December Post for Memory Maze and Stick It Down.

Hi all. I hope this finds you all well. If your family is anything like mine life is absolutely hectic at the moment, but with the buzz of Christmas excitement in the air. My kids are all on the annual countdown until Santa comes (and so is my mother). To be perfectly honest, I think that she is just as excited as the kids, as she will be here on Christmas Eve to spend some time with them.

 

Year End Teacher's Thank-you Canvases

 

 This week I was lucky enough to be able to take a bit more of a back seat job with these creations. In our house we prefer to give handmade presents when we can, and my kids will never say 'no' to a chance to get creative with me. So as a 'thank-you' to their teachers, the kids jumped at the chance to make up these canvases.

 

The first one was made by my 7 year old son, Beau. The second canvas was by my 11 year old son, Zachary. Now as a creative type I love getting into this type of thing, but when it comes to my kids having their creative time I really do TRY to take a back seat. I ask them what colours they'd like to use, and then find what I have in the colours that they want. I'll show them how to use what they were wanting to, and maybe give them a suggestion or two, but other than that - this is all them!

Beau's teachers present.

Zachary's teacher's present.


Just to add to the fun of it all, this year we made a process video of them busily creating. To see how they went about making these please check out this video.

  

I sorry....We hope that you enjoyed what the boys created, and they can't wait for the Christmas holidays so that they can share some more wonderful creations with you.

 

 

Quick Christmas Card

 

As this is my second last post for Memory Maze and my last post for Stick It Down I thought I'd combine the two and have used the December card sketch from Stick It Down as inspiration for this quick and simple Christmas card. The Santa was one that I had left over from a few weeks ago (you can view the technique video here), and the silly season has simply been covered in gesso, some green H2O's and a black marker.

 

 I hope that this has inspired some of you to get creative, no matter what your age.

Until next time,
 

Keep creating,

JODIE MASON.

 

Wedding Mementos Picture Frame

The idea for this frame is something that I have been wanting to work on for quite some time now. Surely some of you out there know the feeling? I mean you get that brain wave but just have no time to make it a reality. Well I finally had a chance to make one of mine come true. I wanted something that would not only help to preserve some of our wedding day mementos, but could also serve as a nice decorative display. The following is what I came up with, and I must say that I am pretty pleased with it (if I do say so myself. Lol).

Now this was not just a quick and simple process by any means. I think it took me about a week to do from start to finish (as you can probably tell from all of the clothing changes in the videos), but the end result was well worth the effort. I hope that you enjoy the videos and I'd love to hear what you think of the frame.

 

Memory Maze supplies used:

We are getting hitched
Wedding Set 1

Wedding Set 2

Wedding Set 3

Wedding

Other Supplies Used:

KaiserWood MDF Frame
Assortment of charms (mostly from Tracy at my2angels)
Prima resin heart
flat back pearls
flat back rhinestones
egg shells
plasterers tape (permanently borrowed from hubby's stash)(Shhhh!)
lace
modelling paste
KaiserCraft 12" Damask Template
TCW Mini Leaf Frame (226s)
White Glue
Glossy Accents
Liquid Pearls - Royal Blue and White
Isocol (Rubbing Alcohol)
Adirondack Alcohol Inks -Indigo, Peacock Feathers, Sail Boat Blue, Stream and Mermaid.
Alcohol Blending Solution
Adirondack Mixatives - Snow Cap
Glimmer Mist - Riptide, Patina
Viva Inka Gold - Silver

 

I hope that you enjoyed my project and I'd love to hear what you thought of it.

Until next time,
Keep Creating,

Jodie Mason.

 

Stick It Down October Post

Hi all. Yes it's that time of the month again, reveal time over at Stick It Down for the card team. As those of you that follow my blog know Stick It Down provide a monthly sketch challenge for cards, single and double page scrapbooking layouts. This was the layout for cards this time round. 

Now as some of you know my craft area has been packed away, cleared out and to be honest completely demolished. Hubby is turning what was originally a double garage into a bedroom, an 'official' craft room for me and a study area. To say that I am excited is a complete understatement, but in the meantime I am having to contend with creating in the family area, with the three kids (and hubby) under my feet. Oh well. With very limited supplies that were not packed away in storage this is what I came up with.

And while I was at it I figured that I might as well turn the leftovers into a second card.

 

That is it for me for now. Hopefully next time that I get to write, it might be from my new room. Fingers crossed anyway.

 

Until Next Time,

Keep Creating.

 

Jodie.

Bag in a Box and Quick Christmas Cards for Memory Maze

 Welcome back for my final post of the month for Memory Maze. Now I know that Christmas is still a few months away, but with handmade gifts it's never too early to get a start.

 

Bag in a box

 

This is a design that has been doing the rounds of many paper crafting groups lately, and I just had to give it a shot. With my kids school fete coming up I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try some Christmas designs. As the name suggests these start off as a box, but then have all of the great qualities of a bag. If you search 'bag in a box' on you tube there are plenty with instructions there. I gathered a selection of Christmas style Memory Maze chipboards and covered them in a coat of white gesso.



Gesso covered chipboard pieces

 This Santa piece was coloured with Copic markers and then glued to the outside of the bag. I used E00, RV02, R27 and 100.

This buckle was coloured with a black (100) copic marker and then had crystal stickles added over the top.

Here is the finished 'Bag in a box'.



Front View

Top view

Memory Maze supplies used:

Santa

 

 

Buckle Oval Medium

 

 

Quick Christmas Cards

The bag in a box above is perfect to hold a few quick 4" cards. Using some of the left over chipboard pieces from above I put together these quick cards.

The bauble was coloured with copic marker RV02 and had Neon Flamingo stickles added to the top. Tis the season was coloured with marker G05 with Crystal stickles added.

 

 

The bells were painted in gold acrylic paint, with copic markers R27 and G07 used for the ribbons. Some chunky gold glitter was also added.

 

This Santa was coloured in the same way as before only I added some flocking powder to his outfit.

 

Memory Maze supplies used:

Christmas Bells

 

Santa

 

Bauble Tear Drop

 

 

Tis the Season

 

And when you put them all together you have a nice little handmade gift for someone.

I hope that this has inspired you to try and create some of your own gifts in the future.

 

Until next time,

 

Happy Crafting.

 

Jodie

Stick It Down September Card Challenge

Today I'm here with my September Card for Stick It Down challenge blog. You get given the sketch and then get to create. Here is the card sketch for this month.

 

 

 

And here is what I came up with (with a little help from one of my kids).

 

 

Here in Australia September is Father's Day, so with the sketch in mind I took my 3 year old daughter out into the back yard and she created these patterned squares all by herself (well almost). It was so much fun that we very quickly had both of my boys hanging over our shoulders wanting to have a turn too.

 

We lined a baking dish with alfoil and then filled this with shaving cream. The kids used droppers to drop some watered down food colouring onto the shaving cream, after which we swirled around. Once we had a cool pattern in the shaving cream, we placed a piece of watercolour paper over the top and carefully pushed it down onto the foam. We let it soak up the foam and colour for about a minute and then carefully lifted the paper back up. Now some of the foam did come up with the paper, but that is normal. We laid it out on the trampoline and then used the edge of a palette knife to take the majority of the foam off the paper. A quick wipe over with a dry cloth or rag and then we just left the paper to dry overnight. As the cream/foam comes away from the paper you are magically left with glorious colourful patterns all over your paper. The shear look of wonder and amazement on my kids faces at what they were able to create.

 

Don't forget that Stick It Down do a single page and double page scrapbooking challenge also.

 

Until next time,

 

Happy Crafting.

 

Jodie Mason