Welcome to my Blog

Welcome everyone, I hope to inspire you and share some of my papercraft work. You can find out where I teach and what I am up to, what inspires me and what I am working on next. I love to share new ideas and neat ways of adding creativity to your pages or cards etc

my blog

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Easter treats 2


Easter Pegs 
By Sue Smyth 


Hi Bloggers 
I am sharing another quick Easter treat today.
Again, decorated pegs is something I do at Christmas and Easter 
in the past, not every year, but when I want something pretty to give 
to teachers and friends.
This year I have made loads of these cute glittery pegs
for my Easter Class at Arnolds Scrapbooking



Start with an ordinary peg and spray paint it white.
Then cover the top and bottom of the peg with strips of 
patterned paper. Adhere with PVA or gel glue.

Then I have die cut Tim Holtz's little bunny in 
chipboard, and painted it white with gesso twice.
Cover in Dimensional magic and sprinkle with
lots of white glitter.


Then adhere to top of peg, decorate with some small foam
eggs, punched out flowers and leaves.
 I have added detail with liquid pearls in different 
colours .
I have placed mine on a tag with an Easter Greeting.
You could also adhere a piece of magnet 
sheet to the back of the peg
for an awesome Easter fridge magnet.

Another great craft to share with the kids.

Happy Crafting 

Sue Smyth

Monday, February 23, 2015

Easter treats 1


Quick Easter Treats 
By Sue Smyth 


Hi Bloggers
I thought I would share a little Easter treat today. This
is a little thing I have done for years
at Easter time. 
These little eggs are stryo foam and I have decorated
them with ordinary pins, seed beads and sequins. 


I like to work around the middle of the egg first and then fill in 
each side with rows of different colours.
But you could easily just do a random pattern, a great way 
for the kids to do them.
If you want to make the pin stay in forever, just
dip it in a little PVA glue before inserting
into the foam egg.


You can make them any size you like, large or small
however  
I am sure anyone who gets one of these 
for Easter will be just as happy 
as they would getting a chocolate one!

Happy Crafting 

Sue Smyth 

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Imaginarium Designs


Fence Paling layout 
and Cog canvas (The works)

By Sue Smyth 
I saw how to make this distressed paint look on Youtube.
So I thought I would do my version and share it with you. 


Start with ordinary 12 x 12 chipboard and paint with gesso.
Dry with heat gun between each step.

When dry paint with ordinary acrylic brown paint.
Roughly is fine, no need for neatness here!

Randomly wipe over Vaseline or Petroleum Jelly.
Use gloves if you do not like the feeling(like me)

Random streaks is what we are looking for, all going
vertically down the board.
Paint with blue acrylic paint of your choice.

Now wipe off paint with a wet wipe, don't scrub too much
as you can take too much off. You will get a feel for 
it after a time.

Swipe with Vaseline again.


Paint with a paler turquoise paint,dry off with heat gun.


Swipe over with Vaseline again and paint with Naples Yellow
acrylic paint( or pale yellow)


Dry with a heat gun.


Wipe off with wet wipe.


Swipe with Vaseline again.


Now paint with a final coat of gesso, roughly is 
good again no need to be super neat.



Wipe off with wet one, now if you want to 
you can be rougher and scrub back wherever 
you like.


Add some flicks of spray inks if you desire.


Then cut into 4 equal panels and rough up edges with a 
blade.


You can add scratches and scrapes to the panel as 
desired.


Adhere panels across a dark brown cardstock, using the left overs
as beams.
This forms the base for a great layout or off the page piece.


I have made a girly layout, but this would suit just about any 
theme.  


I have painted the swirl with 2 coats of gesso. Dry and 
then ink the sides with pearlescent poppy ink.
Use opal liquid pearls to free form a pattern over the painted
chip. 

Handy Hint
If your liquid pearls dries flat, just
apply another coat carefully
that will sit on top of the original line.


Ink the shapes with pearlescent poppy, dry
and apply a coat of dimensional magic and
sprinkle liberally with white glitter.


Add some enamel dots for accents


Butterfly is painted with gesso first, then inked with Night sky ink,
rub a little pearlescent poppy to the centre.
Spray with a silver spray glitter, dry brush edges 
with metallic purple paint. 
Adhere pearlescent beads to the centre for detail.


A nice close up of the peeling palings.
I hope you have a go at making them too. 

My next project is called THE WORKS.
I have had the idea of a full canvas with only cogs 
for some time in my head, but was not sure on the
colour scheme. I saw a glimpse of a painting
in a TV ad and it gave me the colour scheme I wanted.


To do the clock and compass I have sprayed with flat
black paint first. Then dry brushed 
over metallic gold paint, dry with a heat gun
allow it to bubble and blister.
Spritz with a teal spray ink and heat with heat gun.
Then sprinkle randomly with 
gold embossing powder and again
heat with heat gun.

I have add micro beads to the large clock and for 
the compass while the embossing powder 
is hot and soft I have stamped
the cap of my spray ink into it


The background has be dry brushed with 
metallic gold paint, after spraying with 
an assortment of spray inks.


Some of the cogs have been embossed with gold
embossing powder and layered together
with gold buttons and brads.


Build up layers with metallic charms and smaller cogs


Trim out photos to sit inside frames, adhere
to the backs with a gel glue.


Add trinkets and charms that reflect the subject 
matter in the photos.


For the background, I have popped out all of the cogs after I have
sprayed them all with flat black spray paint,
and used the negatives. Adhere
them to the canvas with gel medium and allow to dry.



Then spray with a mixture of inks, I have started
with black and dark brown around the sides.
And blended in yellow and white for the centre.
This gives the sense of light in the middle of the canvas.

Imaginarium products
For layout 





For Canvas 

Happy Crafting