Kaisercraft Escape, Island Escape and 17/9/2018 Planner Layout

Hello fellow Alchemists,

For this weeks planner layout I used the Kaisercraft Island Escape paper pad. I originally bought the large Escape and the small Island escape pads for a project but no longer need them for it… Because I wanted to give you a flip through I also  decided why not make a planner layout too. You can see a previous layout here.

If you haven’t noticed I really enjoy using matching elements from a range to do my planner layouts as it makes it nice and quick. I can also use the same range several times and get a completely different look. Quick and easy is my thing these days as I have been super busy with assignments and things I don’t usually do.

There are two downsides to the Island Escape collection for me. Firstly the large amount of woodgrain papers in the Escape 12″ pad. 14 of the 36 sheets are wood grain, overone third. Secondly most of the Island Escape Collectables are quite large so not great for planners and cards. They are more geared towards scrapbooking I think. Hope you are creating your own planner magic, see you all next time.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist.

An Awesome RAK from Kylie

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Today I am sharing with you a Random Act of Kindness from a lovely lady called Kylie. Her generosity totally blows me away! There are so many wonderful things in here, some that lead me to want to make a canvas with them.

My favourite though is the Whiff of Joy Puff Heart Dragon. Can’t wait to colour him! There were flourishes and butterflies and pretty Prima flowers 🙂 I am a super lucky woman! Also in the package was bling, twine, stamps and lace. Lot’s of things from Stamps of Life too.

I hope you enjoyed this look at the awesome present I received. Best of all it arrived on my birthday 😀 Thanks Kylie! Bye for now.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

 

 

Amp it up August 2018 with Heavenly Imaginings, Embellishment Week

Hello fellow Alchemists,

This week was embellishment week for the Amp it up August collab with Heavenly Imaginings. I made some giant paperclips and large poinsettias with danglies.

The poinsettias were made with some flowers I had in my stash. They have a gorgeous velvety feel. To make the danglies I used some chain and beads again from my stash. Sometimes casing your stash is the best thing you can do! 😃

I made two different styles of paper clips. For the first set I used wire edged Christmas ribbons to make bows. During the course of making these I discovered that premaking the bows and using hot glue to add them to the paperclip was best. I then took a piece of the ribbon and wrapped it around the middle of bow and over the paper clip to make everything secure.

The second style of bow I made uses the Tim Holtz Paper Rosette and Mini Rosettes dies. Hot glue is not my friend! I burnt my fingers a lot 😂. I used hot glue to add these to the paperclips and a circle punched from patterned paper to make their backs neat.

The centres of the rosettes and bows are decorated with embellishments I pulled off Christmas wine markers, Dress It Up buttons and a little tree from Kmart. I think they turned out quite cute. What do you think? The papers are from the Kaisercraft Collections, Yuletide and Pear Tree. Don’t forget to check out all the other talented ladies in the collab. Hope you are creating your own arty crafty alchemy. Bye for now.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

Please check out he other Lovely Ladies in the collab:
Heavenly Imaginings
Alexis and Melinda’s Art Space
Blue Raven Art and Craft
Crafty Kylie
Fiona Jane
Joanne Leigh
Wendy Mason

How I Decorated My Planner for August 2018

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Today I am sharing how I decorated my planner for the whole month of August. It was a bit of a marathon! Keep reading to see what I used.

The Reject Shops amazing paper pads and ephemera packs are mostly what I used to decorate, though I did throw in a Kaisercraft at the end. Unfortunately I don’t own many matching Kaisercraft pads and ephemera.

I started with my favourite pad and ephemera from The Reject Shop, the Fanciful collection. Mermaids, unicorns and fairies, swoon! All in pretty pinks and purples. I used one of each along with some other ephemera to accent the papers.

Next I used my Here & Now journal cards and ephemera as I don’t have the paper pad that matched this collection. I trimmed two journal cards down and used pieces as matting, borders and an accent piece. I also used one of the larger pieces as a replacement for paper. The ephemera pack for this collection was huge. 180 pieces! It was hard to choose what to put on the page!

Then I used the Twig & Twine Collection. Opting for the more pale orange pieces instead of the stronger peach colour. This collection even has butterflies, which is another of my favourite things! This collection has a lot of vintagey goodness 🙂 I also stamped some plain washi to match.

This next one I think is my favourite layout for the month. I used the gorgeous Carpe Diem collection.  Beautiful purples, mauves, pinks and blues. Again I cut up a journalling card in place of washi as well as some glitter tape. I had to add the gorgeous rose even though it didn’t leave me much space to write lol.

Lastly I used Golden Grove by Kaisercraft with it’s lovely golden yellows to indicate coming into spring. There was a paper with lot’s of strips I utilised as washi. I used some of the bigger pieces of ephemera for this week so did not need to use many.

Hopefully you enjoyed my month long planning lay outs. Go do some arty crafty alchemy yourselves. Catch you all later.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

Amp It Up August Gift Cards and Tags Collab with Heavenly Imaginings

Hello fellow Alchemist,

Welcome to the Amp It Up August blog hop hosted by Heavenly Imaginings. This week is Gift Cards and Tags and a group of us lady’s have put together some lovely projects to share. I will link everyone below.

Today I made five tags and six gift cards. I have an overall theme happening because for the last week I want to tie most things together 😊 The papers and ephemera are all from Kaisercraft and the Mini Vellum Tags are from Making Memories. The paper pads I used were Twig & Berry and December 25th. I used ephemera from the Turtle Dove, Silent Night and Twig & Berry collectibles.

Stamps used came From Studio G, Holiday clear stamps and Hampton Arts Joyous Holiday by Alison Wong. They were stamped with Versamark embossing ink and sprinkled with either Hampton Art gold or Alison Ellis Designs Golden Sparkle embossing powder. After being stamped and embossed on black cardstock they were turned into small word banners.

To all the big tags I cut with the Tom Holtz Tag Collection dies I added ribbons. I also added ribbons and stickers to all the Making Memories Vellum Tags. To finish everything off I added miscellaneous pearls and rhinestones.

Don’t forget to check out the projects of the lovely ladies below 🙂 Hope you are creating some arty crafty alchemy yourselves. Bye for now

The Arty Crafty Alchemist.

Please check out he other Lovely Ladies in the collab:

Heavenly Imaginings
Alexis and Melinda’s Art Space
Blue Raven Art and Craft
Crafty Kylie
Fiona Jane
Joanne Leigh
Wendy Mason

Things My Mum Gives Me

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Today’s video is a bunch of stuff my mum gave to me. My mum is helping a lady clear her house out because she has to move into a home for the elderly and needs to cull most of her things. So some stuff has come from that. Some stuff is just mums accumulated stuff from years of making things lol.

There is lot’s of bits of everything! Mont Marte acrylic and watercolour paints, ribbons, laces, lots and lots of laces! Patterned papers from Kaisercraft, Graphic 45, Close To My Heart, My Reflections and Carolee’s Creations. There are bells and flowers too. So many things lol.

There is another bunch of stuff sitting here waiting to be filmed. A whole shopping bag of materials, 5 or 6 times more lace than was in this video and other cool things. It will probably be a while before you see that video though as I have a lot of vids already filmed I need to edit. Editing has become the bane of my existence! It’s used to be house work haha, I think maybe that’s second now lol.

There has been some things going on behind the scenes so I am sorry for my erratic posting. I am trying to get o top of things but it may take a little while so bare with me. Apart from the personal stuff YouTube is hard work! Why does no one tell you this? Bye for now.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

 

 

Caroline’s Gifts Part 2

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Today I am sharing  Caroline’s gifts part 2. Caroline gave me some more stuff while I was at craft group 😀 Two grocery bags full in fact. When I say full, I mean bursting at the seams lol. I am very greatful to have received so many lovely things.

There are some more lovely scrapbooking papers including some of my favourites from DCWV. There are stickers and rub ons and vellum poems. Lots of little bits and pieces. Some chipboard from Graphic 45 that matches the papers I got in the first video.

There is quite a lot of Creative Memories stuff. A whole pack of different coloured border strips, stickers, die cut Christmas words, punches! I am very excited about these especially as one is the hexagons and hexagons are back in again… The Creative Memories cutting system with the three little blades and some of the shapes to cut and templates to see the sizes.

Whilst I have hexagon dies already to make a card with many hexagons on it I think the punch will be a much better and faster option. The Ebosser I have takes 30 seconds to pass the plates through the machine, in that time with the punches I could probably punch around 20 lol. Double that if I used both punches at once.

What was your favourite item that Caroline gave me?  If there anything in particular you would make? That doily was lovely, while I was editing the video I was thinking that it would make a great addition to a journal or mini album cover.

Thanks for joining me, hope you’re creating your own Arty Crafty Alchemy. Bye for now.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

Make Your Own Wreath Builder Template

Hello fellow Alchemists,

Today I am showing you how to make your own Wreath Builder template. Don’t be worried by the size of the video! I also give a demo on how to use the Wreath Builder template and show some examples of smaller ones I have made. The Wreath Builder template only takes around 10 minutes to make the first time and once you have that size made you’re ready to make projects.

Sorry for the cruddy voiceovers I had to record it with my laptop as I couldn’t find my headphones :(. Anyway the Wreath Builder template is pretty easy to make. All you need are square dies, a die cutting machine, paper trimmer, ruler, a pencil and some heavy weight cardstock, a cereal box or stencil plastic. Oh and some tape to hold your die in place.

Above is the picture I showed in the video which shows how to line the die up by using our folded pieces of paper. Use the folded lines and the ruled lines to get the piece of paper in place and then add the die over the top. I am sure this could be done with a ruler and a scalpel someway but I am not that patient! Much easier with dies and a die cutting machine. Don’t forget you can make any size just go by the diagonal size of the die you are using and measure the middle of your cardstock to do the + in the middle.

This is a picture of what I created in the video. You can stop at any point or add more objects until you are happy with the wreath. The stamps used in this image are from Docrafts Traditional Floral Creativity and Kaisercrafts P.S. I Love You stamp sets as well as a random Facebook set. Any small to medium stamps you have will work. With masking you could use larger stamps too.

This pic shows a busier wreath jam packed with flowers and leaves. It’s all personal preference. I like both busy and more simple wreaths. I think I will use the Wreath Builder template a lot to make a quick card when I need one in a pinch or when I need a bunch of quick cards for an event.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I’d love to see what you create with a Wreath Builder template so leave a comment and a link below. Hope you’re creating your own Arty Crafty Alchemy. See you next time.

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

Huge Haul, Carloline’s Gifts!

Welcome fellow alchemists,

Today I am sharing a huge haul from a lady in a craft group I just recently started going to. Huge may be an understatement lol. The first time I met this lady was only two weeks before she gave me all these pretty things! Feeling very blessed 🙂 Thank you so much Caroline!

From embellishments to papers this gift had it all! My favourite embellishments were the cute lil shaker bunnies and the cut apart laser cut baby piece from Plaid. The Paper Pizazz Verses 2 was also a fave and I can’t wait to find some projects to use them on.

Where do I start with those papers. Of course the Graphic 45 A Ladies Diary has me swooning. There are only a few G45 stacks in my stash unfortunately. KaiserCraft is always a winner too 🙂 The rose paper with the silver? How have I never seen this before? Wow! Almost forgot about the vintage papers, from the baby ones to the old photos and sketched Pooh. Love Love Love. Oh and I have always been partial to K & Company. There are a few stacks in my stash.

On a side note I have most of my 12″ paper sorted by colour. This is not working for me. My feeling is except for the paper basics like spots, checks and plainer papers I need to organise them back into brands and series and then maybe alphabetise them as it helps keep co-ordinating pieces together. Most of my newer KaiserCraft stacks are stored like this in 12″ project folders. However I have too much paper to do this with all of it… “Blush.” Honestly I feel very daunted when I have to go find something in my paper stash at the moment 🙁 How do you store your 12″ papers? Got any Tips?

Hope you are doing some arty crafty alchemy of your own

The Arty Crafty Alchemist

#feelingblessed