Artfull Crafts: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

October Winners!

THANKS to everyone who entered the October Challenge - In the Pink. We loved looking at the variety of entries.Who knew there were so many "PINKS" out there!

Please head to the Gallery to check out the fabulous entries and leave comments to encourage the crafters. We all love positive feedback. And check the blog again tomorrow to find out what the next challenge will be. We have a SPECIAL treat for November!

We have THREE winners this month. Winners, please email the shop at info@artfullcrafts.co.nz and let them know which challenge you have won and they will send off the prize to you.

Congratulations to:

1) Overall Challenge Winner

Congratulations Wendy Crowe! You've won $50 worth of pink coloured papers and embellishments
Wendy submitted 2 fabulous layouts showing her support of Breast Cancer Awareness week. One layout was filled with PINK and another used the sketch as her inspiration.

Wendy says, "One thing that cannot be forgotten amongst all of the fun Fall activities and the beautiful colors, is that there is one color that stands out above them all. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So don't forget to THINK PINK!! Show your Support for Breast Cancer research!!!"

This layout was inspired by the sketch.

2) Sketch winner

Congratulations to Tammy Dale-Hodgson for winning the Sketch Challenge!

We love the way you have used stencils, mediums, and a fun range of products to create a trendy layout.

Tammy has won a $30 pink Artfull Scrap Pack filled with coordinating papers and little mixed embellishments and ribbons.

3) New entrant winner

Congratulations to Alison Bishop for winning a $20 gift voucher. We loved Alison's cheeky cards and her comment, "I am a newbee to entering. I didn''t even know what a URL was & that had put me off before."
Congratulations for overcoming your fear! We look forward to seeing more of your work now.

Winners, please email the shop at info@artfullcrafts.co.nz and let the girls in the office know which challenge you have won and they will send off the prize to you.

Here are a few other entries for you to enjoy. We encourage you to head to the Gallery to check out the rest of the fabulous entries and leave comments to encourage the crafters! We all love positive feedback.

Jayne Barnett made this cute set of Bookend Drawers. She said that pink is not usually a colour she plays with - but we think she's done a beautiful job.

Lesley French writes, "My whimsical layout of my whimsical daughter."

Colleen create this pretty decoupage card, commenting, "Although the main embellishment is a shop brought card, I tarted it up with a little pink to make a "just because" card for a friend overseas. It included a wrapped teabag inside to follow the theme and she could sort of have a cuppa on/with me!"

Jenny Taylor has created this beautiful card with a Teresa Collins range. That pink is perfect!

Jessica Toumlin has used the sketch as inspiration for this elegant layout. You can read her blog post here

Jill Hanna made this card to celebrate her parents-in-law 66th wedding anniversary. What a great occasion!

Karla Jones writes, "A friend asked me to make an album for her daughter''s 21st. I was told she loved Kim Kardshian and Paris Hilton, so I took my inspiration from that, her daughter loved it."

We love creative ideas and here's what Judy Raynor came up with. She writes, "I had the embossed strips left over from scrapbooking and instead of throwing them in the rubbish I decided to put them on a card."

Kathy submitted 3 great entries for the challenge. We love the way she's used the patchwork effect with the Teresa Collins papers.

This is Lynn MacDonald's first time entering the challenges. She's create a classy card with Spellbinders dies and punches.

Maxine D writes, "I loved this sketch. I used bubble wrap to make the background, and added ribbon, texture, lace and embossing, and to finish the card, a butterfly". Find out how Maxine made it here

Be sure to check out the rest of the entries here and have a super week! Thanks again for entering and don't forget to check in tomorrow to see what exciting things we have planned for November.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Lady Rose and Base Coat 2

Hi Everyone! Lydia here with a couple projects from Kaiser. Today has been a cold, wet, very wintery feeling day in Colorado. A lovely day to stay in and have a play with some yummy Kaiser ranges. First up is a card from the "Lady Rose" collection. I'm not a card maker but the 12x12 paper that has tags on it is perfect for cards or layouts. A bit of lace ribbon and flowers complete it.

The "Base Coat 2" range is full of rustic looking barn wood and brick patterns. Paired with buttons, tags, twine, and a few chipboard accents, it made for a great boy layout.

Pop on over to the Artfull Crafts shop for these ranges and so much more. See you soon with some more new yummy ranges and products!

Xx,

Lydia

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Christmas Store has Launched - 20% off!

We've launched our Christmas Store!
Artfull Crafts loves to make shopping easier for you - so our dedicated Christmas Store is now live online and offers the chance to complete all your Christmas items in one easy place. We are still ordering Christmas stock - so be sure to check in regularly to see what's new.

And we're celebrating this week with 20% off Christmas items. Ends midnight Sunday 3rd November.

(Excludes new Heidi Swapp range, gifts category, or to any request items or pre-orders). Check out our albums, bling, projects, packs, papers, stickers, glimmers and glues, dies, embossing folders, embellishments, paper tole and more.

We try hard to ensure stock levels are accurate online, but it's impossible for us to have them 100% correct at all times! We'll be in touch if we're out of stock of something you've ordered to organise with a refund, or replacement.
WEEKLY SPECIAL - FREE INKLINGS For every $30 spent this week, we'll give you a FREE packet of Inklings!! Inklings are produced by Artfull Crafts and are hand-drawn by local artist Joe Ramage (Ella's brother). Leave a message at the checkout letting us know which ones you'd like. Please click here to add the weekly special to your cart.

NEW PRE ORDER WE R MEMORY KEEPERS PUNCH BOARDS + FREE SHIPPING Create personalized creations for Christmas with these new punch board from We R Memory Keepers. There are 3 new boards available to create Gift Boxes, Gift Bags and Cracker/Candy boxes. They all look amazing!! Make sure you click into each product below and then click the link that takes you to the You Tube video demonstrations. They are only 1 min 30secs long - just long enough to make me want them all!! *This is a pre-order product and is expected to arrive in store mid-late November. We will be in contact when they arrive to see if there is anything else you would like to add to your order to take advantage of the free shipping*
Candy Box/Cracker Punch Board. Click here for details

Gift Box Punch Board. Click here for details.

Gift Bag Punch Board. Click here for details.

In 2 weeks' time we will be starting the very popular Countdown to Christmas on the blog. This involves a new theme and challenge each week! Keep your eye out and join in the fun to win prizes. Head to the Christmas Store now to grab a bargain.
:-) Liz

Melissa - A Boy Layout!

Hello, here in New Zealand we all had a long weekend, the first after a long Winter. Here in Queenstown we had two days of rain and snow, with Monday being clear and beautiful.

Today I have one more layout to share that I made with Kaisercraft Base Coat 3. I used lots of the fun embellishments that Liz included to match, including some netting, a metal arrow, metal clips and some wood veneer shapes. My layout is about my son and I on a bike ride, with the photo taken at our halfway break. A group of us from church had planned to mountain bike from Arrowtown to the Kawarau Bungy Bridge along the Queenstown Trail, but we ran out of daylight, so managed to get as far as the first swing bridge before heading back.

The photo of Sam and I isn't the best photo ever, but as its the only photo from our halfway point on the bike ride I wanted to include it, and the memory, in his scrapbook.

This is a really different style for me, which is awesome as the products have totally inspired the creation of this layout. Of course I had to add my ink splatters!

Here are some detailed photos:

I kept my journaling very simple for this page, as I have another layout made that tells more about my son during the bike ride, and this layout will sit next to it in his album. The photo below shows the fun embellishments.

Thanks for looking. You can purchase Base Coat 3 in the shop here.

See you next month

Melissa :)

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Christmas Carol

Would it be scary to tell you that Christmas is only EIGHT WEEKS away????? It sure scared me!!! Time to write the lists and start to shop.
This year we have one of our overseas daughters home for Christmas, and I cant wait!

Last year, the two girls met up in the UK, and had a whirlwind trip around parts of Europe and the UK before Loren had to head back to Australia for work. I enjoyed watching their antics on facebook, and stole a couple of photos they took to complete this weeks layouts which uses Christmas Carol
from the Kaisercraft range.

In this first page, I created a background using mists and a technique using bubbles.
Simply....add dishwash detergent, and water to a cereal bowl and blow into it using a straw until the bubbles are HIGH up of the dish. Spray your favourite mist onto the bubbles ( lots will pop), then swipe your paper across the surface of the bubbles to pick up the colour. Repeat with a second or even third colour to create a lovely bubbly pattern. ( No need to change the bubble mixture in between colours)
The papers were then just layered and an embellishment cluster added. ( If you have not noticed already....I adore playing with paints and inks and mist!!!)

here is a close up of the page to see the bubbly background a little more in detail

For the second page I am sharing today, I have to confess to an "ooops moment" You know those moments when something goes terribly wrong, and you just have to "go with the flow" and make the best out of a bad moment?
Well, my ooops moment was with my pot of gesso!
My original plan for this page was something quite different, I can tell you!

I used a sponge to add a little gesso to the background of this paper seen in the shop.
Suddenly, the little bit of gesso became A LOT!!!!!
Not be deterred, I just scraped it off and spread it all around, giving the paper a whitewashed effect.( You can still see the pattern peeking through, stronger in some areas than others)
I then layered over a 12 x 12 stencil and sprayed with three or four different colours of mists. I chose two reds and two greens to work in with the theme.
I created my own star stencil using my silhouette cameo, and using a palette knife scraped a gold paint medium roughly over the template.
I then used a variety of Christmas stamps to stamp haphazardly over the page.
This pretty much made up the foundation of the layout.
To finish, I added a ripped border at the top and bottom of the page, and then arranged my photo, and patterned papers to finish the page. For a page that started out as a complete disaster, I was quite happy with the overall effect.

Hope you all are having a wonderful long weekend, and that you are able to search out a little sun somewhere in the country! If not.....its the perfect time to get into your craft room and create a page or three. Do give an artsy background a try....they are super fun!

Don't forget to enter the monthly competitions ....the end of the month is nearly here, and Christmas will be here before we know it!!!

Cheers

Sharon

Friday, October 25, 2013

Beck - Base Coat 3, In the Pink!

Good Morning Ladies! What a STUNNER of a day out there today :) We've had quite the roller-coaster of weather this week, haven't we? Cold and rainy one day, hot nor'westers the next. To be honest, I'd be happier with clear, warm days, every day. It sure would make it easier to plan things, wouldn't it!

Righto, why am I here this morning, you ask? Well, I've had a bit of a play with Kaisercraft Base Coat 3 papers this week...

This is my 'boy' take on a Centre Step card... sprockets everywhere, and lots of variety with the yummy Base Coat 3 papers.

Like anyone, I often have trouble with 'boy' cards... They are a lot harder to pull together than a girly one. Let's face it, it's really easy to make a beautiful card, chuck a few flowers and some bling on it, and hey presto, you have a gorgeous girly card. Not quite the same with boy ones! I find that making my own embellishments like stars or sprockets works really well for boy cards, as well as choosing less female-themed stamped images. This truck is an old favourite of mine :)

Now, in the polar opposite direction... this month's theme is In The Pink! With this theme in mind, I scrapped my stash this week and had a play with some Prima Lyric papers. I love love love Prima, and this has to be one of my favourite ranges. I used a Prima Tag as my base, and set to fussy cutting. I layered and layered to my heart's content, sewing some of the layers on as I went....

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Isn't that little birdie just the cutest? Then I finished it off with a bit of bling - gotta love stickles!

Now, there is one more thing I managed to get done this week... My Kaisercraft Tool Box (available for order here). I used some scrummy My Mind's Eye frame paper, and an older Prima one that I love. This is going to look SO great in my scrap room :)

Ok, that's it from me for today. Don't forget to try our challenges this month, there are great prizes to be won. I'm off to work, have a fabulous day!

Toodles, Beck x

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Christmas Box in Gingerbread from Kaisercraft

Hello my friends!

Valou today for the post of inspiration.

Christmas approaches in big step, the moment to begin my small Christmas presents. With 5 children, I have some work! Lollll

For this box, I used some paper " white Kaisercraft Cardstock " and papers "Kaisercraft", collection "Gingerbread".

Papers are used with "Old Distresser" then inked to the ink "Distress Tea Dye".

I also used some white lightweight felt for two small fir trees.

All stamps are some stamps "Magnolia" which I colored with:

- Ink " Distress Vintage Photo " and "Distress Tattered Rose" for the face.

- Ink "Distress Tea Dye", "Distress Vintage Photo" and "Distress Walnut Stain" for hair.

- Ink "Distress Worm Lipstick" for cheeks.

- Ink "Distress Black Soot".

- Pencil aquarellable red.

- Artificial snow for the fur of clothes.

- Glitter Stickels Frosted Lace.

Fir trees, behind the little boy are covered with white glitter "Tim Holtz".

Finally, on the big fir tree in the back (covered with paper Kaisercraft), I added a wooden embellishment " Kaisercraft ", " Flourishes - Mini Tear Drop Baubles ". Above, I stuck a small red strass" Kaisercraft ", as well as on my figurines to represent the buttons of clothes.

All my figurines are stuck on my box with foam pieces 3d.

On the bottom of my box, I added of the white lace then the ribbon red organza and to finish, of the ribbon of white pearly pearls.

For the decoration, I added a wooden embellishment " Kaisercraft ", " Flourishes - Mini Presents " that I covered of " Glitter Stickels Frosted Lace ".

Then, I added a white and red rose (25 mm), a red rose (20 mm) and white and brown Lilidaft. They three are all covered with "Glitter Stickels Frosted Lace".

I realized a bow with a piece of the same ribbon red organza which I decorated with a small bell in golden metal attached with a piece of fine silvery cord.

Behind the central tree of my box, I added a young white doily. Then, I added a banner " Die-cut Kaisercraft Gingerbread " that I decorated with a small white and red rose and with a small red strass " Kaisercraft ".

And here is for today!

I wish you an excellent day and find you very soon with a new realization!

Have a lovely day!

You can find the material resulting from the shop: