August Cyber crop - Tricia with Pink Fresh celebrate

 Good morning Campers!!

Welcome to day 2! 

Today I'll be using the gorgeous Celebrate range from Pink Fresh.  Full of beautiful blush tones and oversized florals it is perfect for all the outdoor get togethers we have been having lately.

The papers are full of gorgeous sweeping groups of florals that beg to be fussy cut and that's exactly what I did! I also loved the falling trellis on the 'Everyday' paper and set about making the most of it on the 2nd layout. 

The key to creating the centrepieces is all in the cutting so grab your scissors and click here for the instructions. 

PS. Don't forget to pop back at 12 for Debs class :)

August 2021 - Class with Tracy

 Good evening friends.  I hope you have all had a lovely day.  I'm typing to you from Sunny Wales again, sat in the garden with mum, beer in hand, so you could say I'm in my happy place!

I loved the bright colours in this kit, and so I chose a photograph with a rainbow of colours in the dresses and clothes we wore when Ann, Wendy and I finally met up with the Welsh after almost 2 years!!!  

The travel theme worked well even for just a day out, and the sticker book will last for ages, it'll be especially great if you're planning a little travel journal!

I used the tags as a feature, because why not? I tried to keep the tag page quite simple, I hope you enjoy it.

The second page is a little more fun but both pages are pretty simple so I hope perfect for an early evening play... I hope you have a rip roaring time! 

Instructions can be found here.

I really hope you like the class and I am so excited about teaching you all in person at Retreat.  I can't wait to see your versions of the pages, so don't forget to pop them in the albumn.

August 21 Cybercrop class with Ann & Maggie Holmes Garden Party

Happy Saturday afternoon to you all and I hope everyone is well.

Welcome to my class this weekend which uses papers from the diverse Maggie Holmes Garden Party collection including the fabulouse ephemera pack.

Pop over to the website on THIS LINK to download the instructions for the three pages I have made and enjoy creating this sunny saturday.

Ann x

August 2021 Cybercrop class with Karen

Hello everyone, Dolly here  and I hope you have all had a fabulous summer. I know it has been a different year and many of us will have enjoyed holiays or days out in this country rather than travelling further afield, but I am sure you have all enjoyed something over the summer that will work wonderfully witht hese gorgeous papers. 

The Carte Bella Summer range is just so lush and with the cut aparts and sticker sheet there is so much to enjoy in this packed kit. 

I have two pages for you but there is literally loads left over which will, I am sure, feature on other summer pages. 

This is one of the pages I have for you  and I can't wait to see what you do. 

Please do remember to post your class pages in our facebook group so that we can all see and enjoy them. 

You can find the full instructions here. 

Have fun.

August 2021 Cyber Crop - Class 1 with Katherine

 

Hello and welcome to our virtual crop!  If you don't have the kit you can put together your own and join in the classes.  As always we would love to hear from you in the chatter and see your finished pages so make sure you join in on our Facebook page ATDML#Create. In my class you will make 2 pages, but there are plenty of bits and pieces to make more - it uses the lovely Family Fun collection from Simple Stories.  For the first page the focus is on the lovely foam stickers that you get in this kit with a little bit of faux stitching.

The next page is packed with all the rainbow colours in the kit and gets you to dig out your punches to make a feature.

You can find the class here. 

I hope you enjoy the class and look forward to seeing your creations and be back here at 12 noon to see Karen's fabulous class.

Stash Busting with Tricia - Titles and phrases

 

I love fonts, titles and phrases.  I own a shedload of thickers and love cutting my own diecut titles.  The downside is sometimes I can be left with some leftover phrases and titles.

Now and again I love making these the focus of my page, it's a great way of using up similar phrases and can act as your title(s) and journaling all as one.  

A great way is to focus of attributes or similar meaning and work out area you want to focus on - block, crossword or frame.  A rainbow mix can look great against a neutral backdrop or go monochrome.  Whatever you choose, don't forget to share the final results over on the facebook page.

Challenge 4 - 1,2,3,4,5

 

Stash Busting with Jane - chipboard

 For some reason I went through a phase where I bought loads of chipboard shapes then maybe used one or two pieces from a collection and the rest went in a drawer. So time to get that drawer out and use up some of that chipboard! Here it is (ok - well, some of it!!) 

I decided that for strength I would construct my LO on a 12 x 12 canvas rather than card - but you could easily just use card - or maybe a larger sheet of chipboard if you have one. I started by sifting through and finding a frame for my photo then picking out some of the bits of chipboard I really liked and arranging and re-arranging until I had a composition I was happy with...

As you can see I ended up with some pieces which were coloured - but my intention was always to paint the chipboard and canvas so I knew this wouldn't matter. I started by giving the whole thing a couple of coats of white gesso...

Once this had dried I chose a colour from my photo - the turquoise colour of my cat's eye's and decided to focus on this colour for painting the canvas. I concentrated on the areas with chipboard - dry brushing the edges. I used a couple of different shades to try and give a bit of interest...

To give more dimension and some sparkle I sprayed the canvas with turquoise cosmic shimmer spray, then after drying I added gems and then used silver/white glitter glue on top of the chipboard pieces. I finished by adding some white roses and my photo...

Those who know me will know that this is not my my usual scrapping style but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out - If you have a go at your own mixed media page using your left over bits of chipboard, I'd love to see the result.

Now, what to do with the rest of that drawer of chipboard...

Sketch Prompt with Ann

Time for a sketch prompt from me and many of you know I love a tag, or a lable or indeed most stationery items and I tend to incorporate them on my pages quite often. This sketch is based on tags which are a great way to bust your stash, you can use left overs from kits, mix and match colours or keep it simple and stick with monotones.

I have used Vicki Boutin Color Study papers which include a fab tag paper!! Makes it a little easier I guess but you can make your own tag template and then use it to cut your own choice of papers. 

Start with the basic 7 tags and arrange those first and then add your photo and embellish around to build up the detail.

Stash Busting with Karen - Scraps

 I wonder how many of you are like me and drown in an over abundance of stash. I blame people like Mel and Jill really for stocking such wonderfully tempting goodies all the time.  I love my stash so much I really don't like to throw ANYTHING away and so my scraps boxes get out of control. 

I have five big foolscap box files, colour coordinated of course, full of scraps (and I have never really been able to understand the 'how small is too small?' rule). Consequently I like pages that use up lots of scraps. 

So my challenge for you is make a layout from your scraps ... and no, I don't believe you don't have any. 

I have several examples for you to share - one of which is new and a couple are pages I made a while ago, but they all just use scraps. 

This one used two pieces of A4 card and then only scraps and a stencil 

Butterflies punched from scraps, stamped on to scraps, cut from scraps 

Punched strips from scraps (I have done this in many shapes 

Scraps cut into squares

Small strips sewn on 

So my challenge is to make a page where scraps are the main feature of your page. 

Do share your pages in our facebook group so we can all enjoy them and do breathe a sigh of relief that you now have fewer scraps than you did ... till next week! 

Stash Busting with Tracy - Washi Tape

Good evening folks.  Time to bust that Washi Tape!  Believe it or not I finished off two rolls of washi making this layout, I know, I have never seen the inside of a roll of washi either!

I taped the washi onto card, to make some blinging sparkly elements for this layout featuring Stella the disco hare, found on our surprise trip to Southend for Ann's 50th (not sure if she's mentioned that to you guys before now!!! lol)

I used a glittery teal and silver, and then a really shiney chrome for the hearts (which I had to cut by hand cause I left my punch in storage!)  

Here's another layout from a previous retreat, where I've used washi to make a feature on the right hand side, layering washi like this, in different thicknesses can create a really nice effect.  

I can't wait to see what you do to stash your Washi! 

Stash Busting Cybrcrop Challenge - Card or Tag

 

Stash Busting with Tricia - Rub ons

Hello everyone and welcome back

I have a funny relationship with rub on transfers, I love the variety the come in and how versatile they are but I'm really rubbish at biting the bullet and actually using them.  When I came across these moustache ones in my stash, I couldn't resist going to town on this layout and create a complete panel as the main feature of the page.  

Using groups of rub ons is almost like creating your own bespoke backing paper, and the best part is that no matter what your theme you can create groups of any motif or use a selection of words that complement your photos.  So hunt out those rub ons and don't forget to share your version over on the facebook page.

 

Stash Busting with Ann - Stamps

Are you like me and a lover of stamps?

I have so many and whilst I love them all I often find they lie unused in a draw so for this stash busting (though more using than busting!) I'd like to see you dig out your stamps and use them on a page - either to stamp and cut out accents to use on your page, or stamp direct;y onto the page - or indeed, as I have done in the example below, start with your stamps and make them the focal point of your layout design.

In this layout I have

- stamped directly on to the page with black ink

- stamped on white card with coloured ink and cut out

- stamped with black ink on white card and cut out

- stamped with black ink onto coloured card and paper and cut out

I then layered up the elements and placed them over the stamped background and once happy with the placement stuck them down.

To finish the page I added a title and some bee accents from Bramblefox and interdispersed my journaling amoung the hexagons to drag the eye around the page.

I look forward to seeing your stamped layouts fill up the gallery and indeed why not reach for them this weekend when you contemplate some of our challenges too.

Sketch Prompt with Jane

 I love using a sketch as a starting point - it just takes some of the Creative heavy lifting out of the equation - and then your creative juices can go to town instead on how you interpret the sketch and the ways you might adapt it to suit your photos or papers. 

In this page - I am staying true to my sketch except that I used a shaped page instead of a square one. (The black background is my kitchen worktop!!)

Here's the sketch - enjoy making it your own...

Stash Busting with Katherine - Ephemera

 

My stash busting challenge uses up only small, left over bits of paper that I could not part with and little bits of ephemera that I have gathered and not managed to use over the years.  To help work out what to do I decided on the main colours, focussing on blues and then pulled out ephemera and papers that worked with that, then sifted them into a beachy theme too.  I created my background, using colours in the ephemera - I started by using a brayer and adding a rectangle of white gesso and then went in with some turquoise and silver paint.  Once that had dried I added a stamped layer using blue ink on a chevron and bit of black on my grid stamp.  Once that was dry I looked in my box of scraps and pulled out blues that I liked and these are mostly from Vicki Boutin.  I also found a Heidi Swapp book which had some lovely punched cards that I could incorporate too.

From there I worked through my embellishments and most of these are from an older Kaisercraft range, the shells and beach hut was perfect.

I also added in a little remember tag and some stickers...everything from my stash box.

I quite liked working just focussing on colour as this was a really easy way to pull bits together, I think choosing one colour at first is probably the easiest so next time I might branch out to a few more and see what I can create.

I hope this inspires you to hunt through your ephemera and use it up on a page, I look forward to seeing what you create.

Katherine