LGS and Scrap Around the World May Challenge

Hi Guys! I'm back again with a tutorial for a new layout I did of Let's Get Sketchy DT as well as Scrap around the World May's Challenge. 

Let's Get Sketchy Sketch

Scrap Around the World Mood Board

This is actually an anniversary layout that I was commissioned to do. Since it's to celebrate a lasting marriage, I decided to use more romantic and soft colours. 

Following the sketch, I used 2 sheets of patterned papers (Blue Fern Studios and Bo Bunny) for my layout. I love how the pattern papers from 2 different brands manage to 'merge' together. I also distressed the edges of the paper with my Prima distress tool. 

As usual, I love to test colours at the place I know my centrepiece will covered it, hence you see a blotch of purple spray from Tattered Angels over there. I also randomly stamped on Prima Clear Stamp from Cigar Box Secrets Collection and slowly build up the area I will worked on. 

I used a mixed of texture stamps from Prima as well as Tattered Angels.

After stamping, I applied modelling paste over my Prima Lace stencil to give the layout some texture and dimension. 

Here's the final look of the layout.

I used a mixture of embellishments apart from my usual 'all flowers' style. My flowers are mainly from Prima, whereas as the rest of the paper embellishments are mainly from Crate Paper and Dear Lizzy. I also used Tim Holtz Sizzix Flourish die to diecut the chipboard flourish at the side. 

As you can see, the colours are significantly stronger. That's because after I'm done embellishing, I decided that my centrepiece didn't stood out well enough, hence I went back in with more of the purple spray. Using the spray as watercolour, I applied it around my centrepiece as a highlight. 

I am pretty pleased with how this layout turns out. I love how sweet the colours are, as well as how the papers seems to blend in well together. 

Here are some close-ups shots. :)

That's all for this post. 

I have one more post later this week. Stay tuned! :)

OFF THE RAILS SCRAPBOOKING MAY REVEAL + DT REVEAL

I am very proud to announce that I am currently a member of Off the Rails Scrapbooking Design Team. OTRS is a challenge blog that challenge your limit by providing you a mood board every month to inspire your creations. I have been participating OTRS challenges for awhile now and I am really honoured to be part of them now. So now, I am challenging you with this month's mood board, and I'll be really excited to see what you come out with!

I find this month's mood board particularly interesting. There's soft pastel colours along with intense colours. These mixture of colours really allow your creativity to run wild. Your projects will not be restricted to a particular kind of style. For more details you can click HERE!

To create this layout, I chose this patterned paper from Bo Bunny, if I am not wrong, it should be from one of their latest collection. I then pulled out my Tim Holtz stencils and using the rub-on tool from him as well, I gently rub on colours in Distress Ink Pad's Barn Door and Versacolor's Burgundy, creating this cross shaped area slightly bigger than the area I intend to build my centre piece.

See the dark blotches in the middle? It's there cause I am experimenting with the colours. I actually do this a lot. I know I am going to cover that up with the centre piece, hence I do my testing there. It's actually too dark for my liking, hence I switched to watercoloring with Tim Holtz's Vintage Photo. As distress inks activates with water, you can actually see Tim Holtz's Barn Door fading off, leaving mainly the versacolour behind. 

Call me crazy. I actually manage to screw this up. I used another of Tim Holtz Stencil with Prima's Mica Powder in Teal mixed with texture paste. The only downside is that I underestimated the intensity of the mica powder and my texture paste was actually too greenish for my liking. I really don't want to waste it so I continued to use it and covered it up with white gesso. Please don't think I screw it up entirely because I promised you the result is pretty spectacular. This is mixed media, there are ALWAYS ways to savage it. 

A little close-up on the stamping I did with Tim Holtz's mini Harlequin stamp with Kaisercraft's texture stamps Film Strips. I stamped it with Stazon Black such that it'll not run if I wish to apply paints on it. 

Here's the final look of the layout after embellishments! See! You can't really see the greenish texture paste anymore!

The flowers I used are mainly from Prima Marketing and the chipboard I used is from Dusty Attic. I also fussy-cut out this piece of Kaisercraft Speciality paper that's filled with butterflies. I think that's a real good buy as there're tons of butterflies you can use it your projects. The only thing you need is a good pair of scissors and patience.

The chipboard frame is from Crate Paper's Notes and Things collection and the chipboard sentiments are from MME's Market Street collection.

I lightly gesso-ed the flowers to give it some highlight as well as watering down black gesso to create some splatters. 

I also added a light coat of Ranger's Clear Crackle to give these chipboards some texture.

Stuffed some cheesecloth behind my centre piece as well. 

That's all for this tutorial! I will probably see you next week as I'm flying of for hols tomorrow!

Please let me know what you think of this layout of mine!

Ciao~!

Let's Get Sketchy April Week 4 Challenge

Things had been really busy for me those past few weeks. I barely had the time to scrap and to blog about it! And I finally got some time to catch up on my blog post. Haha.

The photo I used in this layout was given to me by my roommate when we lived in Germany after we returned to Singapore. This photo stayed in my wallet ever since then (I think partly because I'm lazy to clean my wallet haha). I think he has got to be favourite person I've met there so this layout is dedicated to him.

Anyway, this sketch is from Let's Get Sketchy Challenge blog where I am designing for. I particularly like this sketch as it is very generic and allows a lot of room for creativity.

I first started out with a piece of Teresa Collins patterned paper from one of her old collections. I primed it with a coat of clear gesso and then did some stencilling with 13 arts pastel spray as seen in the picture as well as a diluted version of Kaisercraft's acrylic paint in Mint in a spray bottle. 

The fun thing about this stencilling was that I did not use a stencil. Instead, I used a plastic grid meant for stitching. You can really just grab and use anything you have around your environment to craft. 

I actually let the inks pooled a little bit as well as letting it flow to create that dripping effect.

As you can see from the sketch, there're some circle elements. Instead of cutting circles and layering it behind my main piece, I decided to dilute my black gesso and using the rims of bottle caps, cups etc to create circles. I also added some splatter with the left over diluted black gesso.

Then I started embellishing! Chipboard is a diecut from Sizzix Tim Holtz Flourish Bigz Dies. I applied a coat of glossy accent on top of it after colouring it with some diluted Kaisercraft's Mint acrylic paint. I also layered my photos with pieces of scraps from my old projects. I also used some film transparencies from Tim Holtz. 

This is the final look of my layout! I loved that the whole layout is boyish yet elegant. I chose blue as my theme in the first place as I remembered Joel having the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I also forgot to mentioned that most of the flowers I used are from Prima Marketing. 

Here are some close-ups. :)

I added some black strings for added interests. I also gesso-ed my flowers to help them blend in better. 

 Alphabets stickers from Jillibean Soup. 

Added some Ranger's Clear Crackle Accent for details. 

That's all for today. 

Please stay tuned for more blog post coming real soon!

Please leave some love for me as well. Seeya! :)

Blue Fern Studios April Challenge + STYD

For this blog post, everything was inspired by Blue Fern Studios April Sketch Challenge. 

Click here for more info!

The thing about my usual style whenever I do a sketch challenge was that I will take a look at the sketch and try to remember the stuff that caught my eyes. I tend to do this as I do not want to replicate the sketch exactly and may look similar to other challenge participants. But. BUT I THINK I'M REALLY OFF THE MARK THIS TIME!!! :((

The thing I remember about this layout was that the focal point should be going from up to down vertically and I'm supposed to have some form of stripes behind my photo, keeping in mind that I need to use Blue Fern Studios products.

This is the moodboard that we set as a STYD Challenge. STYD Challenge is actually a challenge that we frequently have among my crafty friends that I befriended in a local craft store. Everytime we managed to meet up, we will have a STYD Challenge with the photo that we took during our meetup. 

Since my previous few projects are pretty sweet and pastel, I decided to go for some stronger colours. Hence I used this Kaisercraft paper from the Blue Bay Collection. As the background colour was too strong, I gesso-ed the centre portion so I could add some colours. :)

I do not know why I failed to notice that the gesso-ed part was off-center until I'm blogging about this now. Oh well, what's done is done. 

Anyway, the mists I used here are mainly from Tattered Angels in Mustard Seed and LED Red as well as 13 Arts' Pastel Cobalt and Teal and Lindy's Stamp Gang's Witch Portion Purple. As you can see, I actually let some of the colours flow, adding some dripping effect. I also watered down my black and white gesso to create some splatter. 

Next, I grab my Tim Holtz Flourish Stencil and swipe on a coat of modelling paste. Before the modelling paste dries, I quickly poured on some black embossing powder. The wet embossing paste will trap the embossing powder. The trick to this method was to be patient. I would recommend you to wait for the modelling paste to be dried before heating your embossing powder, otherwise, you might get some bubbles on your modelling paste, and your embossing powder won't look as smooth.

Then it's time to embellish! As my colours are rather strong, I went ahead with a photo with muted colours. My layering papers are from Blue Fern Studios Ombre Dreams and the 'Friends' Chipboard is from Blue Fern Studios as well. I also randomly grab some cords and circle it around my photo to give it some interest. :)

And this is the final look of my layout. 

It's rather different from the sketch, I really got too carried away that I somehow forgot about the sketch. But if it's not askew and the photo is a bit bigger, I would have thought that this layout is pretty perfect. #ohwell

Most of the flowers I used here are from Prima Marketing, with the exception of the tiny blue flowers from Petaloo and the diecuts from Maggie Holmes.

My sentiment is from Tim Holtz Phrases Sticker Book.

Here are some close-up shots.

I mixed some beads with matt medium and applied it on random places on the layout as details. 

That's all for today's post. 

Please leave some love in the comment section below! 

THANKS! <3

Let's Get Sketchy Challenge

This layout is for Let's Get Sketchy April Week 2 Challenge as inspired from this sketch. For more details you can click HERE.

My final layout is pretty different from my usual style, it's less on the mixed media and more on layering (AND NO FLOWERS!!!). Haha.

Most of the products I used here are from Crate Paper. Some of the embellishments are from Mambi Stickers, Tim Holtz Rub-Ons, Amy Tangerine Stickers.

I chose a BW photo for this layout as the colours are pretty bright and colourful, hence BW photo gives a very good contrast.

I actually did layering first and intend to stop there. However, in the end I actually decided to add some colours to the back of my paper that was not gesso-ed. I used Tattered Angel's Patina Blue, Mustard Yellow and Tim Holtz's Distress Stain Spray Milled Lavender. I first sprayed them on my craft sheet and used them as my watercolours. I think the trick is to really water down your watercolour, instead of applying it with a mere wet brush. If your brush is really wet, you actually get the opportunity and some time to 'manoeuvre' your colours before they get soak into the paper and create harsh lines.

As the finishing touch, it's always nice to add a some splatter. In my case, I watered down my black gesso and splatter it around my centerpiece.

That's all for today's post.

Thanks for reading. :)