A Little Gift For Mum

Hi there,

As with many other countries, we will be celebrating Mother's Day this coming Sunday here in Hong Kong. I always found that strange, since Hong Kong was a British colony and followed most UK holidays, so it really should be in March or the 4th Sunday in Lent.

Mother's day here usually means packed restaurants and florists selling more carnations in one day, than the whole year put together. My favourite part though is having a nice lie in while Miss C and her daddy fiddle about in the kitchen together, rustling up my breakfast before snuggling in together on the bed.

This year will probably be no different, however, craft-wise, I wanted to concentrate on my own mum. My parents live two floors below us in our building and are really getting on. Dad's not very steady on his feet anymore and Mum has always been the rock for us. She's an amazing lady, been through a lot in her life and does everything with poise and dignity. She's been such a guiding light and I can always hear her voice in everything that I do. Many of my own actions and decisions come rooted from her and my dad and I feel that I have been a better person because of it.

I wanted to show my appreciation this year, with a framed photo gift and card. I've made them with a vintage vibe and I know she'll love this better than any other gift I could purchase.

Framed Vintage Mother's Day Gift

I brushed gesso over a small white Ikea frame, before completely covering it with brown acrylic paint. I then brushed on a layer of Silks paint in Nutmeg, before highlighting in gold arcylic. After it was all dry, I used a piece of fine sandpaper to rub off some of the paint from corners and edges.

A pretty selection of Prima flowers clustered together to form a permanent bouquet.

I've had this butterfly in my stash for the longest time. I added "rubies" to make it pop.

Mother's Day Card

An easy 3.5" x 8" card with ready made embellishments. I backed it with some gorgeous old Pink Paislee paper, before gluing on two different strips of lace.

Prima flowers and some Pink Paislee die-cuts bulk out the card. I also added a cameo to the bottom die-cut and a pink rose cabochon to the small pink flower.

 Hope you all have a wonderful Mother's day,

Imagination Has No Limits

Finally, a layout. I don't think I've done one since the ones I did for the HKMC May Kit Club. I just had to find time and do one layout, and boy, did I go all out.

You know I love my Prima, so here's one with one of their 2013 releases - Lyric.  I just fell in love with this line (as with the other Prima lines). It's a great mix of romantic, flowers and music notes.

Imagination Know No Limits

Gorgeous Prima Lyric papers and embellishments.

I fussy cut banners with beautiful lace for multi-dimensional layers. The butterflies were spritzed with pinks and oranges. I covered most surfaces with smudges of white crackle paint.

 I used light modelling paste with a Prima mask to create the background. For the ripped edges, I backed them with some of the music/rose paper and also did a bit of doodling. I finished off the layout with Glossy Accent "water droplets".

I cut out one of the frames and ripped/rolled a large hole in the middle to frame the photo. The photo was taken in at the conservatory of the Las Vegas Bellagio hotel. 

Products Used

Papers, chipboard, canvas resist accents, small flowers from Prima Marketing Lyric collection

Medium, large flowers and stencil mask from Prima Marketing 

Rock Candy and Picket Fence crackle paint from Tim Holtz by Ranger

Pearl florish by Kaisercraft
Glossy Accents by Ranger

Glimmer mists and sprays from stash

Doily, resin bird and lace sourced locally

Thanks for stopping by,

Rainbows and Unicorns - Cake

Hi there,

I apologise as it's been a bit slow on the scrapbooking front the last few days. Daily life catching up with you, you know?

I've been able to do one layout this week, so far. Not sure if I'll be able to get another one in as it's more cake orders this weekend.

So, here's one of the cakes from last weekend. One of my favourites - I didn't think I could do the unicorns, but they turned out ok. Not perfect, but I do like the horns. It was for a full rainbow party, so I made some mini rainbow cupcakes as well.

 Little mini vanilla cupcakes look so striking on your party table.

 Unicorns under a rainbow. The whole cake was egg and dairy free chocolate cake.

Sweet shimmery mama and baby unicorns.

My other cake was a New York cheesecake with lots of red fruit on top, but I forgot to take photos of that one.

I'm trying to tidy up my blog, so I'll be doing cake posts separately. That way, I'll be able to classify my post subjects easier as time goes by.  I'll be doing a layout post next

Thanks for looking,

Something A "Little" Different

Hi there,

I know I haven't really posted much in the last two weeks. I think I was a little burnt out after the retreat and just wanted to do other things to recharge my creative batteries. I've also had/have cake orders three weekends in a row. Apparently, May is one busy month for birthdays.

I did two last weekend but only took photos of one of them and regret not taking pics of the second, which was a rainbow cake. So much fun to pipe them.

Tedious but so fun to do scalloped cake.

This Saturday is National Scrapbooking Day, and although it says national, scrapbooking is now universal, so let's call it International Scrapbooking Day. HKMC has been celebrating with give aways, so be sure to drop in at the shop before stocks run out. More details at info@hkmemorychestonline.com or ring 2559 0175.

Shockingly, I haven't had anything prepared to celebrate NSD, although, this week, I've been playing around with Artist Trading Cards. HKMC has set up an ATC wall at the shop and I've wanted to start an ATC club for a while. If you've not heard of artist trading cards, they are 2.5" x 3.5" cards which you can create in any style or with any medium. Little pieces of art, they are usually made in a series, so they can be traded or swapped with other members. It's a great way to show others your work on little cards. Since you would make a number of them, they're kept relatively simple so you don't feel as bad having to give them away. This Wikihow link will probably explain the process better than I can.

Hello Spring ATCs

I did a series of eight cards for my first effort. I love the colours of the flowers popping out from the background and also love the oriental feel to them.

 First, I watered down Scattered Straw and Salty Ocean distress inks on my craft mat, swiped the cards through the colour and heat dried. I then spritzed with water and blotted the excess water with a towel. I then soaked a brush with more diluted Salty Ocean distress ink and splattered it around to create the blue splotches.

 I stamped the images with black archival ink before shading it in with distress markers. The stamens were dotted with Stickles, while the little curls were dotted with liquid pearls. After it was all dry, I then ran the tip of my Glossy Accents bottle around the stamped outlines, creating a raised embossed effect. For the last step, I stamped the Japanese cherry blossom stamp randomly on each card in red archival ink. I got the stamp in Japan at a traditional stamp shop and just love it.

To finish the card, I printed out a description tag to stick to the back of each card. This part is important, so whoever gets your card has a reference to your tiny piece of art.

So there you go. My first attempt. Hope you like it. I'm experimenting with my second lot of cards and hopefully will have more to show you soon. I hope you'll join me in making some ATCs of your own. I would love to see all your creations.

In the meantime, I have two more cakes to finish for this weekend and probably a layout somewhere in between.

Happy Scrapping,