Tags wtih Sarah

Hello ...crafty cats and happy holiday season! Sarah here  and this will be my last post with the Off the Rails Scrapbooking team. A big thank you to Amanda for having me on the team...it has been such fun! For this months mood board I created three large tags using red, white and silver as the background of the tag. I then printed some free digital images from the internet, coloured them and layered them on to the tags. Today I have a tutorial for you, demonstrating how I made one of the tags. Here it is;

Step 1 is to cover a large tag with patterned paper of your choice

Next apply some white gesso onto the tag - I like to use my finger to spread it out

Once the gesso is dry, I took some Colour Blast shimmer dust and water to make a mix. I then applied this all over the tag

Next step was to apply Colour Blast paste in 'Snow White' through a stencil. The paste easily picked up the colour of the shimmer dust so it wasnt white as i expected it to be but I love the shine of the end result.







Once dry, I stamped some Christmas images on the tag and applied Inka Gold paste around the edges to give a silvery effect. Inka Gold comes in many colours and is like a metal paste.

At this point the tag was looking a bit red for my liking - I was after a more rustic type look so I decided to rub some of the colour off with a baby wipe (what a mess I made!). I then tore some cardboard to look rustic and applied some gesso and Inka Gold to it with fingers. I adhered the cardboard to the tag, coloured my image and completed the tag with some sequins.

The other two tags I made can be seen here;

Thanks for stopping by.

Halloween Distress Ink Background with Sarah

Hello scrappy friends, Sarah here again with another easy but effective background for you to try. As you can see on my October Halloween scrapbooking layout, I have used two shades of blue in the Tim Holtz Distress Ink range - The base is Faded Jeans and the stenciled colour is Chipped Sapphire. First step is to take your lighter colour and apply it all over your cardstock. It's a good idea to make sure your ink pad is nice and juicy - mine was not so it took a while to get adequate coverage all over the cardstock I was using. For older ink pads, I found a few spritz of water can help revive it a little. For this layout however, I liked the look of some of the white cardstock showing through so full coverage didn't bother me.

The second step is to dry off your page - distress inks tend to stay wetter for longer. Mine was quite damp in places as I was spritzing water on my ink pad throughout the process.

The third step is to find a stencil you want to use - this one is called Rustic Paint from The Crafters Workshop and I liked how it gave the cracked, almost lightening bolt effect on my background. I chose dark colours to keep in line with the darker shades of the Halloween mood board. I secured my stencil on top of the cardstock with some washi tape around the sides. This assists to hold it in place as I apply the second layer of ink. Using a blending tool, I took the 'Chipped Sapphire' ink and applied this over the stencil.

Keep going until the whole stencil area is covered

The last step is to remove the washi tape and lift up to see you fantastic background! Dry this off with your heat tool to set the colour.

That's as easy as it is! You can of course add further texture, stamping, washi tape etc to your background as required. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I look forward to seeing the backgrounds you create using this technique!

Remember Mixed Media Tutorial with Sarah

Hello scrappy peeps! Sarah here today.  Thank you for joining me for my first tutorial for Off the Rails Scrapbooking. As you can see in my layout for this month's challenge, my mixed media background is very bright against the black backdrop. I thought I would share this easy to create background with you to show how easy it is to create yourself. I used Dylusions paints in four colours to create a multi-coloured background to start with. I decided to paint the cardstock in black marble Dylusions paint before applying the other colours. The application of paint doesn't need to be perfect - in fact, as you can see here, it looks like a hot mess!

What I was aiming for in this background was a rustic and rough appearance (a bit like my son and Batman of course!). I then chose corresponding washi tape in each of the four colours, ripped it up and randomly stuck it over the painted areas. I also added some black and white washi to break up the colours and compliment the back background.

From here you could add some stamping to create more texture if you like. I used a stencil (from Flutterby Designs) and added some Colour Blast colour paste, also in complimenting colours. I love this paste and the shine it gives is lovely.

With the photos, embellishments and journaling added, I really like how this turned out. As you can see, you can have a lot of fun with creating a simple, colourful mixed media background because BLACK really doesn't go with anything! Here's a few close up shots from the finished layout.

Thanks for stopping by.... see you again soon.