Pirate car wash

Pirate Car Wash!

by Geli

If that title doesn't make you curious, then nothing will!

It's Geli here and this is my crazy pirate hubby. 

For the background, I used the groovy Oil Change paper from the "Garage Days" range. So what if the paper says "Car wash"? I love to embrace randomness! Surely even a pirate has to wash his car sometime? 

I spiced it up with some washi tape, which is a great and cheap way to add some extra patterns! I especially love the black and white ones, because it lets the colours underneath shine through. The chevron stamp also gives it some grunge. That stamp is one of my favourites for adding some shading.

My journalling is tucked under the photos and this is what it looks like pulled out: How cool is this clip-folder? 

I put a little Inka Gold in platinum around the edges. 

 (Pssst: The original comes with a cool piece of stamped paper, but I messed up my writing and had to attach a new piece.)

The cluster features 2 of the tags from the Tyre Shop paper on a ball chain, a LOL charm and an embossed felt star. 

To do the black spots, I dotted on some 3D paint and gave the paper a hard tap from underneath to make it spread out a little. This works with Liquid Pearls too, though they won't spread out as far.

There is a bit of stitching and while I was sewing, I sewed on some arrow charms:

I think it looks great to include charms in a little hand-stitching.

I hope you like my pirate car wash and give it a try sometime!

Arrggh! Geli

Beach snapshot

Ready for some beach scrapping? Actually, it doesn't have to be a beach theme... 

 We are creating this layout from 2 pieces of paper (striped & architectural), adding washi tape, masking, stamping and some textures. 

Some stamped wood veneer, I like it! 

If you like it too, come along to class next week!

"Old Timers" and how the get the most out of your charms

Have you seen the new gadget gear cog charms (see them here)? They are just awesome and the perfect layout embellishment for boys, teens, men and all things needing a bit of an industrial feel.

They go perfectly with the Kaisercraft Garage Days collection. 

I have already shared how to emboss with a charm using a Cuttlebug or Bigshot (click here to see the full post), but you can emboss them without a Cuttlebug too. The best thing about this method is that you get to use them again on a different project! Read on for more details.

♥♥♥

First, let's do some random stamping in the upper half of a Nuts & Bolts paper using any background stamp. You can find lots of great background textures in the stamps section here. 

In my latest clean-up, I came across some old letter die-cuts that went into the "use it or lose it" pile. They matched my project perfectly, but they are sooooo old, please don't ask me where to get them.

You can punch, die-cut, hand-cut or nibble out several 1" circles and rub on or stamp some letters on some of them to make a title. Ink around the plain ones and rub Inka Gold (Champagne) around the letter circles. 

Now arrange them on the top 7" of your background paper. I kept them quite random, but in vertical lines, so I can stitch over them later. 

Tear and layer the front, back and barcode strip of the Tyre Shop paper: 

Sew across the circles (skip the letter circles) and around the edge of the layered bottom papers. You can be really rough and messy. 

Put one of the cog charms under the background paper and rub over it with a stylus or anything fairly blunt (you don't want to tear through the paper). 

The outlines of the cog will be visible, but not very clearly, so we'll highlight them by rubbing some ink over them. Again, embrace the messiness! 

 There you go, lots of little cogs and you still get to use the original one elsewhere! 

 This is now a pretty cool background and only needs a photo and a few more embellies. I cut some tags from the Spare Parts paper and teamed them with a felt star, a cap charm, a LOL charm, some more cogs and a ball & chain. 

 So go and get some of the new cogs and gears and have some messy fun!

Geli

Nan's girl

Next week in class we're taking a layout from blah to wow by making a large eye-catching fabric flower. 

They're not hard to make, all you need is some sheer fabric or ribbon with some texture. 

We'll even add some texture to the background, but will keep it subtle to let the flower shine. 

Would you like to join me? Find all class info in the top right corner.

Love You - Just in time for Valentine's Day

Next week is Valentine's Day and once again we're doing a lovey-dovey page in class in honour of good old Valentine. 

I'm still working on my friends' wedding album. By the way, if you don't want to do a love theme, that's ok. Heritage or baby photos would work well, too. 

 We are creating a background from one very plain piece of paper (like the Kaisercraft woodgrain paper I used). 

And I love this hot air balloon die. 

If you feel like joining in a class, you will be most welcome! You can find all the info in the top right corner of my blog.