Elephant canvas for the nursery...

 I mentioned in a few previous posts my intentions to make canvas' for our nursery - ready for our new arrival in July. We are only in rented accommodation so I don't want to commit to a project too big - like wallpapering or painting a feature wall. So canvas' seems like the happy medium.
There are many tutorials on blogs and youtube and I took inspiration from these but went my own way with it too. Below is a step-by-step tutorial - including lessons that I learned along the way.

Step 1 - Decide upon your colour scheme. Prep canvas with gesso allow to dry. Paint one coat of acrylic paint - I applied mine with a foam applicator, but a sponge would work as well. Allow to dry. Apply second coat.

Step 2 - Decide upon your design. We originally wanted elephants and giraffes, but the giraffe silhouettes looked a bit strange and didn't look as cute or convincing as the elephant - so we went for one big elephant and then two little ones. I just got the picture from google.

Step 3 - Cut the design out and then trace in pencil onto chosen fabric. Remember that it will be in mirror image. Cut the design carefully out of the fabric - my fiskars scissors come in hand here.

Step 4 - Attach the fabric with modge podge to the dried canvas. Modge podge all over the top (see third picture) don't worry it will dry clear. I added heart buttons for the eyes with modge podge too.

Step 5 - Allow the whole thing to dry. On the top canvas I decided to outline the elephants in black fabric paint to add more definition.

Tips:

• Pick a dark coloured fabric as the yellow was a bit see through and up close you can see some of the glue underneath.
•  Be very careful that you flatten the fabric down before the clue dries - as you can see the second elephant has a bit of a crease on it. Some bloggers recommended reinforcing it with modge podge first or backing with cardboard.
• The yellow canvas also shows up some of the plush from the fabric and it dried into the modge podge. This, as I am sure that you can tell, was the first one and I might redo it as I think the little imperfections will annoy me.

  I made some canvas' of our wedding in the summer and the tutorial for these can be found here.

Holidays are coming...

As the chill creeps into the air and t.shirts are replaced by jumpers, flip flops by boots (who am I kidding? I only wore my flip flops in Spain!) my birthday is in a week, Halloween looms and then its Christmas. So I thought now might be a good time to share a couple of layouts I created using last years Christmas pics.
We spent Christmas eve and Christmas day in Belgium with his family and so it was a different kind of Christmas. My camera skills failed me greatly and a lot of the pictures were saturated as mostly I took them inside or in the evening and so I had to use photoshop and looking at it now the colour is a bit lurid - the other picture of his sister making her gingerbread house I changed to black and white so that there was a contrast.
I used my fiskars circle to create this border and then backed with a range of Christmas papers and even some wrapping paper - which I think looks like candy canes. Very yule tide! The glittery thickers finish off this festive page and I like the simplicity of it and love that when you get a border on the pictures you don't need to mat them. I rarely make a layout only using cardstock and not layering so this was a bit of a departure. Bunting was all the rage when I made this layout, quite some time ago now, but I believe its still going strong!

 

The above layout is just one explosion of colour and patterns and I really love it. I think I saw the idea of using cupcake cases as a title mat on pinterest and thought I'd give it a try and I love it and think it would work for all kinds of 'themed' layouts. I tried to capture some of the moments of my families delayed Christmas (when we all arrived at Lindisfarne)  like present opening and eating lots of sweet treats - like smurf marshmallows brought over especially for Gems!
The picture with the bows is a family tradition - well more like a Mel tradition- I always tie bows onto my head and see how many I can fit on, then I wear them for the whole day. My mom is really into wrapping pressies up beautifully and so there is always an abundance of pretty ribbons and sparkly bows for me to adorn my hair with. In fact I often wonder if our love of pretty paper and sparkle comes from her love for gift wrapping and stationary too.
Hope you don't feel like I am jumping the gun. A bit like when you see advent calendars in shops in October. Or Christmas tunes are playing in clothes shops from September onwards. I just wanted to share these layouts today. Just because...

When Fiskars meets October Afternoon...

What car games do you play when you go on a road trip? My sister and I decided on our Californian road trip last summer that we wanted to get pictures of each state's number plate and so it kept us entertained on the long Californian freeways.
Some were incredibly easy - namely Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona...basically all the state's bordering California. The more elusive states were Maine. Deleware and some of the southern states - but we sort of cheated and found them all in the Miners Diner in Julian and so that is the picture that I used in the layout.
We had to get quick at whipping the camera out to get the shot before the car overtook us! We annoyed the Belgian a lot by asking him to speed up or slow down or change lanes all in the name of a photo - and he claims that we caused an accident, but he does like to exaggerate things.
So I decided this part of our trip needed to be remembered in a layout. What could be more appropriate than Studio Calico's Boarding Pass range?

I used my trusty Fiskars (purchased from none other than Shimelle via that good old auctioning site) to create a page border at the top and bottom, then I could mix up the different designs (that's when double sided cardstock is really versatille - I love the B sides on this range too!) I also layered up a variety of washi tape.

Journalling about the number plate challenge:

Quite a simple design and one that I have used before here and here.
Has anyone else used Boarding pass for holiday snaps?

Messy Mondays: Photo mat with paint

So it was back to school today and so time to get back on track with my Messy Monday's series.
This layout uses paint as a mat for my photo and to layer on embellishments.
I created a mat on the left with my fiskars.

Layout love linky!

I found Soaphouse mama's blog through Shimelle on twitter and I love her crazy, messy and eclectic style. I also love that at the end of the month she does a linky to share pages you haven't blogged about yet cos this month with all the school holidays time I have scrapped a lot and not blogged a lot of it - as I prefer the scrapping part! Plus I've had a lot of great programmes to catch up on like 2 Broke Girls and New Girl!

So here are some layouts I've created this month:

1. A layout about the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. Have any of you ever been there? It's a very random tourist spot and I couldn't tell if it was a con or not. I used the 'free' bumper sticker for the title and also heat embossed the top part.

2) A layout about the huge portions in a restaurant in Orange County. Can you believe the size of this tower of nachos?

3) A layout about the after party at the wedding we attended.

4) A layout about the delicious meal we ate at Zuni in San Francisco. I used my trustee fiskars to create this border along the bottom.

They are all layouts from last summer's road trip around California and are all 12 by 12 which may shock my followers due to my new aversion to a smaller scrapping size.

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Linking up to Soaphouse mama

Amy Tangerine 6 by 6 LOVE!

So have you worked out what my new fav supply is? No, not my dynamo. Well it kinda is! No, not my JB paint dauber - although that is amazing! No, it's my 6 by 6 paper pads. Why do I love them so? Let me count the ways:

• Very versatille
• Perfects for oodles of layering
• Takes the guess work out of coordinating a layout
• Perfect for my new smaller scrapping
• Often when I have a pretty sheet of 12 by 12 I am reluctant to cut into it - but not with these smaller versions
• Perfect for embellishments and little journalling spots
• The border page is great for edging pics
• Perfect for cardmaking (which I rarely do, but you know - just saying'!)

So the other night I was playing with this:

 By the ever creative and funky Amy Tangerine and I discovered a photo from our English department's murder mystery party that I hadn't scrapped yet and so I played around and made this:

The greatest thing about the 6 by 6 pads is that you can just cut bits and match bits and it all coorindaes already and so you end up with a true 'scrap'book page. I went for the rule of three with the punched out and inked hearts. I also created the little rosettes using my fiskars punches.
In other news:

• Last day of school yesterday. Woo hoo! The Belgian is leaving his job at Primary School (or elementary for all you Americans) and coming back to work at my High School and so he came home laden with chocolates - some of which we are going to have to 'regift' otherwise I will just eat them all. I have already made a sizeable dent in a chocolate orange!
• The Belgian is very busy organsing a boy's camp for next week. I am loving how focused he is over it, but it is driving me potty having to proof read emails, help with timetables and abuse my ebay ordering large marquis and other items. We've been having a nightmare with couriers this week - they are such a pain and don't seem to realise that people do actually work (well during term time at least!)
• This Wednesday is our three year wedding anniversary and so to make up for the fact he is on said camp I am being taken away to the Lake District this weekend. Expect some pretty photos if the weather stays good (always a risky business in Sunny England!)
• Next weekend we are off to London for the Olympics - so this first week of the holidays it is all go and everything seems to be crammed in. Just think of all the laundry when we get back from all these mini breaks, *Shudder!*

Right folks we are off to the dizzying heights of pound land to load up on water guns, toilet rolls and other such excting items. for his camp of course - not our romantic weekend away!