Captured Moments - Chris Sexton

The ARTastic Challenge for October was to use a vintage photo and/or do a vintage layout. I absolutely love doing vintage and had an adorable hand-tinted, vintage studio portrait of my mum,aged 2 and her older sister, aged 5 (now aged 90 and 93 respectively) that I've wanted to scrap for ages. I took inspiration from the 1903 artwork of R. Godfrey Rivers of a couple "taking tea" under a beautiful jacaranda tree, and included jacaranda blue in my layout.

The papers I used were from a 7 gypsies variety pack called "Savannah" and co-ordinated really well with the colours in my photo and the vintage theme.
I used Ranger Distress Ink in Antique Linen and Faded Jeans, plus Momento Dye Ink in Rhubarb Stalk to colour and age the book page, the old doily, the wooden frame and the butterflies. I also added Ranger Crackle Accents to the frame for an aged look.

I love using flowers on my layouts and have a huge collection so I had fun going through it to find just the right ones, although I had to spray the small roses with Glimmer Mist Moonlight to get the colour I wanted.
I embossed the chipboard title with about 3 different coloured embossing powders before I was happy with the result.
I'm really pleased with the finished layout and my mum thought it was fantastic. Hope you like it too.
Thanks,ARTastic for the ongoing inspiration. I love viewing the Design Team's efforts as well as the Challenge entries to see how wide and varied the interpretations are. You all continue to motivate me to stretch myself and use new techniques. Thanks also to those who leave comments.
Cheers, Chris.

Gone Fishing by Chris Sexton

The challenge for September at PIXELS and PAPER was an "anything goes" project based on a photo of a fisherman. Considering we celebrate Fathers' Day in September and I had recently taken a photo of my almost eight year old great- niece Lilly and her dad fishing together, I figured it was the perfect photo to use. Lilly was incredibly excited about catching her first fish (even though it was too small to keep) and has decided fishing is a great past-time (although I think its more about spending time with her daddy than anything else.)

I used a gorgeous background paper from "fabscraps" called Lighthouse 1, scraped some white gesso through a stencil, spritzed with some "Glimmer Mist", then stamped over the top with a Kaisercraft stamp called Hessian. To add some texture, I used some torn corrugated card coloured with blue and brown acrylic paint and brightened up with a touch of "Kindy Glitz". I also added the torn off sections of the corrugated card to the top right and bottom left corners of the layout to act as a frame.

I used some brown mesh to represent the rocks at the river's edge and some gauze to represent a discarded fisherman's net. To finish I added a couple of charms, a wooden anchor, shells and some string and raffia. The trickiest bit was placing the journalling tag because of the various layers and the angle of it. I wrote on the back of it so that the tag just looks like an embellishment. I used mounting tape under the main photo to lift it off the page and make the lighthouse appear to recede into the distance.
I'm quite happy with the way it all turned out. Thanks PIXELS and PAPER for the inspiration and 10 points to the Design Team, who all had fantastic and very different interpretations of the challenge photo. Thanks for looking. I really appreciate the comments you make.
Cheers, Chris.

Sisters - Chris Sexton

The ARTastic Challenge for August was to use fabric. The inspiration came from a piece of fabric art by Kristen Doran. The flowers printed on the fabric in this piece reminded me of the floral fabric on a cushion my sister made for me.
My sister, Barb, loves to sew and has made clothes for her children and grandchildren, patchwork quilts, home furnishings and lots of embroidered pieces. She recently made me an amazing cushion which was pieced together using fabrics that co-ordinated perfectly with my study's colour scheme and has hand-stitched flowers, hearts and a special message which reflects how we feel about each other. I absolutely love it and will treasure it always.

On my layout I used a piece of fabric as my background, which I ironed Vliesofix to the back of, to make it easier to handle. I stitched some fabric lace as a border, then attached the fabric, then glued a second row of crotched lace around the edge. I then placed a paper doily (double layer) onto the fabric and stitched a length of fussy-cut paper lace across the page. There are a couple of layers of tulle beneath this but it is very difficult to see.

Originally, I intended to cut the hearts from Vliesofix backed fabric but couldn't find any that went with my colour scheme so I used scraps of pattern paper that I already had which co-ordinated perfectly. I inked the edges of the hearts, then stitched them to my background. The larger hearts have a tulle covering to add a bit of softness.

After that I added some gorgeous embroidered floral lace, some fussy-cut flowers (again from left-over paper scraps), a chipboard heart already finished in gold (which I used as a frame for my journalling) and my photos.

I think the fabric background, the tulle and the lace give a softness to the look of my layout and reflects the use of fabric in the cushion. Thanks ARTastic for the inspiration. Also, many thanks to Julie at TIME TO CREATE for generously giving her valuable time to help me out yet again.
Cheers, Chris.