Scrap the Girls November Challenge - We're All Mad Here

Every month I promise myself I will do at least one challenge and then I get caught up in the chaos of life and creating and before I know it I am typing up the next challenge list.  I was determined to do this month's Scrap the Girls Challenge as it was the perfect prompt for getting photos of myself cosplaying the Cheshire Cat at FraserPop 2.0 scrapped. 

I also had the perfect kit for it, the kit I created because I needed Alice In Wonderland themed supplies to scrap these memories.  SHHHH this is a sneak peek of a 2019 kit from Scrapping Fun Kits ;) 

I won't go into details of how I created this project in this post as I literally sat down to create this page at 430pm on November 30th and I am typing this a 545pm so I am under the crunch to get it entered and  I would like to share the how it came together with you when the kit is released, including a process video for it.  So for now here is a pic of my layout.  I hope you like it and it inspires you to either enter Scrap the Girls in December or create a Alice themed layout :)

Wonderful Life - Art Journal Layout - CraftOnline Creative Team

After creating my Art Journal page inspired by Dolly earlier this year I put some thought into what works for me and having limited supplies for that spread really helped so I have decided to try Art Journalling again and use limited supplies to create each spread.  So today I am sharing with you how I created my 4th Art Journal Spread using limited supplies that I created for the CraftOnline Creative Team.

Items Used
Gel Press Gel Plate 3x5inch
Poppy Crafts 4 Birds Die Set
Studio Light Basics A6 Mixed Media Stamps
Vicki Boutin Paint Set 1
Dina Wakley paint in Eggplant
Dina Wakley paint in Peacock
Tim Holtz stencil Numberic
The pencil I used was from my stash but I think these pencils may be a good alternative, I am looking forward to ordering some to try.  General Pencils Sketch Wash 2 pack 

I love how my page turned out and I can't wait to create another spread.

Check out CraftOnline for lots of wonderful craft supplies.

Band Camp - Helmar Creative Team

Today I am sharing with you my Music layout that I created for the Helmar Creative Team to document a special photo of my eldest at her first band camp. 
Items used
Helmar Acid Free Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
Maggie Holmes Willow Lane 6x8 paper pad
Crate Paper Wild Heart Thickers
August 2017 kit from Scrapping Fun Kits (washi, metal flowers and metal charms)
Green Tara Flowers
49 Market Flowers
Dina Wakley paint in Eggplant
13 Arts Gold Glitter Paint

I started by getting out 3 photos I wanted to scrap - this one, a photo of my son at playing his sax with the school band at assembly for the first time and a group selfie from when my daughter toured as a cellist with Elvis to the Max when she was 19.  I then got out the last of my music themed kit from Scrapping Fun Kits last year and some left over bits from creating my Happy Days Diner layouts in September and set to work.  Once I had this all out I looked at the photos and decided the Band Camp photo was the one most suited to my supplies and started creating.
As my daughter loves purple I decided to paint the chipboard piece with my Dina Wakley paint in eggplant and then give it a coat of some gold glitter paint I got in a Dusty Attic Mystery box last month.  I dried this with my heat tool not thinking about the glitter in the pain and some of it melted so I knew when it came time to create my clusters I would have to strategically place things to hide the melted bits.
My background paper was created by cleaning up the left over purple paint by using the packaging technique (add water to the paint, smoosh a piece of plastic packaging in it and smoosh it onto white cardstock, I then smooshed/wiped the edges of the cardstock in the watered down paint that was left behind.

Once I had my background cardstock dry I started building my paper layers and adding my photo.  I used Helmar Acid Free Glue to adhere my papers, photo, chipboard and 2 of the washi pieces as it was the end or the roll and the washi was on a cardboard roll so needed some help to stick after I pulled it off.  I love this glue so much.









Now it was time to add my flowers  and metal bits to my layout.  I started by building the cluster on and around my chipboard and then balanced it out with some washi in each corner and adding 2 flowers and some metal bits to these areas.  I used Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive to adhere my flowers, metal charms and metal flowers.  This is my favourite glue for adding the chunky bits to my layouts.

Once it was all down I added my title and a small amount of journalling.  This photo tells a story that needs a lot of journalling so I am going to get my daughter to write it down and add a second page to it that is just journalling.

Thank you for checking out my layout and I hope it has inspired you to create.

Doctor Who Celebrations - Other Decorations and Food

I thought I would share with you the rest of what we did for our Dr Who Mini Party/Morning Tea.

You can find details on creating my Banner here and my Weeping Angel Decoration here.

For our themed days this year I have set a budget cap of $50 including food for each day, this will be a yearly budget so the decorations will grow each year and this year is about starting small, so this is also a good lesson on budgeting and bargain hunting for the boys in addition to creating some fun memories and making stuff.

Dr Who is a great themed day for us as we can get 3 for 1 out of it - The Season Premiere, The Anniversary/my granddaughter's birthday and what was the Christmas Special which is now a New Year's Special.  While I will miss the Christmas Special it will be nice to have some Whovian fun on New Years.

Anyway on to the other decorations and the food from our little party for the season premiere.

On a day that Lincraft was having 40% off storewide I went browsing for anything that might suit a Dr Who or any of the other themed days I have been thinking about doing.

They had some TARDIS blue decorative mesh on clearance for $2.99 so with the 40% off that came to $1.80, I grabbed the cheapest of the large wreath hoops which also went through at $1.80.  Bargain.

I have seen so many wreaths on Pinterest and in May May Made It's group, it has been on my craft to make wish list for a while so I thought it would be a great project for little fingers that need to work their muscles and improve their fine motor skills.  There are a few tutorials on YouTube for making decomesh wreaths.

So during the first week of the holidays the boys had some fun cutting the decorative mesh into  lengths and tying them to the hoop.  We also discussed whether we wanted to leave it plain or add something Whovian to it.

However one roll of mesh was not enough for my wreath hoop so I went back and got a roll of TARDIS blue with gold ribbon (it is pretty cool ribbon, some angles it looks gold and some it looks blue) to fill it out a bit and used the 4th Doctor scarf I found at the op-shop months ago for the other half.  I am going to add more mesh later.

When I add the mesh to the second half I will do a quick tutorial for you on how I did it.

After making 1 wreath with this stuff I will never do another, it frays so easily and is plastic and not environmentally friendly at all.  The boys art group is doing a art show on Plastic Polution in the Ocean so I donated the scraps to the class for the kids to use as pollution in their paintings if they wished.

If you are local if you can please go check out the Art Show, the students have put many hours into their art works.

Anyway back to our Dr Who Celebrations

Our other decorations included these cute glass bowels, plate and a pale blue tablecloth from my local St Vincent De Paul op-shop.  

And I bought a silhouette cut file to make a TARDIS tealight lantern; it did not come with instructions and after putting one together I decided I have to do some adjusting to it as it just doesn't work for my brain.

And I just had to create a Big Ben tealight lantern so bought the cut file for this project and had some fun cutting it out of beige cardstock and colouring it with distress ink to give it a aged feel.  

We also made some red cups look like Fez and some red serviettes into Bow Ties, once it all came together the table look great.  I hung a sheet behind it to add to the ambience.

The boys and I gathered our ingredients for creating Time Vortex Cookies, Jammie Dodgers and Adipose Marshmallows and started creating our food for our special morning tea.

The food colouring pens I bought for the Marshmallow Adipose came in handy for Halloween hot chocolate.

I got the Table semi-ready before the kids woke.

How awesome does my Angel look?  I am so proud of her.

ABC iview means we can watch Dr Who at a time that suits us, so we watched it in the morning before the boys classes started.

Though our Time Vortex Cookies were a Pinterest disaster we still enjoyed them.  We also had some bananas, jelly babies and fish fingers in custard as part of our morning tea spread.

I waited to put the fish fingers in the over until just before the boys had their morning tea break so they would be fresh, I poured the custard just as they came out.

We found Fish Fingers in Custard to be pretty Yummy, definitely worth giving them a try.

E and I wore our Cosplays, E was the 10th Doctor and I was his companion Donna Noble (I love Donna so much).

After Morning Tea I got really brave and made a Souffle for the first time in my life and it actually turned out ok despite making 2 mistakes while making it.   It was so Yum and light and fluffy.  A great lunch for the day.  

Unfortunately I didn't take a photo but why not be brave and give it a go cooking Cheese Souffle, this recipe was very user friendly and it was Yummy.

We had a great time at our Dr Who Day and can't wait to get all our supplies out for another Whovian themed day soon.

Dr Who Celebrations - Weeping Angel Doll Decoration - Helmar Creative Team

I decided earlier this year to create more fun in our lives.  At first I thought about doing themed days for their educational, cultural and awareness raising value, I also realised making the decorations and food could be great for fine motor skill and sensory activities for myself and the boys.
With this in mind I have been trying to think of themed things we could do and Dr Who is just perfect for this need, and we could get 3 days out of it.  Dr Who Day could be the season premiere, the anniversary aka my Granddaughter's birthday and Boxing Day (our favourite Dr Who Day each year).  So I picked out a few ideas that would be things myself or the boys could do and one thing I have wanted for a long time is a Weeping Angel decoration so I decided to make a Weeping Angel decoration that could either stand on the table or be a tree topper.
I found a few tutorials online for converting a barbie into a Weeping Angel and I asked my friend that lives in the town that has my closest Kmart to pick up one of their $4 barbies for me when he was next in Kmart, as I couldn't get to the op-shop at the time.  About a hour later he sent me pics so I could choose one.
All the tutorials either melted the elbows and wrists or used hot glue, I didn't want to melt plastic as this releases toxic chemicals into the environment and I prefer using Helmar glues over hot glue as I tend to get glue all over me when I craft and Helmar doesn't burn.  So I planned out what glues I would try for which part and set to work once my friend dropped off my $4 knock off barbie.

Items needs
Cheap barbie type doll
Craft Foam
Gauze
Thin ribbon scraps
Pewter Spray Paint
Sheet of cardstock
Helmar Fabric Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
Helmar Foam Glue
Stanley Knife
Cutting mat
Scissors
Embossing stylus
Marker for drawing your wing outline.

I decided to try using the doll's hair to create the Angel's hair instead of the method used in all the tutorials and absolutely love the finished look, it was certainly much easier than the other method.
I simply put her hair into a ponytail at the right spot on her head (her original style was too high), then I wound the hair around into a bun shape and gluing with fabric glue as I went.  I finished it off by trimming the hair and using fabric glue to kind of seal the shape where it was trimmed.  I thought that once it was painted you wouldn't be able to tell.
I finished it off by adding a skinny ribbon around her head with Helmar Fabric Glue.

Now for the arms I simply cut them at the elbow with a stanley knife and glued them at a right angle using Quick Dry 450, as the edges don't meet very well I let it have a long drying time and then used some polymer clay to fill in gaps and sort of stabilise the joint.
I didn't need to do anything to the wrists as the plastic is a soft plastic so her wrists and fingers were bendy and a small amount of glue where the fingers need to attach was all that was needed.

For the dress I started by making a cardstock cone, I simply wrapped some cardstock around at her waist into a cone shape, glued it at the seam with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive as that is what was on my desk and open.  And then trimmed the base of the cardstock level with her feet.
I then cut some white tulle and cut head and arm slits in it.  Put this over her and tied some ribbon around her waist.  I added in sections of tulle to cover her cardstock base.
I eventually realised that because I had bought Pewter Paint not Stone or Granite the tulle would show as tulle so after putting her wings on I added some gauze by selectively gluing pieces over her and then tieing another skinny ribbon around her waist.

For the wings I used some 1mm white craft foam.  I cut a rough angel win shape and drew in the feathers on both sides with a embossing stylus. 
I also cut 2 small bits for the tops of the wings.  I glued these onto the base with Helmar Foam Glue, and let dry.
I attached the wings to the doll with Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.

I took her outside and spray painted her with the Pewter Paint, taking her upstairs to dry on the railing of my back landing.
















I love how she turned out and because I used Helmar I know she will last.

Check out how cool she looked on my Dr Who themed table.

Dr Who celebrations - TARDIS Banner - Scrapping Fun Kits DT

I am loving doing themed days with the kids, it is a great way to get E doing fine motor skill and sensory stuff.  I am making a couple of decorations myself and Today's post is one of those projects.

I really wanted a banner to hang for the significant Who days, aka season premiere, anniversary/my granddaughter's Birthday and the Christmas special/Boxing Day and this kit was perfect for making a banner.

I bought some burlap banners in bulk a while ago and used 6 pieces to make this banner.

I used my Silhouette Curio to diecut the letters to spell TARDIS from some royal blue cardstock and I grabbed out all the trims from my stash that might work with this.




Here is a video of my process of creating this banner.
Note: I was still working on the kit so I added the trim from the kit after finishing the video, check the photos below for the results.

I used Helmar's Premium Craft Glue for this project as it would give the hold needed for a item that will be hanging in my lounge room.

 

I used the Handles cut file and a scrap of silver mylar to create my Cyberman heads.  I then smudged a mix of gesso and grey ink onto them to make them look more beaten up like Handles was.
Check out how I used this awesome Mylar for a chrome look on my Happy Days Diner scrapping.









I love how it looks.

Such a fun bit of Timey Whimey stuff for our Doctor Who celebrations.
If you would love one of these awesome kits head to the Subscription Tab at Scrapping Fun Kits and fill in the form.