December class - sneak peep

The texture paste on November's class layouts are not even quite dry yet, and already it is time to prepare for December's class! Our last class of the year takes place this coming weekend, and will hopefully end the year off on an "unforgettable" note. Yip, that's the title of the layout!!

We will use Kaiser Craft's "Hidden Treasures" range and interesting little accents such as mesh circles, twine, bunting, bling and Babushka dolls to create a versatile layout about anyone or anything that you consider to be unforgettable.

The layout uses three photographs, but there is plenty of space to add more if you wish to do so. You will also have quite a bit of patterned paper left over, so we've created a bonus layout to show you how you can put it to good use.

We have a few extra kits available, so please contact us to place your order.

November class

Wow! Did we have a jam-packed, technique filled class this month! We started the morning off with a flower making workshop presented by Charmain Harris, a guest teacher well known for her beautiful card making and off-the-page projects, and thereafter we played with textured paste and stencils!

The girls thoroughly enjoyed making the flowers, the sunflower and rose were firm favourites! This little pink one stole my heart!

After a very intense first half of the morning - intense with concentration, it was on to texture paste and stencils. (See more flower making class pictures on our Facebook page) 

This month we used the beautiful Delight Collection from Prima to create two single pages.

The texture paste was applied to the background papers first to add additional interest before the paper layering. I also added some real stitching detail to all the layouts. The layouts were finished off with the beautiful Prima brads and tags.

Here are the layouts:

Life is sweet

Days to remember

I just loved the soft and romantic feel of this paper range so much, that I couldn't resist making a double layout as well! So the girls were really spoiled for choice!

The November kit includes a full Prima flower pack, Prima brads and tags, chipboard titles and much more. We do have a few kits available, please inquire to our email address: info@picsntales.co.za

The Pics n Tales challenge seems to be here to stay! This month we used a Pagemaps sketch and the girls really rose to the occasion! Please visit our Facebook page to see the beautiful layouts that they created.

The year is coming to an end and we will have our last class next week, 7 December 2013. Look out for sneak peeps of the layout soon!

Thank you for stopping by!

October's Let's Scrap Sketch Challenge!

We had so much fun with the "Ugly Paper" challenge that we have decided to make this a regular feature at Pics n Tales. We will have a different kind of challenge every month from now on.  For the month of October we chose a Let's Scrap sketch challenge (Sketch 10-30-13) and the ladies played along with great enthusiasm! 

Let's Scrap is a community to encourage and motivate our love for scrapping! They do this by posting a sketch and sample layouts each week for you to get inspired by. The Let's Scrap Girls are the friendliest group of ladies on the web! You will find great inspiration in the weekly sketches and challenges. Also check out the tutorials, there are wonderful ideas, including the making of embellishments and various scrapbook techniques. 

This is the sketch (10-30-13):

This is my contribution as Design Team member:

This is Mare-Liez's take on the sketch:

And here are some of our members' contributions!

Nathalie Chanterie

Niesa Hermanus

Karen Coetser

Patricia Overmeyer

Stacey De Wet

Coleen De West

Janet Loots

Monica Knoesen

We are really proud of the layouts our members created. Be sure to stop by Let's Scrap for more inspiration!

And now...  a little peep of November's class:

We will be creating two single pages using the very soft and feminine Prima Delight Collection, with texture paste and templates,  and real stitching. If you are interested in joining the class, email us on info@picsntales.co.za, there are still a few kits available!

Thank you for stopping by.

See you next time!

Ezme

October class

We had a blast with the Teresa Collins Memorabilia file folders and patterned papers at class last weekend!

You all saw the sneak peek on the blog before, so here are some of the pages of the album we created in the class:

For the front cover, we used the largest of the file folders and covered it with a piece of embossed cardstock. To this, we added a folder made from the patterned paper. This contains photos and some of the accents cut from the patterned paper. At the bottom of the front cover, there is a folded ribbon, and three decorative hat pins tucked behind a cute star created from "leftovers" from the sticker sheet included in the kit.

The smaller file folders were sewn into the large one, forming the basis of the mini album. There was enough space on the inside of the front cover to create an additional folder album for that page.

All the album pages were decorated with stickers, sequence and bits of glitter paper. This worked really well, as there was not much room for bulky embellishments in this one...

The smallest file folder is simply gorgeous! We used it to add a whole lot of extra photos. It hardly needed any embellishments, as the gold damask pattern printed on it is already beautiful enough...

A little banner made from different stickers in the kit creates some interest at the top of this page.

The last page in the album was created using a journaling card cut from the patterned paper, layered on two different patterned papers, and then finished off with a few stars.

Of course, there were as many different albums as there were ladies in the class. We even had one or two double layouts, using the same materials!

Thanks for stopping by. Keep an eye out for teasers of the next project. See you soon!

October class

Our next class will take place on 26 October. We are going to create a mini album using the Teresa Collins Memorabilia range. The File Folders from this range will form the basis of the album, with an additional fold out section added.

You can really go to town as far as photos are concerned, on this one! There are 15 photos of different sizes in the album. The theme will best suit family photos, but is really not limited, as there is a whole sticker sheet with many different sentiments included in the kit. The kit also includes cardstock, three sheets of double sided patterned paper, file folders, sequence, ribbon and hatpins to decorate the album with.

Here is a little sneak peak:

There are a limited number of kits available. Order one from info@picsntales.co.za to avoid disappointment!

September Class

Last month we started a new feature here at Pics 'n Tales - a Scrap-Challenge. We kicked off with an "ugly paper" challenge. After all the fun we had playing "musical paper" to get our paper packs, we were very excited to see what the ladies came up with. I must say, we were delighted with the outcome. The layouts are all beautiful! Well done girls! 

Here are the layouts:

Ezme Hartman

Mare-Liez Oosthuizen

Karen Coetser

Patricia Owermeyer

Colleen de Wet

Helmien Van Reenen

Niesa Hermanus

Stacey de Wet

We are having a sketch challenge for October and can't wait to see the ladies' efforts!

Back to serious business: Our kit this month consisted of the Curiosity Collection from Kaisercraft. The kit was stacked with lots of paper and flowers, including the co-ordinating Curiosity clear stamp. It was my turn to design the layout this month and the colours just worked perfectly with photographs of my daughter, recently taken by Samantha Hanlon, from Sun Kissed Studio.

The title of the layout is "Life" and I used the stamp for the rest of the sentiment. I stamped in black ink and then embossed it with dimensional glaze. Besides lots of fussy cutting, I did not want to distract from the beautiful paper with lots of techniques and settled on some border punching.

This is my layout:

And as it is customary for us to give a second take on the same kit, here is Mare-Liez's layout as well. 

From now on we will also feature some of the layouts finished in class, especially those who added their own flair to the layout, like Helmien van Reenen;

and Niesa Hermanus.

We were so enchanted with this paper collection that both Mare-Liez and I made a second single page layout with the left-over paper. You can read more about these layouts on our personal blogs.

Ezme's blog

Mare-Liez's blog

We also had the prize giving for our Charity Scrap Challenge that Niesa won. Congratulations again, Niesa , enjoy your prize!

Well, that is all that I have to share for the moment! Thanks for stopping by.

August class

We had a blast at this month's class! We welcomed new friends, we had a fun challenge, and two very different takes on the same layout - all in one day....

Before the class, we asked everyone to bring a few ugly papers from their stash, along with an ugly embellishment, to class. Well, let me just say that not everybody thinks of "ugly" in the same way. While some paper sets really fit the description, others would still be bought if they were on the shelves today. We had quite an energetic round (well, three rounds) of "musical paper packs", before we were each rewarded with someone else's idea of "ugly". The challenge now is to make a project, where at least a bit of all the paper and embellishments in the pack is visible, before the next class at the end of September. Can't wait to see what the ladies come up with!!!!

Then it was on to the business of the day:

 

 

The name of this My Mind's Eye paper range was so beautiful, I decided to use it as the title for the layout. The gorgeous patterned paper was combined with some washi tape with cute little birds and birdcages on it, a sticker sheet used in an unusual way, ribbon and a few brads. Each kit also contained a full set of MME stamps, so everyone could really personalise the layout to suit their own style.

 

As always, there were as many variations on the layout as there were people in the class. To provide even more inspiration to the ladies in the class, Ezme created a slightly different layout, using the same kit content:

 

So after a full day of creativity and fun, we look forward to seeing you at our next class. Happy scrapping until then!



New blog

I will no longer be posting personal scrapbooking projects on this blog. Instead, this blog will continue to showcase Pics 'n Tales projects and news, while I have started posting my "personal" projects here. Please make sure that you regularly check back on both these blogs!

If awesome...

Instead of working on my day job yesterday, I decided to play along with a CSI challenge instead...

The challenge specified the following:

So I gathered what I could from my stash, and made this:

 

One of the prompts got me thinking about some of the "awesome" qualities of my 9-year old son. As I was jotting down a few ideas, I realised that in my eyes, he is "awesome" personified. So quite a long title was born.

 



I really had fun playing with embellishments on this one. There is a chipboard feather, coloured with Distress Ink, then covered with Distress Stickles for a bit of sparkle. There's also a number of chipboard hearts, covered in word stickers and few silver metal embellishments.

 

My journaling is on 6 tags, each corresponding to a different aspect of his personality. Each tag lives in its own vellum pocket, decorated with stamping, washi tape, word stickers and die cut numbers.

This is the first time I participate in a CSI challenge, and I found it very interesting to work with so many "clues", instead of just a sketch. Definitely something I will try again!