December 25th

 The ARTastic Challenge for December was based on a Christmas themed wordle.I wanted to create a vintage feel to my layout because of the photo I'd chosen but I also loved the colours in the wordle, especially the blue. I found that adding the blue gave a great pop of colour and gave more life to my layout.

I selected a photo of my husband taken  when he was an innocent  five year old, standing in front of the family Christmas tree, proudly wearing the postman's outfit he got from Santa.

I chose words for my layout that would reflect what a young child's thoughts at Christmas time might focus on, that is, Santa, the tree, decorations such as tinsel and baubles, what he wished for and his gifts. I cut these words from  Christmas themed paper and created a banner with them. My word banner was then highlighted with a string of miniature Christmas lights.

 

The paper circle, which is meant to represent a Christmas wreath, had some sparkle added using 3-D stamping paint and coloured rhinestones. I stamped a border of fir tree branches to replicate the real tree in the photo and added a bit more sparkle round the edge with Kindy Glitz.

I hope you like my take on the challenge. I enjoyed creating the layout and found the wordle inspiring. My biggest problem came when I tried to enter it on the ARTastic website due to my ineptitude on the computer. After many frustrating hours I was finally rescued by Julie at "Time to Create". THANK YOU JULIE!!! My entry is definitely last minute but better late than never, I hope.
Cheers, Chris.

Little Red Riding Hood-Chris Sexton

 

My layout for the Sept. ARTastic challenge features my great-niece Lilly. The photo was taken last month when she dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood for her school's Book Week Parade. She was incredibly excited and looked adorable. When this month's challenge called for whimsical and fun I knew straight away what I would do. My vision for the layout was reminiscent of the large wall murals I used to create in my classroom for my Infants students when we were studying Fairytales. These murals were used as a basis for adding their story writing, art and craft work and related word lists. I used to spend hours displaying the kid's work but it was worth it, especially when I got so much positive feedback from the kids, the parents and other teachers. I think that's one reason I was drawn to scrapbooking in the first place when I retired from teaching-it gave me an outlet for my creativity.

The layout is very simple in that it does not involve any difficult techniques, just straight-forward cutting and piecing bits of paper together. Because there were some finer details required I found I could use lots of scrap paper left over from previous projects. I only used one new piece of pattern paper in the entire layout. I had lots of fun going through my scraps to find the perfect piece and discovered along the way lots of bits and pieces I had forgotten about.

I also had fun creating the Big Bad Wolf. I think he looks pretty suave but a little scary dressed in his  jacket and pants. I think his eyes reveal his true character. I am going to put this layout in an album I am making for Lilly. I hope she likes it as much as I enjoyed making it. Thanks, ARTastic, for the ongoing inspiration.
Cheers, Chris.

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Sweet Treat

 

My layout for ARTastic's August challenge was created  for my Guest Designer Spot and features some gorgeous rainbow lorikeets that I spied in my neighbour's yard feasting on the nectar of flowers in one of her trees. I haven't a clue what kind of tree it is. Maybe someone can enlighten me. I created the flowers using paper string, which I unravelled into single strands, cut to the desired length then tied together with stranded cotton. I then inked the string with yellow chalk ink and when dry pulled them into shape. The leaves were simply cut from cardstock, folded down the centre, inked  and distressed round the edges.

My background was created by brushing a piece of white cardstock with water, leaving the outer edges dry. I then dropped yellow and blue watercolour paint into the wet areas and blew the paint with a straw around and out to the edges of the page, allowing some of the colours  to mix together. I then splattered the page with a small amount of red. Lastly, I sprinkled salt in some areas, then dried the whole sheet with a heat gun.
It helps to minimise warping if you tape the page to a solid base before you start.
I hope you like my efforts. It was a great thrill to be asked to be a guest designer for ARTastic and I thank Jane for the opportunity to share my work with others. I'd also like to thank my good friend and fellow scrapper, Di for the many hours she spent helping me put my work onto the ARTastic site. I have very limited computer skills but am improving. Maybe one day I'll have my own blog site.

Happiness- Chris Sexton

My layout for ARTastic's July challenge, using black and white plus one other predominant colour, uses a photo of my niece and her gorgeous daughter.

The background paper was mostly black, with floral highlights in varying tones of pink, which was perfect for my photo. I added some white using a stencil and paint, then used some scraps of other black and white paper I had to add some layers beneath the photo.

The pink paper beneath the black perfectly matched the darker flowers so I cut a strip from the centre of it to create a banner and to punch a flower for my embellishment cluster. I punched a section from the top and bottom of the black to allow the pink to show through, then added pink rhinestones to the centre of each punched flower. I added a cute little crocheted doily, a white paper doily and a journalling tag plus a little butterfly which I fussy cut from another tag, which I added Glossy Accents and rhinestones to. I love that the black background paper had a touch of blue and green in the corners. I think the contrast creates more interest.
 Thanks for the inspiration. It was great to see the amazingly diverse interpretations people came up with.
Cheers, Chris.

Mr Fixit - Chris Sexton

 My husband Geoff is a recycling champion in our household. Almost every room in our house has pieces of restored furniture that are the result of his handiwork. His workshop is full of bits and pieces that have been salvaged from the local recycling centre that he has altered or redesigned to fit a particular purpose. Because of this I thought he was the perfect subject for my layout for the June ARTastic challenge using recycled items. It was great fun raiding the cupboards and drawers in his workshop to find the things I could use to complement the photo.

 I used an old Bristol Paints colour card and some corrugated card from a packing box for my background. The cogs were die cut from pieces of used sandpaper (which I also used as masks and stencils). I found old metal washers, screws and nails and bits of wire, a wooden hole plug, as well as a much used ruler and pencil which I used as embellishments. Even my journalling tag was cut from the colour card and covered with a scrap of left over paper.

The two things on the layout that weren't pilfered from Geoff's workshop were the piece of brown paper beneath the photo, which was cut from packaging that came with some pyjamas I bought recently and the title letters, which I cut from the local newspaper.
The only scrapbooking supplies I used were paint, ink, spray mists and brads. I've created a layout that is very different to my usual style but I'm pretty pleased with the result.

As I don't have my own blog, I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the lovely people who regularly comment on my challenge efforts. I was blown away by the comments I received for the May challenge and was amazed that I'd come up with some masking/stencilling ideas that others hadn't thought of and were inspired to try.Those comments gave me a great confidence boost.
I'd like to thank Tone-Lill for donating the prize I won and for voting for me. I'd also like to thank Julie at "Time to Create" for allowing me to use her site "Time to Create B Challenged." Without her generosity I wouldn't be able to submit my layouts.
I look forward to the next challenge.
                                                      Cheers, Chris.

Cute as a Button. -Chris Sexton.

For the ARTastic challenge this month I used a 30 year old photo of my gorgeous niece Ali, taken when she was about 3 years old. Rather than use commercially produced stencils and masks I created my own. My background started with a white sheet of cardstock. I scalloped the edge, then masked the scallops with Washi tape so they would stay white.

I then created another mask by using a lacy edge punch to make a square corner which I sprayed lightly with Glimmer Mist.

I then placed a 12x12 piece of carpet mesh over the whole sheet and sprayed with Glimmer Mist again, giving a lattice effect.

Once I'd placed the orange cardstock into position, I created a stencil with another edge punch, which I then used to ink a faux embroidered border on the white "lace".
Once the stencilling was done I removed the Washi tape from the scalloped edges, added my photo, title and embellishments and I was done.

I don't do a lot of stencilling on my pages but I've always admired layouts that have it in their backgrounds as it gives great dimension and added interest. I'm quite pleased with my efforts. I've kept things clean and simple because that's my style but I will be including more masking and stencilling  in future layouts as I really enjoyed the challenge. Thanks for the inspiration.
                                                                            Cheers, Chris.

Fangs for the Memories

Boy was I envious of other challenge entrants when I saw the photos they had used. I found it very difficult to find a suitable photo for this one. This shot was taken on a crazy trip with workmates to Melbourne in July 2006. We found ourselves at Dracular's one night and were all a bit shell-shocked after the show. We had a great time and enjoyed each other's company immensely, hence the title "FANGS for the Memories". The circle of twine represents the circle of friendship we have all shared for many years. 

My background stamping was done to reflect the diamond pattern in the paper used, with a bit of sparkle added using Viva Decor 3-D stamp paint.

The word FANGS was die-cut from the corrugated card used in the layout and then Glossy Accents was added. I used different fonts for the other words in the title to add interest and to repeat the main colours in the layout.
I really enjoy challenging myself to use the ARTastic criteria but I also get heaps of inspiration (not to mention green-eyed envy) from the many different takes on the challenge others have. Hope you enjoy my layout.Congratulations to everyone who participates. I think your work is wonderful!!
                                                                                                                Cheers, Chris.