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

Mermaid Out of Water

So....I know,  I know....I've been a little slack recently with my posting. Last week, I had some personal stuff going on with the family, and so, it means that Iforgot to post last week, so sorry for that. However, that doesn't mean that I haven't been creating.

This week's piece is yet another Disney-inspired work.  So we all know the story of the Little Mermaid, and like all '80s girls, I am no different. Ariel is a gorgeous princess who only wants the freedom and independence to find her true love and happily ever after. Her song indicates her desire to leave the familiar and explore and just be 'a part of that world'.

In this IC, I decided to experiment with different textures. The scales were created using 3D texture paste and a Kaisercraft stencil. I also used a paste with small grains and yellow acrylic paint to give it a sand-like texture.  l used spray acrylic paint (my own) and a baby wipe to create the seaweed, and a piece of mesh from a gauze bag i had.

Finally, I used blue and white gelatos to create a  bubble-like effect. And that's  it!

I hope you all really enjoy it, and have a fantasmagorical week!

Teegs xxx

Daddy's Girl

Lately, I've been cycling through my projects to try and get them done.  This week I moved on to doing some of my daughter's scrapbook, which I had been meaning to get around to for some time now.

I love this photo of my husband on the day our daughter was born. The look of devotion in his eyes, and the wonder in hers, it just makes me happy.

So, with this page, I was very fortunate, because I had visited my very talented aunt, who bequeathed me with a whole heap of supplies that she no longer needed/wanted/being made to get rid of on the threat of it being burned.  One of these items was an Australian Scrapbooking magazine (which needless to say, New obsession!), and in it was a tutorial on using gesso to fade the page.  I thought that it look really cool, so I thought I'd give it a go. I then distressed the topmost page, and started to think of embellishments.

The first thing the jumped out was a ruffle made out of fabric.  I had a piece of dusky pink organza ribbon, that I kept from who know what, so I grabbed my glue gun and made a ruffle (cue much swearing and singed fingers). But it looked pretty good! I finished it off by adding some gold and translucent tape and I was pretty happy with one picture. I used some Tim Holtz Spray Stain in Picked Raspberry to add a bloom of colour in the backgroind, and another piece of scrapbook paper to act as a focal point. I also used some left over white lace to make a mixture of femininity and masculinity.  I then layered on different brads and floral embellishments, as wells as some stickers that I had left over.

I also used some clock stamps from the Dark Room, and used pink and white Faber Castell Gelatos to shade the stamps. Finally, I used a quote from a book about families, that my mother had given me.

I hope it brings a smile to your days. Happy Friday xx

Sleeping Rose

Hey everyone!

I'm trying really hard to post once a week on Thursdays, but this week life got in the way with the hubby ending up in hospital with gastro. But, fear not, he's home again and back to his "normal" wonderful self.

Anyway, this week I decided to post another of my Disney themed mixed media ICs. This one is titled 'Sleeping Rose' and features - you guessed it - the delightful Briar Rose, who is the heroine from Sleeping Beauty.  She is the last of the classic princesses that Disney produced before the rennaissance, which returned Disney as a household name.

Briar Rose is such a wonderful princess, because she is so in love with her life. She lives in the forest with her woodland friends and strange "aunts", and dreams of nothing but her handsome stranger to come and whisk her off her feet.  This is evident in the quote on the page :

"I know you, I've danced with you once upon a dream,"

But alas, this all changes on her 16th birthday, when she is ripped from her life and becomes her true self, the beautiful Princess Aurora.  This metamorphosis occurs by a night journey to the place where she falls prey to the magnificent (and one of the best villains, imo) Maleficent.

I drew inspiration for this really simple card from that moment when Aurora pricks her finger. I used texture paste and a homemade stencil to create the spindle, and then using Tim Holtz Distress Spray Stains in Broken China and Twisted Citron, I coloured the background. Then, I used watered down black paint to create the malevolent shadowing around it.  To finish it off, I spattered the whole thing with blue and fluoro pink paint.  This is to symbolise the ongoing battle between Flora and Merryweather for the dress to be pink or blue.

And that's it! I hope you all enjoy and have a fantastic week.

Ciao xxx

Trying Something New

Hi there!

So this week, I have a large project in the works.  I'm doing a quote journal for a friend's Christmas present. After doing some IC (index cards), I quickly realised that there were wayyy too many quotes that I wanted to include, so I decided that a journal was the way to go.

In starting the journal, I wanted to make the cover heavily embellished because the rest of the book would be quite simple.  But I lack the funds to go out and buy a ridiculous number of embellishments and I haven't had the opportunity to buy a die cut machine as yet.  So I decided to give making some from scratch a go.

For the frame and vintage keys, I grabbed some brown cardstock, and armed with Google images and an Xacto knife, I painstakingly cut out the images I wanted. I quickly realised that I needed to slow down (a few attempts were sacrificed to the rubbish gods), and ended up with some pieces I was happy with. I then coated them in embossing medium and powder.  I think they turned out awesomely, even though they aren't as thick as true die cut images may be.

Now I was getting excited! What else could I make?

Next up came some raised dots. I grabbed some pony beads and preheated the oven to 175℃. I out some baking paper onto a tray, then the beads. They then went into the oven for about 25 minutes, but I checked them after every 5 minute interval. I really didn't want my house full of black plastic smoke!  Once they came out, I placed another tray on top, and pressed down firmly to flatten them out.  If you're going to try it yourself, maybe put a tea towel on top of the top tray, 'cause it got a bit warm. 

Again, sucess!

Finally, I made some paper roses.  You can find the pattern for the roses here. And they look amazing, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, a bit of a long winded post this week, but I hope you all enjoyed it.

Have a great week! Xx