Xmas Selfie: Layout for Scrap Africa Sketch 82

Hello there, and Happy New Year to each and every one reading this post! December is a busy month for many in the craft blogging world, but I seem to have done the complete opposite, having had an unintentional blog break for all of last month.

The darkest time of winter has been a bit tough on my family this time, and I hope the new year brings more energy for new projects. January will bring more daylight, that's for sure, and that already helps! Ideas and plans I already have plenty of. More about that soon!

Meanwhile, it' s sketch challenge time again at Scrap Africa!



Here's the sketch by Denise van Deventer.



I didn't do a lot of Christmas themed crafts this year, but now with this sketch I was inspired to. (I think it goes really well with both wintery and summery themes!)



So I chose a selfie with my little one from previous year's Christmas Eve.



I made my layout while we were at our country cottage for the holidays, so I took the extra challenge of having less supplies to choose from. For instance, I didn't use any store bought scrapbook papers, but combined my gelli prints with some re-used packaging material.



The alphabet stickers, the metallic purple flourish washi tape and the date stickers are all I took from my stash at home. The snowflake and the glittery star stickers were bought for the kids at Lidl (supermarket) and Flying Tiger (dollar store, kind of). The tag with a pocket is also from Flying Tiger, and the snowflake paper is from the stickers' package.



I started the background with a gelli print, made the stars with a texture paste through a stencil, and added some splashes with water and my new Gelatos. I got the Bright Colors set for myself for Christmas, and the colors are indeed deliciously bright! The pale blue I used here is just one of the lighter shades included in the pack.



Some red and turquoise Stickles dots give the finishing touch.





I was also inspired by the challenges at Challenge YOUrself (Happy Holidays) and Mixed Media Place (Mood Board).

At Challenge YOUrself, the continuous theme is that there must always be a photo of YOU in your layout! I take a lot of selfies and enjoy scrapping them, so that suits me well. And for those of you who don't already scrap self portraits so much, this challenge is a reason to!



In the mood board at Mixed Media Place, I was particularly inspired by the combination of sparkle and earth tones, different letter types and of course the stars!



Speaking of how dark we have it here in Finland, I looked up today's time of sunset in Espoo and it has already been at 3.28 pm. Here's a photo I took at 4.12 pm. while writing this. Note that it is considerably less dark now that it has snowed! We didn't have a white Christmas so that week it was already pitch black at 4 pm.



The upside of the northern location is that the amount of additional light is really notable each day that the spring gets closer! And of course with snow, blue moments like the one in the photo can be quite special and beautiful.

I've never been to the northernmost part of my country in the winter, during the phenomenon called the polar nights. It means simply that the sun does not rise at all during the midwinter days. In Utsjoki, the next time of sunrise will be at noon of January the 16th, can you imagine that.

Thank you for for your visit! I'm particularly thankful for all the comments, as always.

Mixed Media Christmas ATCs for Scrap Africa

Hello again, and happy December! I created this set of Christmasy ATCs inspired by the December Mood Board at Scrap Africa.



I was particularly inspired by the textures, glitter, festive mood and shades of red. The rose in the top left corner made me think of using a stencil, so I started the background with stenciling some structure paste.



I worked the background in one large piece, about A3 size. I actually started it with a scrapbook layout in mind, but couldn't think of an inspiring photo to combine with it, so I decided I was more in an ATC mood this time.



When creating with a paper of the size A3, there's actually enough for both scrapbook layout and a row of ATC backgrounds. A3 short side is a quarter inch short of a regular 12x12 scrapbook paper, but I don't mind a difference this small in my projects. I think it's handy and economical to buy art paper for mixed media scrapbooking, even though the sizes have not been created with scrapbook albums in mind.



Can you guess what other media I have used?



There are quite many layers actually. Over the stenciled paste, I first painted some parts with tube watercolours and other spots with acrylics. You can perhaps see the fluorescent red that pops out a bit. That, for example, is an acrylic paint.



I used two different lettering stamps that are among my very favourites at the moment: historical script-looking Liesbeth's Letters from Art Journey and an old one that looks like scribbly handwriting.



For the main embellishment, I used wood veneer Christmas trees that I had first gessoed white and then heat embossed with a white gold shade.



I also used paper scraps, washi tape and a velvety flourish fabric tape.



I am also joining the following challenges: Christmas at the Artistic Stamper, and Merry & Bright at the Mixed Media Monthly.



Thank you for popping in! Do check out what the rest of the DT did and join our challenge at Scrap Africa until the end of December!

Red Shades and Hexagons: Another Mixed Media Fall Colours Tag

Hello! Here in Finland the winter has come early and the earth is already covered in snow. It came so early indeed that I'm still finishing my last pieces with fall colours!

Today I'm posting a tag similar to the one I made last week as the DT for this month's Scrap Africa Sketch Challenge.





A couple of process photos, the first depicting how I used Glossy Accents in some of the hexagons and the second trying all the elements in place.





I am entering my tag in the following challenges: Bumaga-Maraka: It's All in the Details. I chose Bright/Shiny Accents, Circles and Hexagons. And Crafty Life: Anything Goes.













Thank you for your visit, and especially all the comments, as always!

Dark Green and Hexagons: Autumn Tag for Scrap Africa Sketch 80

Hi! November is here, and it's Scrap Africa sketch time! (Sorry for posting late!)



I was happy to work with this one since I love hexagons.



I've been admiring the cool mixed media tags that people do and wanted to give it a try.

I started by colouring two manila coloured tags with Distress Inks. I often choose to work on more than one piece, especially if it's something fairly small or something I haven't tried before. If one does not work out, there'll still be the other, and maybe it works better in one colour than the other.



I recently got some Prima Resist Canvas Shapes and this is the first time using them! I dyed them with mists and let them drying. Next, I cut hexagons in different sizes, and gave some of them a glossy finish with the Glossy Accents glue. The canvas shapes and hexies would take pretty long to dry and it suited me fine to leave them overnight.



I then went on making layers for the tag backgrounds. I stamped with two different text stamps and heat embossed them using Lindy's Stamp Gang Midnight Teal powder. I also used thin gold-foil striped washi tape and acrylic inks.



Next, I arranged the hexies and swirls in place, adding some white and dark blue sewing thread.



And on top of it, I had these really pretty cardboard and vellum poppy flowers. I still wanted to add a bit of something so I glued some micro pearls on the flower and some Perfect Pearls and Stickles onto the flower and on the side.



Thank you so much for taking a look! I hope to see you again here and of course joining the challenge at Scrap Africa!

Hello Friend − Layout for Scrap Africa Sketch Challenge 78

Hi! Happy Friday, and happy September! It's monthly challenge time again at Scrap Africa!

I felt like making a light and neutral coloured layout with some mixed media elements on the background. I'm still using my Krafty Travel Kit I joined the Counterfeit Kit Challenge with last month.



This month we have an elegant simple sketch with a circle around the focal cluster.



I'm also sharing a couple of photos of how I got the layout started. For the background, a cardstock colour called Straw was suitable for my idea, light but not completely white. I had spread a very light layer of gesso on it previously. The journaling card, the gold and white striped straw and the paper with the crosses or plus signs are from my Counterfeit kit as well as the cardstock.



Due to having a toddler at home, I quite often start my projects at night, choosing materials and trying different layouts. If it's already late at that point, I don't necessarily do anything else but just "sleep on it", and next day I have a better idea of how to go on.

The photo with my messy table below is about a trick I have learned at patchwork quilting.



That is, for checking if the layout still looks mainly white when I add the plus sign paper and the blue journaling card.

Sometimes it's hard to compare the lightness value of different elements from up close, so it helps to look from a distance. Blurring your eyes a bit or taking a blurry photo, like I did here, confirms that the other elements are fairly close to the background in lightness value. I wanted it to be this way so that it's just the photos that pop out from the background, not the whole cluster of elements.



At the point of taking the photo above, my 2-year-old had been drawing beside me, and I wanted have the mark of his pen on my background, too. He and his brother are also the stars of the layout, so it felt like a nice way to keep a memory of his first drawings!



In addition to the doodling, I used mists, white and gold structure pastes, yellow Paint Pen and turquoise Stickles for the circular frame.





The chipboard rocking horse is from Wycinanka. I used blue acrylic paint on it first, let it dry and embossed around the edges with Midnight Teal from Lindy's Stamp Gang. Last layer is clear embossing powder. The separate stars that came with the horse just have the blue paint and the clear powder layers.



Apart from the thin washi tape strip in the top left corner, I felt like no more embellishments were needed this time!





Thank you so much for looking. I hope to see you at Scrap Africa!