Last week I had my annual trip down to Sydney to attend SIA (Scrapbook Industry Australia) Trade event.  I had a wonderful time and got to spend time with my friend, Sharyn.  I saw and played with lots of new releases (keep an eye on the New Arrivals for these) and attended classes with Wendy Senger (creator and owner of Glimmer Mist and Tattered Angles), Heidi Swapp (no introductions necessary), Julie Van Oosten (owner and creative mind behind Collections Elements) as well as Ngaire Bartlam (very talented and a lovely lady as well) and lots more classes.

 Heidi and me

   Wendy and me

Heidi’s class was amazing and I have always loved Glimmer Mist but now I love it even more now that I have learned yet more techniques to use with it.  Heidi is a wonderful public speaker and during her inspirational talk at SIA she managed to send me to tears more than a handful of times.

SIA is never long enough for me, there are so many classes to do and lots of manufacturers stands to visit (with only two days to try to fit everything in) and I have to admit they are the most full on days of my year (and that’s saying a lot with my four children) but in saying that I love it because I get to actually create and not have to think too hard about it.  I actually thought that I had taken a lot more photos than I did (the manufacturers do a fantastic job on the displays on their designated spaces) and unfortunately it’s only now that I am back home again that I discovered that I did more looking than photo taking.

Here are some pictures of the Collections Elements booth - Julie and her team do a fantastic job decorating their stand year after year.

I also have to thank my wonderful husband who was brave (or silly) enough to stay at home and take great care of the children.

All in all a fantastic trip and I managed to scrapbook as well!

Natasha

I made this KaiserCraft Album for my friends 40th Birthday.  I wanted something classic looking because for Val’s Birthday a group of 15 of us spent the day at Palazzo Versace and it turned out these were the colours used throughout the room we were in for her birthday.  I love these colours and patterns together.

I planned this album exactly how I wanted it on paper first because I had a very detailed picture in my head of how I wanted it to look.  Then when I came to gluing all of the pages onto the solid MDF parts of the Album I actually glued the page I wanted to show through behind the 40 part on the back of the page and not the front of it.  Please note if you are doing this album there is a right and left side of the album, the holes don’t actually line up upside down.  So instead of having a pretty background page I decided to just have a Bazzill background (I made it slightly smaller so you could still see some of the spotty paper) and that allowed me to have a whole other section of the Album to use for signatures and messages.  So it turned out ok after all.  I made all of the Bazzill page inserts the same size so the pages could be placed in the message section or the main album.

I used Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist on the KaiserCraft Wooden Flourish then added some KaiserCraft Pearls.  I also used Glimmer Mist on the KaiserCraft Chipboard letters, I painted the letters Antique White then placed the Flourish over the letters then sprayed.  This coloured the Flourish and the letters at the same time.  I just love Glimmer Mist, embellishmentsare so quick and easy withthis product.  It is my favourite product right now and I can’t wait to play withit some more to see what other things I can achieve with it.

The flower on the 40 are layered, with the bottom flower being a flower cut out of KaiserCraft Fozz Felt, the middle one is a paper flower and the top is another smaller flower cut out of FozzFelt with a pearl on top.  The flower beside Val’s name is a paper flower folded in half with a pearl attached. 

I didn’t want to do too much with the back of the 40 so I painted it Antique White it then occurred to me that it was rather boring so I used a sea sponge and combined the Raw Umber and Antique White paints on the sponge and dabbed it on which made an interesting effect.

Here is another effect you can achieve with the Glimmer Mist.  Here I just placed the KaiserCraft Wood Flourish onto a piece of Bazzill Cardstock and sprayed the Glimmer Mist.  I actually did this while adding a little more colour to the Flourish from the Album, so both times I sprayed it I made 2 accents with one lot of spraying.  Doing it at the same time saves the Glimmer Mist and saves time and it makes a great corner accent.  Notice the larger spots on the paper this is achieved by holding the spray closer to the paper.  If you just want a fine mist, hold it further away when spraying.

Enjoy,

Natasha

All of the products are now in their right categories on the Wise Craft Creations Website.  I would like to thank all of our customers for your patience while I was fixing this.

Natasha

Hello, and welcome to the Blog.  Well, this is quite a daunting task really, posting for all of the world to see.  I’m quite nervous so go easy on me until I get used to it.  If you have any comments, suggestions or you want to let me know how I’m going you can always leave a comment at the end of each post.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my computer at the moment, I love it because it allows me to work from home and research new products and see how they work.  I hate them because one click of a wrong button and all of my hard work is gone.  Which was the case a couple of weeks ago with all of the categories on the Wise Craft Creations Shop site.  I am still trying to sort that little problem out.  What about a backup I hear you ask?  Well that wasn’t an option in this case as my little error found a problem with the program I am using (which was sorted quite quickly).  So it all has to be fixed by manual labour, mine.  I can tell you I have learnt from my mistake and it will not be happening again.  If you are looking for something in particular in the Shop and can’t find it, please use the search function on the top left of the screen.  I also have quite a few more New Arrivals to go up as well, so keep an eye out for them in New Arrivals - February. 

The Gallery is now up and running at http://www.wisecraftcreations.com.au/gallery/ feel free to add any photos of your own creations made with products purchased with us.

I’ll be posting some competitions/challenges in the next few weeks, so check back regularly for these.

For those of you who subscribe to my newsletters you may know my word for this year is “Inspire”, I want to leave you today with a quote from a very inspirational person and someone I’ll be speaking of more in the future.

“Brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.  They’re there to stop the other people.” Randy Pausch

Until next time,

Natasha

I’m setting the blog up and I’ll be posting regularly soon