Let's Get Scrappy at Our Creative Corner

Hi everyone and welcome to the start of March! Can't believe we are almost a quarter of the way through 2014 already. How goes it with those New Year's resolutions? Sticking to them still? So many of us made a decision to use up your existing crafty stash, and with that in mind we have just the challenge for you over at Our Creative Corner this month. 

Linda is hosting 'Let's Get Scrappy' - use your scraps and left overs from previous projects, pieces of paper, scraps of ribbon, embellishments made and never used. If you are like the Design Team and can't bear to discard all those yummy scraps, you'll have a variety of possibilities to use for this project. Let's put some of them to use!

And this month we are pleased to announce that one randomly drawn entrant will win a prize from our generous sponsor Tando Creative.

Confession time... my name is Jenny Marples and I'm a scrapaholic. I hoard unused/discarded projects, offcuts of card and paper, die cuts, partially altered embellishments, oh the list is endless. For this challenge I grabbed a handful of scraps and die cuts that had similar colours and sat down to create. And so it was that this...

turned into this...

It's no secret I love the styles and designs created by many scrap layout designers. They use paper scraps in incredibly stylish and imaginative ways. I can highly recommend taking a look at the work of, amongst so many others, Georgia Heald (Paper vs Scissors).

With this in mind I started by blending coordinating Distress Ink over the Tarnished Brass DP stamped card. Then this and the other pale green/blue scraps were die cut into small stamp shapes. 

Having chosen a pale text paper background Picket Fence Crackle Paint was applied to the edges before I layered on the stamp shapes to form the basis of the design. A coat of gesso helped to blend the layers and provide a key for more inks/paints.

Adding undiluted ink sprays in between the stamp shapes, then adding water to allow them to run started the process of creating definition. This was furthered by blending in grey watercolour pencil. Finally splats and lines of Distress Paint were applied over the top.

After blending ink to the edges of the card I returned to that pile of scraps. The Washer Border strip die was used on the green/gold piece before being added at the top. Some of the embossed ruler card was trimmed to size and the white ticket remnant was aged with ink.

I did have to cut some film strip, though even this was from another off cut of Coredinations card (I refuse to bin a single piece, however small, as it is so good for cutting/punching those little finishing touches).

Finally my umbrella man, cut from card that had been covered in a piece of crumpled parcel paper was covered in Clear Rock Candy Crackle and of course one of those Simple Sayings sentiments was added too.

It felt so good to use up scraps that had been taking up storage space for so long and. I warn you in advance, this will definitely not be the last time you will see scraps used to create the base of a new card!

I hope you also feel inspired to make good use of those discarded bits and bobs, and remember to share them with us at Our Creative Corner. Even more creative ideas await on the challenge blog from the rest of the highly talented Design Team so a visit is definitely a must.

I hope March becomes a thoroughly creative month for you all. Take care of yourselves, Jenny xxx

POSTSCRIPT: Our Creative Corner will be taking a break for the month of March, and will re-open on 1st April with a fresh challenge theme for you. Apologies to those of you who have been quick off the mark getting scrappy for Linda's challenge... hopefully, we'll revisit the scrappy theme some time in the future! Winners announcements and Top Talent features will all appear in due course in April. Sorry for any inconvenience, but we hope you have a lovely month, and we look forward to welcoming you all back in April.