The frame base is actually the floral side of Hibiscus. As a large piece, I find this pattern very busy and overwhelming – but it is wonderful in small areas like this framing piece. The paper over it is the reverse side of Mermaid. The top layer is the reverse side of Shells – a wonderful sandy coloured page with brown higgly-piggly words written across it. There is a lovely bit that reads “we’ll swim forever you and I, with no-one to see us but the sea” which I must steal to use as journaling somewhere. The ‘sun, sand and sea’ strip running across the top of the photo is from the Beach Cottage paper.

This embellishment uses one of the flowers from the Die Cut Shapes pack (oos). With it is a silver shell charm; a Dusty Attic chipboard shelland a small dried? starfish that I pinched from my daughter’s arts and crafts box. From memory, it is a ‘spur of the moment’ find from one of the Dollar stores. The chipboard shell is coloured with a variety of inks – white, several browns and a darkish purply-blue that matches some of the words in the ‘sun, sand and sea’ strip.

Yeah – I know – I said I wouldn’t do one and I have. I must admit to not being overly fond of the banner fad that is still evident in the scrapping community. I don’t mind the odd one here or there – it’s just that they seem to be so over-used. That said, I felt that one would be appropriate to the top corner of this layout. The techniques tip for this week is how to make this particular version of the banner – so check out the forum for instructions.

The banner was made from bits and pieces of left-over papers from the three newsletter layouts. Actually, they weren’t really leftovers as such – but more ‘rescued’ bits. With all this layering happening, I like to cut out the centre of the underlying papers so I can use them on other layouts. On this poor layout even the space under the photo has been cut out so I could use that paper to make the tag and banner bits.

Here you can see I’ve used the die cut shape (oos) that matches the title strip across the top of the photo. The die cut flower (oos) has been pop-dotted to it for some dimension. The silver starfish charm is from my stash and I’ve popped in another of those dried starfish that my daughter has yet to notice I have pinched from her. The tag itself is tucked in behind all of this and is made to match the banner triangles (from bits of Shells and Mermaid). On it I talk about how much Madame loves to walk across the sand at the beach whenever we go (which is all of twice a year). She doesn’t tend to swim much – she saves that for the pool –  she would much prefer to wander about searching for shells and other interesting things, dancing through the water and sand, singing happily to herself. Apparently pools are for swimming- beaches are for dreaming on.

And here is the last of my shells/starfish pattern strip from the Beach Cottage paper. I managed to get a bit on every layout. I had two pieces of it to start with – which I thought was plenty – but I used it all up. Now I have to run back to the store to get some more before everyone else buys it. It’s probably the single best ‘bit’ of patterned paper in the whole range. Tucked in there with it is a silver shell charm from my stash and a couple of Doily Lace border punched strips. You’ll notice that the starfish are a little darker than their counterparts on the other layouts – that’s because I inked them with the darker blue ink I used on the title alphas – it matches a similar blue used on the patterned papers in very small amounts. The doily punch strips match in with the banner – which has the same strip across the top of the pennant pieces.

I know I say this every time Creative Imaginations releases a beach themed range – but it is true – these are stunningly beautiful papers and you can’t go wrong with them. Adding to the excitement is the recent decision by CI to release a matching 6 x 6 paper pad to their recent ranges – I can’t wait to see what the one for Beach Cottage looks like in real life. So get ready for all those sun, sand and surf photos this summer and grab your own little slice of beach heaven with the Beach Cottage range from Creative Imaginations.

For Down by the Seashore I dropped the pink and went back to the coral featured throughout the paper range. It was a little too ‘hard’ a colour for the first layout – but it really makes this one ‘pop’. The base this time is a piece of Seaside Escape (which with Mermaid, form – in my opinion – the two standout papers of the range). Over this went a cut-down piece of the reverse side of Seaside Escape, which I then border-punched with the Martha Stewart ‘Doily Lace’ punch. I’ve curled back the top left-hand corner of this page and popped one of the lily Epoxy stickers there to add a little interest.

This embellishment cluster is focused on the combination of a die cut lily piece (oos); more of the shells/starfish pattern strip from the Beach Cottage paper; and the cream flower that is part of the underlying Seaside Escape patterned paper. Into this combination I tucked a coral-coloured Prima resin flower, a strand of pale pink pearls and another glass cabochon from my stash; as well as adding in a bit of Chicken Mesh Wire (mine is Dusty Attic – Mary has the Twiddleybitz one in stock now) and a Dusty Attic chipboard shell.

The shell was inked white and then lightly inked with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. This time though, I added a little of the Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to some Dimensional Magic and then splodged that onto the chipboard – giving it a little touch from the heat gun to dry it faster. This gives the chipboard a glossy look here and there, as well as some texture and shading to the colours.

Under the right side of the photo I tucked a die cut journalling piece (oos), over which I placed a large Prima flower that I thought was similar to the one in the paper pattern. With it are an antiqued white-finish bronze starfish I got from an Etsy store and a small blue butterfly cabochon from my stash. The chipboard anchor is by Dusty Attic.

Underneath the photo I placed another die-cut title piece (oos) with a combination of more chipboard Chicken Mesh Wire; a Prima resin flower, pink pearls; an antiqued white-finish bronze seahorse and a chipboard starfish and shell. It’s all meant to look like the mermaids stash that every little girl dreams of finding in one of the tidal pools you get at the beach. I desperately wanted to work the mermaid into this somewhere – but just couldn’t find the room for her.

The starfish, cream flower and shells are part of the underlying Seaside Escape patterned paper. I’ve tucked the blue chipboard shell and epoxy title under it slightly to help tie the layers in together. The smaller shell (like the starfish in the previous image) has been inked with a combination of white, soft browns and a shimmery gold ink in an attempt to match the floral pattern on the reverse side of Seaside Escape.

To finish off the layout I added a Scrap FX compass with another bit of the shells/starfish pattern strip from the Beach Cottage paper. The inking for the compass is similar to the small shell/starfish – but without the gold. I really like the way it blended into the patterned paper behind it.

It’s that time of year again ladies – summer time – when the living is easy, the skies are blue, the waves are calling  your name and Creative Imaginations brings out yet another stunning beach range. Ok – so we’ve had it for a little while in the store – but now is the time to be taking photos to use with it and here is a little inspiration to show you what you can do with this gorgeous range.

Love the touch of girly coral-pink – it goes so well with the pale blues, white and various shades of soft brown. The colours are somewhat washed out and the patterns distressed – which suits a range of different scrapping styles – but there is the odd brighter page in there (check out the stunning coral side of Hibiscus). The usual stickers and die cut shapes accompany the collection – with a great range of flowers, seashells and journalling shapes to add to your layouts.

Life’s a Beach was started months ago – as soon as I got the range unboxed onto my desk. I couldn’t find the embellishments I wanted to finish it off though – so the poor thing has languished there until I had to ‘suck it up’ and go with what I had. (If anyone knows where I can get some cotton fishing net – please – let me know.) It’s actually a collection of different ideas I have seen around that I wanted to do – the ‘cut up into strips’ photo (which is now everywhere I notice); the random, incomplete edge punch; and the linear, simplistic look.

The base for the layout is a piece of Shells, which serves as a frame for the cut-down (reverse side) piece of Mermaid overlaid over it. The Martha Stewart punch set I used is the Sand Dollar pattern. Dune, Cocoa and Cream Brown Colorbox Chalk Inks all work beautifully with this range – with the edges of this layout inked with Cocoa.

Wanting to use pink rather than coral with this layout, I randomly sprayed on Tutti Frutti; Watermelon and Cherub Pink Glimmermists over the light blue and white patterned base of my layout.

Positioning the photo pieces was the first thing I did – the rest of the embellishments are designed to work with that placement.

This embellishment cluster uses a section of the shells/starfish pattern strip from the Beach Cottage paper. I’ve simply cut them out with my craft knife and given the starfish a light coating of Crystalina Kindyglitz. Other elements in the cluster include a Dusty Attic chipboard shell and a chipboard Seahorse from the Shells Mini pack; as well as some random pearl ‘bits’ from my stash and a clear glass cabochon which has had a gob of All that Jazz Glimmer Glaze added to the bottom of it. Love how it looks just like a drop of seawater, frozen forever on the layout.

Along the base of the photo I ran another section of the shells/starfish pattern strip from the Beach Cottage paper. To this I added a cute little sticker from the 12 x 12 Sticker sheet and a few more of the glass cabochons. I also added one of Mary’s small glass bottles – which contains beach sand here – though you can use them for lots of other things.

The chipboard title is also by Dusty Attic and is the perfect addition to any beach layout. To get the soft, distressed look you see, it was first inked white and then lightly inked with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. When that was dry it was randomly splotched with some Cream Brown Chalk Ink. The colours closely match the paper and continue with the soft, distressed look of the layout. The pink flower is from Prima and the two loose starfish are from the Die Cut Shapes pack (oos)

I know it’s a bit of a departure from my usual style – but I’ve been in the mood to experiment with new things. It’s the first time I have ever deliberately chosen not to add something more to a layout – even with all the empty space there – but I think it suits the photo and the sense of open space in the photo. It was just her all alone on this huge empty beach – lost in her own little world – happily exploring and seeing what she could find. I would have liked a spot for journalling – but there are other photos from the same visit that I guess I can write on.

Check out this gorgeous range in-store now – don’t miss out, as it will sell quickly now that summer is here.

Just love the way the purple and yellow combine together – so bright and cheerful. I’ve used a number of Antique Bronze items from my2angels on this layout as well – all keeping with the butterfly theme used on the Charming Chain.

For those who have the papers, the base is a piece of the purple reverse side of Polka, with the front side of Polka overlaid over it and cut down slightly to leave a purple edge. The darker ink edge is curtesy of Seedless Preserves – one of the stunning limited edition Halloween/Fall Distress Ink set from Tim Holtz – which proved to be an excellent match to the purples in this range. A stitched border pretty well finishes the base structure of the layout. When adding the photos, I added a little bit of of the purple reverse of Birds as offset mats and then popped in a couple of border punched strips, which I had inked with Seedless Preserves.

The main alphas in the title are (surprise, surprise) my favourite ones – Scrapware Antique Lowercase – both the normal size and the minis. This time I’ve used Mustard Seed Distress Ink to colour them and then a light spray of Sunflower Sparkle Perfect Pearls Mists to give them a nice shimmer. The small wooden ones are some old Scrap FX alphas from my stash and the mini stickers – also from my stash – are from the Adorn It Radiant sheet – but using only the yellow ones.

I’ve hung the charming chain from the gorgeous purple acetate frame – which is part of the Peek-a-boo’s collection for this range.

The flowers are all Prima – a mix of some vines (the purples are one vine and the yellows are from another) and some single large yellow and small purple roses. It makes it easy to make a co-ordinated flower cluster this way, as the flowers are already colour-matched within their vines.

The bronze butterfly you can see is the edge of the journalling tag.

On my tag I used an Antique Bronze Butterfly Clip and the dangle pearl from the Charming Chain, together with some Prima flowers from my stash.

The rubon is from Kaiser – who REALLY need to do something about their shocking quality control. I’ve actually Photoshopped the tag image a bit to fix up how poorly the BRAND NEW rubon has transferred. It actually has holes in the letters all over the place where the rubon has not transferred properly. At some point I will either have to remove it and buy another to replace it or suck it up and learn to live with it. And this is AFTER I complained to the Kaiser store where I bought it, that their rubons had been shocking lately and the store person exclaimed surprise at the problem AND then stated that none of theirs had ever had this problem. Yeah right lady!!

The journalling is on the back as usual for me – just a rambling on about how much she loves to dance – and how given a little space to move in, she can be found happily dancing away to whatever music she has running through her head. Often she sings to herself as well – lost in a little world all of her own. I did have a chuckle at the rubon quote – she never dances any other way.

Down the bottom of the layout I have used an antique bronze Tim Holtz Ornate Plate, together with an Adage Ticket (oos) to pop the word SOAR into a cluster of Prima flowers. Attached to the book plate is one of Tracy’s beautiful antique bronze Filigree Butterflies.

Also tucked into that flower cluster you can see a small glass bottle – it’s just gorgeous isn’t it? You can get one from here. They can be used for so many things – mine is supposed to contain a little bit of sunshine. Lol – but a bit of beach sand, some pretty (and small) stones, some glitter – whatever you can fit in really.

So grab a charming chain whilst you can – they look great on cards. tags and layouts.

Looking at the papers and the way they are cut and layered here – you see very little of the barbed wire pattern and nothing to indicate they are a horse-themed range. I’ve used the reverse side of Wild Spirit (oos) for the base, with the ‘printed words’ central section of Ranch Life and the floral pattern reverse of Country Girl (oos) layered over that. A scrap piece of the reverse side of Country Girl (oos) was popped through an old Fiskars border punch to get that looped pattern along the top of the layout.

At this point we went off on our semi-annual holidays to Bundaberg (last July) and I came home with a set of pony ride photos that just screamed to be used on this layout. Sigh – so much for not catering to the theme. Then other ranges needed to be worked on and this layout was put to one side – unfinished. When I came back to it, I struggled to get all the photos on that I wanted to include – so at the last minute it became a double – which sadly was not finished for the newsletter, as I ran out of one of the papers needed to finish it. Since I had totally – in my fixation on getting the double done – forgotten the other 2 as-yet-unfinished layouts – I accidentally used up papers that were meant for them – so I had 3 unfinished pages in total and had to scramble to get 3 for the actual newsletter. Sigh – sometimes… So my apologies that there is only the left-hand side of the double here – I’ll post the other side up as soon as it is completed. (ok – I have added at the bottom now)

This is another of the barbed wire chipboard (oos) designs made to go with the Wild Spirit range. This little cutie is also an A2Z Scraplets design. It has actually been inked with about 4 different brown Colorbox chalk inks to get that mottled effect you can see on it.

I’m actually a little stunned – all of the chipboard I used for the newsletter layouts sold out within a week of the newsletter. I am so pleased that people out there like them enough to buy – and I would love to see what people do with them. It would be great if you could post to the forum gallery anything that you did using my barbed wire chippy.

The chipboard horseshoe was also inked with the 4 different brown inks and then I tied one of the silver horse charms from the store to it, using some old twine I coloured with my Weathered Wood Distress Ink.

My poor post-office man wonders a bit about me sometimes – I get very excited about parcels that come tied in string/twine (who on earth sends them that way anymore anyway??) and won’t let him cut through them to help me get into the parcels. I carefully unravel the knots and add the twine to my ‘fibres’ stash. It’s amazing how many types of string there are out there – and I am working on getting a sample of all them … lol. I am running out of the fine, delicate one though – so could people please use that to tie my parcels for a while…?

In the top left of the layout I placed a horse silhouette cut out from the gorgeous Wild Horses paper (this is such a beautiful paper – you really have to see it in real life to appreciate how ethereal and dreamy it is – it would make a gorgeous painting).

The chipboard horseshoe, the horse words you see here and the saddle are all part of a horse themed set of chipboard I found – just randomly browing around – after these photos of Madame were taken. They were too good a match to the photos not to use. I cannot for the life of me remember who made them – it might be 2Crafty or something like that. (Edited to add: yes it is 2Crafty, their Horse Riding pack -a great buy).

The barbed wire though, is yet another design created to use with this range. This one is a bit more masculine – thicker and chunkier – but a little Weathered Wood Distress Stickles soon pretties that up.

To get that distressed, weathered look to the chipboard saddle I inked it first with a mix of several browns and then applied a coat of Walnut Stain Distress Stickles. This was all then roughed over with some sandpaper until the distress crystals were all sanded back. Now I have a lovely textured look to it – but without the sparkly crystals. All very grungy, yet very pretty.

Down the right side of the layout I punched out a few holes and popped some eyelets into them, before threading some maroon leather lacing through to make a series of simple knots. This filled in some ‘empty space’ there and gave me a simple, but very effective embellishment.

I ran all of the chipboard words through my Cuttlebug – using what I think is a Tim Holtz Texture Fades design. I love the cool rustic pattern that they turned out with. A simple inking with Weathered Wood Distress Ink was all they needed after that – amazing how good they look with just the combination of texture and ink – and so simple to achieve too.

The full title is actually Giddy Up – but I cut the chipboard into half so I could use it on both sides of the double. From memory this is a Scrap FX title.

I love the CI Wild Spirit range – and not just because it provided me with the perfect papers with which to scrap my horse-mad daughter’s many equine vices. The depth and complexity of the paper designs are amazing – every time I look at them I notice something new to admire. This is one range that – absolutely – a computer screen does not do justice to. More importantly – for a small range (there are only 4 double-sided papers) ALL of them work perfectly together – unlike many other small ranges, where one or two simply don’t mesh well together.

I wish I could say the same for the stickers though – oddly (and I do have to confess that this is true of many of the CI ranges) some of the stickers have a greenish tint that is jarring with the blues in the range. Gorgeous stickers – but they just don’t ‘fit’ with the papers.

Updated:

So I managed to get the second side of this done at last. In the end I waited on this to be done before posting the double to the blog.

The second side has the same basic layout as the first, but some elements have been moved around as I hate it when they are perfect reflections of each other.

I’ve used the same cool chippy flourish – just placed it on the top left rather than at the bottom. In this close-up you can see just how well the Colorbox Brown Chalk Ink matches the papers.

Love these chippy boots – the texture fades pattern has given it a real western boots feel. Such a cool textural finish.

Another of the cut out horses from the Wild Horses paper.

I’ve used a large tag here as there was plenty to say about her experience. It’s hidden behind the main photo. I’ve left the front of the tag as just the pretty design on the patterned paper – with a silver horse shoe charm and twine as the only embellishment – and put my journalling on the back of the tag.

So that’s my double – record number of photos and all. I’m very pleased with how it came out and hopefully there will be more in the pipeline.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to have horse photos to work with Wild Spirit – my favourite layout (of the 6 layouts I have done or almost done) – has no barbed wire or horses to be seen at all on it. Not one. It focuses on the butterflies, floral and print elements of the patterns. Hopefully that one can be shared with you all soon (I did post a sneak of it many months ago now here on my blog) – as it is intended for a future class. So check out Wild Spirit in the store, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

When I first saw the barbed wire border on Country Girl (oos)I knew I wanted to stitch it – and that part of the design I think, has worked well. This time the layered papers filling up the empty centre space come from Ranch Life and Wild Horses.

The alphas are Scrapware Antique Lowercase. Again I have kept the finish to them fairly simple – just a coat of Weathered Wood Distress Ink and the matching Distress Stickles. If you are looking for browns to match the paper range – both the Chocolate Covered Cherries Glimmermist I used on the lace here and Colorbox Brown (which is a reddish brown rather than a true brown) as used on the barbed wire chipboard are both good matches.

The barbed-wire flourish on this layout is special. At the time I first got these papers there was really only one or two barbed wire chipboard designs around – mostly thick and sturdy designs (I shouldn’t be so rude about them – not since some of the very first ones ever put out by a chippy company were ones I had designed to match an early Kaiser grunge range). But they were not something I ‘saw’ working well with these papers. I really wanted some feminine barbed-wire (yeah – like you really NEED girly barbed wire lol) and although I had organised for several very nice designs to be made (which you can see in the store) – production constraints meant that none of them were ‘quite’ what I wanted.

THIS is what I really wanted – it is based on one of my favorite Scrapware flourish designs, but altered to match what I needed in the barbed-wire. Sadly – as I mentioned a few weeks ago – I don’t think it is going to be commercially available (though there are a few pieces of it floating about if you are lucky enough to get your hands on it) – but it was perfect for this layout – which in some ways was designed around using it.

To finish off the layout I Glimmmermist-ed some white roses using a custom colour that is two parts Copper to one part Gingerbread. I was hoping to match it to the underlying light caramel/beige brown colour on Country Girl (and to the colour of her hair in the photo), but still have a ‘lift’ or sparkle to it. I think the leaves are old Green Tara ones – and they also match in really well with that lighter beige colour and with the darker rusty brown.

Again, the journalling is on a hidden tag – popped in behind the photo. It has a silver butterfly charm tied on with a bit of twine and is made from a left-over bit of Ranch Life cut into a tag shape.

Although the title of the layout is the same as the paper range – it wasn’t actually intended that way. I was just lucky enough to catch some photos of Madame off in her own little world, dancing around a vacant lot whilst I was taking photos of mangroves for her brother’s biology project. He was doing his water sample collecting and I noticed her off in her little ‘dance world’ and snapped a few with my long distance lens – she was about 15 metres away. They are slightly more out of focus than I like – a product of her movement and the distance – but I love the ethereal, fey feel to them. She had obviously caught sight of me taking them mid-twirl and was just swinging around and starting to smile at catching me at it. She looks so much like a small, wild spirit – all that long wavy hair flying riotously around her urchin face – hence the title.

Without further rambling from me – your criteria are:

- I want to see some Christmas bling.
- A flower or two would be nice.
- And the number 25 must feature somewhere.

Here is my card, created using the classic colours of Kaiser’s December 25th.

You can find the forum post here and the gallery for uploading your cards here.