Seeing out the old year with CathyS

Hi All,

Sure hope you have all had a truly blessed Christmas season. Thank you so much for following us faithfully each month and we hope we have inspired you with all our creations.

To wind out the year I created a scrap layout in keeping with the "old year / new year" theme seeing as we are at the end of 2018.

New Year's layouts don't always have to be made for the 1st of January.... sometimes you need to end the year off too. This layout also has loads of bright colours on it to celebrate the old year finishing.... not always a deary thing.

I used papers from Simple Stories and then added some oldish stickers from my stash which picked up on the colours. My title I cut with my Curio maching and added a few letter & number stickers for contrast.

The technique piece is done by adding three colours of distress ink to a craft sheet (I used pink, blue and green to pick up the colours from the paper). Spray the ink with water to form droplets and then dip the cardstock into it and let dry. Once adhered to the layout, add some contrast in yellow in, y applying the ink to a stencil, spritz with water and then stamp onto the layout in places. Leave to dry. The dots are stencilled in brown in various places on the layout.

From all of us here at Off the Rails we wish you a peaceful and prosperous 2019.

Till next time,

Cherie’s Christmas Page from New Zealand

Koa Kirihimete from Aotearoa,

Morning fellow scrappers.  I hope your Christmas planing went well and you are all ready for the big day of making merry with your whanau.  Have a wonderful day today.

The page I am sharing today is my take on this month’s mood board – the paper series is: My Minds Eye – Lost and Found Christmas. The flowers were made from another sheet in the series – but you could use a plain cardstock if you prefer.  I love Christmas and it’s a special time for my family where we try to get together for a meal and to just enjoy being together.  Of late that has been harder to achieve as we are spread far and wide around the world and New Zealand. 

I started by making the photo mat. I used a piece of box –carton which I had taken the top layer of paper off to expose the card ridging.  I used an A5 piece of paper as a measure to shape the mat. Tear across the bottom so it is shaped, I tore some of the top layer to add texture.

Next paint the cardboard mat with white gesso and let dry. Then I used a brown ink pad and sponged lightly across the top of the mat – mainly around the outside edge as the middle will be covered by the photo.  Then use the red pad to rough ink the whole outside edge.  Finally use a sponge to ink the edge – which will get into the groves.

Using the photo mat for placement place two doilies – paper or as I have used an old tablecloth cut up.  Glue them down and let dry.

Make two flowers for the bottom corner of the layout.  The extra-large punch cuts out a flower 7.5cm across and the large punch cuts out a flower 5 cm across.  I like to ink all edges before I glue and fold the flowers but that is your choice.  Pinch each petal together between your thumb and forefinger – facing up.  Glue two extra-large flowers on top of each other – as shown in the middle photo.  Then do the same again with two of the large flowers. Finally glue two large on top of the extra-large flowers and put a button in the middle.

Double mat your 5 by 7 photo as shown – I used cream and black mats.  Then assemble the page from the photo mat up.  I found a title and three pieces of holly leaf chipboard in my stash – which I inked lightly and added some rhinestones for the berries. However, you could use die-cuts or scrolls or bling – whatever pleases your eye.  Finally add some journaling if you want – I use a couple of smalls tags and a note edge for the date.

Happy scrapping fellow scrappy friends

May you and your family have a safe and joyous Christmas

Arohanui

Cherie