Inspired by a moodboard - Lulupu Challenge #43

I'm on the Lulupu blog today with an A4 mixed media layout
 

Challenge # 43-
Inspired by moodboard
Twist- Use two or more pattern papers

 

I love creating with moodboards because they make me use colours, photographs and embellishments that I wont normally choose. I'm sharing my steps on seeing this moodboard in the hope that you will also find some starting points to create and share it with us here at Lulupu.

1. Photograph - always the first step for me, the layout will be created to highlight the photo. Vintage, retro, sitting on a vespa, no luck. Finally found an old baby picture in a lace dress.

2. Embellishments & textures - Next I visualise the background textures and main embellishments

From the dresses: lace, fabric, silk thread embroidery, pearl, roses, sequins

From the tent top: frame, gold accent, circles

3. Pattern paper - Far, far away from my studio, couldn't find even one pattern paper in the exact colours. Solution: use the closest shades, gesso and alter with paint to the moodboard colours

 

Here is what I created - an A4 size mixed media layout

 

 

I would love to hear what went through your creative mind when you saw this moodboard.

 

The sketch for my layout is inspired by Sketchabilities #128

 

Mixed Media Card Challenge : December: Home

This month the theme at The Mixed Media Card Challenge blog is

Here is my card, very different to my usual style and surprisingly quick too. Lots of free hand drawing. Not my favourite card, but tried a few new techniques so satisfying. Lol

 

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

Washi Tape Home Decor

Have you checked out the latest challenge at Lulupu - its a super fun and easy one - use at least 3 different washi tapes plus a shape/ readymade embellishment. Easy peasy isn't it.

 

Washi is my go to item to keep my toddler boy occupied whenever he starts 'why can't I use your stamps and embossing powders and sugar dots' So, top of my mind were the little washi makeovers around the house and I decided to give a plain white photo collage a new leash of life with washi tapes and the fab Heidi Swapp Dreamy collection.

 

 

I can't seem to get enough of the soft beautiful pastel shades in this collection. The ephemera pack is fantastic too - so many pretty shapes in vellum and clear acetate, plus the Prima sugar dots match this collection so well! Now all I have to do is print some pictures and find a place to hang it :)

 

One of the titles and labels have been cut using my silhouette cameo. So joining the 'tell me dies, tell me sweet little dies' at Paper Issues

 

 

Confessions of an art lover - Blog hop with a difference

Hello creative people,

A good few weeks ago, a very sweet scrappy pal and fellow DT Lulu Pooh Hussena Calcuttawala tagged me to join the 'Getting to know you better' blog hop. I promised to join but was unable to post on time. Then few weeks later, two more very dear friends asked me again - Karuna Chauhan and Bipasha K and this time I couldn't refuse. I admire each one of these three artists and their encouragement means a lot me.

Hussena is my go to expert when it comes to creating flower clusters. I love her shabby, elegant style of creating - I always go wow! she has tons of techniques up her sleeve to create that special effect which leaves everyone wanting yet another look at her project.

Karuna Chauhan - I owe a lot to this girl! When I started blogging in December last year, I was very new to scrapbooking, yet she trusted me and offered me a place in her very talented Design Team. Im very proud to be a Lulu Pooh and the love and encouragement from you and the other Lulu Poohs makes me flex my creative muscles and explore new techniques and medium. Thank you Karuna :)

And finally Bipasha - we all now call her the Prima flower girl. She makes magic with flowers! I came across her work through a Lulupu challenge and my jaws dropped - she had made an explosion house; valentine themed. Hopped onto her blog and was blown away by this girls creativity and amazing 3d projects.

My life in blogland has been very enjoyable thanks not only to these three friends but also all of you readers who regularly drop by and leave me sweet words of encouragement. Now onto some tit bits about me.

1.What am I working on right now?
I almost always have a dozen more ideas in my head than I have the time for. Right now, Im working on completing my DT assignments for this month and next. I can never work on one project at a time - that's the way my brain works :P plus mixed media work involves gesso, paints, texture paste etc that always take ages to dry (sp in winter) so while one is drying I hop onto the next project. I usually sneak in an art journal page or two and am also working on a glass painting. Here is a pic of what I worked on today....

2.Why do I create what I do ?

I have been creating art journal pages for many years now - back in my school days though I didn't know they were called art journals and I didn't have access to so many different mediums either - primarily worked with oil pastels and sketch pens (sharpies). 

At one time (15 years ago) my collection of sketch pens exceeded 100 - used to especially save the nearly dry ones as they are d best to shade :P Who knew a few years later someone would make copics and distress markers. Im sure there are many more products out there that I havent even heard of. This one below is all sketchpens except the yellow sky which is oil pastel.

I've also tried my hand at glass, tile painting, pottery, embroidery, mosaics and now scrapbooking. Sewing is next on my list ;)

I create because its my way of expressing and processing life, analyzing my feelings, internalizing the events that's happened around me and also my safe haven to face bitter truths.I just love using my hands to make stuff. 

 Click here to see how I created this layout

For a few years in between, I had stopped creating and when I wanted to start back again in 2013, I wanted to try something new and that's how I discovered scrapbooking.

Go here to see all the pages of this album. 



3.How does my creating process work?

For my scrapbook layouts I always pick a photograph first - usually my kids. Then I think of when the photo was taken and the story behind it. I choose my papers, colour scheme, embellies based on that. I can never use a background paper without altering it in some way. 

 

Click here to read how I made the background on a plain cardstock

Many times with my art journal pages and cards, I don't have a final image in mind - I take my favorite mediums and just have fun and invariably what I create will reflect whats going on in my head {..........there, I shared a secret :)}

Click here to see a pictorial for this card

When Im not doing any of these, I love experimenting and trying different techniques on tags or creating backgrounds. Sometimes Ill just fussy cut paper and an idea is born.

 4. What is my Signature style?

Hmmm...... mixed media..... but beyond that I'm not sure. I took out my last few projects and had a look - whats common is they all have gesso, texture paste, stamps, paints and decoupage (tissue paper)

Close ups here

Beyond that I dont know if I prefer shabby / vintage or modern. I believe that the more I create, the more Ill discover my style - just wish could find more time :)



Close ups of the layout here.

Thank you dear reader, for making it this far down my post. Now, I have two super talented crafters whose creations are a feast to the eye. I promise, you wont be disappointed, so take a few minutes more and check the links below 

Pritesh Dagur - She was our goto person for mehndi during college days - her designs were not only intricate but very unique. She was and still is a perfectionist. Little did I know she had a such a wonderful hidden talent and interest in quiling. Apart from her creative side, I admire Pritesh for her confidence and passion to excel at everything she sets her heart on. Did you know she holds a world record for quilling!

The second artist I want you all to meet is Divya Thallap of Yelling Yellow. Divya is a graphic designer, illustrator and mixed media artist. Each decoupage project she creates is a work of art. I found Divya on one of my FB art trail discoveries and instantly fell in love with her work. Although Divya doesn't blog, Im sure many of you would want to read more about what goes on inside her creative brain as an FB post.

I thank each one of you for visiting me today and really appreciate your comments - they make my day :) Hugs.

One of my all time favourite creations