Some June highlights ...

Some really striking pages this month - here are just a couple that have caught our eye over previous weeks.

CATHY LU

HANNAH ZHENG

There are still a couple of days left to get in your entry and be in the running for some wonderful prizes - we'd love to see your take on our inspiration.

Our wonderful June guest ...

Please welcome our guest designer this month, Kripa Koushik with her amazing interpretation of our artwork for June.

The challenge prompt this month made me want to scrap a special photo. I've made layouts of this photo before, yet I want to make more. This photo is from the day my older son met his younger brother for the first time.

Let me try and explain how I’ve tried to express my emotions through colour & texture in this layout. When I look at this photo, time just stops for me (depicted by the black and white background) and I’m taken over by a feeling of love, joy and amazement (soft delicate – hand drawn flowers, lace, hearts, vellum) , probably similar to what my boys experienced that moment! The stars are my prayer to God to shower his blessing on my boys and our family.

I’ve recently setup my youtube channel and prepared a short video for this layout. Hope you enjoy, I will be delighted if you leave me a comment after watching. Thank you ❤

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/a6ZsfclwSLk

Hello ARTastic fans, my name is Kripa Koushik. I took up scrapbooking about 3 years ago and instantly fell in love with messy mixed media supplies – paint, gesso, texture paste. I’m still exploring my preferred style and enjoy light bright colours as well as grungy deep colours. As long as the colours and embellishments assist with telling the story of the piece, I’m content for the moment. 

You can see more of my work on my blog: 

www.thecolourpress.blogspot.com and follow my work on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/thecolourpress/

Here are two of my recent favourites:

Simply delightful Kripa - thank you so much for sharing your talent with us this month.

Remember ....

You still have time until the end of the month to upload your own take on this challenge.  All details are on the blog sidebar. We'd love to see what you can do with our inspiration this month.

Our second June reveal ...

Welcome to our mid month reveal. We are working with this amazing artwork by Anna Collins called Top Hat Tiger. 

CRITERIA - Black and White plus one other colour (can be any)

KAREN

My inspiration for this month is colour. The black, the white and the lime.

MARY

It's a photo of my hubby in his school uniform. I also used the negative pieces from the circle die cut and the negative from the word smile die cut.

HELENE

KAT

I was inspired by the clean and simple design and the portrait with bright eyes. I've also used animal print papers (torn in strips like the stripes of a tiger) and pops of lime green.

ANGELIKA

 I was inspired to do a layout of my Tiger; I chose the colour peach as my accent colour to match his fur. I was also inspired by the tiger stripes and cat theme for the background design.

TONE

JANE

I loved the idea of black and white stripes and the fun element of the inspiration artwork.

Now it is your turn, we'd love to see your own interpretation ...

 Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions.  All we ask is that you create something new for our challenge and only combine your entry with a sketch challenge.  We offer two prizes determined by team vote and one other prize selected purely by random draw - so anyone can be a winner regardless of style or level of experience.  You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Please pop back on the 22nd when we introduce you to our June Guest Designer.

May winners and June Tutorial ...

I will be announcing our May winners shortly but first I would like to introduce you to our June edition of Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you by team member Anna Uhras. 

My June Layout ...  "step by step" by Anna Uhras

Hi Everyone!

Anna here today showing my "step by step" making my layout this month.

I think this is pretty typical "my way" of scraping.

I start choosing papers and make my layers to have under my photo.

When I am satified I often staples my stack of paper.

Next layer for me usually is some ordinary thread, here black, white and some green.

I also added a cluster of banners.

Time for the top layer of photos and here also a PL-card. 

Usually I use 3d tape to mount my photos.

Now I put my stack of papers/photos away for a while to prepare my background cardstock.

This time I used some distress ink on a plastic mat, sprayed some water and just stamped it randomly over my cardstock until I was happy. 

Sometimes I just splatter some color mist instead. It depends on how I feel.

Time to mount my stack of papers/photos and for that I have used some double-sided tape.

I decorated it pretty simply with two fussy cut arrows and my title. Used my sewing machine over my title, I love that effect.

Usually I also do my journaling with my own handwriting even if I really do not like my own writing but I think it may be a nice memory for our kids someday.

Well that's how my layout came out.

And here is the result.

Thank you Anna - I just love this page :)

and now onto our May winners .....

 We were working with this amazing artwork by John Maitland called Seven Girls Running.

CRITERIA - GIRLS ONLY

Shazza is our winner of the prize pack from Kaisercraft.

Everyone just loved this quirky canvas.

Cathy Lu is our winner of the prize pack from Mystical Scrapbooks.

Our random draw winner of a lovely prize donated by Elaine Schoof is # 8 - Margaret Crawford.

Congratulations ladies.

Could the winners please contact me on jjjustjane@bigpond.com with their postal details.  You have until the announcement of the winners for next  month to do so. Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar.  

Our Creative Team highlight from last month is Kat.  She will receive a little surprise something from me.

Don't forget to enter this month's ARTastic challenge.  All the details are in the left sidebar. Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry.

Please pop back on the 15th when we will have more delightful team inspiration to show you.

Hello June ...

Gosh it's June, now how on earth did that happen, half way through the year already!!

This month we have a rather different artwork for you by Anna Collins called Top Hat Tiger.  I just love this - so much fun !  So please take some inspiration from the artwork for your submission - maybe you love that fun element and want to run with it or perhaps play around with a cat or top hat theme.  Perhaps your first thought was a trip to the zoo or attending a formal function or wedding where everyone was dressed to the nines.  Maybe you just like black and white stripes!  Whatever the inspiration we would love to see your page - and remember our criteria this month of Black and White plus one other colour can be any you like.

CRITERIA - Black and White plus one other colour (can be any)

A little about Anna Collins

Anna is a well known Artist and Art Teacher on the Central Coast of NSW. Anna has been painting her entire life, her art covers all mediums, her forte and favourite is life drawing.

Anna was trained at East Sydney Tech (now known as the National Art School) and has completed a fine arts degree through Newcastle University. She teaches drawing at Gosford Regional Art Gallery from time to time.

You can find some of Anna's work at Quirky Happy.

And now some inspiration from the first of our team ...

LIZZY

 Inspiration: stripes led to the white ink lines; the green eyes I've used as a pop of colour on my LO. The bowler hat idea I've also used for my title/ journaling spots! This was my VERY favest one to do!!!

AN'JENIC

Inspired by the lines of the tiger fur, the hat. My daughter loves to wear hats and I knew I could find one of her wearing one.

ANNA

Pop past on the 8th to see how Anna put this amazing page together.

MARIA

 I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world! It is Saint-Petersburg, Russia. I love my city even with its 9 months of cloudy, windy, rainy and snowy weather. It inspires me a lot! I like to walk its embankments, admire Neva river, beautiful bridges, buildings and palaces comprising 300 years of history of the City, which once was the Capital of the Empire.

In my work I've used stamps, embossing, water-colors, chipboard.
On the photo: me and my husband during our stroll.
Welcome to Saint-Petersburg!

ELAINE

 I wanted to try to do a minimalist page after seeing beautiful pages for May. And this page was also inspired by Pinterest. My photo is edited on the Becky Higgins project life app. I chose pink as my other colour. I wanted to keep it simple and let the photo shine.smile emoticon

TRACEY

Inspired by the use of lime.

SUE

Black, white and teal with lots of accents with lines.

Over to you ......

Please upload the DIRECT link to your actual entry with the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on June 30th, 2016.  We'd love to see your new paper, digital, mixed media or off the page entries. Why not try doing a pocket page spread?  Please no back-dated submissions.  

 Please note:- You may combine our challenge with a sketch challenge only - no other combining will be accepted.  Please include our inspirational picture and challenge details on your blog post as well as provide a link back to us at ARTastic  ... and don't forget to tell us how you were inspired by our challenge.  You may enter more than once in any month as long as each submission is with a different creation.  International entries are very welcome. 

Please call past on the 8th for our announcement of the May winners and our ARTastic 3T's - Tips, Tricks and Techniques for June. 

Some May highlights ...

Some amazing pages this month - here are just a couple that have caught our eye over previous weeks.

Hannah Zheng

Shazza

Marie- Christine

There are still a couple of days left to get in your entry and be in the running for some wonderful prizes - we'd love to see your take on our inspiration.

Our May guest ...

Please welcome our guest designer this month, Evelyn Walter with her totally delightful interpretation of our artwork for May.

I was inspired by the colors of the artwork "Seven Girls Running" by John Maitland. I tried to adapt the visible brush strokes just like the black line on the top of the picture. I only added some hanging hearts down the black line to show my love to my beautiful daughter. I wanted to keep the page quite clean fitting to the original.

Hi, I´m Evelyn. I live in Germany in the heart of the most wonderful part of it, in Bavaria. I am a mother of two, a son, who doesn´t live at home any more and a 16 years old daughter, living with me in our girly home. By profession I´m a teacher for needlework and home economics. In my spare time I love to do something of my desire, Mixed Media, scrapbooking, stamping, card making, altering things, off the page projects - most time some of them happen at the same time. I started art journaling too and I love the freedom of creating I can have in there. 

I have been crafting all my life. I tried many techniques, from working with fabric and wool to working with wood and clay to altering furniture and drawing.

I found the beautiful common of talented people here in the world wide web and started my own blog. I´m addicted to stencils and I love colours in all it´s versions. I always want to try something new and love to try out new mediums.

For more information and may be inspiration please visit my blog: http://stempeldideldum.blogspot.de

Here are some more of my layouts:

You do such gorgeous work Evelyn, thank you so much for sharing some of your talent with us this month.

Remember ....

You still have time until the end of the month to upload your own take on this challenge.  All details are on the blog sidebar. We'd love to see what you can do with our inspiration this month.

Our second May reveal ...

Welcome to our mid month reveal. We are working with this amazing artwork by John Maitland called Seven Girls Running.

CRITERIA - GIRLS ONLY

KAREN

My inspiration for this page came from the group of girls in the painting having fun and of course the lovely colours. 

MARY

I have used the inspirations of the Ballerina's and the purple and black colours.

HELENE

A selfie of the girls in our family (me and my daughter).

KAT

 I was inspired by the colours and the line of girls. I also created a background of woven paper strips inspired by the brush strokes in the artwork.

ANGELIKA

 I was inspired by the pastel blue/purple/reds, the horizontal line, and obviously dancing ladies.

TONE

I was inspired by the colors.

JANE

 I loved both the colours and the row of girls and knew I had the perfect photos for this!

Now it is your turn, we'd love to see your own interpretation ...

 Remember we happily accept all forms of paper crafting for your entry including digital and encourage international submissions.  All we ask is that you create something new for our challenge and only combine your entry with a sketch challenge.  We offer two prizes determined by team vote and one other prize selected purely by random draw - so anyone can be a winner regardless of style or level of experience.  You have until 11.55pm on the last day of the month to submit your entry.

Please pop back on the 22nd when we introduce you to our May Guest Designer.

April winners and May tutorial ...

I will be announcing our April winners shortly but first I would like to introduce you to our May edition of Tips, Tricks and Techniques brought to you by team member Elaine Schoof. 

Backgrounds by Elaine Schoof

Hello. Today I am here to show you how to use stencils on your pages and the different ways you can use them. I love using stencils myself as they are a cheap way to make backgrounds and elements for my pages.

This tutorial will show how I made the background for my design team page this month.

Firstly I used a Kaisercraft 12” square stencil and used it to mist circles for my background. I didn’t want the mist everywhere so I used scrap paper to mask the areas where I didn’t want the mist. I tore the paper to take away the square look from just plain paper.

When I finished misting, I turned the stencil upside down and rubbed areas over my page. The mist that was left on my stencil then created the opposite effect of colour with white circles. Sometimes I only use this technique on my page. It gives the stencil 2 different effects.

Once my mist was dry, I then used the same stencil with modelling paste to create depth to my misting and background. Gesso paint works as well if you like a more blended in effect.

For my Happy embellishment, I ran a Heidi Swapp stencil through my cuttlebug. It gives a lovely embossed card. It might take a bit, to work out what layers you need, to get the stencil to emboss. For the cuttlebug I ran it in the following order; A plate, B plate, Stencil facing upwards, card, Embossing mat, my tin plate, some folded paper for extra thickness and then my B plate. It needs to fit quite tightly through the cuttlebug to get a firm embossed image. I have also used this technique for creating embossed patterns on tags, circle embellishments, etc.

And for the last element on my background, I simply used black pen with a stencil to create arrows on my background. Triangles also look great with pen.

And here is my final page ...

and now onto our April winners .....

We were working with this this amazing artwork by Josh Miels called We will remember them.

CRITERIA -  The use of Typography on your page - let those letters shine!

This artwork must have struck a cord with many of you as we had a fantastic participation - thank you all SO much.

Beverley Cunningham is our winner of the prize pack from Kaisercraft.

Chiao Yu is our winner of the prize pack from Mystical Scrapbooks.

Our random draw winner of a lovely prize donated by DT Helene Bogren is #10 Helen.

Congratulations ladies.

Could the winners please contact me on jjjustjane@bigpond.com with their postal details.  You have until the announcement of the winners for next  month to do so. Don't forget to grab our winners badge from the sidebar.  

Our Creative Team highlight from last month is Tracey.  She will receive a little surprise something from me.

Don't forget to enter this month's ARTastic challenge.  All the details are in the left sidebar. Remember you have until the end of the month to submit your entry.

Please pop back on the 15th when we will have more delightful team inspiration to show you.