Pages

Monday 15 December 2014

Our November winners and more December inspiration ...

Welcome to our mid month reveal and the announcement of our November winners. Some gorgeous pages amongst our entries last month - thank you everyone for playing along with us.

We'd also like to thank our sponsors this month - Time to Create and Shop and Crop.

Time To Create is a family business. We share a passion to create, share and develop the best that we imagine!  We only stock products that we use and believe in. Our stock is always priced at the keenest costing we can do. We support Australian manufacturers and many Australian suppliers and try to have as wide a variety as possible.

As a family business Shop and Crop  strive to bring you all the latest from the Scrapbooking and Papercraft Industry, all our staff are very experienced and talented scrapbookers...We pride ourselves on great customer service, with a quick turn around of your orders of instock items.  We cater to both the online customers and through our store front at 10/335 Hillsborough Road, Warners Bay.  We love nothing better than for everyone to drop in, have a coffee on us and browse and enjoy all the great scrapbooking products.

And our winners are ....

 Merry who has won a prize pack from Time to Create.


 Regina who has won a lovely prize from Shop and Crop.


and our random draw prize (courtesy of DT member Di Hasthorpe) goes to  Yvonne Yam.

Fun-monsters

Congratulations ladies.

Could the winners please contact me at jjjustjane@bigpond.com with their postal details.  Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar. 

Our Creative Team highlights from last month (yep there are tow of them) go to  Di and Lizzy who went above and beyond with their pages.  They will receive a little something from me.



And now some gorgeous inspiration from our remaining design team using this wonderful inspiration
To wish you a happy Christmas and New Year  by  Ethel Spowers.

Criteria is to use this colour palette - your entry does not need to be Christmas themed
 (unless you would like it to be).



I chose to do an altered project this month - a Christmas bottle dress. A perfect Christmas give-away. I have decorated with a lot of chipboard coloured with Inca-gold.

We have a holiday break over Christmas and New Year. The children have their big school holidays, and it's a very relaxed time of the year for us. Last year we went camping with friends which was lots of fun. So I decided to scrap these photos for this Christmas challenge.
I kept the papers simple and used background stamping and embellishments to dress the page up.

JANE
I went with both the colours and the Santa theme from this month's are inspiration.

DI
For my December layout, I have used the colour palette to scrap a 'one-time-only' photo of our son, aged 17 months. He was not impressed with his first encounter with Santa.
I have used Pan Pastels and Distress Inks to colour sections of the background.

Now it is your turn ...

 Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions.  All we ask is that you create a new entry for our challenge although you are most welcome to combine with a sketch and/or colour challenge if you wish.  You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.
  

We don't have a guest Designer this month as it is so close to Christmas.

Monday 8 December 2014

December 3T's

Welcome to another round of Tips, Tricks and Techniques, this time brought to you by team member Lesley French.


Hello everyone, this month's challenge really inspired me as a couple of Christmas' ago my girls got out in our backyard and splashed around to their hearts content and the colour swatch in the inspiration this month matches the colour of their swimming togs. This got me thinking about how it can be hard to get colours to match and link through out your layout so thought I would share how I use paint to link photos, paper and embellishments together to create a cohesive layout.

To start I chose my colours, pink, blue and yellow. I wanted to add a Xmas theme but it is hard to find any in these colours so I broke out my Cuttlebug and found my Christmas tree.


I painted the raised side of the embossing folder and laid down some white cardstock. Now you do need to do this quickly as the Tim Holtz Distress Paints dry permanently if left too long!
 

 I then cut out the tree, distressed the edges to soften and added some bling.

To extend the colour scheme on the paper I edged the patterned paper with the 'Picked Raspberry' and added some 'Wild Honey' splatter (in an effort to mimic the splashes of the water)

 For the embellishments I painted the 'WOW' and the letters of my title in the 'Broken China'. I have some of the Tim Holtz Word Bands so I painted it pink then wiped it off so just the words stayed pink.


  
It's a simple layout but I hope that the techniques I have shown you will inspire to try using paint to help create a colour scheme that suits your needs.



Don't forget to enter this month's ARTastic challenge.  All the details are in the left sidebar.  Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry.



Monday 1 December 2014

Ringing in December ...

Welcome to December and another year is about to speed past us.  Hopefully everyone is getting excited by the prospect of Christmas and spending time with family and friends.

This month we are being inspired by this painting, To wish you a happy Christmas and New Year by Ethel Spowers.


Criteria is to use this colour palette - your entry does not need to be Christmas themed
 (unless you would like it to be).


A little about Ethel Spowers

Ethel Louise Spowers was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. Born on 11 July 1890, in Melbourne, daughter of a New Zealander father and a London-born mother. Her father, William Spowers, owned a newspaper. Spowers trained as an artist in Melbourne, with some study in Paris as well. Spowers had her first solo exhibit in Melbourne at age 30, showing fairy-tale illustrations. In 1928–29, she studied linocut printmaking at the Grosvenor School. She was one of several Australian women artists at the Grosvenor School, including Dorrit Black and Eveline Syme.  She mounted an exhibition of Australian linocuts in Melbourne in 1930. In 1932, she became a founder of the Contemporary Art Group, promoting modern art in Australia.
Spowers died on 5 May 1947, after a long illness from cancer, in Melbourne, age 56.The Art Gallery of NSW holds several of her works, some from an early period of realistic illustrations, others showing the marked influence of her time at the Grosvenor School.

This month our sponsors are:

 Julie from Time to Create



and 

and Donna from Mystical Scrapbooks


and of course every month we also offer a prize pack totally by random draw.

(this month donated by DT Lesley French) 

I would also like to make  mention that this month is the last from our super talented team member Julie Short.  We will miss you Julie and wish you well in your creative journey.  Many thanks for all you have done for ARTastic during your time with us.

And now our delightful Christmas inspired layouts from the first half of our amazing team ....

LIZZY
 I used all the colours from the palette, then took inspiration from the stars – adding lots!  And I’ve used the design from the painting as a sketch guide for my page – keeping the angled lines with the patterned paper under the photo, & placing my photo where Santa is! And the title alphas? They were dull ole red….amazing what some heat embossing can achieve!

JULIE
2014 has brought many cyclones and storms into my life this year.
It is the events and celebrations that provide the sweet memories, the taking a breath and enjoying the simple moments that I have focused on.
Crafting refocuses me!
Am I ready for Christmas? No! There is a layout for a very different family photo ready for 2014.
The photo which is there temporarily is from a long ago Christmas Celebration.
Thanks to the ARTastic challenge this month I've used yellow on a Christmas page - that's a first!
Creating before the photo - that's a first too!
May I take a moment to wish the ARTastic team led by Jane as well as all the wonderful crafters who interact with me a peaceful and loving Christmas.

TONE-LIL

 

This months inspiration picture is about Santa and giving presents in the Christmas holiday, so I thought about decorating a box of caramel chocolates( Toffee) as a Christmas present. I used all the colours in the palette and was inspired to add some reindeer's as well. I hope this inspires you to enter our challenge with an off the page project. 

DEB

As well as using the colours from the artwork, I also took inspiration from the stars and included them on my page and also used the Christmas theme to scrap this photo of a keepsake tree decoration.

HELENE



And now it is your turn ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on December 31st, 2014.  We'd love to see your new paper, digital, or off the page entries.  Please no back-dated submissions.  

 You may combine our challenge with a sketch and a product/technique challenge (so two additional challenges).  Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as provide a link back to ARTastic.  Don't forget to tell us how you were inspired by it.  

You may enter more than once in any month as long as each item is with a different creation.  International entries are very welcome however please be aware that some of our sponsors may not post overseas. 


Please pop back on the 8th for The ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you this month by our lovely team member, Lesley French.  You will love what she has to show us this month.





Saturday 22 November 2014

We welcome our November Guest Designer ...

.... Karen Brierley with her delightful take on our inspirational artwork this month, Tra-la-la by Antje Collis.


Criteria is Doodling

and remember "doodling" can be as simple as a hand drawn border !




My tip for reluctant doodlers:  Use a patterned paper base as a kind of template, and just embellish it with a pen or brush.  I chose a paper from a very old Scenic Route collection.  The original pattern was a simple array of different sized circles.  Every little bit of black that you can see is my pen work.  I had lots of fun with lines and dots and other simple doodles. I also fussy cut some leftover circles from the same paper, and doodled each one to make my title.



Hello!  My name is Karen Brierley, and I live in a beautiful semi-rural area of southeast Queensland with my husband, young teen daughter, and an assortment of chooks and ducks.  I work full time (rotational shiftwork) in the public sector.  Scrapbooking is my "happy place" - I love capturing memories of our family trips, our home life, and special milestones.   I have yet to discover what my 'signature style' is; I just scrap what feels right at the time.  When I'm not scrapping you will find me sewing or gardening or hiking or volunteering as a rural firefighter.  I also love to hang out at quirky cafes and secondhand bookstores.


I blog about my scrapbooking creations at beingkaren.blogspot.com ~ please visit if you have a spare moment.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to guest design at ARTastic this month.



Two of my favourite layouts from 2014:


SWaK - first time I used paint splatters on a layout (using a pipette) - I had heaps of fun with this one!

* Woolgoolga - one of my favourite photographs from summer vacation last year - I played with gesso and embossing powders on this layout.


Thank you so much for guesting with us on ARTastic this month Karen. Your work is just wonderful.

Remember ....


You still have time until the end of the month to upload your own take on this challenge.  We'd love to see what you can do with our inspiration this month.

Saturday 15 November 2014

October winners and more November inspiration ...

Welcome to our mid month reveal and the announcement of our October winners. Some gorgeous pages amongst our entries last month - thank you everyone for playing along with us.

We'd also like to thank our sponsors this month - Time to Create and Flourish with a bling

Time To Create is a family business. We share a passion to create, share and develop the best that we imagine!  We only stock products that we use and believe in. Our stock is always priced at the keenest costing we can do. We support Australian manufacturers and many Australian suppliers and try to have as wide a variety as possible.


And our winners are ....

Chris Sexton who has won a prize pack from Time to Create.
 

Evelyn who has won a lovely prize from Flourish with a bling.

and our random draw prize (courtesy of DT member Wendy O'Keefe) goes to  Regina Chandler.

Congratulations ladies.

Could the winners please contact me at jjjustjane@bigpond.com with their postal details.  Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar. 

Our Creative Team favourite this month is Wendy O'Keefe who will receive a little something from me.



And now some gorgeous inspiration from our remaining design team using this sweet little artwork by Antje Collis called Tra-la-la.

Criteria is Doodling

and remember "doodling" can be as simple as a hand drawn border !



As it is getting nearer to summer "down under" I chose to make a colourful and summery page inspired by the doodling from the inspiration picture. I doodled my own background and used patterned paper with doodles and left the page clean and simple. 

Want to have some fun with doodling? Come and join in  and show us your creative side :)

MARY

Originally when I saw the Challenge I was going to do a layout of my GD Dancing, then one day at work we were talking about free range hens and the word scrap bucket was mentioned. Childhood memories came flooding back ! We always had chooks and we had a Scrapbucket. As luck would have it my son had taken photo's of his Grandma pottering around doing her chores including feeding the chooks. Not as pretty as a ballerina, but all of a sudden this memory became very important for me to document. I have doodled circles in a white gel pen and doodled around the edges of the layout as well.

JANE

I have combined the chickens with the doodling with this bright and happy page.

STINA
I love this colour combination so I had to have it on my card. My "doodling" comes and goes, but now it has been a while since I´ve used it so it was fun to be reminded of it. 

DI
With the inspiration from ARTastic this month, I have taken the doodling to the extreme, making sure I added elements of loops and dots/ spots as part of my design. I also added music notes (because the hens had to be dancing to music!). Most of my patterns have been done in black on white cardstock. However, I also added a wedge of black paper and used a white pen for the design and used pan pastels to colour some other sections. I've kept these to fairly soft colours: blue, lilac and pale green. The photo is of self, aged 21, taken at a night out with my husband.

LESLEY
The first thing that got my attention was the swirls and squiggles, it reminded me of some photos I took of my husband teaching my girls to fish. So that was the start of my layout! I found some lovely black and white doodled on paper and added some colour by doodling on it with distress ink and an H2O pen.

Now it is your turn ....


 Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions.  All we ask is that you create a new entry for our challenge although you are most welcome to combine with a sketch and/or colour challenge if you wish.  You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.
  

Next week we will be introducing you to our delightful November guest designer, Karen Bierley.