Love This - Together

Hello I am back with some more Marion Smith Nirvana collection (from ATDML) - other than loving the colours in this collection I also really like that there are plenty of masculine papers in amongst the florals.  I choose the teal damask as my background piece (I love the black edging that comes on the paper too).  I started layering up my papers, using lots of little layers and cutting out tickets and tags and journalling spots from the papers.  Once I was happy with the arrangement I then took them all off and added some gesso on a palette knife behind where they were going.  Once that was dry I took some brown cosmic shimmer mist and created a big puddle so I could run some drips down the page.  Then onto distressing the edges of my papers, with a little tearing and some prima lacy and 7 gypsies cogs.  I made a little pocket behind the photo for the journalling.

The photo is from a trip to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and the kids walking down the hill together - I made the photo black and white and then over exposed it using a photo editing package on the computer - I like to do this sometimes as it just makes your page look a little different.

On the Meridian

Here is another page I made with some of the lovely Marion Smith Nirvana collection, and I did get quite messy with it!  Here is the pin that inspired me…pin - it is someone's artwork so I didn't want to copy the image here :)

So I started with a layer of gesso in a V shape and then my gelatos. There is a small circular sponge tool that you can get with them, I damped this and then popped loads of circles in that V shape all over the page in blues, silver and a some gold.  I had a look and wasn't too keen on the very spotty effect with my pictures, so I added some more gesso, and then smudged in gelatos and spritzed with water and then some cosmic shimmer paint to get drips….and this is the rather messy background I got as a result.  I next went to work cutting out little pieces from the Marion Smith papers like the hot air balloons and little tags, and added some 7 gypsies cogs as well as prima lace, and behind the photo is a little journal card - Remember this - all cut out from the papers.  The title is from the Glitz Finley collection.

Even though the page didn't quite turn out as I had imagined in my head, I quite like the mess, and enjoyed making it!

My Blessings

This is my last challenge over with the ladies at the Studio…and one of the hardest - no photos, which is something I don't do very often!  Since Valentine's day has just past I went with pinks and hearts and looked at some of my blessings in life.

I started the page with gesso, then cut 2" squares from lots of different papers - mainly American Crafts and Crate Paper.  I dug out die cuts, stickers, chipboard, wood veneers and decorated each of my little squares adding words that all mean something to me :)  It was great fun to make and very therapeutic, I liked that I could just pile the page high with different things that I like.  I think this page might have to go in a frame and become so wall art in our house.

There is lots more inspiration for those picture less pages over at the Studio, so here is the link.

Celebrate

This fortnights challenge at the Studio is  to use this colour palette:

I'm not a big pink person, but I love the pink with the aquas and grey, and I decided to make a party page - we were celebrating my Grandma's 90th birthday.  I used one of Marion Smiths' 6" Garment District page and cut out lots of banners in the different colours, then stuck and stapled them onto some pink twine.  I also hung my photos on a twine washing line, and then added some Prima Optimist wood veneers - I love the white effect they have, and a little gold cabochon flower that I made with thermomorph and gold alcohol ink.  I added a few little chipboard pieces from Crate Papers Flea Market line - a butterfly and the title and the alpha is from a Teresa Collins sticker sheet.  It is a really good style of page to  use up lots of little bits of papers and embellishments on.

If you would like to join us and see some more beautiful pages here is the link