Goodbye ...

To quote from Looney Tunes ... 

Unfortunately we did not have sufficient eligible entries to award prizes for our final month however I would like to offer a huge thank you to everyone who joined in with our challenges on Pixels and Paper over the last few years. We so appreciated your support and encouragement and were thrilled with your delightful entries.

There are a lot of scrapbooking, card and mixed media challenges both in blog and Facebook format who are currently struggling for entries each month - please support them.  Without entries the chances are they won't be able to continue to offer not only the challenges but the associated prizes, the guest designer spots, the educational tutorials or the opportunity to belong to their design teams.  Ultimately with less challenge sites on offer it will get a whole heap harder to win the prizes, to become a guest designer or have the opportunity to belong to a design team. So please, put in those entries and keep all our challenges alive.

Farewell and happy crafting from all of us ...

Phillis
Lynne
Shazza
Rebecca
Di
Karen
Elaine
Jane

June team training ...

Welcome to our last edition of Team Training brought to you by team member, Karen Brierley.

I am the first to admit I am a messy scrapper.  I love to spread out and use up every available bit of space on the dining room table. My family has sometimes gone for days without using that particular surface for its intended purpose...

So I thought I'd share my process for tidying up my mess, and what I do with my scraps. First, anything around 4"x8" or bigger is stored away by brand. Most of my papers are sorted by brand name.

Then, I sort my other offcuts and scraps roughly by colour group. I’m not too fussy with this but it makes scrapping by colour much easier. I store them in ziplock bags.  Those people who are familiar with my layouts may have have noticed that I scrap a lot of monochromatic layouts, or layouts with just one or two colours, often on white background.

When I start a new project I almost always start with the scraps on my desk!  If I use them up first, I don't need to tidy them away...

For this tutorial, I followed exactly that process.

1.  I sorted my scraps by colour group:

2.  I selected a pile to work with (aqua/teal tones) and shuffled them around a bit to create a background:

3.   I added a few journaling cards to the mix, and added my photograph.  At this stage I start sticking everything down.

4.   I added a touch of doodling.  I do this a lot on my layouts - it's fun, it's a personal touch, and it unifies the elements.

5.   I added some simple embellishments and some journaling... DONE.

You don't need a lot of product to create a fun scrapbook page.  I encourage you to make the most of your scraps, and have fun creating art with what you've got!

Don't forget to have your entry in for our final challenge this month. Some lovely prizes on offer - one prize by vote and another completely by random draw. Please remember we only accept combining our challenge with a sketch challenge.

Our June guest ...

Please welcome our final guest designer for Pixels and Paper, Joanna Ford with her wonderful take on our inspiration image for June. 

I used a triangle stencil with brown pine cone ink on the background. My picture choices came from the bridge and the building of bridges, it reminded me of the scouts building their gateway for jamboree.

My name is Joanna Ford and I live in The sunny state of Queensland Australia. I first found Scrapbooking on a trip to the US about 15 years ago, and I have been hooked since then. I like scraping in many different styles but my fav would be clean and simple with the photo being the focus of my page. I work as a chef in aged care home and I am also a Cub Scout Leader with the local sea scout pack, So all of this gives me lots of photos to scrapbook. I can't wait to see the pages that you came up with for the last challenge from Pixels and Paper. Don't forget to stop by my blog to see some of the close ups of my page.......

Please visit me at www.madcookcreations.blogspot.com.au

Here are a couple of my recent layouts ...

Everyone has until the end off the month to play along with our Pixels and Paper challenge. We'd love to see your entries based on this image and our use a stencil criteria.

May winners ...

Thank you for joining in with us for our May Vintage / Shabby Chic challenge.

We were working from this photograph ...

Our MAIN winner for May is #3 Dolly Bee (Mary).

Our random draw winner is #1 Jannike

Ladies, please email me @ jjjustjane@bigpond.com

 with your address and I will make sure your prize gets away to you.

Please pop back on the 15th when we introduce you to our final guest designer with Pixels and Paper.

And don't forget you have until the end off the month to play along with us with our final Stencil challenge. We'd love to see how you are inspired by our photograph for June.

It's June and we say farewell ...

Welcome to June and our final challenge here at Pixels and Paper.

Thank you to everyone who has played along with us over the past couple of years and a special thank you to the wonderful guest designers who have shared their talent with us. My sincere gratitude to the amazing design team (past and present) who have inspired me and supported me in this creative pursuit – you ladies just rock. 

So, for this last challenge, I hope you will play along with us with this stencil based challenge – Be creative, Be bold and Enjoy!

CRITERIA - Use a stencil

And this is how our team was inspired ...

DI

This month's inspiration photo had me looking at the bright pop of colour from the umbrella. In my stencilling and embellishments, I have picked up some of these colours.

ELAINE

I chose a grid design and used the Kaisercraft Pawfect collection and used the check paper in the collection to echo the lines too.

REBECCA

coming soon

LYNNE

I did an art journal page with a quote I liked; the bridge theme inspired me, as did the single pop of vibrant colour.

PHILLIS

I was inspired by the black and the metal look.

SHAZZA

I used the negative part of some alpha letters.

KAREN

I chose a stencil that brought to mind the patterns in the bridge trusses, and used metallic silver on black to continue the theme. I scrapped some photographs of our road trip from last year, driving on the Sea Cliff Bridge.

JANE

I was inspired by both the umbrellas and their colours.

Hope you can come and join in with us for our final challenge. Please remember we only accept combining our challenge with a sketch challenge.

Please upload your entry to the link tool on the LEFT by 11.55pm on June 30th.

We can't wait to see your wonderful stencilled pages.

Please come back on the 8th when we will announce our winners for May.

May highlights ...

Time yet again to highlight a layout (or two) from amongst our May vintage / shabby chic entries. 

How pretty and delicate is this lovely page by Mary - that patterned paper just screams "old fashioned wallpaper" to me!

And this amazing mini album from Gocchi is simply gorgeously vintage ...

You still have a couple of days in which to submit an entry and be in the running for some great prizes - we'd love to see your interpretation of our challenge this month.

May team training ...

Welcome to our latest edition of Team Training brought to you this month by myself, Jane Howden.

Each month one of our team will inspire you with a little tutorial, tip or trick to help you in your scrapbooking pursuits.

This month I just wanted to share with you a very quick and super easy way of creating lovely cards - truly this could not be easier !

Use masking tape and ink to create your card background

What you will need ...

Masking tape

Glossy white photo paper

Water based inks

Stamps and stamp block

Cardstock for card base

Tear off a strip of masking tape and ink it up .

Place your inked tape over your glossy picture paper. 

Repeat using different ink colours. 

Place a piece of scrap paper over the strips and  press down. 

Start peeling your tape strips off your photo paper.  Do this slowly to avoid tearing (holding down the photo paper while you pull masking tape helps).

Let ink dry fully. 

Use your  image stamps to complete your card and mount onto cardstock. 

You can add other embellishments if you prefer.  

Why not give this a try !

Don't forget to have your entry in for our challenge this month. Some lovely prizes on offer - one prize by vote, another completely by random draw and a guest designer spot to offer one lucky entrant. You have until 11.55 on the final day of the month to have your submission linked. Please remember we only accept combining our challenge with a sketch challenge.