Peace with 13@rts

Hello friends, we are just a week away from Christmas!

Hope you're finishing up those last minute shopping and getting ready for the merry making and catching a break from a whole year's work.

Today I'm up on the blog to share a winter layout with you. Coming from tropical Singapore, I've always had a deep fascination for winter - the cuddling around the fire on a winter night, holding hot cocoa in my hands and with my loved ones around me sharing warmth and laughter. Winter is such a time for families.

Here is my page:

I love the world looks like when it wakes up from a night of snow. Everything is covered in a soft white blanket and all is quiet and peaceful. I found that photo from the internet because it conveyed such a sense of serenity. I tried to do a monochrome layout with varying shades of grey by mixing matt black paint with white in different amounts. I also painted with Chalk Grey mist and Old Silver metallic paint to obtain those gradations in color. Underneath the painting is stenciling some snowflakes with a paste I made from Magic Powder and White and Silver glitter. When it dries, it leaves a beautiful iridescent finish. I also made splatters with my black and white matt paints.

Some closeups: 

My title piece is from Winter Tales chipboard words and I painted it with White Silver glitter paint, followed by the leftover paste I used for the stenciling in the background. The snowflake chipboard underneath was treated the same way. 

After all the paint and paste is dried, I went over another layer with modeling paste for words to create that subtle contrast in the background.

To add on more texture, I sprinkled glass glitter, plastic microspheres and sealed them with liquid medium. I would have happily added silver microspheres as well if only I could find them in the tornado of scrap supplies on my desk. This is what happens when you get so caught up in crafting that you forget about packing up!

With that, this is all I have to share for today. Hope you like what I have created. Happy crafting!

Holiday Cheer with Maja Design

Hello friends!

I'm in today to share a Christmas project for Maja Design. I'm not much for Christmas papers as you would know by now, but their "Home for the Holidays" collection is absolutely delightful! For this month of December, I will be creating with this collection just to get into the festive cheer.

This is the tag I've made:

I've done some layering of papers from the 6x6 paper pad, as well as with the die cut tags and postal stamps. Again, my background work was simple - with some festive words stenciled with modeling paste and colored over with a matching blue in watercolor and paint

Some close-ups:

A chipboard ornament which I colored with glitter ink and stacked on top of a die cut snowflake from one of the more neutral colored papers from the paper pad. I chose red to highlight the color in the bottom-most piece of patterned paper and to use it as an accent color that really popped.

Layering of the tags which I fussy cut out. To create the snow falling on the tags, I added generous amounts of white glitter paint and allowed it to dry.

This postage stamp really warms my heart! It reminds me of exactly what we do in cold weather with our loved ones - we cuddle!

That's all I have for today. Have a great day ahead!

December Inspiration for Blue Fern Studios

Hello friends!

Can you imagine, Christmas is less than 4 weeks away? I'm totally excited, and the cool weather has definitely put me in a festive mood.

Today, I'm up on the blog to share my creations for December, using the fabulous Vintage Christmas collection. While there are so many beautiful festive images for the season in this collection, there are also more generic papers that can be used for other themes. 

For my first share, I've made a page of my boys based on the sweet December sketch by Michelle:

My background was mostly hidden by the clusters with little bits peeking out, so that the images on the paper do not get covered up. This time, I've also kept my layering to a minimum so that more attention can be given to the details in the embellishments.

Some close-ups:

One of the pieces from Clip Frames which I altered using Blue Fern Studios' own embossing powder. Love it that other than the red, it has a gorgeous gold tint to it. Lots of stamping in the background too to bring out a botanical feel.

Some fussy cut flowers which I tucked behind my photo. It has Christmas bits in it with the holly, but who would have know how nicely it blends in here!

A Deja Vu Tweets chippie which I altered with gold ink and painted with Imagine Ink in Persimmon.

My second project and video tutorial is a Christmas mini album. When I first saw the Vintage Christmas papers, there were so many beautiful images I could cut out and use for an album so I knew I had to make one. As you all probably know by now, I'm not a Christmas project person with the exception of cards so this is really quite a first for me! Since the papers themselves are so gorgeous, I had to leave them as they are and build up smaller layers, so my tutorial focused more on playing with the chipboards. 

More close-ups:

I decided to add Liquid Pearls to my Gingerbread House after the video was made. 

Views of the inner pages:

And more close-ups:

And finally... here's the video. Have fun watching!

That's all I have for today. Happy crafting!

Jelissa