The back of my cover page includes stickers from October Afternoon, explaining the book and with the names of my family members and our age.

Hi there Christine here with a couple of cards using Kaisercraft's Rustic Harmony.....



This Collection is beautiful with lovely colours and papers.  The patterned papers I have used are from the paper pad, the patterns are smaller which is great for cards and also there are 3 or 4 specialty papers in the pad. I cut out the frames from cream cardstock with a favourite die of mine - Spellbinders A2 Filigree Delight. Then I layered up various Butterfly dies with the patterned paper - I used Spellbinders die -Wonderful Wings and the MFT dienamics -Butterflies.  Easy to add in some pieces from the Collectables pack which I find great to use, and a bit of bling and you are done!

TFL!

Happy Creating!

Christine

Good morning! I hope you're all having a lovely, restful long weekend-- and maybe taking the chance to get some crafting done, too. :) It's Lisa here, and today I'm sharing a couple of layouts I've made with Kaisercraft's lovely Rustic Harmony range. The papers have a shabby chic, rustic style, with lots of texture and muted colours. Good fun to play with!



My first layout has plain white cardstock as the base, with some of the Amity paper layered on top. The pale, muted florals in this design are gorgeous. On the left, I've used one of the 6x4 Captured Moments cards, featuring a quote I really like. I've teamed that with three photos on the right-hand side, using circles and curved images to break up all the straight lines of the rest of the page. Along the very bottom, I've used a lace border, taken from the sticker sheet. Some veneer shapes, a die-cut butterfly and some bling gems finish it off.

A closer shot is below:


My second layout also has a sheet of white cardstock as a base, but this time I've used some Ranger Distress Stain in Worn Lipstick to add touches of colour. I kinda smooshed it on (highly technical term there, I know) until I was happy with the effect. To tone it down a little, I blended over it with another colour of Distress Stain: Picket Fence. That gave me the faded look I was wanting.

Around the edges, I layered a selection of fabric and paper flowers, some of the Collectables, veneer shapes and bling gems, along with some Captured Moments text stickers.


On the other corner, I added a piece of striped cream and grey ribbon, along with a few more embellishments. A piece of crochet lace ribbon along the very bottom of the layout to finish everything off, and it was all done. :)

You can view and order the complete Rustic harmony collection online here. Have a great holiday weekend, and as always, thanks so much for looking!

Cheers,
 Lisa :)

Those of you who know me, will know that I am obsessed with mixed media. Nothing could make me happier than pulling out my mediums, paints, stencils, canvas.....in fact ANYTHING and play.

Today I thought I would share with you a little mixed media tutorial, to show you how I go about making a simple mixed media layout step by step.

My apologies for the terrible photography. Night time in my craft room is a tad dismal!!

The first step  is to take a piece of Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas. ( Liz and the girls can get this is for you, if you wish to try this technique )
I have used a Prima marketing stencil over the top, and have used gel medium through the stencil, using a palette knife. An old credit card works just as well.

You can find gel medium here in the shop, and of course there are a heap of different stencils here


Carefully remove the stencil, and put the canvas piece aside to dry thoroughly. You can CAREFULLY use a heat gun to dry, but take special care to not "boil" the gel medium, as it will bubble up and may burn as well. .....but you can speed up drying, just keep a close eye, and pull back if it starts to burn!!! Don't ask me how I know this!!!


For this next step, I am using some sprays from Lindys Stamp Gang. Again Liz can get these in for you if you wish to add to your collection! There some of the Lindys Sprays available in the shop here
See the design on the canvas? This is the gel medium that has dried, and will act as a resist to sprays, inks, paints etc
HOW COOL IS THAT?



To start, I have misted my canvas with a good spritz of water. This just means that the colours will be less bright in the beginning. Better to start of pale, and build up the layers. Once you have zapped your canvas with spray you cannot get it off!! The thing with the Lindys products is, that they are fabric friendly ( or unfriendly if you have a woopsie and spray yourself). You can use them to alter
t shirts etc, which I am sure will be of interest to many. I think we all have a t shirt where we have spilled, and stained the front. Maybe a stencilled design could be just the thing to extend the life of a favourite shirt!



Now its time to build up some papers, in this case I have used Captured Moments cards from Kaisercraft here
I fell in love with the Antique Bliss cards the moment I saw them! They are so very pretty.
I have also used some of the papers from Rustic Harmony found here
They are just stunning papers. Love love LOVE them with a passion!

I know I know its been ages since I last blogged.....but good things take time!
well I keep telling myself that....waiting waiting......
Anyway The Weddings are over (One in March and One in Oct) the bank account is now very empty lol but worth it and
that means on the horizon will be some wedding layouts - oh yea and then my Boss volunteered me to create a wedding album for a friend of his.....he thinks its a freebie....I think otherwise! but more on that in the future

So what have I been busy doing while I have been hiding from reality
well the Teddy Bear Collection from Kaisercraft ended up at my place so I got a little creative and using one of the 9'
MDF frames from Papervine created a little piece of wall art from photos of when the kids were little.

A lovely good morning all - Betsy here this morning to share some cards I have made recently.

 After a very cold day yesterday, it was a treat to wake to such a lovely Spring day today. The weather is so unpredictable these days but I do suppose it is usual for October. My thoughts go back to lambing time at the farm, with the hassles that the weather brought. We always lambed later down South as the grass did not recover until the weather warmed up - more feed for the sheep etc. It is great to be able to leave it all behind for our son and daughter-in-law - he is a very capable farmer, so we have no doubt he will manage, as he has done previously for a number of years now.

Now, here's the show and tell ladies.




Ella, our sweet grand-daughter was the recipient of this card, made using the Violet Crush from Kaisercraft. She loved it although I had to give her a lesson on how to stand it up by pushing the front up under the circle at the top. It's not that she isn't bright - it's Nana does odd cards!!






This is a simple recessed window card using a 3D image of a car. David is a bit of a car fanatic! Sorry I can't remember the collection I used here but it was a Kaisercraft. Old age is starting to take it's toll!!

Hi everyone
We're pretty excited to announce the FIVE successful ladies who are joining the Artfull Crafts Design Team for the Christmas Countdown. We get a LOT of blog traffic over the festive season, and these ladies are going to be joining the existing team to keep you inspired!


CONGRATULATIONS to Megan Gourlay, Beverley Cunningham, Fiona Angus, Christine Santos and Jessica Toulmin. We are really loking forward to working with you and we welcome you onboard. We will be introducing these ladies at the start of November and we intend to kick off the Christmas Countdown from the 9th of November. Tell your friends!

CHRISTMAS STORE IS LAUNCHED
We also want to remind you that we have a Christmas section on our website where you can find all your festive themed products in one place. Head there now and start to prepare for the season ahead.
.

Have a great day!

For the second layout I challenged myself to use this summery line for winter photos, and I love how it turned out!  Queenstown is considered a paradise, and so I thought the juxtaposition of hot and cold worked really well.  These are photos of our first and only big snow dump of 2014.

Hello! It's Lisa here, with a layout and card to share. Both were made using Kaisercraft's cute Teddy Bear's Picnic range, one of their September releases. (Yes, I'm a little late with this one. Blame it on springtime madness, or something.)

Now, here's where I admit that the "cutesy" style of crafting isn't really my thing, but that being said, this range was surprisingly fun to work with. I think it's good to be challenged every once in a while, and to try something that's not in my usual creative comfort zone.I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the results. :)

I used a base of kraft cardstock, and chose a sheet of the floral "Cuddles" paper as the background. The black & white vintage photograph I've used is one I found on the internet and downloaded-- three little girls (sisters, I suspect), all dressed up in their Sunday best dresses and hats. I thought it fitted perfectly with the sweet, slightly retro theme of this range. 

Around the photo, I've layered a selection of Collectables, buttons, some gorgeous flowers, a few wooden veneers and a strip of lovely lace ribbon along the bottom.

A couple of closer shots are below:


Thanks so much for looking, and I will see you again later in the month! :)

Cheers,
Lisa