"Beautiful Things" layout for Creative Artiste

 Hello and Happy New Year, creative friends! I'm happy to be back with a mixed media layout to share with you. As some of you my know, I love squirrels, and found this wonderful photo and quote online ages ago, printed it out and saved it to use on a page "someday". Now more than ever we need to be aware of the beauty around us to stay grateful and positive,  so I thought this was the perfect "someday" to create a page with it.

I used some lovely Blue Fern Studios papers from my stash, fussy cut some elements from the Blue Fern paper as well as from some Graphic 45 Woodland Friends, added flowers, jute and burlap fibers, punched leaves, and strips made with a Martha Stewart border punch. I used a Prima stencil to add homemade texture paste here and there, and then added a few light spritzes of Tattered Angels glimmer mist in Rose Gold. This was the first layout I had made in a while and it felt good to be "back in the saddle, as it were.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I wish you beautiful things every day!
xx Lynne

Nature Tag album for Creative Artiste MixedMedia Challenge Blog

I treated myself to a Graphic 45 "Woodland Friends" paper pack while we were locked down, hoping it would inspire me to get creative, and it was perfect to pair withh this cute tag album from Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts and make a place for all the photos I had of Buddy, the squirrel we rescued and raised about 15 years ago.

I had a lot of fun with this, going through the papers and choosing as many squirrel images as possible and combining them. I had to keep the inner pages fairly flat, but added paper and fabric flowers on the cover as well as some plastic greenery I had and some decorative fibers both on the cover and attached to the pull-out tags. I inked all the edges and used foam tape for added dimension on most of the pages

My photos were all taken before we had a digital camera, so many of them are pretty awful , and I had to silhouette a lot of them because they were quick candid shots and often had very busy backgrounds, but I'm happy I was able to preserve the memories of our adorable little Buddy together in an album.

The pages are like pockets which hold a pull-out tag, as shown here:

These are the pull-out tags:

These are the pocket pages:

God's creations are amazing and this lovely paper showcases so many of His beautiful animals; I hope you enjoyed seeing my project and my squirrel photos.

Be sure to take part in the July challenge at Creative Artiste-always anything goes, as long as it's mixed media! Thanks for stopping by! xx

Check out the challenge HERE

"Dashing" mixed media layout for Creative Artiste;

Hello there crafters! I can't believe May is here already; April was a busy month for me and seemed to fly by. I really wanted to start doing more layouts again, and decided to create a masculine layout for my "Silver Screen" album, which contains pages about favourite classic actors and movies, and this guy is my very favourite actor from the 40s/50s.

I used Blue Fern Studios Chesterville collection, Gypsy Soul Lasercuts chipboard and Tattered Angels mists and glazes.Papers and embellishments were distressed with brown, white and black inks, and I added bits of black thread here and there as well as machine stitching the paper strip below the photo. A variety of buttons from my stash were added, as well as a few items cut from the Graphic 45 A Proper Gentleman collection. The corrugate behind the photo was simply painted grey and lightly rubbed with ink.

It was fun to get my grunge on with this page; I like the contrast between the grungy background and the more formal photo-it's a bit of a metaphor for the versatile actor that James Stewart was.

Thanks so much for stopping by-hope you enjoyed seeing my page. Happy May! Stay safe and find time to be creative when you can....hugs! xx

Antique School Desk for Gypsy Soul Lasercuts, featuring Graphic 45 ABC Primer

Hi there! Where I live it's cold and snowy and generally perfect for hibernating in fuzzy jammies these days! In other words, it's a good time to stay inside and craft, so I decided to take on the adorable school desk piece I'd been eyeing for a while, and the Graphic 45 ABC Primer collection was perfect to use on this project!

When putting a 3D project together, I like to  fit all the pieces together so then I know exactly where I need paper to cover right to the edge and where slots need to be cut out. This photo shows a blown-out view after I traced around each piece and glued the paper on; I love Aleene's Tacky glue ofr 3D projects like this one, as it's thick enough to hold the pieces immediately to eliminate one piece popping out while fitting another onto it. This project went together smoothly and easily.

I sanded the edges and inked them with brown ink for a vintage feel, then fussy cut images from the papers and added them along with some flowers to the sides of the desk.for the top, I created some miniature schoolbooks with textured paper, white paper scraps and  used some title stickers from the paper collection.

There is also a mini-album to go with the desk; I covered all the pieces with patterned paper, sanded and inked the edges, and added fussy cuts and embellishments from the collection. I drilled 2 holes in each of the pages-if you have a strong hole punch, you may be able to use that, but mine wouldn't punch through the thick pages. I just tied the pages together with decorative fibers.

I snagged a nice big apple from the Fall shape set, painted it red and heat embossed it with UTEE, and attached it vertically to the seat to hold the mini album in place.

This was such a fun project to put together, and I have a crafter friend who happens to be a teacher, so I think I'll gift her with this next time I see her...thanks so much for stopping by, and happy crafting!

GYPSY SOUL ITEMS USED
Antique School Desk and Slate Shaped Mini Album

Fall Shape Set

OTHER ITEMS USED

Graphic 45 ABC Primer paper collection
Aleene's Tacky glue
Versacolor ink-Pinecone
Versamark ink and UTEE