iCraft Australia - framed cuteness

 

Sometimes  you just want to create some framed cuteness. The beautiful Bloom de Fleur is a beautiful paper range with some lovely papers that are just perfect for fussy cutting and creating smaller projects. 

Making these smaller projects is a great way to experiment with paints, stencils, mediums and try out different techniques. 

I started with the wooden square frame and painted with iCraft Black gesso. Once dry, painted the base with the beautiful blue 'global waters' chalk paint. Using the Decoupage Papers - Monochrome, tore smaller pieces and glued to the base. You will still see the blue chalk paint through however it breaks up the colour. Add more texture by stenciling some blue and white chalk paint on the decoupage paper. Once dry, flick watered Global Waters paint to add more interest.  

Cut a range of small pieces from the paper range including a square tab, butterfly, flowers, words and  bumble bees. I cut out the smaller flowers to compliment the size of the butterfly. 

Start by layering the larger cut out pieces on the base and then mount the butterfly on foam tape to raise up. Glue the flowers on the edges. You may need to trim and layer to raise up. Glue fine lengths of gauze under the butterfly to add a whimsical look. Finish off with the bumble bees and some arty stones on the edge of the flowers, gauze and butterfly. 

My final touch was to add some watered down silver chalk paint  on the frame to add a hint of colour. 

Below are some of the products used in this project. Click on the item to link to the iCraft products. 

For a full range of iCraft products, please follow the link bellow:

https://tinamarie.com.au

iCraft - Cuteness, Love and Flowers

 

The beautiful iCraft paper range called Country Garden was perfect for a layout with lots of fussy cutting. 

Prepare  your wooden embellishments with chalk paint. For the honey comb pieces paint with Minnesota Pines mixed with some white gesso. This creates a softer green to compliment the back ground colours.  Paint the words and heart arrow with the full colour of  Minnesota Pine. Add some lightness, use watered down white gesso to take down the solid colour . Paint the leafy wooden pieces, with Deep Waters. Once dry, dab watered down white gesso to add depth to the painted surface. 

Assemble your layout - mat your photo on 3 pieces of complimenting papers and use foam tape between the layers. I always align slightly off centre which adds a feature to the layout. I started with a base paper that also featured flowers and added in a range of fussy cut flowers of various sizes to sweep the blooms from the top left around the photo and bottom right up on the left hand size. Arrange your flowers on the layout adding some foam tape to raise the top ones to add depth. Once adhered, slide the wooden embellishments under the floral arrangement making sure that is is off centre. To finish off, I added some watered down Deep Waters chalk paint under some of the flowers to add depth to the background. 

I have added some close up photos of the layout and some of the products used. 

For a full range of iCraft products, please follow the link bellow:

https://tinamarie.com.au

  

  

Beautiful - iCraft Australia

 

Hi iCraft friends - It was time to do a pretty scrapbook layout and the beautiful Purple Blossoms paper range was perfect for a photo of my Mum and Granddaughter. I loved the   layering that you could do with the wooden embellishments, fussy cut pieces and cut outs in the paper range. I also wanted to add a small amount of mixed media to give the layout some texture and depth. 

I applied a mixture of modeling paste and Jasperware chalk paint with a stencil (8563) randomly on the page - focusing on the top and bottom left side as well as bottom right hand side. The aim is so you could see parts of the stenciled pattern. Before it was completely dried, sprinkled Arty Balls and Crystal shimmer on top. You only want a bit to catch in the wet paste. While I waited for it to dry, I fussy cut the purple flowers, leaves from the paper range as well as painting the wooden Embellishments - frame and word in Wine and Dine Chalk paint and the foliage in Minnesota Pine. To add some extra layering, I cut out some of the hanging flowers from the other pieces of paper and some of the 'notes' embellishments

You can start layering. Tip: start with your photo and frame and raise it with foam tape so that you can work around it. I always adhere my main photo first so I can place some pieces underneath. 

Once you are happy with you layering, glue or tape down. For some of the leaves, I also raised on foam tape so that they were raised up and added some depth to the layout. 

Tip: Move your flowers and leaves around placing some on top until you are happy with the layout and then glue down. I sometimes take a photo with my phone of where I want everything just in case I have to move pieces and don't want to forget where I was putting them. 

Final tip: if you have a layout that is focused all on one side, it is always good to balance it out with something on the other side. Doesn't need to to be big, even some flowers, a word or cluster of small tags. However in the end it is your layout so do what you feel is right for you. 

I have added some close up photos of the layout and some of the products used. 

For a full range of iCraft products, please follow the link below:

https://tinamarie.com.au

. 

I hope you enjoy and would love to here from you in the comments bar below. Have a great day :) 

  

  

Craft on The Run - Mintay Childhood - Using Photo Mat pages

Hi Everyone - Rosalie here and back using one of my favourite MIntay paper ranges - Childhood. 

One of the challenges people find with some papers, is what to do with photo mat papers. Often you end up with a couple of photo mats used and a left over piece of paper that you just don't know what to with. 

To help with some ideas, I have created a layout using the photo mat page from the Mintay Childhood range which uses all of the pieces in the photo mat paper in the layout and features 6 - 3x4 photos. 

This layout can be used for any of the  photo mat pages from the Mintay range. 

 I have used 3 pieces of the Mintay Childhood range and 1 piece of card stock (red). You can use any colour base card stock that  compliments the paper range. 

Start by trimming the centre out of the red card stock. I like to save these pieces for other layouts when I need to photo mats, however you don't need to if you prefer not to cut the centre's out. You wont be using this centre piece for this layout. 

Trim the blue and white star paper (B side) 1/4 inch from the top and right side. Adhere to the red cardstock as your base. You can distress edges if you want to. For this layout I didn't distress edges. 

Next, take your photo mat page and select 6 of the rectangles that you would like to use for your fussy cutting. I selected the ones with the backpack and larger pictures to fussy cut. The other 6 will become your photo mats. 

 

Fussy cut the 6 photo mats that you will use for your lay out. 

Stick the 6 photo mats to your base page using foam or chip board to give height. I have put a small piece of foam tape in the centre to start with as you will need to be able to slide your embellishments under when you are assembling. I have attached my 6 photo mats approximately 11/2 inch from the top and 13/4 from the left side. 

I have also fussy cut extra embellishment's from the fussy cut page. I have circled the ones that I have used however you can add as many as you like. 

Start to assemble your fussy cut pieces around your photo mats. The aim is to make sure that you have some pieces under the photo mats, so you can just see them and also raised up and slightly over your photos. If it helps, put your photos on and that will give an a guide of what parts of the photos will be covered by the fussy cutting. 

Add the remaining fussy cut pieces from the page. Again, you may want to have many of the pieces 'peeking' out from under the larger fussy cut pieces. It is also a good way to fill in some of the negative space. I have used foam tape to raise some of the smaller pieces such as the pencil and blue ball behind the scooter on the left. When you are happy stick every thing down including your photos. 

 

 

Finally - add some titles. I have added chipboard over the photos. I will also add  journaling later and will put that under the photos to the left side. 

I hope you have enjoyed my layout and would love to see some of your layouts using some or all of my ideas.