Colour of the Month Challenge.

 Hello Everyone

Welcome to our first "Colour of the Month" Challenge.

This month's colour is RED.

 

 Our Photo Collage is made up of my personal photos and photos from our Design Team Ladies.

This months photo's are as follows.
50 red roses from my husband for my birthday.
A little child dancing, taken at my one of my daughters wedding. She is the niece of the groom and is dancing with our daughter Anna.
Lovely red berries from Solange (Brazil).
A London red phone box was taken when three of my girls had a holiday there.
A red fire engine at Disneyland. You can see Josh reflected in the head light. This engine is in the fire station below Walt Disney apartment.

Each month the colour will change.
The idea is for you to come up with a project using our colour of the month, send me some photos and a list of Imaginarium Design chipboard used. We will show it here on our blog during the month. At the end of the month I will choose two winners. Each winner will receive a bundle of our chipboard worth $50.
If you want to take part in  our challenge then I will need your photos by the 23rd of the month at the latest, I will announce the winners on the 25th of the month. Every week the design team will be sharing their projects to inspire you. We will also be giving way 2 small bundles of chipboard each month as well. All you need to do to be in the running to win one of these is leave a comment here and on our facebook page. All winners will be announced on the 25th of the month.

So lets see what three of our Design Team Ladies have come up with.

First up is Natalie May

Nat has designed one of her amazing journal pages to inspire us. I wish you could really see it. There is so much going on in the back ground. The photos here don't really do it justice.  

Here is what Nat has to say about her page.

Red is such a beautiful colour but I always have so much trouble creating with it.... I worry that it might look like I spilt blood or wine on it! lol!
So with that in mind, I opted for an Art Journal page with the boldest part of the image being Red!
I created a collaged background and then hand painted the Poppies using Watercolours and Neocolors. I used my Hand drawn chipboard leaves to add some dimension - I coloured them with Neocolours before using Gel Medium to adhere them to the page!

IDD0045 Nat's hand drawn stemmed leaves (2 in a board)

 Nat is one of our in house designers and the leaves above are hand drawn by her. It is one of the many designs Nat has done for us and is one of  her most popular designs.

Nat has quite a few personal art journals now, she teaches wonderful art journal classes inspiring many ladies to have a go at this mixed media art form.

Thanks Nat for sharing one of your beautiful art journal pages with us today. The red poppies really do "pop" on the page and I love your collage background.

Next up is Wendy Duwakin.

Wendy has been very busy. She has designed two card sets to inspire you.

First up is a cute country set. Here is what Wendy had to say about her cards.

For this month I have done two sets of cards each with a different feel - firstly my country cards. For the chipboard on these I have used Colour Blast Shimmer Dust and actually mixed with glossy accents to create both a matt look and a glossy look.

I love the little details Wendy has done on her card, like the stamping and raffia bow. Also the punched border which looks very effective on the red spot print. The Shiny finish on the chipboard nicely complements the black button embellishment.

I love the way Wendy has incorporated the colour red onto this card. By adding a couple of squares of red prints and a red ribbon, Wendy's card has a real country feel to it. The bee and ladybug is a really nice touch. The glossy look Wendy has done on her chipboard is very effective and contrasts beautifully with her green flowers.  

Wendy has also used some of our chipboard designed by Nat.

 IDFL0018 Sheet of 7 Leaves.

IDD0041 Nat's Pin Wheels.



Next up is Wendy's second set of beautiful cards. This set has a real vintage feel to them.



Here is Wendy's own words to describe her cards.

I decided to drag out some old paper tole kits I had lying around and put them together I really love these retro cards.

Sometimes with the chipboard flourishes I find that I need to cut them down to get the look I want such is the versatility of the product. For the flourish I used Colour Blast colour paste in bling as a base and then to get the look I was after I mixed two embossing powders together being "leather" and "snow white" to give the shipboard a mottled effect.

You can see the mottled effect on her chipboard flourish, and matches perfectly the vintage look of Wendy's cards.

IDFL0014 Jessica Flourish.

  

Just look at all the beautiful flowers Wendy has clustered on her card. The embossed chipboard word is the perfect touch.  In keeping with the vintage feel to her cards, Wendy has tucked some crocheted lace under her flowers.

 A really beautiful card that any one of us would love to receive.

IDW0080 Totally, Adore, Wonderful.

Thank you Wendy for sharing 2 sets of your wonderful cards with us.

Sue Smyth also has created something very different to inspire us.

Sue does very detailed pieces and amazing off the page projects. Today she has done a canvas for us. You can see all the beautiful bits and pieces Sue collects and adds to her work. Again this is another project that you really need to see. Sue has done a lot of work on the foundation of this canvas before she has added all the detail on the top.

Here is what Sue had to say about her project.

Here is a project I created a few years ago using red, it is not a colour I use a lot, though I love it. It can be a strong colour to use with a lot of emotion behind it, it can so easily go all wrong

However for this canvas the feature I decided to use was an old doll face and wooden spoon, along with lots of found objects to create texture, I have used chipboard and trinkets as accents, not sure it worked as well as I would have liked, but it sure taught me a lot about red and mixing it with other colours.

I have double embossed the chipboard brackets with gold embossing powder, (one of my favourite pieces) to give a bold shiny look, this is a great contrast with the red.

IDS0013 Embellishment 4

 IDC0003 Corners with Four Circles.

Sue has used these corners on the foundation of her canvas. You need to look closely to the corners of Sue's canvas to see them. 



IDS0002 Butterfly Large.

The Butterfly has been double embossed with gold embossing powder and Sue has used it as part of the fountain of her canvas. Tucking it under her dolls head. 

IDACU0001 Capital Letters.

With Sue's work you always need to look very closely and carefully or you will miss something.

Thanks Nat, Wendy and Sue for getting our challenge underway. I am hoping lots of you will join in and take part. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.

Over the next few days, our Design Team Members will be sharing more of their beautiful projects to inspire you.

I will be back in 7 days time to share more of our "Colour of the Month"  projects from our amazing  Design Team. As all the Ladies on our team have different styles, it should be an interesting and enjoyable month of creativity, with something to inspire everyone.

Thanks for looking.

Jane

PS Don't forget to leave a comment here and on face book to go into a draw to win a small bundle of our lovely chipboard. Maybe you can use it to enter next months Colour of the Month Challenge.



Introducing the Superlative "Artsy" Artist that is Solange Marques.

 

Hello Everyone.
Today I get to introduce another mixed media master to you all. Solange and I go way back.  The first time we met was when we were both on the Graphic 45 Design team together quite a while ago. I loved her work then and the way she used mixed media products on her layouts and projects before anyone else in main stream scrapbooking was. Her work often has a whimsical feel to it and she is not afraid to use strong colours and interesting designs. She often blends her photos into her layouts by painting around them making them part of the page. I love her work, it is so different from anyone else. She really is an Artsy Artist.
Solange has been on our team since 2012. So  I went back through my folders and found some of the very first projects she ever did for us.

 

This is one of the first projects she ever did for us in 2012. It is still beautiful and has not dated in any way. This is the sign of a true artist, most of us change over the years or follow trends which can sometimes date our work. Solange has stayed true to her own style and this layout is a classic Solange project.

 

 This mini canvas was a project Solange did for us in 2014. You can see how she uses different mixed media products on her projects. You can also see what I mean by a whimsical look and strong colours.
I asked Solange to do a blurb on herself.

Hi, my name is Solange Marques.
I am from Brazil and I'm in love with a scrapbook since 2004.I am married to John for over 34 years and have five children: Camila (32), Alexandre (31), Bruno (28), Gabriela (22) and Miguel (17). We also have three grandchildren: Clara (9) ,Samuel (6), and Gustavo (1 month).They are always present in my creations.
I graduated in Architecture and Fine Arts (perhaps that explains my huge passion for paint and their constant presence in my projects.
I've worked in a bank as a jewelry appraiser for 27 years, but now I am retired and I can create in full time!
In a scrap I love mixing techniques, mainly involving paints and textures (watercolor, acrylic paint, modeling paste and a lot of mediums). I consider myself a mixed media artist and I love the artsy

style.

 

 

One of Solange's whimsical layouts, again she has used strong colours  and blended her photos into her page. It's very clever and Solange is a master at this again I love the clean lines and the simplicity to her work.

 

Solange also does canvas/book covers and the one above is a great example of Solanges ability to do all styles of scrapbooking. This is one of her more grungy projects

 

 

Then for something different Solange also is a master a Shabby Chic. It is not often you have an artist that can do so many different styles. She really is in a league of her own. These three projects are just beautiful.

 

This layout again shows the way Solange works her photos into her backgrounds. It is so clever and I would love her to do a tutorial on how she makes it all work. She has used our flourish chipboard to create a wave effect and a frame to draw your eye to the photo. A couple of our butterflies finish the page beautifully.

 

Again another whimsical layout where Solange has used a photo of herself. She has added chipboard feathers to create interest around the nests on her layout. Lots of beautiful elements on this lovely layout.

 

Another layout on herself with lots of chipboard. Every piece has had a different finish to it.

'



 

I love this set of whimsical boxes It looks like a circus train full of performing animals just waiting for a train to take them on their journey.  Again lots of beautiful chipboard in each box.  

Every project shown here is a classic example of Solange's ability to do turn her hand to any style and make it work. It has been a privilege  to have her on our design team for such a long time and we are delighted that she is staying with us again this year.

Please feel free to leave a comment for Solange  welcoming her to our team for 2018.

I will be back tomorrow with another team member to welcome.



thanks for looking
Jane

Excerpts from the Diary of A Designer Volume # 4

Monday the 6th of March 2017

Dear Diary...

 I was looking over the themes for the April blog posts at Imaginarium today ... to my COMPLETE shock and horror the theme is 'my scrap space'..... Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I knew this would happen to me one day.

I should have finished that damn business degree and become an accountant .... no one cares what an accounts work space looks like!! 

So now have to clean up ....

I hate cleaning up my work space ... I always get 2 minutes into the activity, find something interesting that needs to be put away and decided I just have to use it instead... hence creating an even larger pile of carnage than was there before the so called 'clean up'.

It is a vicious cycle that never ends diary!! And there are no support groups out there for people like me with this particular problem ... I've looked!! :(

and now the fateful day has arrived where I have to make this space public!!

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..............

Well.... I'm going in... wish me luck , I'm off to clean my scrap space up so that its presentable for next months ID blog.... I will pack a lunch first of course... but I'm definetly going.....

Tuesday the 7th of March 2017

Dear Diary...

Well I did it ... Ok I didn't ... but I did try!!

I packed myself a small survival kit and headed out to my workshop yesterday and began cleaning.

I would dearly like to say I kept on cleaning, but sadly it's just not true :(

It took about 3 minutes of cleaning the table when I came across this box that went to toss out .... I had a bunch of photos developed and they came in this box....

Just as I collapsed it down and stuck it in the bin I had the thought that it neatly folded to the side just like the box cards I love to make that all fold to one side and go back in their original envelopes ... I grabbed it back out of the bin and stared at it for a bit, folding it backwards and forwards ....

OMGosh ..... this would make THE BEST box card I thought to myself .... 

and that was the end of cleaning!!

But check out this awesome box card I made for my friend who was 

turning 75 this weekend instead :)

BEST CLEANING TRIP EVER!!

It only took one 12 x 12 sheet to cover it all...

It has a couple of acetate strips to support the layers...

These were the chip boards I started with ...

I cut up the bits I wanted and then painted them white 

and hit them with Crystalina Kindy Glitz :)

Made using paper and embellishments from the 

Indigo Skies Collection from Kaisercraft.

The message was printed and stuck on the back...

And YES ... it still folds down flat and fits in a very large envelope :)

Wednesday the 8th of March 2017

Dear Diary...

This morning as I walked into my workshop I was still reeling from the 

creative triumph I felt making that stunning box card... 

it had after all been somewhat forged in the heat of battle.

The sensations pulsing through me were both victorious and untouchable!

And then I saw my workspace ... it was worse than ever before ... as cluttered and chaotic as it had ever been ... i sighed and resigned myself to the long lonely road ahead of me.

I cleaned for a solid boring, lonely, depressing, life-sucking, morbid half an hour then I rang my friend Sue and asked if she wanted to go to maccas for coffee .... this of course was a trick question ... Sue ALWAYS wants to do coffee ... any time of the day or night I can count on her to drop what she is doing and join me for a cuppa :) Turns out she was cleaning her scrap room also and couldnt wait to get out of there ... so she grabbed a few magazines and we hunkered down with coffee's to autopsy all the layouts in the latest scrapbook magazine :)

It was an AWESOME afternoon and I came away some great ideas for pages ... 

Thursday the 9th of March 2017

Dear Diary...

I had too many great ideas from my cuppa yesterday to even bother pretending to clean up today, also one of the things I had found while cleaning yesterday was a pile of metal embellishments....  

so instead of tidying I got straight in and did these layouts using paper from the 

Kaisercraft High Tea  collection....

          

I love using metal embellishments :)

Friday the 10th of March 2017

Dear Diary...

TODAY IS THE DAY!

I was whinging to Sandi Spink last night on facebook about having to clean up my work space for this theme post next month and she gave me some really good tips..

Apparently you dont just walk up and start cleaning a pile of mess, you need to divide and conquer...

do inks first, sprays next, papers, adhesives etc ...

she assures me the horrendous pile in front of me will slowly but surely disappear ... 

Sandi would know .... she scrapbooks all over the place .... she's an outdoor adventurer when it comes to scrapping so she's good at taking what she needs and bringing it back  :) 

So I tried it .... and IT WORKED!! 

YOU ARE A GENIUS SANDI SPINK :) 

Now let's be honest here ... the piles themselves were not terribly neat, but eventually the piles on my work table receded to reveal an alarming number of coffee cups that had been suspending what resembled a second story balcony of paper supplies. I kept cleaning until I was down to the bottom layer which was where I found this awesome canvas I had started who knows how long ago!!?

I had seriously done enough cleaning for one day so I decided to jump back into this long forgotten canvas .... it's so exciting when you find a half done project and you can just get going with the colour and embellishments as all the groundwork has been done :)

    

Something quite strange began happening though ... I would look at my canvas and think .....'uummmm .... I think crackle medium would work well there' but then the thought would be followed by 'but I don't want to get that box out because I'll just have to pack it back up again' ... I then envisioned Pebble Rocks on it and got all excited only to reason that this too would create a huge mess to clean up ..... in the end I just stared at the canvas ....

 too scared of making a mess to try anything :( 

It was the saddest creative moment of my life :( 

It was with great resolve and strength of character that I then made my bravest decision ever ... I was going to create without consequence! Bugger the mess... I grabbed paints, pastes, rocks, flowers, chipboard ... everything I could get my hands on and before too long my workspace was nothing less than a fallout zone!! Good I thought ... thats the way I've decided it's meant to be!

With my head held high I walked out the workshop turning the light off as I went ... It may be the messiest workshop in the world but I have the time of my life in there, so according to my long and convoluted reasoning it is nothing less than a sacred site!

Of course this did not stop me marching straight up to my husband and demanding we hire a builder and interior designer to prepare my workshop space for the blog post next month.

He looked at me and replied ' Sure ... use one of the gold bars under my side of the bed!' 

AND I WILL .... as soon as I clean a path to his side of the bed! 

___________________

Kelly-ann Oosterbeek has been a scrapbook and paper craft designer for the last 18 years and lives in Northern NSW with her super-sized family.

She has her own line of gloss finish butterfly stickers ( featured on the projects in this post), and sells these along with Kaisercraft Collections and layout kits online ...

You can find her and all her links at :

www.kellyanno.com

www.kellyanno.com