Craft Label has released their Christmas goodies, and one part of the bumper crop is the Dovecraft Premium ‘Winter Wonderland’ collection. There’s premium paper pads, decoupage pad, clear stamps, embellishments, washi tape, ribbons and gift tags in a blue and silver colour scheme. I’ve used some of the elements to put together this 12×12″ scrapbook layout:
New in at Craft Label are the First Edition Bon Voyage paper pads. They feature two canvas designs, three spot UV designs and half the 48 sheets are double-sided. The pads are printed with soy inks and being acid and lignin-free are perfect for scrapbooking. I’ve also used the papers to make cards, five of which are featured below. I think the papers are also perfect for more masculine cards as well as travel-related projects. Here are six projects for your inspiration:
New from Craft Label: Oh So Sweet paper pads and coordinating albums. The papers are beautifully designed and coloured, with glittered and pearlescent sheets along with several double-sided designs. The designs have all things sweet – macarons, lollies, cupcakes, cake slices, cups of tea, florals and even references to Battenburg and dolly mixtures. It’s strange how a scrapbooking paper design can evoke memories, and this was no exception. Here’s a layout recording one of our favourite refreshment stops while we were staying in Boston on our US trip back in December 2016.
Craft Label have sent me a new pack of goodies. Not only are their packing boxes secure, but they’re also polka-dotted and there’s an encouragement in every one to get making. The Finding Paradise set includes paper pads in all sizes (12″, 8″ and 6″ square) along with numerous embellishment packs including coordinating washi tape, clear stamps and toppers.
It’s taken some time, but I’ve finished the journal I handmade last year and finally got round to taking and editing the photos of the finished article. I intended to journal each day before going to bed, but got a little behind whilst in New York as our room was so small that there was actually nowhere to work on a flat surface, and there was no communal area I could use either. Consequently, by the time I got to Boston, and there was space to work, I was already five days behind. Then life on the road for the final few days also meant I was doing other things at the end of each day. So it meant finishing off the work once I got home, but that brought back good memories of a lovely, and much needed, holiday.
As a format, the piano hinge worked very well – I was able to slide out each of the sticks in turn to work on the pages individually, which was far easier. The fold out sections added a little more space, and the wallets somewhere to put the various bits of ephemera that I collected along the way. With techniques from collage to napkin decoupage, hand drawn typography to watercolour illustrations, it was fun to put together. I would have liked to do more urban drawing, but for speed, mini-photos had to suffice.
Sit back, with a cuppa of your choice, and holiday vicariously as you work through the journal 🙂
This is a shockingly late, shameless promotion for all that is Ken Oliver. We’ve been Facebook buddies [like him here] for a little while (after all there aren’t that many gentleman crafters at shows and we need to stick together), and I have had the pleasure of saying hi a couple of times in person at trade shows. This February he was here in the UK promoting his new ‘own brand’ crafting goodies, and he was kind enough to do the whole selfie thing with me, demonstrate his new Color Burst watercolours and give me a promo pack of 12×12″ Studio series of papers and a 6×6″ sampler pack of his other papers.
I thought I’d use the 4×6″ journal cards sheet from his Studio collection to start off my new Project Life scrapbook, and they worked perfectly. The papers are printed on a satin finish light cardstock which feels smooth to the touch. There’s no bleed through from the Sharpies I used for some of the handwritten text, which is a bonus when working on double sided papers. As one might expect from an artist that’s been in the trade for years, the designs and colours used all work together beautifully. One slight hitch I noted when gluing things down – the satin finish does resist water-based liquids a little, as I found when I was using Zig Memory Systems two way acrylic glue. Something to be aware of, though that didn’t turn out to be too restrictive in practice – it might be more of an issue if spritzing with water/Color Burst (something I’ll test out).
Ken was also demonstrating his Color Burst watercolours. These are fine crystalline colours, conveniently dispensed from fine nozzle bottles. They appear to be similar to Brusho crystals (becoming very popular in the UK) in their reaction with water, both to make a watercolour paint, and in spritzing on the page to make vivid backgrounds. Where Color Burst beats Brusho, in my opinion, is the finer, more even crystal size and the fine nozzle capped bottle. I’ve knocked over a holed Brusho pot into my distress ink pad storage box, and the turquoise crystals continue to find their way into projects, much to the annoyance of my Tuesday night ladies… The reverse of my Project Life page shows a couple of samples from Ken’s beautiful Watercolored Memories 6×6″ papers (top left, bottom right), and the rest are Ken’s own demo sheets showing the vivid colours and dynamic reactions of the crystals with water on watercolour paper.
Thanks to Ken for having a chat, demoing his fabulous products, and especially for the goodie pack. Sorry it’s taken me so long to fulfil my promise to post about our chat!
I really have used up all the papers I was sent for this month’s projects by Jones Crafts. This 12×12″ layout uses the last of the Sandy Toes Collection. The largest ‘porthole’ is actually hiding the bit I cut out from the ‘Flip Flops’ sheet for the clock face for my beach hut, framed with a circle cut from the ‘Sandy’ sheet. I stuck a square of the ‘Ocean’ sheet behind to fill in the hole. The rest is made up of elements from ‘Beach Bum’, ‘Waves’ and ‘Sea Shells’ sheets.
Reliving a summer memory is lovely, while the sun is shining (although far from hot!). I’ve just done this 12×12″ layout using what’s left of my Kaisercraft Sandy Toes Collection after I’d made the beach hut clock. This was Esther’s first visit to a beach, and Charlie just loves playing at the water’s edge. I’ve used a Project Life style, but without the pockets, so that best use is made of the 3×4″ cards featured in the collection.
I’ve managed to eke out the remainder of my papers left over from my desktop calendar project using the Hello Today collection from Kaisercraft to make a 12×12″ layout:
The smiles are all from the internet, but could just as easily be friends and family. I’ve printed them in black and white and cut them as a circle 4.6cm diameter: initially I cut out the hexagons to make a frame and stuck the prints behind. Then when I added the hexagon white frames (e-cut) I realised there was no need to do the cutting and masking! That said, there are a couple of the hexagon cut outs mounted onto foam pads and stuck over others to give some depth to the layout. Add some of the ribbon embellishments and the sentiment matted onto white and black card and you’re done.
Sheets used: Everyday / Current / Nowadays
In my happy post on Saturday, I received a collection of papers from the newly released Kaisercraft ‘Hello Today’ collection. I couldn’t wait to get started on them – but I was still in the middle of my Advent Village workshop, so had to wait until yesterday! Over a couple of hours yesterday and today, I came up with this desk calendar:
The calendar is 7″ x 5″ and features the handy 3″ x 4″ calendar tiles alongside the inspirational quotes. By mounting the months back to back with the quotes either side of an acetate sheet which is a half inch longer, the holes for the wire binding doesn’t spoil the month title, and allows the choice of six quotes per month view. Flipping over June and turning the calendar around reveals July onwards and another six quotes to choose from. Edge your pages with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink, and use the Zutter Bind-it-all to pull it all together.
Pages used: Document / Right Now / Nowadays / Current / Mod / New
