Some of my published work
I'd like to share some of the work I've been lucky enough to have published. All the pieces have been in Scrapbook Inspirations magazine
Light up Christmas tree - issue 60 Dec 2009
I made a tree that opened up to reveal a tree that lit up with tiny battery operated Christmas lights! The points of the outer tree served as pages to scrap my childhood Christmas memories.
Haunted pop up book - Issue 58 October 2009
I altered a ghost book for this project and inserted a spooky pop up surprise in the middle. It was a great way to document the village halloween party that I organised and decorated but didn't get many photos of!
Dream a little Dream - Issue 57 September 2009
An assignment to use photos in a different way. I printed the beautiful photo of my cousins little girl and made a gel medium transfer onto some calico. I stitched it onto the lovely Sultane PP's with some hessian and added some lace, ribbons and embellishments.
Stanley Dervish - Issue 55 July 2009
An assignment to se chipboard on a layout. I cut my own chipboard paw frame on my super scroll saw and covered in paper. All the PP is basic grey but I wanted to have paw prints on the back paper, so once I decided putting Stans paws in the ink was a bad idea I made a potato print stamp and with distress ink made it look like he'd walked across the paper. I like the distressing I added to make it look dog eared and love the little chipboard glittered bone that I made!
Rock Chic - Issue 54 June 2009
An article about making your own embellishments. I had the idea of making them from recycled things and all those bits and pieces that I hoard away with 'one day' in mind. The LO uses one of my embellies in the left corner and influenced the LO of my niece being a pink punk. I used bits from xmas crackers, magazine lettering, scraps of paper and charity shop finds to name but a few things!
Beach Babe - Issue 53 May 2009
A challenge to use woodgrain on a LO so I made a piece of driftwood from corrugated cardboard and papier mache! The background PP is HOTP and I wanted the LO to have the feel that the flotsam and jetsam of my ephemara had just washed up on the shore. And yes that is me! (many, many years ago!)
Our Model Niece - Issue 52 Spring 2009
This is one of my favourite layouts. Not only do I love the rare candid photo of my niece but I love the background PP that I made. She loves the camera and doing the model walk when I put the quick fire on my camera. The paper I doodled, inked, splatter painted, papier mached with tissue paper then doodled, inked and splattered some more, I have added the journalling as a CV in a pocket and the finishing touch to add some girly colour and oomph to the page is the mexican flower that the magpie in me found while on holiday.
A Pirates Tale - Issue 50 March 2009
Inspired after a visit from my 2 nieces at the end of summer 2008. Meg got a pirate dress from Grandma and Grandad and insisted on wearing it everywhere we went! Of course the photo oppurtunities were great and looking back through my snaps I decided it would be great to tell a story of a pirate adventure and this pop up book was born and grew and grew LOL! There are more pictures of it here and I am writing the DIY project now so you can make your own, coming soon!
Cinderella A Memory Theatre - Issue 47 December 2008
I'm really into my 3D scrap art at the moment! During a cyber crop on UKScrappers I made a model theatre with scenes from Mary Poppins with a mystery kit (pictures can be seen here). I was then thrilled that Scrapbook Inspirations asked me to make them a theatre for the Christmas issue, and what else could that production be but Cinderella! Funny how life does full circles sometimes, starting out as a theatre designer then doing my last real life panto in the 2006/07 season and here I am making miniature theatres and pantos and loving it! You can see more pictures of my Cinderella production here and you can buy the DIY project to make your very own miniature theatre here!Also in the same issue I was announced as one of the Best of British Winners, a great honour and something I am very proud of, you can see my winning Layouts here
A Celebration of Happiness - Issue 44 September 2008
I love collage! and I was having a great day, the sun was shining, everything was good in my life and I had a new toy to play with a scroll saw!! I wanted to celebrate the day so I decided to make a picture of it! I cut the beanstalk out of chipboard on my scroll saw and painted it. The background is paper scraps collaged together. I doodled some flowers, made some little props and dressed us in paper clothes. It makes me smile and reminds me of a very happy day!
Jumblies - Issue 42 July 2008
The brief for this was creative use of text and I knew just the poem I wanted to use! The Jumblies by Edward Lear, a favourite of mine from childhood, I often thought it would be fun to go to sea in a sieve with all my friends and discover new fantastic places, so I put me and all my friends in a sieve!! Again I have stretched paper and painted it using mica powder in the sea when it was wet to create some yummy colours. I then printed some of the poem and did a gel medium transfer on to the sea. Some of the poem I printed onto brown paper and ripped into mountains and some of the poem I printed like newspaper text and made little paper hats for some of my friends. The journalling is written on the fish that lives in a slit in the sea!
16 years of us - Issue 36 February 2008
Another paper documentary, documenting the 16 years that my husband and I had been together. The idea came from a mini book I had made the previous valentines day that I gave to my husband on a night out to our favourite restaurant on holiday in Mexico, this layout is the updated story with a photo of us on that valentines dinner in the centre. The background is stretched paper painted red and stamped. It is backed on to some corrugated card to allow me to create the frame in the middle. I kept the photos black and white to make them uniform as the quality of each varied. I used ephemera from the various times, photocopying some of it to re size it to fit within the page. Because of the corrugated backing I was able to create a channel in the back to hold my hidden journalling which is a poem that just fits!
Love Life - £5 challenge - Issue 35 January 2008
One of my paper documentaries! A layout done for less than £5, easy I thought, I'm a thrifty crafter! But not so easy!! One thing out of a pack meant counting the whole pack price so I got creative making my own embellishments! It's a trip through everything I love in life, using photocopies of maps and recipes, images from the internet, photographs of things cut out and my own drawings. The wings are cardboard covered in tin foil and the jewels on the crown are nail varnish!
I know that face - Issue 34 December 2007
This is a layout of my great great grandma Jane Mooney. She came over from Ireland in the 1800's settling in Bradford, a weaver by trade she worked in the fabric mills. The photo used to be on the side when I was growing up and it always fascinated me, it looked more like a painting than a photograph plus the stranger staring out at me looked so familiar, I often wished I could sit and have a cup of tea with her! From a scan I put it through my photo programme and added the lettering, then I did a gel medium transfer onto canvas. I wanted the layout to reflect her work so added lots of fabric layers stitching them on in wool and adding buttons. The paper and alphabet letters are HOTP.
Adventures of a SuperScrapper - A day in the life competition for National Scrapbook Day - Issue 32 October 2007
I was honoured and thrilled to be selected as one of the winners of this National Scrapbook day competition as well as highly amused when I put my head on Wonder Womans body - if only!!! The brief was to create a layout, mini book or project reflecting a day in your life. As my days usually end up anything but ordinary I decided to create a mini book to document a day properly, the day I chose to photograph which was NSD, life seemed to go a bit bonkers and the superhero comic was born! I had great fun with all the speech bubbles and 'kapows' sticking to primary colours all the way through. The book is bound by stitching through the centre with multi coloured yarns. Click here to see the inside of the comic and enjoy the Adventures of a SuperScrapper!!