Friday 16 January 2015

Card Tutorial

Today is my turn to share a tutorial on Off The Rails Scrapbooking blog.

Sometimes I struggle to think of what to share but this month was easy. I want to share with you how I created my card for the current challenge over at Off The Rails Scrapbooking

If you click on current challenge above it will take you to the blog and you will see that the challenge is a mood palette. The colours are yellow, black and white. These three colours are not something that i have worked with together before so I did have to do a little bit of thinking, ok to be perfectly honest I had to put a lot of thought into.

I first created not one but two different art journal backgrounds. Both of the backgrounds were created using water, Lindy's Stamp Gang Spray and Archival Black Ink.


I didn't like either of them and I couldn't see where they were going. So I did something that I would normally not do, I torn them into strips. It felt really good to.


Now that I had ripped the pages into strips, what was I going to do with them? Currently I am cutting 300gsm water colour paper into 8x8 squares for my journal pages, but I needed something a little more robust to support the strips. So I decided to use my mixed media paper that is (I think is the same gsm) stronger and doesn't warp for the support. As you can see below there is no rhyme or reason where strips went, they are not all the same length or thickness. To glue them down and have a clear coating over the top I used my X-press It Triple Tac Glue. I use my Triple Tac for everything, from attaching paper to metal embellishments and everything in between.


Once I had completely cover the strips with the triple tac I then used my heat gun to dry it. There were two reasons for this. The first is that I am impatient and wanted it dry immediately and the second is that when drying it I could create more texture by causing the glue to bubble and leave those magical little lumps. In the photo above you can see them if you look closely.

When finished drying and creating texture I then used my paint scrapper to apply some gesso. Again I used by heat gun to dry the gesso, but not completely as I wanted to rub some of it off.


I decided that although I had a lot of texture I needed more colour so I found my Sunshine Yellow Alcohol Ink from Tim Holtz and while gently squeezing I ran the bottle across the top of my page which I was holding on an angle to let the ink run down my page.

The paper has been through a lot but I haven't finished with it yet. Using my nail I scrapped it down the right had side causing bit of the paper to come away and then I carefully remove a strip of paper from the left hand side of my card. I then applied more gesso with my scrapper and wiping away the excess. Finally finished and stopped to look at my background and reminded me of weathered painted wood.


The final step was to add my gorgeous flower, some muslin and thin black ric rack. All attached with my Triple Tac Glue.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Creating.

Sunday 4 January 2015

First Art Work for 2015

I have previously mentioned that I am taking part in an online course with Kelly Rae Roberts (click here for first post). I have now completed 4 pieces since starting. I want to share with you today my third piece. The second and fourth piece I will share at a later date.


I know it is a lot different from what I have previously shared. Not only do I love this piece that will find its way to my wall, I also loved the process that took place to create it.

Happy Creating

Thursday 1 January 2015

Happy New Year

Today is the first day of the New Year, looking forward to the new memories, spending time with family, friends and what ever else this year will bring.What am I doing today, spending it at home and enjoying the peace and quiet as my family has gone away camping in tents and I am just not a camper. When I go camping I need a proper building, plumbing, electricity and a proper comfy bed.

It is also the day for a new challenge at



As much as I love this mood palette it threw me in a spin as black, white and yellow are not colours that I would normally choose to work with.

I started two journal pages and I did not like either of them so in the end I combined two things that I love doing - card making and mixed media.


If you would like to see what the rest of the Design Team created please follow the link above.

Happy Creating