Scrapwest

#66 Altered Canvas Class

ALTERING A CANVAS

It's easy to pick up those inexpensive canvasses in discount stores and they make a great gift for loved ones. This week I'll show you how to alter a canvas and make a valentines or birthday gift - incorporating a scrapbook layout.

PREPARING THE CANVAS

Take a basic white canvas and if you wish to add texture first, apply a layer of gesso onto the canvas using a knife or old credit card. It should be at least as thick as butter on bread but it can be applied thicker, which creates further texture. In some of my canvasses I apply gel medium with microbeads for extra effect. Allow to dry -this can take anything from a few hours to overnight depending on how thick the gesso is applied.

DECORATING THE CANVAS

PAINT

You can skip the gesso stage completely for a flatter background and just apply acrylic paint (or dauber) onto the canvas. Blob a few dots of acrylic paint  and use a sponge or baby wipe to apply. Let it dry in for a few minutes.

STAMP

Optional stage -using a patterned background rubber or acrylic stamp and white or black ink, create a border pattern on just two sides (eg bottom and right hand side). This creates added texture to the canvas.

PATTERNED PAPER

Choose your photo (preferably large photo(s) for effect). Choose co-ordinating patterned papers and layer onto the canvas using double sided tape to secure. Adhere photos onto patterned paper and embellish with chipboard alphabets, blossoms, tags and ribbons as appropriate. It is useful to apply some brads discreetly in blossom or the corners of the photos to secure the papers.Here are some examples of canvasses I have altered recently which shows these techniques in practice.

So grab a canvas and some paint - what are you waiting for!As always feel free to join in and leave a link to your work in the comments section :-)

LAINEY

xx

#65 Dream

There’s really only a few main things that you need for this mini book and the rest are just bits that I’m sure you all have in your stash.

So lets go I used the backs of envelopes for my mini book you could also use the back of an A4 jotter, any cardboard that has the thickness of chipboard, you’ll be covering it anyway so it doesn’t have to be plain.

1. First thing is pick out your word. I chose “Dream” as it’s this weeks theme now I know you can buy these books already cut out ready for you to decorate but I thought it would be nice to personalise them a bit more (you could even do names).

2. I printed mine out on the computer, chose a plain font I used Arial and in the                     biggest size possible, I used “Word Art” to print it and also changed my paper size to Landscape and then made the word that bit bigger on the paper the finished size of my letters is 3½ ins high. When you’re happy print it out. You can also use large chipboard letters (such as basic grey) as templates, if you have them.

3. Cut out your letters.

4. Cut your strips of chipboard to the height of your letters, mine are 31/2 ins high and there are 5 letters in my word, so 5 pieces of chipboard.

5. Get your letters and use them as templates to draw around each letter.

6. Cut out!!

7. Next step is to trim down each piece so that you can see all the letters, because at the moment they are all the same length. So start with the last letter “M” and place the “A” on top until you are happy with the position then turn over and mark where you need to trim the chipboard do this with each letter until you have them all done and end up with something that looks like this.

8. Next step is to make holes. I used my crop-a-dile, but if you don’t have one a goof hole punch will do, I started with the first letter, “D”, and punched my holes and then positioned it on top of the next letter and marked where I wanted the next lot of holes to go. I did this with each of the remaining letters. Then I added my book rings (you can use ribbon if you don’t have book rings)

9. That’s it that simple, now it’s ready to decorate (I used gorgeous “Love Elsie” papers but you can use scraps of paper, whatever you have!) When it’s decorated you can add eyelets to the holes if you want a really professional look. I didn’t bother when I was using bookrings but if I was using ribbon I would have put the eyelets on.

Hope you enjoyed the class and if you want to see some more pictures of my mini book and another version pop over to my blog. www.myhandsgetjealous.blogspot.com 

#64 Resolutions

Welcome to the first of many tutorials from Scrap West, we really hope you have a bit of fun trying out the techniques and maybe learn a thing or two. If you decide to join in then leave a link in the comments to where we can see your version of the tutorial. Enjoy :)

Resolutions - We all make lists.... shopping lists, top 10 favs, to do lists and at this time of year we often think about the list of things we would like to achieve in the new year. So this year why not create a list of your aims and scrap your New Year Resolutions. You don't need a photo for this LO and can use any papers in your stash. This LO is an 8x8 but you csan adapt it to suit your personal style. This is a great LO for using up scraps of paper :)

1. If you have a paper in your stash that has a florish, perfect! If not, then stamp a few flowers or swirls on cardstock or plain paper. Use a pencil to draw your cutting line, follow the pattern and add a little extra curves to create a frame.

2. When you have finished cutting out your frame, ink the edges and make sure it spans the height of your main cardstock.

3. For your lists, get a page with ruled lines, A4 pages for 12x12 (and loads of resolutions) or as I used a A5 page cut down to fit your LO. Ink the edges

4. For the quotes either use individual letter stamps or print out from a computer, remember the dimesions of your LO, it is just below the half the height of your LO. Cut out, with a sharp scissors curve the corners and ink. If you like you can do some simple stitiching  doodles with a black pen.

5. Cut a heart shape from cardstock, and cover with a lightly patterned paper, this is about half the height of your quote.

6. Assemble your quote embelishment however you like, I added a folded flower from Heidi Swapp behind the quote. I also added a little bling to the heart.

7. If you have chipboard letters perfect, if not print out a large "r" from the computer and use it as a stencil by cutting it out, place on some cardboard (back of an A4 pad), draw around the edge and cut. Cover with patterend paper and sand the edges (especially white core PP)

8. For the date, cut a small rectangel of card and write or stamp your date. I always leave plenty of room for gluing under my cardstock.

9. To assemble the LO, I used a strip of complementary paper for behind the list, glue your date first to the back before you glue it down. Next glue down your ruled paper, mine is at a slight angle. Next is the curve frame and your quote embelishment - you can use foam pads for this to give some dimension. The title is a strip of PP with handwritten title, if you nervous of doing this, practice on a few strips until you are happy. Glue it down along with the monogram.

Now here comes the difficult bit, hee hee, writing your resolutions. If you are confident to write straight away then off you go, however if you don't know if it will all fit then get another ruled page, place over your LO and outline the available space with a pencil on your practice sheet. This way you get an idea of how much text you can put down.

Best of luck and I can't wait to see your versions and your resolutions!

Eva x

#63 Reflections

Before we show this weeks theme just to let you know that next week Scrap West is trying something a little different...... what about a tutorial a week? Instead of a theme each of the Scrap Westies are going to post up a technique or class. Join in and post a link to your version :)

So back to this week: It is the time of year we reflect on everything, the past 12 months or even our aims for the coming year so keeping this in mind this weeks theme is called "reflections". Annamarie and I are posting up links to something we both have been inspired by, hopefully you will too!

Annamarie -

This week I used an idea from Ali Edwards blog http://www.aliedwards.typepad.com/ to create a photo mosaic.  It contains 16 different photos of my daughter from 2007 and is a fantastic reflection of her personality and experiences throughout the year.  This would look brilliant in the centre of a 12" x 12" layout or as the index page of a mini book as you can choose how many photos across and down and also the overall size of the mosaic.  I saved the finished mosaic as a jpeg which means that I can print it out easily or add it to my blog.

The mosaic is really easy to do.  You can either follow the instructions from Ali's blog or go directly to the Big Huge Labs Mosaic Maker and take it from there. Another really handy thing is that the Mosaic Maker automatically crops in on the subject meaning you don't have to crop or edit the photos yourself.

Lainey

Eva

For the next 4 weeks I am taking part in a class across the waters on the Big Picture Scrapbook website. I choose this particular class to loosen up and get more creative, its called "Got Paint?". It started last night but you've got another week or so to sign up. Its taught by the most talented Emily Falconbridge, she is so cool, really creative. Check out the website for more details http://www.bigpicturescrapbooking.com/gotpaint.php

This weeks class is all about paint techniques using textured cardstock and acrylic paint. The resulting pages are made into an Art Journal for future reference and to decorate as we would like.