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

Page in the Making - Part 2 - with DT Katie Howard

Welcome back! Glad you could make it back to see how my background turned into a page. First, let's have a little reminder of what my background looked like:

And if you wanted to check out how it came together check out the blog post here.

Given how bright and busy the background was I decided I didn't need to do much to create a page, pick out the right photos add a little paper and few embellishments and call it done! I decided to run with some patterned papers in black and white so they would stand out from the background and a splash of pink because it matched! I selected some papers from the Maggie Holmes Gather collection and the Crate Paper Good Vibes collection (some great black and white prints in these collections, not to mention pretty pinks!)

So without further ado, the finished page:

I backed the photos on some patterned papers, layering with black and white prints and some pink in between, just enough to help them stand out on the background. I added some foam mounting tape behind one of the photos, this helped with layering some of the chipboard under the photo too.

The chipboard came from Good Vibes chipboard sticker sheet and Maggie Holmes Gather Thicker accent. I just chose pieces that worked from a colour point of view and vaguely fit in with the theme, using one of the tags "#weekend vibes" as my title.

The last thing I did was add a little journaling using a white posca paint pen and there you have it a finished page!

Thanks for stopping by to see the completed page.

Until 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 Mood Board Part 3 - with DT Katie Howard

Hello and welcome back for the third and final "Inspired by the Mood Board" post! I hope you have been enjoying seeing the many different ways that I take inspiration from a mood board and I also hope that it inspires you to look at them more closely and see all the varied possibilities that they can result in.

Today's post shows yet another different take on the board and a very different result from the previous two creations. First let's look at the mood board again to remind ourselves (in case you have forgotten!):

This time I took inspiration from the left and centre bottom images, in particular the foliage and flowers in the the forest picture and the frames on the wall in the centre picture. I also decided to go with the light and bright feel of the centre image, and this is the page that I created:

On my page you can see my frame in brown, drawing on the wood in the bedroom and the trees and path in the forest path picture, and then leaves, foliage and flowers from the forest in shades of green and a touch of deep purple/blue.

I created my own striped pattern paper using distress oxide inks and a brayer. I added some ink to my craft mat and spritzed some water to create a water colour that I then used the brayer to add to the cardstock. After I made the stripes I added some splatters using some blues and blue green inks to contrast with the shades of green already on the background. The colours that I used were: Evergreen Bough, Peeled Paint, Lucky Clover, Crushed Olive, Mowed Lawn and Peacock Feathers and Faded Jeans for the splatters. To make great splatters grab a largish round brush and pick up some of the water colour ink from your mat and simply splatter!

I decided to add some texture to my background using the Distressed Lace stencil and some white texture paste. The white on white is great for adding texture without adding distraction. To emphasize some of the detail in the pattern I grabbed some gelatos (you could use any water soluble crayon) in pale mint green and a purple and added them directly to parts of my background then used a water brush to move the colour around.

While my background was drying I cut some leaves, foliage, flowers and the frame using my electronic cutting machine and a free cut file from Scrapbook & Cards Today. There are many great free cut files around if you have a look! I used the striped background paper to cut the leaves and foliage from and love how they turned out!

Then it was just a matter of assembling the die-cuts and photos on my page. I used some of the left over striped background to finish my page.

I layered under and over the frame and the photos and didn't stick them completely down so they had more dimension where they curled up.

I finished off with a title from the Crate Paper Maggie Holmes collection Gather, using the word "loved" from the thicker set.

So, there you have it, one mood board and three different interpretations! You still have time to get in an entry for this mood board, check it out on the Facebook Group here, we would love to see your interpretation!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by,

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

Simple Stories Life in Colour Scrapbook page with DT Katie Howard

Good Morning and happy Wednesday! Today I am popping in to share a fun summery page using the Simple Stories Life In Colour collection. My page was inspired by a page that I saw on Pinterest by Australian Scrapbooker Fiona Johnstone.

First let me show you my page and then I will show you some step-by-step photos for putting it together.

For the background I coloured some white acrylic paint with distress oxide ink in Lucky Clover. I don't have any of the re-inkers so I simply swiped the ink on my craft mat and worked the colour into the paint, adding more ink until the right colour intensity was achieved. Then I added this to my background, leaving the area under the photos un-painted so I didn't waste paint!

After this dried I added some texture stamping, some using the Lucky Clover distress oxide ink to give a tone on tone affect and also Hickory Smoke for a soft but contrasting result.

With my background done, the rest was easy and a matter of layering some patterned papers, including using some of the cut apart 4x6 cards as layers. I have used these papers: I Love this Life, So Much Happiness, 4x6 Horizontal Journaling cards and Happy Little Moments. I also love making tags, well tag tops, out of scraps to tuck into my layers as well. This is such an easy way of using up small bits of paper left overs and can make an impact on your page.

 

The way I make my tags is to start with a 3 inch wide piece of scrap, I mark 1/2 inch in from both sides and 1/2 inch down which I connect to create a triangle on the corner and cut this section off. Then I mark half way across the piece and 1/2 inch down as the spot to make the hole and we are done! Adding a hole reinforcer on the front finishes it all off.

Each of these tags is only about 2 to 3 inches long, long enough to tuck in! Also in this cluster is some chipboard thickers from the Gather collection.

I tucked another tag in the bottom and added my title on the top. The title was cut from one of the 4x3 cards and some letters were lifted with foam tape. The word and phrase stickers come from the Express Cardstock Sticker sheet and give plenty of options for alpha stickers and words/phrases.

I also cut apart some of the labels from one of the journal card sheets and layered these to add my journaling. I used the Tim Holtz tiny attacher to add some detail as well.

So that finishes off my page, I hope this inspires you to try some new techniques or even to use up your scraps with some tag tops!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

Katie x

September Mood Board Inspiration with DT Katie

Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning! Happy Saturday morning and I hope that you get some scrappy time this weekend! Me, well I am working today and maybe tomorrow, if I am lucky I might get to play with  my crafty things!

Today I am hoping to give you some inspiration to try the September mood board challenge. I love, love, love this months challenge, but I think that is because I love yellow! It is such a happy and bright colour. Let's check out the mood board:

Isn't it so pretty and fun?! You can check out the challenge album on Facebook here and see what others have been creating inspired by this board. And here is what I came up with:

I started by going through my paper stash and picking out papers that had yellow, or grey/soft black. I was surprised just how many that I found and I went with some Crate Paper Good Vibes and Maggie Holmes ones. Can you tell my background even has a hint of pink?! I figured I could run with that little addition. I have used Good Vibes Life Goals and Magic to create my background, and to add some interest and tone down all the yellow just a little I added some grey washi tape from my stash and used some Tim Holtz stencils with Hickory Smoke and Fossilized Amber distress oxide inks. 

 

So, the stripes gave me a perfect place to add the stencil detail, and here is where I challenge you to look at your stencils differently. Don't look at the stencil as a whole pattern, look at it for a simpler reduced pattern and if you see lines of pattern, like I did in the stencils that I used, grab some masking tape (or washi, let's face it we all have way more washi tape than we will ever use!) and mask off just the line of pattern. Doing this with your stencils can give you so much more scope on where and how you can use them!

After I finished with my background I matted my photo on some Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams Stay True paper which provided a nice soft black background with a word pattern. This helped separate the photo from the background. Now the fun begins with creating interesting embellishment clusters! I used ephemera from Maggie Holmes Gather collection, as well as the thicker accents and a puffy sticker from the embellishment set. See the little tag sticking out, this was a scrap that I turned into a tag top and tucked into my cluster, this is such a great way to use up scraps!

Some more chipboard and ephemera in this corner along with a vintage button from Chasing Dreams and a title from Heidi Swapp's Enjoy Vintage Chic Collection chipboard stickers. It was a perfect match for this and I even used a grey chipboard heart from this set in the top cluster. 

Finishing details were a couple of tiny attacher staples on the photo. Staples are a great simple but sweet addition to a page. And of course a few splatters using some more of the hickory smoke distress oxide ink. And that is where I called the page done!

I hope you get the chance to have a play this weekend, and maybe you might even have a go at the mood board challenge. You never know, you might just win a prize if you do!

Thanks for stopping by,

Katie x

Yay - Scrapbook page with DT Katie Howard

So, I am a bit late getting this up, but I have had one of those weeks and I completely forgot what day it was! But better a bit late than never I say!

I am sharing a fun page today that I created using some of the Crate Paper Good Vibes collection, which is also a very fun collection!

I always love how well co-ordinated these collections are, it means you really don't need to add anything else if you don't want to! I used some fun photos that my daughter and I took while waiting for some take away food one day, playing with the funny filters on snapchat of course! Sometimes you need to capture those crazy, random moments!

I used Flourish, Life Goals and Passion from the paper collection. I really love the pop of dark blue in this collection it provides such a wonderful contrast and makes the collection so much more versatile too. I created some texture with my paper layers by tearing one of the strips and I used the other side of the torn strip to create a small cluster detail on the other side of the page to balance out the design.

I had fun embellishing the page, using mostly chipboard from the chipboard accent sheet, don't you love the tassel banner?! I decided on a simple and small title with the word "yay" from the puffy thickers set, I love puffy stickers!

This little cluster is mainly repeating the patterned paper, a simple chipboard embellishment and to continue the tassel banner idea I used some mini tassels from the Maggie Holmes Gather collection, and the colours work perfectly! I added some splatters too, because, well, I think they are great for finishing off a page! I used some distress oxide ink in Faded Jeans as it is a pretty good match to the colours in the collection and to continue the splashes of blue.

My last little cluster used an ampersand from the chipboard sheet, a ticket from the ephemera set and a phrase sticker from one of the Idea-ology sticker sets by Tim Holtz. I love these word/phrase stickers for adding little bits of interest and sometimes they can work like journaling too.

Well that is it for me today, hope you have a creative day and see you next time!

Katie x

Fun Page with DT Katie Howard

Good Morning! Welcome to another Scrapping Clearly blog post. Today I thought I would share with you just how versatile the Fancy Pants Take Note collection really is, especially since it is a school themed collection!

I decided that I wanted to try and create a more feminine page using this collection, and guess what?! It was really easy to do, especially as there was some pink tones and even a floral in the collection. Here is the page that I created:

The corkboard paper is so perfect for the background, so that is where I started. You get two of each paper in the collection kit, plus some die-cuts and cards so you have lots to use with one kit! I created some paper layers behind my photos after first backing them using some of the pretty gold tissue paper that my Scrapping Clearly order comes wrapped in! Don't forget to keep that in your stash and use it, what a bonus!

I decided I needed some soft detail on the background so I decided to grab my distress oxide ink in Faded Jeans because it worked with the darker blue in the paper. I started with a stencil and added some background detail, I used the Dyan Reaveley alphabet border stencil. After I added to the background I decided I wanted a border as well, so I masked off the alphabet part of the stencil and used the dashed lines with my ink to create a border all the way around my page, I just love how it looks!

One thing that I love to do with my paper scraps is create tags, they are so easy to make and are perfect for tucking into layers, you can then add buttons or enamel dots or ribbons or bows to them as well.

I created a little cluster with some of the tags using some die-cuts from the kit and also some chipboard from the Maggie Holmes Gather thicker set. Some of the colours in here are a perfect match! And it is nice to mix and match collections and manufacturers too.

I decided to print my journaling and stick it on, but used a sweet heart from the Gather thicker set and also one of the flowers from the Heidi Swapp Vintage Chic trimmings pack. These flowers are just made to crinkle and distress. I cut mine in half and layered slightly offset before tucking under my journal block. I also tucked one under the tags at the top. These were just the right shade of pink, and added a girly touch too.

I used the word "Today" from the Gather thicker set for my title, as this was an every day moment and nothing in particular, and it is an easy way to add a title, and let's face it, I am all about easy!

Last of all I added some splatters using some Heidi Swapp color shine, there are so many pretty colours to choose from, I used navy and gold.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next time!

Katie x