Quick tip: Getting a clear stamped image

If you are having issues getting a clear and complete image especially with the larger style background block stamps, then it's worthwhile investing in a firm foam pad. This dense foam has just enough 'give' that you can press the stamp into it across the whole stamp- but not get any messy edges and not miss the centre of your stamp or damage the surface you are stamping onto.

Gallery Pick - Dawn M

Each month on our Facebook chat, we host the albums for the monthly and Cybercrop challenges. There is such a great wealth of inspiration in those albums I wanted to pick some scrapbookers work to share each week.

Dawn M made this wonderful page for our June Cybercrop. The thing I love the most is her background, the combination of ink/mist with texture paste and a mask/stencil gives the page love subtle added texture and interest. The colour palette of blues and neutral tones works perfectly with her photo, and the design is great. Fantastic inspiration. Thanks, Dawn.

Saturday Share: Favourite Sidekick

A dozen ideas for your weekend scrapping...

1. Scrapbook a monochromatic LO
2. Use premade phrases for your journalling
3. Add some glitter
4. Highlight something significant from your photos with simple embelishing(glasses)
5. Use punctuation from Thickers as an embellishments
6. Use two contrasting fonts for your title
7. Use staples to add items for extra texture
8. Pop your title up on foam tape
9. Use gold with blue for great contrast
10. Put your photos at the top of the page
11. Flick some kaisermist splatters on your page
12. Document something silly

Happy Scrapping!

Quick tip: Inking your stamps

Do you put the ink on the stamp or the stamp on the ink?

By placing the stamp on the table and 'kissing' or pouncing the ink onto it, you are less likely to get the ink where you don't want it around the stamp and also less likely to waste ink. You'll get better coverage on your stamp as well. This is especially true with the soft spongy pads like our favourite Versamark cubes. So put the ink on the stamp, not the other way around. :-)

Fanboy

Here's my response to Donna's three clusters of flowers challenge for this months Cybercrop. 

This month I have been working with the Kaisercraft Line: Time Machine.  I've also used the Apple Blossom flowers and Green Tara Maple leaves. I inked the flowers and chipboard with Versamark Copper. My chipboard cogs are from WOW, and the Steampunk Cog Strip is from 2 Crafty. My title letters are AC Happy Gold Thickers. I finished my page with an inked wood veeneer heart, Black Kaiser Rhinestones and Metallic Copper Penny Nuvo Drops.

Gallery Pick - Debra W

Each month on our Facebook chat, we host the albums for the monthly and Cybercrop challenges. There is such a great wealth of inspiration in those albums I wanted to pick some scrapbookers work to share each week.

I'm loving DebraW's page from the May challenges. She has really done a great job making this page design her own. I love that she used old and newer photos of her Dad on the page and the little elements she has used help to tell a visual story. The colours work great together. The rulers give us a feeling of the measuring of time passing echoing what has happened between the photos. This is a great take on the challenge Debra, thanks for playing along.

Weekend Inspiration

Joining in on our Cybercrop this week here are a scrapbooker's dozen ideas for using flowers on your pages...

1. Make a shape out of flowers- maybe a heart?
2. Collage some flower images to make your own patterned paper. 
3. Punch flowers from your scraps.
4. Make flowers from fabric.
5. Stamp some flowers on your page.
6. Gather a bunch of flowers and layer them up in a mixed media cluster.
7. Colour some flowers with spray or ink.
8. Draw or doodle some flowers on your page. 
9. Die-cut 'windows' in your page and pop some flowers in the window. 
10. Plant a window box of flowers on your page. 
11. Scrapbook a story about flowers; given, received, grown, or visited.
12. Use a flower or two in your title or journalling.
13. Add a quote about flowers.
14. Use ribbon or washi tape to make stems for your flowers.

August Cybercrop - Flower Frenzy!

Welcome to our August cyber crop. We are going flower mad!

Having boys in my life meant for years I didn't add flowers to my pages.... and I missed out on so much fun!
Flowers can be great on male pages.  they can add to the happy, whimsical feel to a page, dark colours and fabric can lean towards a more grown-up feel to a page.

Of course, if you don't have a little girl in your life, then we can look towards other women in our lives,  our mum's, aunties, friends or sisters to fill our need for pretty pages :) 

Challenge 1 -  Fussy Cut a flower or two
Or you can use a die-cut if you really cant fussy cut! :)  I've used Cocoa Vanilla's  Love Always range for my page.

Up soon! 

Challenge 2  - Sketch plus flowers
Use the sketch below and add some flowers either in the patterns on your paper or as embellishments.

Here's my page- I've gone with one photo in place of the two and moved a few things around. I've worked with the Endless Summer line from Cocoa Vanilla and Prima Flowers which are a huge 50% off right now.


Challenge 3 - Use 3 clusters that included flowers

I've finally started scrapping our Christmas 2018 photos, this page is 1/2 of what will be a double page.  I've used an older Kaisercraft range as it's the perfect match for my Christmas colours last year, white and gold.

Have Fun and please share with your scrappy friends

Due date Sunday, 25th August - Midnight

Upload your challenge entry to the Galleries on our Mystical Scrapbooks Facebook Chat Page.

Our chat is private and if you haven't yet joined us we'd love to have you. If you have any trouble joining please email to me, Donna, with your name and or a link to your Facebook profile and I will send you an invite.

We will be giving away 1 gift voucher valued at $20.00 and each entry receives 1 ticket into the draw.....each challenge you do gives you a chance to win!

We will also have a surprise prize!!  Our DT members will choose their favourite over-all layout and I will send that lucky person a surprise in the mail.

Happy Scrapping
Mystical Team

Quick tip: Make your own backgrounds

I've been playing with watercolours lately. I got a pad of watercolour paper and some cheap paints so I could have a play decide if it was something for me to get into. I watched a few youtube tutorial to get some ideas to get started- who knew!! It's been a lot of fun and definitely want to keep trying.
I ended up with some pretty results that I didn't have a specific use for so I cut them out into blocks rounded the corners and used them to make a background on a piece of 12x12 cardstock. I love the result.

Layout Design: Triangle

There are a lot of great foundations for page design that we can build on to make well-designed pages that please the eye. A triangle foundation is probably one of the least used, but it's one that I really enjoy using for the attention it places on the photo, the way you can direct the flow and the lovely chunk of restful white space.

You'll see that practically all of the elements on my page sit in a triangle shape that is anchored to the bottom left of the page. As readers of English, our eyes naturally start in the top left corner of the page where I have used elements to draw the eye down the page right to my photo. Then the scalloped piece leads the eyes across the page where we find the title and journaling. Using the triangle naturally creates a big hunk of restful whitespace on the top corner which means I am free to go a little crazy with stickers, mist and other bits and pieces and the viewer won't be overwhelmed by my page. Though I think I might have overdone those splatters. :-)
This design doesn't need to be a perfect triangle in any sense- just give the idea of one. There are a whole lot of options for where you can place the triangle on your page. How about having a go with the triangle design sometime soon?

Gallery Pick - Property Jane

Each month on our Facebook chat, we host the albums for the monthly and Cybercrop challenges. There is such a great wealth of inspiration in those albums I wanted to pick some scrapbookers work to share each week.

Oh my goodness, how lovely are these layouts from PropertyJane for our May challenges? She has really rocked both challenges out of the park. The paper choices she has made are just perfect and even though there is a lot going on her photos absolutely have the focus. I love too that her journaling is an extract. Such beautiful pages, thanks for sharing PropertyJane!

Saturday Share: No.1 Fan

A dozen ideas for your weekend creating...

1. Fold a doubl-sided patterned paper.
2. Use a paperclip.
3. Put your title in {Brackets} for added interest.
4. Use ink on a wood veneer piece.
5. Scrap a relationship between an adult in your child's life.
6. Add butterflies for a feeling of light and happiness.
7. Use blues.
8. Enlarge a photo.
9. Make a small gathering of words and pictures.
10. Hide your journalling.
11. Mat a photo.
12. Use florals.

Supplies used: Patterned Paper flowers here and hearts here, Title, cardstock, wordart expressions, Butterfly sticker, Embellishments here, here and here, ink. The woodveneer butterfly and paper clip are from my own stash- how about these, these or these and these?

Stash Busting: lots of bits

Ever get to the point where there's just a couple of stickers left on the sheet? Or three die cuts left in the pack? Or you're tired of coming across that same cute little item in your stash and wondering if you'll ever find the page to use it on? If so, then this is the stash busting layout for you... 

There are a few tips to making a page like this where you use up a large number of supplies come together cohesively...

• Have a relatively simple background. No overly patterned papers or bold designs that compete for attention.
• 1 or 2 photos at most.
• Keep a colour theme and try and stick quite closely to it plus neutrals. I have baby pink and blue. It's okay that I have veered a little into apricot- but that dark pink flower top left, and the more green/blue one centre-right probably should have been left off this page.
• Work in clusters. Almost everything bigger than a Nuvo dot on this page is touching or overlapped with one or more other items. That blue butterfly toward the bottom of the right side doesn't, and it stands out because of it- I should have slipped it partially under the blue flower.
• Leave some 'white space'. Remember white space isn't only white. It's a clear space with nothing going on that gives the eyes somewhere to rest.
• Draw attention to the feature- my patterned paper points straight down at my photo.
• Use a layout design- I've gone with a diagonal Layout from top left to bottom right. All of the action happens in a band from top left to bottom right. My clusters are intentionally lighter in visual weight where they start to move out of the design (bottom of the left-hand cluster and top of the right hand one).  
• Be willing to cover things up- we all have those little items we love and want a little spotlight on- sometimes you have to be willing to let that go and have them overlapped with something else... witness my lovely blue butterfly. :-)

Have fun using your stash!

Quick tip: Acrylic Stamp Prep

Acrylic stamps usually come with a very shiny surface- especially the cheaper ones from the bargain type stores. This makes the ink pool and it is hard to get a clear image. The best idea it to give the stamp a very light sanding with some fine to super fine sandpaper. Then wipe it clean with a cloth, baby wipe or stamp cleaner. The easiest way to remember to do this is by doing all the stamps while still on the sheet the day you bring them home.

Quick Share: Your Face Makes Me Happy

 

 Supplies Used: Patterned Paper: Pink, Diamonds, Timber, Titles: Happy, mini letters, stickers, frame, hearts, and other diecuts, Text bits, Nuvo drops.

Gallery Pick - Tracey C

Each month on our Facebook chat we host the albums for the monthly and Cybercrop challenges. There is such a great wealth of inspiration in those albums I wanted to pick some scrapbooker's work to share each week.

One thing I really struggle with in scrapbooking is using bright colours- that's kind of a pain because I am totally attracted to bright colours when I am buying papers! That's why I am so glad we have Tracey C in our gallery for me to be inspired by and scraplift- she's a complete master at getting the whole spectrum on her page and making it totally work with her photos. She's also not afraid to make a mess- and her messes look just amazing! Thank you, Tracey, I absolutely love these two pages from our June CC and am grateful to have your talent in my world.

Design: Why'd you do that?

Every wondered why something works one way and not another? Looked at something and thought it just feels off? Only to move it around and create something that feels like it 'fits'? Hopefully these posts will help you to figure that out...

You might have seen this layout in my post about stash-busting your frames in my post at the end of July- here's where I started. I knew I wanted this background paper because it was bold and simple and the blues and white matched with the clothing we were wearing that day.

I tried the paper this way first. I liked the way the photo had a home nested in the diagonals but it didn't 'feel' right because the bottom of my photos was dark as was the bottom of the paper- it left things feeling all a bit bottom heavy and with the light in the trees behind us and the white paper the top half was washed out.

Then I tried it this way but actually it had a similar effect because Will and I both have dark blue on so we're heavy on the right and Tama and Kieran in the white make the left too light. I knew what I needed to do after that but I tried one more way first for the purpose of this post.

In this view I felt like the page wasn't going to be balanced enough- too top heavy and the white at the bottom makes my photo feel like it's kind of 'floaty' not anchored or grounded.

So here's what I went with in the end the dark blue on the left tones down the brightness of my white wearing sons and the white lightens me and Will up just enough. The photo still has a nice home and the lines in the paper pull your eyes to the people in the photo by 'pointing' at almost everyone.

And here's the final page again...

The addition of the frames adds some more balance to my lights and darks and the gold adds a really good point of contrast and interest to the page- it also gives your eyes a place to rest on a page that has a lot going on- with six people and all those frames and flowers. 

So maybe next time you can't figure out why something feels off maybe check the balance, visual weight, light/dark balance, and anchoring and see if the problem lies there.

August Challenges

This month we are embracing flowers!  Be it 'bold & bright' or 'soft & subtle' .... So let's have fun with them!

I love flowers, but having boys in my life I had to learn how to strike a nice balance,  so if you have boys too, don't' shy away from flowers,  hopefully, we can share some techniques with you during August so you can enjoy adding flowers to your pages too!

And if you have girls... let loose and have some fun!

Challenge 1 - Scraplift a favourite page.

Scrap-lifting is taking inspiration from someone else's page - There are a couple of rules when it comes to scrap-lifting.

1- ALWAYS credit the original creator
2 - Don't submit your page for publication when it's a scraplift.

I've scrap lifted a beautiful page by Nicole Doiron, I found her amazing page while browsing through the Dusty Attic's blog the other day.

You can see it here - Nicole Doiron

And here's my interpretation...

I've used Cocoa Vanilla - Boys Rule range, on black cardstock and for my flower, I've added a flair from Just Add Flair

Hope you have fun with this challenge.

Challenge 2 - Use flowers in an unexpected way.
Ideas: Use petals as balloons, use flowers for a title, deconstruct the flowers, make flowers from an unexpected material, doodle some out of this world flowers... the sky is the limit. 

I've opted to use flowers on my very masculine page with diggers and a construction site. I have teamed up Green Tara Apple Blossom flowers and black maple leaves with Memory Maze Fancy Cogs inked in Copper. I've used paper and stickers from the Kaisercraft Time Machine line. My title is thickers Glitter Phrases Sparkle. I've finished my page with Kaisercraft Resin Blossoms, wooden flourish love heart,  black Jewels and Aquatic Mist nuvo glitter drops.

Challenge Rules

· Please upload your entries to our Inlinkz link up, or to the album in our Private Facebook Chat Group by 11.55pm 31st August 2019 to be eligible for the prize.

The prize is by random draw.

· International entries are welcome, however, due to international postage cost, a Creative Design Spot will be offered along with a little surprise in the post.

Australia residents, this month’s prize is a Cocoa Vanilla Accessory Stickers pack.  

Have fun and please share with your scrappy friends!

Mystical Team