Sailor Moon ATCs

Hi all!

Today I wanted to share some ATCs I've recently made. For something different, I thought I'd do a bit of a 'before and after'.

I first started making ATCs 2 years ago, and my first ever attempt was this Sailor Moon bust. I used coloured pencils and had a lot of fun, although she needs a bit of work!

As I progressed through the year I slowly got better. This Sailor Jupiter Chibi was one of my first attempts using copic markers, and it's still one of my favourites! It was also one of my earliest chibis, a style I love drawing now! 

At first I only ever drew girls from the same angle, but I learned to play with trying different things. 

I even tried my hand at some male characters. Love my Tuxedo Mask!








Then last year I got so busy and preoccupied with other things that I didn't draw a single ATC all year! Finally, this year I picked it back up and here she is - a Sailor Moon ATC drawn in the same style as my first ever ATC, 2 years on and after a whole year of no drawing! I'm disappointed that my new white opaque pen didn't work as well as previous ones, and I certainly need to work on my shading (I think it was better before!), but I'm pretty happy with the style I've found and I love that I'm brave enough to share these now!



I hope that this shows you that practice really does pay off. I have a long way to go, but I love that I can see my progress and share something I love doing.

Happy creating,

- Sarah -

January Kaisercraft Challenge

Hi all,

This year I want to challenge myself to craft more, and one of the ways I'm accomplishing this is by participating in monthly challenges! This month I decided to give the January Kaisercraft Challenge a go and create a pocket-page layout based off their bingo cards.

I used the Kaisercraft collection 'Life's Treasures', together with the words 'handwritten journaling', 'favourite photo', printed papers only' and 'a special event' to create this pocket-page spread.

I've decided to keep my pocket-page scrapping simple, and I love how all the colours in this collection work together - you really don't need to add much to make a beautiful page!





This spread celebrates going out with friends wearing a new skirt I made. It sounds silly, but I'm so proud of how my sewing skills are progressing!

My favourite photo is the one on the left - I'm pulling a pose reminiscent of my 'Bird Girl' poses when I played the part in Seussical the Musical last year. It's silly and it's fun and it's very, very me!








I hope you've enjoyed my take on the challenge. Stay tuned for more pocket-page spreads and some news on the ways I'm challenging myself in 2017.

- Sarah -






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Guest DT Projects for Aunty Vera Scrap + Craft

Hi all,

This month I'm very blessed to have been asked back as a Guest Design Team member for Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft! Vera sent a package full of project life goodies and I had so much fun making some projects with them.

 I made 2 project life spreads:

As well as this gorgeous waterfall folio!














I had so much fun creating this projects. Please check them out on the Aunty Vera blog!

You can find the 2 project life spreads here

And details of the waterfall folio here

I also made an unboxing video sharing the goodies I was sent and a process video + tutorial for the waterfall tutorial.

Enjoy!

- Sarah -

Christmas Art Journal Page

Hi everyone!

Happy New Year and welcome to 2017! Although the New Year is upon us, and I have many exciting things to share in posts to come, I just wanted to share one last minute Christmas project. Christmas is my favourite time of year and I was very blessed to have 2016 be my first Christmas as a married woman. While the season was dampened by an illness I came down with, I was inspired in the days before Christmas to create an art journaling page.

While I've always loved the idea of art journaling, I've never actually sat down and done a page.... until now! I've had this gorgeous leather bound journal that a friend gave me tucked away for  special occasion. The pages are nice and thick so I figured it would hold up with mixed media techniques.

I started with a layer of gesso before adding different shades of red acrylic paint on top. To finish off the background I used some texture paste with a tape measure stencil. I used the "25" section to symbolise Christmas day and stamped a script background using archival ink.

For the left page I used different green washi tapes to create a Christmas tree. Isn't it cute?! I punched a star out of some yellow card stock for the topper and added some kindy glitz to make it sparkle.


I then die cut the word 'joy' using a kaisercraft die. This particular die is actually a tag, but instead of using it as is, I cut around the featured word in a circle. Draw on some string and add some fussy cut snow flakes and I had some pretty baubles hanging near my tree!

For the right page I used some old sizzix dies to cut out the phrase 'Joy to the World'. This is one of my favourite Christmas carols, and I think it's pretty fitting as we celebrate Christmas.


I also die cut a nutcracker using a Kaisercraft die - there's something about him that just makes me smile!

I placed the nutcracker on some Christmas presents that I made. These are so simple to make but look really cute! Just cut out some squares from Christmas (or any occasion) paper and add some bows using thin washi tape.

Finally I added some kindy glitz to the nutcracker and the word 'joy' because I'm in love with sparkles! I also used a felt tip pen to draw around each of the letters and major elements, such as the nutcracker and presents, to highlight the images. This helped them to stand out from the background.






Overall I love how this turned out! I had so much fun layering paint, stencils and die cuts all together, and I look forward to creating many more art journaling layouts.

I hope you've enjoyed this Christmas project. I wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to sharing more crafting adventures with you in 2017!

Much love,

- Sarah -

My First Sewing Projects - Bag and Skirts

Hi all,

So as you can probably tell I'm not great at keeping this blog updated. But it's one of my New Year's resolutions to post at least 1 post and 1 video on my Youtube channel per month. So I thought better get a head start and post in December!

Last post I promised to share some projects I had sewn. My beautiful Mum took me on a sewing retreat earlier this year, and I made my first ever sewing projects (not including some simple things made as a child!). 

First up I made this bag:

I chose this gorgeous patterned fabric featuring orange feathers. I'll admit it was probably a bit ambitious for a first project, but I'm so happy with how it turned out. The first step was quilting the fabric together with pellon/batting to make it sturdy enough that the bag would hold its shape. This took a lot of work and was probably the most time consuming part of the whole process! 

Next was cutting all the pieces from the pattern and sewing them all together. As the fabric was quite thick at this stage, it was difficult to sew, but doesn't it look pretty? I added this orange panel on the front and sides to give it some variation, and sewed on some vintage lace to finish the look. 

We lined the inside, which was hand stitched on (my mum might have helped a lot with that!) and added two pockets inside. It opens with a zipper which was a learning curve - my mum always avoids using them! Overall I'm super happy with the result. :)

We got this mostly made in a day, which I was pretty happy with. So for the next day I made three skirts!

They're just simple round skirts with elastic in the top, but I had a lot of fun making them. I especially love the wonder woman and vintage pattern fabric, and the spots will go with anything!

I couldn't wait to get home and wear one out! 

I think for a first attempt these projects turned out pretty well! Stay tuned for some more projects soon

- Sarah -

File Folder Mini - Wedding Survival Guide

Hi all! Well, it's been a long time since I've used this blog. Time to get the ball rolling again!

Today I'd like to share a file folder mini album I made for a friend. I got married in April this year (YAY!) and she gets married this month, so I thought it would be fun to create a 'How to Survive Your Wedding Day' album.

Here it is:

 I made the base of the album using this youtube tutorial. I originally viewed this tutorial a few years ago when I first got into mini-albums, but I've used it many times since. I used plain manilla file folders for my album and decorated it with creams and golds to give it a vintage feel.

For the cover I tea-dyed some elasticised lace that I found in my stash - here are the before and after photos. I love how it turned out!

On the inside of the front cover I hand-lettered the title of the album. I've never thought my writing was very pretty, but after a few tries I think this turned out well! If you want to practice different writing styles, I highly recommend this website. You can search for a range of different styles of font and then type in what it is you want to write. It will show you what your word/sentence looks like in the font you've chosen, and then you can practice it. I think it turned out well for me!

After finishing the cover I then filled the book with ten different 'tips' for how to survive your wedding day. Most of them were fun little common-sense reminders, but I thought it was cute regardless. I filled the book with vintage papers and lace - I've recently learned to sew (look out for a new sewing-related post!), so it was fun stitching all the lace and trims down.

And of course a wedding album wouldn't be complete without some Prima dolls! Here I paper pieced Rita...










                                 

                                  And Audrey....

And Nikki!












Overall, it was a very fun project to make, and hopefully my friend will love it! Head over to my Youtube Video if you'd like to see the whole album.

- Sarah -

12 Tags of 2015 - August

For anyone not in the know, I've been selected to be on the design team for Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft. This month Vera held a Tim Holtz challenge, with each of the designers showcasing their take on Tim's August tag. I decided to make a Graphic 45 'Home Sweet Home' variation:

See Aunty Vera's Blog for full details + pics!

- Sarah -