A joyful transformation!

Happy long weekend to my Canadian friends! It's hard to believe that the end of June is right around the corner! Where did it go? I've been spending more time in my craft room thanks to some cooler weather and I got to pull out some photos that were a blast from the past.

Sometimes the quality of your snapshots are professional grade, but you still want to use them. I thought all the pictures of my niece in her toddler years were gone. I managed to find some and decided to scrapbook them since Scrapbooking from the Inside Out's June kit was about transformation, and she's now a teenager.

She's grown into such a special young woman, and I forget sometimes how much time has gone by and how much she's changed since she was a sweet toddler.

Using Scrapbooking from the Inside Out's June Transformation kit

Because these photos are so precious to me, I made sure to use my Helmar's Zapdots and Helmar's Professional Acid-free Glue so that they will stay true for a long time.

Scrapbooking this made me think about how often we don't pull out our cameras for every day shots because they don't seem like special moments. But if you've lost photos of entire years of someone's childhood, due to flood or fire, or worse, lost someone you love, wouldn't you want to have as many pictures of moments spent with them?

Take all the pictures you can of the people you love now, even the every day moments, because they are moments that you'll treasure for always.

Getting mixed up with Gauche Alchemy

This past week, the Helmar Hotties had the opportunity to play with a lovely mixed media kit from Gauche Alchemy. It was a wonderful array of old magazines papers, newspapers, beads, lace, sequin waste and more.

You can do so much with a kit like this with a little imagination. I personally fell in love with the dance pictures that I found on a couple of pages torn from a magazine. They envisaged ballet in different media, from photography, and fine arts. I immediately knew that I wanted them to be the focus of my canvases. Well, canvas, really, since I worked on only one at first. I knew later that I wanted the finished piece to have a sister piece so that they could be hung together on our walls.

I used quite a bit of Helmar adhesive on these two canvases. I used Helmar Decoupage & Craft Paste to adhere the papers onto the canvas. I used Helmar Fabric Glue for most of the fabrics. For some of the beads and buttons, I used Helmar Gemstone Glue and Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive.

The sister piece is the same size, except portrait instead of landscape. Here I used the dash of colour from the watercolour as a highlight...

I had a lot of fun playing with this kit, and I know that Gauche Alchemy is an amazing place for getting your art journaling and mixed media kits and products. I go to them time and again for my sequin waste or punchinella.

I hope you've enjoyed your weekend as much as I have mine!

Transforming You and Me into Us

Hi everyone! I'm just sharing a quick layout that I put together using Scrapbooking from the Inside Out's June Transformation kit. It's juicy and fun with Glitz's Uncharted Waters featured in this kit.

It was lots of fun to play with especially when I saw the gorgeous papers and the fabric flowers! Yummy!

I'm finally getting used to using transparencies, and I love how they add something special to the layout. Of course I used all Helmar Premium Craft Glue for most of the layout, and Helmar Fabric Glue for the flowers.

I also pulled out my die-cutting machine since I hadn't used it in a while to cut out some additional embellishments for the page. Do you use a cutting machine? If so, what's your favourite, go-to die? I'd love to know, so leave me your fave in the comments.

Have a great week!

It's a Blog Hop!!

Welcome to the SFTIO Design Team Blog Hop! We are showcasing layouts by the current design team using the June kit TRANSFORMATION. If you are just arriving at my blog, make sure you go to the beginning at Melissa's blog as you won't want to miss out on all the gorgeous inspiration. This hop is special as we say goodbye to some very wonderful ladies, who have been part of the SFTIO family for over a year and will continue to be forever family. We are also saying HELLO to our new TEEN COLLECTIVE. What is a "Teen Collective"? 

We are combining the Teen Designers from CreateU with our Design Team at SFTIO. This is a wonderful opportunity to have each of these girls give their perspective of the monthly emotion. Each Teen Designer will be joining us for one month as a Guest Designer but, will be a constant and active "voice" on our website and forum. 

Ready to begin?

Here's a layout I recently did using this wonderful Transformation kit! I had a lot of fun layering the papers and making this beautiful whale the highlight of the layout! I really do believe that you need to choose happiness to transform your life into something positive and wonderful!

Created with the Transformation kit, modelling paste, Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue

Without change, there would be no butterflies!

We also have a fabulous prize! Leave a comment below letting me know what change you've made recently to transform your life in some way by Saturday, 9 p.m. pacific time. The winner will be announced by Monday on Facebook and the SFTIO blog. 
 
Life is definitely more fun when you make your own future, and transform it with your own choices, rather than just let life happen to you.

Thanks for swinging by! Make sure to visit Scrapbooking from the Inside Out. We have a FREE Inspiration Page giving you loads of ideas using our current emotion, a welcoming forum and you can grab your own kit here!

Next on your hopping adventure is Heather. Click here to be taken directly to her blog.