Beautiful, by Amanda Hartmann

Dear Scrapping Clearly fans!

Today we go pretty and pink! I used the Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams collection. 

Check out this sneak peek......

And here is the full page...

I fussy cut some butterflies (from the Monarch paper), and I machine stitched them to a beautiful Collected paper. 

To finished I added water washed white gesso and splatters, as well as splatters of Colour Blast Shimmer Spray in Punch.

I also included some fun pink brads and a small pink Heidi Swapp puffy sticker.

A simple and sweet layout - I made the page all about these amazing papers!

Thanks for looking.... 

BONUS PAGES!

Here are a couple of extra pages I created, using other papers from the amazing Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams collection.

Happiness & Cocktails | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone!

It's Sue Plumb back again today to share my latest guest designer project with you.

For today's post I wanted to go "back to basics" and create a fun 12x12" scrapbook layout that was focused on paper. (My love of paper is, after all, what first led me down the rabbit hole of scrapbooking.) I chose to document some fun photos that were taken almost a year ago at my retreat on the Sunshine Coast.

The collection I chose to pair with my photos was the 'Good Vibes' collection from Crate Paper. This collection is full of bold, playful patterns - perfect for pairing with my retreat photos!

I began with a sheet of the Girls Night paper as my layout base, which I topped with a sheet of white cardstock, that I trimmed down to measure 11x11". This left me a nice, even 1/2" patterned paper border all the way around the edges.

I then turned to my other papers and was immediately drawn to the gorgeous All Good paper, with its rich colours, florals and sweet bird motifs. I cut a large rectangular piece which I placed vertically on the left side of my page. I then cut a smaller piece of the Hashtag paper and layered it horizontally over the top.

Next, I cut one of the stripey pattern strips from the Passion paper, which I added on top to provide a strong, horizontal line on which to place my photos. 

I still wanted more layers behind my photos though, so I cut two tags from So Chill cut apart paper; punching a hole in each and then tying them with twine. These were then tucked in underneath where my photos were going to go. I also tucked a small white doily into my layers before sticking my photos down.

For my page title, I cut the large "happiness" piece from the Big Heart foil accent specialty paper and placed it below my photos. I then used some blue Pinkfresh Studio 'Boys Fort' Mini Alpha Stickers to complete my title. (These are such a cute size, and there is also a sheet of both tan and green alphas included in the pack.)

With so many busy patterns at play, my layout required very few embellishments (as the papers had already done most of the hard work for me). I reached for the remaining piece of the All Good paper I had used earlier and fussy cut one of the little birds from it. I the added it to my page using foam tape to give it some dimension.

Above my photos I added a gorgeous 3D butterfly embellishment from the One Canoe Two Globe Gallery range.

To finish off, I added a scattering of blue sequins from the Teresa Collins Urban Market Sequins pack. (These were the perfect match for the blue of our cocktails!)

That's all from me today, I hope I have inspired you to get back to basics too and create something featuring lots of pretty papers too. 

Until next time, happy scrapping!

Inspired by the December Mood Board - Christmas Cards with DT Katie Howard

Well we are in the thick of December now, how is everyone's shopping going? Me, well I have done some, but my holidays start half way through next week so I have a little time up my sleeve to finish things off!

Today I thought I would share some simple Christmas cards inspired by the December Mood Board and cards on Pinterest (who doesn't love wasting time here?!).

So here is the Mood Board:

I was inspired by the natural and neutral aspects in the pictures, the trees and the wreaths and also the darker greens and this is what I came up with:

I started with a cream base card and added a background using Maggie Holmes Gather paper in Kindred, which was perfect with it's leather look and stitching. I love that it looks like I stitched on the page! I used some more of the Gather collection in Magical, So Sweet and Beautiful to cut tall triangles to make some trees. This card is perfect for using up your scraps! I added some faux stitching through the trees using a black paint pen and topped them with stars from Heidi Swapp's glitter puffy sticker alpha set (I love when they have more than just alphas!) and a chipboard star from the Crate Paper Good Vibes collection. I finished with a Christmas stamp sentiment from an old stamp set I have and there you go one quick card.

This second card is inspired by the wreaths and in keeping with the darker greens and neutral colours. This is also a great card to use up left over scraps. I started by punching out some circles in 0.5 inch and 0.75 inch sizes from the following papers from the Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams collection: Be Happy, Garden Club, Gold Glitter acetate and Lovely and also My Story from the Gather collection (this one is a gorgeous light wood patterned paper). Once I had an assortment of circles in patterns and sizes I drew a rough circle outline and then began layering and filling in the circle. Once I had the punched circles down, I added some sequins from the Pink Paislee Birthday Bash pack which included the gold stars as well, but pick whichever sequins suit your colour scheme! The I added a puffy sticker bow from the Chasing Dreams collection and stamped a Christmas message, and a second card is born!

So a quick and simple couple of cards for you to try out and use up some of your scraps. Thanks for stopping by today and catch you next time!

Katie x

From the Heart - Scrapbook page with DT Katie Howard

Hello, hello, can you believe that it is November already?! This year is going way way to quickly, not to mention I am not ready for the summer heat that comes along with the end of the year. We have been sweltering through some very humid and hot days recently and let's just say I don't cope very well when I am hot and uncomfortable 😂.

Enough chit chat, today I am sharing a page that I created inspired by the November Inspiration board.

Isn't it luscious?! Lots to inspire in this board. I started with the softer peachy reds and pinks for my colour palette and then the shoe inspired my to think of a ballet shoe and this made me think of my little dancer niece and from this a page was born!

Here is my final page:

I pulled out some of the bits and pieces I still have from the Maggie Holmes Gather collection, and let me say this, there are lots of beautiful soft reds, pinks and peaches in this collection, not to mention the dancer bits! It worked perfectly with my page theme.

I decided to do a colour block style background, a great way to get more patterned paper on your page without it becoming too busy overall, especially if you choose the smaller patterned papers.

I created some matting behind my photos including lifting some up on foam tape to allowing the tucking in of chipboard embellishments later on. The papers that I have used are: Details, Jane, You+Me, Kate, Magical and My Story.

I pulled out some of the ephemera that matches and decided to utilise one of the cards as a title, thought it fit well as I am sure all dancers are performing "from the heart"! There was some great acetate pieces in the ephemera as well that worked in nicely along with some chipboard from the chipboard sticker sheet and the thicker set. Remember too, if you are tucking pieces in behind a photo, cut it in half or there abouts so you can two for the price of one! I did this with the chipboard rose peeking out from the photo mat above.

I just loved the dancer silhouette acetate piece from the ephemera set, it was the perfect match for this page! I also added some splatters creating the perfect colour from mixing some of my distress oxide inks to match. I used Dried Marigold, Picked Raspberry and Worn Lipstick, and I think it created the perfect match!

I created another little cluster of embellishments at the bottom, again cutting a piece in half. This time the acetate wreath which I also tucked into the paper strip, then I layered some other pieces on top including some words/ phrases.

A relatively simple page, but packed full of interest with the embellishment clusters, layering and tucking in of embellishments.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.

Katie x

Inspired by the October Mood Board Part 1 - with DT Katie Howard

Good Morning, I hope you are all well this fine October morning. Yes October, already, let that sink in... the downhill slide into Christmas and that is another year done and dusted. Crazy I say!!! Anyone else feeling that way? I know each year seems to disappear quicker and quicker, but sometimes it is just ridiculous how time flies.

Any way, now that is out of my system I thought I would challenge myself and hopefully all of you as well, on looking at our mood board challenges in different ways and maybe spark some inspiration that you may not have had when you first looked at the board.

So to do this properly I will be doing three posts this month, each one taking inspiration from the October mood board, and I will walk you through my thinking. So, let's start with the board!

Isn't it pretty? Full of glorious shades of green, well that is the first and most obvious element, but what else is there that could spark some creativity? That is what we will explore over the next few posts. 

So, for my first page inspired by the board, I was definitely inspired by the greens, but I was also inspired by the circles in the top image so I combined these two into my page.

I chose to use the softer, more blue greens that you can see in the top image. Partly because they worked really well with my photo and partly to show you don't have to include everything you see on the board, you can pick and choose which elements work for you or inspire you to create. 

So to start I cut 2.75 inch circles out of some white cardstock, I used my silhouette cutting machine to do this, but this is certainly a job you could do by hand too. Before I backed the circles with patterned paper I grabbed some of my distress oxide inks (yes these inks, again, what can I say, I LOVE them!) and used the plastic packaging technique to add some colour to the background. I was clever too, I placed another piece of white cardstock underneath and ended up with a second background for another time! The colours that I used were: Bundled Sage, Lucky Clover, Mowed Lawn and Cracked Pistachio.

To back my open circles I used appropriate green papers from the Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Gather and Chasing Dreams collections. You would be surprised at just how much green there was between these collections. I also matted my photo with some of the patterned papers and cut some tabs to tuck in behind the photo and the mat.

I also used some of the embellishments from these collections including vintage buttons, puffy stickers, cardstock stickers, ephemera and chipboard.

I used two different fonts for my title, along the lines of a sub-title and title. For the sub-title I used some Heidi Swapp glitter puffy stickers, which are cursive and fine and you can kind of join them to look like one scripty word. The little black hearts are also from this set.

For the main title I went with a more simple sans serif style font. This one also lends some subtlety through its cross hatch pattern on clear backing, giving it less weight than if it had been solid black. This one is from Pink Paislee Bella Rouge collection and comes with lots of letters and numbers in the set.

Ok, well that is part one of inspired by the mood board. I hope you will swing by for part two with another and different take on the same mood board.

Until then,

Katie x

History - Inspiration Board Layout by DT Katie

Good Morning and welcome to Saturday! Are you scrapping this weekend? I wish I was, I am working all day today, but at least I have Sunday off!

Today I am sharing a page that I have created inspired by the August Inspiration Board challenge. Have you given it a go yet? It is an awesome board, let's have a look at it first:

What inspired me first of all was the colours, aren't they gorgeous? Then I was inspired by the paint strokes of the colours, so I decided to create a background using my distress oxide inks and take it from there. Here is what I finished with:

My background was so easy to create, I simply swiped the ink pad across the page! The colours that I thought matched the colour palette best were: Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon and Tea Dye.

With a background so vibrant I didn't feel that I needed to do too much more, so I created some layers using so Crate Paper scraps (Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams and Gather) that I had laying around:  Delicate, Moments and Kindred. I also used some Heidi Swapp Color Magic banners that I swiped through some distress oxide ink to colour.

I used some of the Maggie Holmes Gather Thicker accents for some of my embellishments to create a small cluster above my journaling. I love using the Posca Paint Pens for writing on mixed media backgrounds too.

My title uses a simple grey thicker, these ones are Maggie Holmes Stylist in Charcoal, they are perfect because they don't compete with any of the other colours but still stand out.

I used some more Gather thicker accents as well as some ephemera from the Gather collection and a cute wood epoxy in just the right shade of blue! And to finish it all off I used some Distress Spray in antiqued bronze to splatter around my page, the perfect touch of metallic!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have a go at the inspiration board too!

Katie x

Happy Day LO with DT Katie Howard

Good Morning! So has it been cold enough where you are lately? We certainly have been having a cold snap all over the country this past week or so. Lots of layering happening, even when we are chilling in front of the TV!

Today I am popping in to share my take on the July mood board. I know a few of you took up the challenge to do this one along with the other cyber crop challenges which is awesome! First let's look at the mood board:

Beautiful isn't it?! And you can see the gallery where people have been loading up fabulous entries here. I was taken with the pretty colour palatte and used that as my starting point. I found that Crate Paper Good Vibes had some perfect papers to match the palette and decided to run with that! This is the page that I came up with:

How good is this collection for the mood board? I started with the Hashtag paper, then added some smaller bits of Girls Night and All Good. To mat my photos I used the beautiful blue dot paper (one of my favourites!) Passion, and the reverse of All Good gave me the splashes of kraft.

I created a small cluster in the bottom corner using some scraps of the Passion to bring in the blue, layered with some of the ephemera and chipboard. I love that there are cork shapes included in the ephemera pack! And how cute is the little teal glitter bow? This is a Heidi Swapp pretty.

I created another cluster at the top corner of the photo, also using ephemera, chipboard and another little glitter bow, well because it is cute and sparkly! And check out the splatters! I created these using my go to distress oxide inks. I am so excited there are new ones coming out! Have you pre-ordered yours yet? I used Evergreen Bough, Picked Raspberry and Faded Jeans in this and they were a great match to the papers and mood board.

I decided to go gold an sparkly with my title and these AC thickers were perfect. Can you see they are gold glitter on pink foam, so they match the colour scheme completely! To finish off I typed up some journaling and printed this out and cut into thin strips. This is a great way to add journaling that becomes a design feature as well.

Well, that is it from me today, I hope you get the chance to play with the July mood board yourself, we all just loving checking out everyone else's interpretations!

Katie x

Inspired by the June Challenge - Scrapbook page with DT Katie

Good morning, good morning! I am off to the big craft show in Brisbane today to help out on one of the stands, I think it will be a busy day, but always lots of fun. I especially love catching up with all of my crafty Facebook friends. Do you have craft shows like this that you can go to?

So who has had a chance to look at and maybe start something using the inspiration board or sketch for the June challenge? It is a really fun one, both the inspiration board and the sketch. Check out the blog post here for more details.

I was taken by the rainbow and decided to make a fun splattery (apparently this isn't really a word, but I am still going to use it!) background using my distress oxide inks. I then selected some pretty Crate Paper Maggie Holmes papers from Gather and Chasing Dreams for the rest of the page.

 The colour inks that I used were: Candied Apple, Carved Pumpkin, Squeezed Lemonade, Lucky Clover, Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet. I used the packaging technique by smooshing (another good word!) the ink pad onto the plastic, spritzing with some water and mixing, then adding to my background. I also added some splatters using a round brush in some of the left over liquid ink.

I chose some rainbow coloured patterned papers from the Gather and Chasing Dreams collections to keep the colour theme going, which was fine since my picture was in black and white. I used: Garden Club, Cheerful and Delicate from Chasing Dreams and Favourite, Moments and So Sweet from Gather. Between these two collections are most of the rainbow colours! I used one of the papers to cut and make my own tags, which is a really easy way to turn your papers into an embellishment, and you don't always have to make them full size, you can make them from scraps for layering too.

On my tags I used wood epoxy's from the Gather Embellishment pack, as well as some thicker stickers from the Gather Thickers. Look at how pretty that distress oxide ink is!! These are my favourite inks (for now!), and I think I might keep mentioning that each time I use them, sorry if I sound like a broken record!

I used some ephemera from Gather including this sort of tag that was perfect for the title. And I love using little word stickers and phrases scattered around my page for interest. 

The bottom embellishment cluster used a frame from the Gather chipboard sheet as well as some more ephemera and the pretty bow from the embellishment pack.

With a sketch and some inspiration that page came together so quickly! I hope that you have a go too, don't forget there is a prize up for grabs!

Thanks for stopping by,

Katie x