Summer Love with Maja Design

Hello friends!

Summer is upon us! Although here in Singapore, it's nearly summer all year round. Right now, I'm enjoying a nice, cold bowl of iced fruits in syrup, catching up on summer dessert recipes, and attempting to bake a cake for the little one's birthday in a couple of days.

While all that is going on, I've a sweet, sweet treat from Maja Design to share with you. Marie has drawn up a gorgeous collection for summer and it's unbelievably cute! Today's project is one of the many that I've made from her Summer Crush collection and I can't stop making more. Here's a step-by-step on how I made the layout.

Step 1:
Summer is all about fun right? So I had these mini rosettes made using papers from the Summer Crush collection with one of my Sizzix dies and they are just too cute.



Step 2:

For some reason, straws came to mind as well and I rolled these up. Just lightly spritz with water to make the heavy patterned paper easier to roll and glue down the edges with Glossy Accents. I then brushed the ends with gel medium and dipped it into gold embossing powder.

Step 3:

I primed these chipboards from Blue Fern Studios and painted them. For the title "Love", I used 13@rts' Metallic Pink and Raspberry matt paint and blended them. For the arrow, I applied Shimmerz Texturez in Patina and went over with a layer of Silks Glaze in African Jade.

Step 4:

Assembling my paper layers and embellishments together so that I can start working on my background.

Step 5:

Spread a very thin layer of gesso over the area where I wanted to work on, followed by some stenciling with modeling paste to follow the general flow of my layout. I constantly placed my paper layers down as a guide over the stencil to see where else I should add the modeling paste.

Step 6:
Misting with Tattered Angels' Glimmer Mist (Trunk Bay) and watering it down. Some parts I painted straight from the bottle for gradations in tone. Finish with some random stamping, and start gluing everything away!




Here is the completed page:

Love the summery feel this piece has! But I have a confession - I cheated on the photo because it was taken in fall during our Perth trip. But it was the perfect kind of weather which I wish Singapore would have in summer (or throughout the year for that matter!) - balmy temperatures, refreshing breeze, blue skies dotted by little white clouds, and that amazing picnic in the park... I deliberately chose the patterned paper with the sunburst because it adds to the composition - sun rays radiating out from my main cluster and that pattern is repeated in my mini rosettes.

More details in the close-ups:

Lots of touching up with mediums.  I made more splashes with 13@rts Light Turquoise chalk mist all over the page, followed by Acrylic Splash! Ink in white. 

Everything was also given a dab of gesso for a vintage washed out look, followed by African Jade Silk glaze. And lastly, a generous patting of a yummy paste made from Gold Pearl paint and 13@rts Magic powder.

Loving the patterns and colors from the Summer Crush collection.

Another floral cluster with a metal piece and some resins.

That's all I have for today. Thanks for dropping by!

love,

xoxo for 13@rts, an Epic challenge and Color fun!

Hello friends!

I'm in today on a fabulous Monday to share a layout I created using a mix of my new collection Mental Vacation and Olga Heldwein's Starlight, as well as the gorgeous new mediums in the 13@rts store. I have also entered this for the Epic challenge over at Scrap Around the World where I was also an Epic challenge winner last year, as well as my first time entering for Words and Paintery. The sketch inspiration came from Sketchabilities which I flipped (although I'm not sure whether I'm eligible or not!). It's been awhile since I entered any challenge at all and it was really all for fun!

My background was created with four different Ayeeda paint and mist colors - over a stenciled design with modeling paste on my paper Hallerbos. The inspiration for the colors came from Word and Paintery. To create the textures, I mixed Coral matt paint with 3D fillers and sprinkled on generous amounts of sand grit, more plastic fillers and mica flakes. To seal the whole thing, I painted liquid medium over. Before everything is dried, I randomly arranged black and grey threads around the paste I have made. These were inspired by some of the photos from the SATW mood board.

Some close-ups:

My title which is a chipboard piece from Blue Fern Studios. It was primed with a mixture of black gesso and plastic fillers, and glazed over Violet metallic paint. 

The resin frame was colored with random splatters of Lilac chalk mist. The tags were created with Olga's papers (Sagittarius) which I had distressed the edges with first: a layer of black gesso and secondly, gold embossing powder and sand grit. This was inspired by one of the pictures in the SATW mood board where there was a ring of confetti on the martini glass.

I like to layer Blue Fern chipboards and for this layout, I primed them with white gesso, followed by Lavender matt paint and Violet Purple paint. Then I painted on Lilac chalk mist and watered it randomly before some stamping. Lastly it was a layer of tinted embossing powder and distressing with black gesso. 

One of the fun bits I enjoyed creating are the leaves and vines. These were craft colored when I got them, and I was debating whether to alter them or not. Adventure got the best of me and I primed them with black gesso. Then it was a layer of glaze using Violet metallic paint, followed by stamped script which I embossed in gold. Then I took Gold pearl paint and glazed over the vines 

Wow, that was a lot of altering and layering! I hope you enjoyed the techniques I shared here and use them in your own projects. Thank you for dropping by the blog!

Entered for:

 

love,

Baby's First Year Album with Maja Design and a Giveaway!

Hello friends!

By the time you're reading this, we would be up in the air on our way to Australia for a family holiday. I'm looking forward to a good time of rest and bonding with the kids, as well as catching up with family and friends there.

But first, a jumbo post for Maja Design today. I have a video tutorial to share with you, and it's a baby girl's first year album I made for our little girl who would be arriving in September. The Vintage Baby collection by Maja Design couldn't have come at a better time!

Here's the cover and some of the inside pages:

I made an accordion fold for the inside pages, with one side using lots of die cuts from the papers and the other with ample space for photos and journaling. The idea is to keep the whole album as simple as possible so that I have plenty of space for her photos and recording of her milestones.

And some of the details:

And here's the video tutorial:

And before I go, here's the other part of the jumbo post. I'm hosting the giveaway for April at Maja Design and this month's prize is the gorgeous Coffee in the Arbor collection!



To win this, simply carry out the following steps:

1) Become my blog follower
2) Subscribe to my Youtube channel
3) Follow the Maja Design blog
4) Share on your social media platform
5) Leave a comment here to say you have done so

That's it! I will pick a winner on 14th May when I return from my trip. And that's all I have for today. Thanks for dropping by!

love,

Feeling Blue with 13@rts

Hello friends! Hope you're having a nice warm weekend!

Today it's my turn on the blog to share a creation made from fabulous 13@rts products. Whenever I need inspiration, I look into my box and pick the colors that make me feel the happiest. For now, it's blue and I love the different shades of blue that you can find in the 13@rts store.

Here is my canvas, which is going to a very special friend.



My background is really simple with just one mask design which I applied modeling paste over. Then I misted with Pastel Blue and let the color run with a bit of water. When that is dry, I took a very old and frayed paintbrush and dabbed on Matte Paint in Cobalt Blue. Because of the shape of the bristles, I got a very beautiful effect from the brush strokes. Then it was finishing up with the Pearl Mist in Navy Blue using the same technique and running the color with water. So with just one single brush, I achieved both a water-color and "stamping brush" effect.

Now for close-ups:

My title chipboard from Blue Fern Studios was painted with Metallic Blue paint and I used my finger to dab on gesso randomly. 

Varying sizes of glass beads and microspheres for texture and patting on modeling paste to hold them together. 

Some alteration of the white flowers using the same mists and paints I used for my background.

That's all I have for you today. Have a great weekend!

love,

Happy with Maja Design

Hello friends, how has everyone been?

I'm up on the Maja Design blog today with a masculine layout for you.

But how masculine can I get when I use so much flowers? LOL. But colors can make all the difference and I'm using the idea of contrast to create this layout. Generally we all like to use neutral and light colored backgrounds for our projects but a dark background like black can give a very outstanding effect. To make my dark background more obvious, I backed it up with a sheet of grey paper from A Gift for You collection. And to make my dark paper even more distinct without the use of any mediums, I distressed the edges so that the white of the paper shows and forms a natural border.

Close-ups:

You can see more clearly some of the details I have in my mixed media background that added on to the contrast. I have subtle stamping in grey and bigger splatters of white ink. I also have gesso on the background but I didn't want the white from the gesso to be too stark, so I wiped it down for a more toned down look. And on that part of the white, I made splatters of black ink, and the Splash! acrylic ink from 13@rts is just perfect for this.

The layering of my papers also used very neutral colors in order for the dark background and the amount of work done on it to stand out. The only color I have is blue which I used to match the color of my boys' clothes (yes, their daddy is a boy too :D). My chipboards from Blue Fern Studios were embossed with two colors - metallic grey and black to match the tones of the whole page.

Keeping my embellishments simple and monotoned so that they don't steal the attention away from my background. Even my title was simple with just a little bit of texture on it.

I had used circles on my page to keep the whole theme and flow consistent, and I wanted some bigger circles to create a direction that moves across the page from the left to the right. These bigger circles have to stand out from the busy background, but not so much that it becomes too obvious. So instead of using stamped white embossing powder (which can be too bright), I stamped using white gesso instead. Some parts of the stamp design come out very clearly, some parts are less obvious so the overall effect is that it does not over-power the background.

So that's all I have for you today. Thanks for dropping by!

 love, 

Debut post for Maja Designs

Good day everyone!

I'm so excited to present to you my very first post as a Maja girl! Still trying to get used to that name because I've never thought of myself as a girly girl despite the romantic shabby style that I love so much and the amount of flowers that I must use on any layout.

For my very first post, I've used some of the gorgeous papers from the Vintage Summer Basics and Vintage Spring Basics. Love how different papers from different collections complement each other so perfectly, not to mention just how much their shabby sweetness appeals to me!

Here is the layout I made of my youngest. I chose to focus on the grey and blue tones with a touch of white washing.

Some close-ups:

I had a lot of fun creating these layers by tucking in bits and pieces in between the papers. The neutral colors of the background paper was also suitable for the mixed media work I wanted to do with my 13arts stash of paints and mists.

My floral cluster and title. Keeping everything toned down and simple. Tucked under is a Blue Fern Studios chipboard (Printer's Desk) which I've lightly altered.

A flair from Um Wow Studio

The Graduated Square chipboard (also from Blue Fern Studios) under all that layers, together with more flowers. I also tucked in leaves die cut out from Vintage Spring Basics.

The other side of the cluster with little cut-outs from Vintage Autumn Basics.

And here is a start-to-finish of how I created this layout. Thank you for dropping by today!

love,