CTMH Live Beautifully Australasian Blog Hop

A Happy Hello and welcome aboard to our very special edition – Live Beautifully Australasian Close to My Heart Blog Hop.

If you have arrived here from the amazingly creative, Shaunna Richards – Passionate About Pages then you are in the right place.

If you landed here by accident, no problem, please join in by following the link at the end of this post.

May is National Scrapbooking Month and to help you celebrate the beauty of your life, Close To My Heart brings you this limited-time Live Beautifully collection. From this collection you can choose to get the Live Beautifully: Cut Above® Layout Kit, Live Beautifully Paper Packet, Live Beautifully Stamp Set or get a discount on one of the Live Beautifully Album Bundles, only available until May 31st.

Now it maybe National Scrapbooking Month, but that doesn’t mean that you have to Scrapbook with these items! I  mean I have but you can also make  cards with the Live Beautifully Stamp Set & or with the Paper Packet and for this hop I wanted to show a few ideas of a scrapbook layout & some cards.

First up is this Smile Scrapbook Layout. I wanted to show how the papers could lean more to a male than using the Flowers.

The Live Beautifully Paper Packet has some black & white stripes & geometric greys as well as a blue watercolour look designs that work nicely for a male layout. I stamped & embossed the word Smile for the title. And once I decide the photos I will most likely add some Flip Flaps for more photos on this layout.

And now for the cards I wanted to show how the paper looks with the Live Beautifully Stamp Set & a design without.

The Rose card was stamped with the Live Beautifully Stamp Set in Blossom Ink & then I water coloured over with the watercolour paints, completely covering the stamp image. This gave the rose a water coloured look. I liked the rose on the rose designed paper but I needed to tone it down so that the stamped flower wasn’t lost. So I swiped White Daisy Ink over the paper to give it a distressed shabby chic look.

Here are some close ups of the painted Rose. You can also see the difference in the paper once the White Daisy Ink has gone over it.

The next Card is this cute Panda Card

The Panda was created from a very cute Bear image from the Jack Cardmaking bundle. He is coloured in black watercolour pencil to make him look like a Panda & added to a card decorated with the Live Beautifully Paper.

Close up of the Panda.

 

And I’d love for you to leave a comment before you head on over to the very talented Doris Taylor – Creative Inspirations to get more wonderful ideas on how to use this this month’s Live Beautifully collection.

Enjoy the hop & thanks so much for taking the time to check out these ideas. I hope you enjoyed what I created, as much as I enjoyed creating it. Remember you only have until May 31st, to get the Live Beautifully Collection.

See you soon.
Maz

Different ways to colour the Live Beautifully Stamp Images

One of the items included in the National Scrapbooking Month Celebration is this gorgeous Live Beautifully Stamp set with lovely roses, leaves & words. The Roses & leaves in this set are a solid design and some may find it hard to work out how to colour these images.  Here I am showcase a few different ways to colour the images.

Watercolour

Stamp the images with a lighter colour of exclusive ink, this will give you a guide & a background colour to work with. Dip the small watercolour brush into water & into one of the watercolours, make sure the brush is not too wet & apply over into an area of the petals or leaves in short strokes. Add the darker shades first in where you want shadows and lighter colours on top to add depth & to build up the image.

The rose on this Smile card was coloured in with watercolour paint. The rose was first stamped with Blossom Exclusive Ink then painted over with the watercolours.

 

Close up of the watercolouring on the card created.

The flower was fussy cut out & fitted into a cutout frame. Smile was gold embossed & fussy cut out to go over the card. Live beautifully papers sit in the background.

Watercolour Pencils

Stamp the images with a lighter colour of exclusive ink, this will give you a guide & a background colour to work with. Colour over the image with the Watercolour Pencils. Your image can be left as is after colouring in or you can go over the coloured areas with a wet Waterbrush, make sure it is not too wet.

The yellow rose was stamped in Lemon Exclusive ink then coloured over with the watercolour pencils. No water was added over the colouring.

Close up of the colouring on the yellow rose. You can see the lines of the pencil giving the flower a realistic look.

For the pink rose I stamped in Blossom Exclusive ink, then coloured over with watercolour pencils. A wet water brush was “painted” over the colouring which blended the ink & watercolouring pencils giving a different look to the rose.

Close up of the pink rose with the watercolouring pencils.

ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Markers

Stamp the images with exclusive ink, this will give you a guide & a background colour to work with. Choose two ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Markers (a lighter & a darker colour) that is close to the colour of the stamped image. Using the lighter colour first colour with short stokes over a petal or part of the leaf. Then go over the the area with the darker colour. Work back in the lighter colour to blend out the darker area into the main stamped image.

Close up of the colouring with the ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Markers

Dauber Technique with Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pads

A pretty simple way to use two or more different colours onto a solid image. Tap the stamp image into a lighter colour ink pad first, using a Sponge Dauber, pick up some of the darker colour & tap over the image. You can add a third colour but be-careful you may muddy the colours in the image.

Close up of the rose coloured in with the Sponge Dauber Technique. I used the Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen and drew where the white lines were to give the rose a different look.

These are just some of the colouring methods that you can try out – each give a different look to the roses images.Different ways to colour the Live Beautifully Stamp Images
I hope you enjoyed these colouring ideas with the Live Beautifully Stamp set and I hope you give it a try.

Till next time Maz

Fun Friday Technique: Wet Paper Stamping

So today’s Fun Friday Technique got postponed till today – Sat due to power loss & minor flooding. All is well here no damage – but it is rather hard to create by candlelight.

So today I am showing you how you can use yours stamps to create a wet paper watercoloring background. This is easy but it can get a little messy, but looks pretty effective.

What you need
– You choice of colour Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pad stick to two to three so you do not get muddy mixing of colours.
– Watercolour Paper
– Spray Pen filled with Water. These are great check out my Product Review on these fab pens
– Stamps of choice – I find ones that have a shadow & outline work great. I used the stamp set out of the Workshops Your Way® Here for You Cardmaking Kit which is only available till end of Apr 2017

Technique Process
– Spray liberal amounts of water onto your Watercolour Paper

– Randomly stamp your image with chosen colour & allow for it to bleed and run.

– If you need to spray with more water.
– Dry the background with a heat tool – tip turn the piece of card over & dry from both sides to make sure your card dries flat.
– Stamp the outline of the image in black over the coloured areas.

Bonus Tip
– Grab your Marvy® Uchida® LePen™ Journaling Pen to add any other details as I did for the small rose.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Fun Technique and I hope you give it a try over this weekend.

Till next time Maz

Fun Friday Technique: Using the Back of your My Acrylix® Stamps to Stamp

This Fun Friday Technique uses the back of the Close To My Heart My Acrylix®  stamps to create a shadow to sit behind your outlined image. This technique works best with symmetrical stamps. The My Acrylix®  stamps are sticky enough on the front that they will mount onto the My Acrylix® Blocks without falling off during your stamping process.

What you need
– Your choice of Close To My HeartMy Acrylix®  stamps – best to use symmetrical stamps. I used the Feb Stamp of The Month Easter Bunny – which wasn’t excatly symetrical but enough to make the technique work.
– My Acrylix® Block to fit your chosen stamp image.
– Cardstock
– Chosen colour of Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pads I used Bamboo for my shadow & Cocoa for the outline.

Technique Process
– Add your stamp face down on the My Acrylix® Block – this is completely opposite of how you would normally mount your stamp, but you are going to use the back of your stamp to ink & and stamp with.
– Ink your stamp with your chosen colour of Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pads & stamp your image.
– You will now have a shadow of the stamp image.
– Clean off the ink using the My Acrylix® Stamp Scrubber & the My Acrylix® Spritz Cleaner
– Now turn your stamp image over & retamp over your shadow with the outlined image.

TIP
If the front of the stamp will not stick to the My Acrylix® Block & does fall off before you get a chance to stamp or even ink the back of your image, just clean the front of the stamp with My Acrylix® Spritz Cleaner & you will find it will stick to your block much better

That’s it! It is easy & very effective.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Fun Technique and I hope you give it a try over this weekend.

Till next time Maz

Fun Friday Technique: Coordinating Thin Cuts Masking & Stencils

Close To My Heart now offer some Coordinating Thin Cuts with some of their stamps. When you get the matching Thin Cut normally you would use it to cut out your image, so today I am showing you how you can use the Coordinating Thin Cuts as a mask to create a halo effect when you add your background to your image and why we are at it why not use the negative of one of the shapes as a stencil, like I have with this circle.

This means you can use your thin cuts for more techniques not just cutting out your stamped image.

What you need
– Your choice of Stamps with Matching Thin Cuts I used the Some Kinda Wonderful Cardmaking Thin Cuts Bundle which includes both the Stamp Set and the matching Thin Cuts and the Basic Circle Thin Cuts
– Close To My Heart Cardstock
– Close To My Heart Exclusive Inks™ Stamp Pads

Technique Process
– Stamp your image in Black Memento™ Ink
– Colour the image in. I used the ShinHan™ Touch Twin™ Markers
– Cut out your matching Thin cut from a post it.
– Place the negative cut out over your image so you can be sure to align your mask, pop your mask in & remove the negative. Now you can be sure that the mask is in the correct position.
– Place the negative of the shape you want the sponged colour to be, I used the Basic Circle Thin Cuts.
– Sponge lightly with your lightest colour starting from your mask out to the background of your paper. Apply more ink if you want the colour darker. Always start lighter & re-apply to make the colour darker.
– Now put your card together.

Cut out a mask with coordinating thin cut & cover stamped image. Place the negative cut shape in place to form a stencil

Tape down your negative cut with some washi tape to keep in place and Sponge lightly over the masked image.

You can even stamp over a pattern background while the mask and stencil is in place.

That’s it! It is easy & very effective.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Fun Technique and I hope you give it a try over this weekend.

Till next time Maz

---

Want to See More Friday Fun Techniques?

Then you will love these
– Sanding over Dry Embossing

Fun Friday Technique: Sanding over Dry Embossing

Close To My Heart Exclusive Cardstock has a fab property – it has a white core!

This means it is great for a fun technique of sanding the Cardstock to reveal the white core as I have done for this card.

What you need
– An embossing folder. I used the Happy Thoughts Embossing Folder
– A Sanding Kit
– Close To My Heart Cardstock

Technique Process
– Insert your cardstock into an embossing folder & run it through an embossing machine like the Cuttlebug or A Big Shot
– Remove the cardstock and lightly sand over the raised areas witheither the block or file from your sanding kit

That’s it! It is easy & very effective.

I hope you enjoyed this Friday Fun Technique and I hope you give it a try over this weekend.

Till next time Maz