I paired it with a few enamel frames, puffy alphas and puffy phrase stickers, a mustard and white chevron cardstock frame and enamel dots.  It's a stash layout using old supplies that have not seen the love they deserve. The cardstock frame was chopped in two and slipped behind the photo cluster.  It appears to be a large landscape frame underneath the portrait paper anchoring the whole layout... but we know it's just a small square frame posturing! This was one of those moments where being a silly-shopper-who-buys-every-colour-of-enamel-dot came in handy as I was able to shuffle through my entire collection and pull out perfect colour matches. And that's it - my favourite layout of the moment! Thanks for stopping by

Hellooo!  This month's Lollipop Box is called Hello Spring and there are bunnies... and the birds are singing outside - happy happy! My first creation with this month's box is a spread in my hand made TN.  This TN has the theme of rainbow.  The photos can be of any subject, in any order; the only thing that matters is that it will read in rainbow order (ROYGBIV on a loop) when finished.  This is a spread for green. Everything used except for the L is from the kit.  I've cut frames from a patterned paper, used the gorgeous foiled washi, used stickers and cut aparts...  I caved and used the tassel too.  Half of me wanted to save it for another project, half of me wanted to use it here even though it would make everything a bit chunky.  I've added it to the edge of the page so it shouldn't prevent the TN from closing.  I quite like the idea of a really chunky notebook now, so that may be the route I take. Here's the video: ...

This layout turned out nothing like I expected, but those are often the layouts I love the most! I started off with three Paige Evans feather cut files cut on white cardstock.  I used a range of colours of mists from Shimmerz to colour them up.  I made a wonderfully splodgy black background on 12x12 card and added a few stamped images on top for good measure. Then the first turn... I couldn't work out how to place my photo without covering up too much of the splodgy background so I chopped the 12x12 up, pieced it back together in a different order and added lots of messy sewing to join it back together. Lots of messy thread ends stapled into nests work with the free and wild background.  The next turn was to cut a few layers of vellum feathers to layer behind the cardstock ones I had coloured up earlier.  This added dimension and a bit of seperation between the bold strip of mixed media and the pretty delicate feathers. I embellished with enamel ...

Following on from my last Pretty My Page layout I've used some of the carcasses from the patterned paper I used to cut the arrows from.  I was left with some awkward triangular pieces and these perfect rectangles.  They were too good to throw away! I placed them in an offset grid and added lots of sewing with my machine. I fussy cut some words from the cut apart sheet and used them as my title.  I embellished with a few stickers and added a label for my journalling. I went bold and brave with my black ink and added some splodges.  (That's the technical term for paint or ink that's bigger than a splatter!) So with the addition of a cut apart sheet the only patterned paper I used was off cuts from the previous layout.  It's a free layout.  I get a kick out of using every last bit of the pretties! Thanks for stopping by!

I'm sharing my first CSI layout today... These are such cleverly thought out challenges.  There is an image to spark off your creativity.  I have used the colour scheme and included lace, polka dots, hearts, scallops and small patterns all of which are represented in the case file. I used the negatives from the Stained Glass cut file from Pretty My Page, well, half of them.  I used transfer tape to remove them from the cutting mat and add them to the top of the page.  I then coated everything with clear gesso and went to town with Brusho!  I gathered up some scraps and titbits of lace, felt, twine and paper.  I finished the remains of an old sheet of vellum stickers from Freckled Fawn to add some black pops. Next up are a couple of close ups of the mixed media because I love how it turned out... I used one shade of green for the majority of the colour.  The powder is made up of different pigments so it gives the look of ma...

(This is the first layout I made with the collection but the second I have shared... you know me and organisation!  The first layout I shared is here... ) My first layout with the new Cocoa Vanilla Studio collection Legendary...  I've had it for a while after pre-ordering from Lottie Loves Paper but you know what the first cut is like.  I've also used a couple of Shimmerz sprays and some star sequins from my stash.  Here's the process video: Thanks for stoping by!

Umm... he wanted to 'sit under you' and that's exactly what he did.  And who was I to try and stop him! Focusing on the layout rather than the oddity of the photos I have used the Love Lace mandala from Pretty My Page ( Download here .  Purchase as a pre-cut here .) cut on white and inkblended with some Distress Oxide inks.  When I inkblend over a cut file I do it before I remove the cut from the mat.  This way it is held in place and I'm not rubbing over thin delicate areas of card which would easily tear. I piced a couple of papers to match the inks and added very simple layering behind each of the photos.  I added my title and journalling in a block using word stickers and alphas interspersed with my handwritting. He was moving my knees together so it blocked out the light (or to 'close the light' as he said) and these pudgy hands on my legs just looked so cute! Seriously, I couldn't love this little one and his brother more if I trie...