Gentle Warrior

Hi guys. Hope you've all been having an amazing week. I've had a lot of time on my hands recently because my husband is doing over-time this week. What this means is "Woo, scraptastic fun times!"

I've been heavily working on my daughter's baby book, a Christmas present for one of my best friends, and single handedly planning a teddy bear picnic birthday extraganza. But enough about all that at the moment.

So this week's post is another Disney(of course it is!) IC, featuring one of the non-Princess Princesses. I know, I know, confusing right? For those who are not complete Disnerds like me, what that means is she is considered a Disney Princess because she meets Disney's strict criteria about what makes a Disney Princess. In Mulan's case, she performs an act of great heroism by saving all of China, thus granting her the honoured title of Disney Princess.

I love Mulan because her struggle to find the balance of what is expected other and following her own heart really resonates with me. It's a constant struggle for a lot of us, but in the words of Mulan's father, "the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all." Mulan overcomes all obstacles that confront her and earns her family lasting honour.

For this IC, I went very textured. I wanted to portray both sides of her nature. Firstly, l added texture to the card using texture paste and Tim Holtz honeycomb stencil. Then l coloured the background with Tim Holtz Distress Spray stains. I then went on to colour some tissue paper to make the leaves of her comb, a paint chip to form the base of the comb and white Card and gold pen to create the flower. The helmet was torn from black patterned papers, and the sword cut from vellum. From there it was just a process of gluing things in place.

The quotes for each of my Disney cards are taken from the songs that I feel are most indicative of the Princesses character. For Mulan, it is the song "Reflection". It is where she is asking herself who she really is, questioning what defines her, and coming to terms with the fact that she cannot live up to the expectations of her family and her society, and still be true to who she is.

And that's it for this week! I hope you're enjoying the pieces that I'm sharing with you and giving you an insight into my creative processes. Have a fantabulous week and see you soon!

T xxx

Whole New World

Hi guys!

We're back this week with another Disney IC, and this week's card features the lovely Jasmine.  Known for her forthright nature and great escaping skills, she's a princess out to find her own freedom. I took inspiration from the moment where her whole perspective becomes clear about what she wants and the freedom she feels when she's with Aladdin ('cause let's be honest, she knew it was him the whole carpet ride).

I wanted to incorporate the magic carpet into it, amd being the HUGE Disnerd I am, some miscellaneous scrapbooking paper just wasn't going to cut it. So after colouring the index card in Tim Holtz Distress Spray stain in copied sapphire, I went to work hand painting a piece of purple felt to look like Carpet. And overall,I'm pretty happy with the effect. I cut out a magic lamp from black cardstock and filled in the details with gold pen.

The piece wouldn't be complete without Genie's signature blue smoke and this was achieved by coloring some white tissue paper blue. Then I twisted it and glued it in place until I was happy with the effect. 

And we're done.  I feel that I must tell you that every time I work on one of these cards I am constantly singing the lyrics. That is just how much I love Disney. Anywho, have a good week b lovely people, and see you soon. Xxx

The Beast Within

Hi everyone!

We're slowly working our way through our Disney-inspired ICs and it should be pretty evident by now, that the princesses are in chronological order. And so, this week's IC is about the bookish, beautiful Belle.

Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful story about learning to love the person living inside the skin, and not just judging on the outer appearance. Belle really resonated with me as a child, and even more so as a teenager, because I myself was a real book worm and didn't understand why it was required to change who I was just to fit in.

I decided that the imagery for this IC should be the ever iconic rose in the bell jar. But to tie in Belle's love of books I put a torn out page as the background, before using both home made and Tim Holtz Distress Spray stains to colour it. The rose was more book pages coloured and (painstakingly) crafted into the memorable rose. The interesting part of this piece is the bell jar.  Initially I had just cut out a piece of clear plastic to cover it, but after I had stuck it down, I used my heat gun to try and dry it quicker and it started to melt. So grabbing the opportunity (after freaking out), I used a ball tool from a nail art kit to mould it to the contours of the rose. Then I used black water colour to outline it amd give it some definition.

And we're done! I hope you love it as much as I do and have a good week.

Laters! Xxx