Handmade with Love : Lulupu Challenge #42

I'm on the Lulupu blog today, with another challenge.

Challenge #42

A gift set for festivals
(like New Year e.g.- Card with matching box, gift bags with tags, Easel card and box, Altered notebook/matching stationary)

(You can find the general guidelines to challenges here)

And as always we have a prize too

 

I altered a notebook into a planner to give as a New Year gift for a very special person.

The original book had plain black covers. I pulled apart the ring, took off the pages and put it back together with 4 dividers in place. The front and back cover have also been altered. The photographs below are only of the dividers without the blank pages in between, so that its easier to capture both front and back of each divider.

Along with the book, included are a dozen journaling cards, a handful of embellishments, washi tape and a gel pen.

 Some of the inside pages have intentionally been left blank, so she can alter them the way she wants.

 The pages have been given a light coat of clear gesso so they can be painted on easily and the colour won't soak through.

 

Finally, here is the back cover and the front again. There is a layer of clear crackle paste through a stencil on both the front and back covers, but they aren't visible in the pic but add subtle texture when seen in real.

 

I'm so in love with thermal Coffee Break collection, this is my fourth project and I still can't put these papers down. I've used , papers, stickers and wooden embellishments from the Prima Coffee break collection and also their clear crackle medium and clear gesso.

 

 

The layout for the cover is inspired by the November BAP on the Prima blog

Linking this to Kraft Zone - Anything goes with Prima

Child's play - Mixed Media Mini Album

I'm on the Lulupu blog today, with my take on

 

Challenge #41 - Child's Play

(You can read more about the challenge here, and general challenge guidelines here)

 My very first scrapbooking project ever, was a mini album to record the birth of my first born. So when I saw the theme for the challenge this time, I thought what a perfect excuse to make a brag book - small enough to carry in the handbag, but big enough to journal on. Why not preserve a little more than just photographs this time? So my toddler pitched in with creating the background of  these pages - splashing paints and stamping.

 

The base for all pages is watercolour paper with printed script tissue glued using matt multi medium. I usually let this dry overnight. Once dry, apply clear gesso all over. Again allow to dry. Then add white gesso in random places.

 Im in love with the My Huey's watercolour set. There are so many easy ways of adding watercolours to your background. The technique used on the pages here is not only easy but quite mess free and hence great for tiny little hands. Take a piece of plastic (cover from a stamp set or in my case the cover from coffee break stickers). Using a wet brush, lift some paint off the watercolour cake and dab onto the plastic. Now, paint side down apply it on paper. The paint will transfer leaving a random pattern. Vary the amount of paint and pressure with which you tap the plastic on the paper to get different interesting patterns.

 

These pages were photographed before binding. Each page measures 6 inches by 8 inches. Fold them in half, they now measure 6X4. Stick them back to back so they become a 6inch X4inch book.

 

Each page took less than 30 minutes to put together (barring the first step of letting the matt medium dry) And finally, the cover - it measures a little more than the pages and wraps right around them. The spine is about half an inch and the top flap is held in place by a paper clip. I didn't use any wet mediums on the cover, so it doesn't warp ; just some stamping and washi tape.

 

 

 I hope you liked my project and feel inspired to join us in this challenge.

Mixed Media Card Challenge - October

Are you ready for the  next challenge at The Mixed Media Card Challenge?

The theme this month is Christmas (optional: bells)

This month's challenge is extra special because we have a sponsor: STAMPlorations!

"California-based STAMPlorations is owned and managed by husband-and-wife team, David & Shery Russ. Shery is an avid paper crafter and loves graphic design so in June 2013, she and her husband opened shop and began selling stamps that Shery designed and/or illustrated.

 

 

 

STAMPlorations is offering two prizes:

* $15 gift certificate to use towards products in the STAMPlorations shop

The winner will be randomly drawn from entries with the optional element (bells)

*choice of 1 stamp set (3" by 5")

The winner will be randomly drawn from all entries

 

Here is my card for this month

 

My very first Christmas card. Mix glitter and sand texture with gesso and apply through a stencil in a few random places on a piece of watercolour paper. The rest is simple - watercolours in the background and also to colour the embossed bell stamp. Both the stamp and sentiment are part of one of the many Christmas Stamp Sets released this year by Stamplorations

 

Sparkle with Prima - Lulupu Bloghop

Hello and thanks to those of you who hopped on over from Varah's blog. For those who didn't, let me quickly fill you in.

We have a month long bloghop combined with a challenge - Sparkle with Prima running at Lulupu. Criteria is pretty simple - create a project using Prima Marketing products (as many as you can) and add sparkle (being, glass beads, glass glitter, mica flakes, glitter, shiny sugar dots etc.)

There 6 prizes up for grabs. This post gives all the details of how you could win yourself some of these goodies and also takes you to the first post.

I'm very excited to share a tutorial on creating a 12x12 background to match the coffee break papers using my all time favourite techniques. If you want more details on any step, leave me a comment and ill be very happy to share what I know with you.

 

A note on the pink tissue in the first picture : a while ago, I was working with gold paint mixed with 3d gel and was left with excess. So applied it on a pink tissue and kept it to be used later.

Dont be afraid to use mists, watercolour pencils and inks all together in the same layout just to colour. Although they may all look the same or similar shade of pink, each lends a different effect.

After each layer of gesso and paint, I decoupage roses from the IKEA serviette. This lends depth to the background - some roses appear embedded deep within and some right on the surface.
Once the photo layers have been glued on, mix glass glitter and glass beads with gel medium and apply it on the layout. Sugar dots to complete it.

I hope to have inspired you in someway today. Here is the full list of projects created by the DT and GDTs who were invited specially for this hop. Don't forget to leave a comment here and on all the below blogs to be in the draw to win prizes. You also have time till the end of the month to link your entry for the challenge.

Shilpa Nagaonkar

 

Priya Sindhi

 

Pallavi Iyer

 

Deepti Stephens

 

Riti Poddar

 

Jaya Raghuvanshi

 

Nikita Azad

 

Hussena Calcuttawala

 

Mallika Kejriwal

 

Varah Musavvir

 

                              Kripa Koushik. -------- you are here

 

Bipasha

Your next stop is at the blog of the very talented Bipasha who weaves magic with her 3d creations and flowers, her post will be up any day now.

Until next time, cheers!

SATW + Sketchy Boards Challenge

Last week, I finally broke the seal on Kaisercraft Christmas Basecoat 12X12 paper pad...... and had a zillion layout ideas rushing through my head. I was feeling a creativity slump and hence no blog post in the last few weeks. I started with the idea of making a traditional Christmas scrapbook layout and retired for the night with ipad in hand and settled in, to visit my favourite blogs and challenge sites.

A few minutes later, I was back at my desk and made this ...... not really..... it took many layers and hours to look like this. ....... old habits die hard , ended up using gesso, gel medium , matt mutli-medium and so much more.

Its not hard to see how this moodboard at Scrap Around The World influenced my layout - watercolour effect, chevrons, glass glitter and beads......

Anyone who would have seen me that day would have thought of me as insane. I felt possessed by the paints and was working so furiously, even forgot completely about my kids for an hour or two. The saying in the moodboard is so apt for the times I wander away into my own world of colours and imagination.

The sketch used for this layout is from Sketchy Boards. Thank you Lizzy Hill for finding this new blog :) They have a sketch and a colour palette.

 

 

 

 

and to finish off, a few close ups

 

 

 

I wish you a lovely day, dear reader. Thank you for visiting me today.

Mixed Media Card Challenge - October

Time to reveal the next challenge at The Mixed Media Card Challenge Blog.

 

 

I kept tossing between vintage baby and vintage grunge for this challenge...... in the end baby won purely because I couldn't resist the vintage baby images from Graphic 45 Little Darlings collection..... absolutely adorable, don't you agree!

 



 

 

 I also took a brave decision to add flowers and keep out wet media and not alter the paper too much - just a little stamping, inks, paints and lots of layering and distressing with my finger nails.

 

 

Head over to the Mixed Media Card Challenge Blog to see the beautiful creations of the rest of the DT. Waiting to visit you from the linkup gallery

Also, linking along with Simon Says Wednesday - Anything Goes



Black and White with a splash of Blue

Good morning friends,

Im on the Lulupu blog today with my take on this very interesting challenge: 

Challenge #39

Black + White + a POP of one other colour

You can read the detailed post on the challenge here.  

At first I was wondering how to create an interesting layout using just 3 colours ; texture and layers came to my rescue. There is no pattern paper on this layout - just washi tape and lots of packaging material from all the texture stamps I buy :) Here is a close up 

 

No brownie points for guessing - the Pop colour is BLUE. Its amazing the tones of colour one can achieve from a single cake of watercolour - add water to get a subtle wash, create stains, add more colour to get av depth for splats. 

Now, include a few more items - 3d gel, stamps, gesso and washi tape and you can create this. I forgot to take pictures while creating, but here is a step by step of how gel medium was used.

 1. My base is watercolour paper. Randomly stamp Kaisercraft dictionary stamp or any other texture stamp. Lulupu has recently added some beautiful Kaisercraft texture stamps. Use Archival or Prima Resist chalk inks. These are permanent and wont react when painted over with watercolours. If however, you stamp with distress inks, it will react with the watercolour and change the original colour you are painting. (Now that gives a very cool effect too, but not what I wanted for this layout)

2. Place a stencil over the stamped area and apply 3d gel medium. Let dry completely.It dries transparent.

3. Paint over with watercolour. The gel medium will resist the paint and give a beautiful effect. The same techniques were used to create the blue tag tucked under the photos.

4. Outline some of the stenciled shapes, Stamp over the gel medium with a permanent ink or gesso.

There really isn't much more to my layout. Washi tape stuck on packaging material is the layer behind the photographs. All the die cuts have been cut out of packaging material on the Silhouette Cameo and painted with black gesso. Finally, black glass glitter and sequins added using matt multi medium. 

If you have never used watercolours before, do give it a go. I bought myself a Mr Huey's watercolour set from Lulupu a few months ago and until then was super scared of free style painting. But now Im hooked - if I can do it, so can you.

I hope to have sparked your creativity in some way today. You can link your projects for this challenge here.

 

The inspiration for the layout of this page comes from the sketch on Creative Scrappers. I discovered this site through Elina Stromberg's blog who is also a DT at creative scrappers and absolutely love the inspiration presented by their DT. 

Also joining the Rock the Technique : Simon Says Monday Challenge