Monday 21 January 2013

More projects and more about the canvas

Hi everyone :)

I’m making the most of my last few days of the school holidays!  I’ve been busy creating and the incredibly is making my canvas dry ultra fast! 

A couple of years ago I got an HRV system installed in the house (totally recommend them!) and yesterday it was 29 degrees inside and 34 in the roof!!  They’ve now brought out a new ‘cooling system’ but quite honestly I’ll stick with opening up the doors and windows for now.

Anyway on with the creativity!  Last year when Dad and Jan visited, Dad asked me to make him some cards for his lodge.  He pretty much wanted something simple but elegant and they were for people who were sick or bereaved.  I really hadn’t done anything about it but when he said he was coming for a visit at the end of February I thought I better get my ‘A’ into ‘G’ and get moving!

I decided to use some of the photos I took at the Italian gardens and add a simple sentiment to them and I’m really thrilled with how they turned out.  Hopefully Dad will be pleased with them too!

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I’ve got a few ideas for some more so by the time he gets here I should have enough to give him :)

If you saw my Project Life pages yesterday you’ll know that my new Teacher Planner arrived with a BRIGHT green cover… and while that might make it easy to find in a stack of papers it was just a little more than I could handle so I decided to create a Photoshop template and add some things of my own.

Here’s my design for the front:Front to blog

I wanted to add a photo of both the girls and of course my Toby!  I also used some of the images from my One Little Word project and some quotes about teaching.

For the back cover I went back through my 2012 Project Life album and picked out all the school and teaching related quotes.

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I got the pages printed off at the photo lab (8 x 12 size) and adhered them to the lime green covers.  Then I had them laminated and brought them home to bind them.

Here’s the finished front cover… you can still see a narrow margin of the lime green because the widest I can print photos without it costing me an arm and a leg is 8 inches and the front cover is actually 8 1/4 inches.

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I really like the matte laminating.  It gives it a very professional feel.  Here’s what the planner looks like when it’s open… pretty much so that you can see both the covers LOL

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I’ll be able to spot my planner easily now!  The best part is that it actually makes me want to use it.  I love teaching and being with the kids but it’s the paper work I really don’t like… so I’m hoping that having my own personalised planner will make it a more pleasurable experience!

In between doing these projects I’ve also been working on my canvas.  Yesterday when I showed you ‘Step 1’ I had three 6 x 8 colour photos but by this morning I’d decided that I was only going to include the girls… and that I wanted black and white photos!  

I went down to the photo lab first thing this morning and printed off new photos to use and got stuck straight in.  First off I cut around the girls heads and then I decided that I’d use a  ‘brick wall’ to go with Krystal’s photo and become part of the design.  I also decided to include a ‘daughter’ quote that I really like.

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The next step was to mod podge the photos onto the canvas and I also decided to add a ‘tree’ up the right side of the canvas since Mikayla was leaning against a tree in her photo.

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I’m using matte mod podge and although it looks all ‘milky’ at this stage it actually dries completely clear… and in this heat it’s drying pretty quickly!

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Then I decided to add a tree branch for Mikayla to ‘rest on’ so that it didn’t seems like she was just floating around.  The tree is made with crumpled tissue paper and stuck down with copious quantities of mod podge.

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I want LOTS of texture in this canvas so I went ahead and added some more branches to my tree and then I used some muslin to go around Krystal. 

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Here’s some close ups so that you can see the texture detail:

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I think I might add some muslin around Mikayla as well because I love the soft textures the muslin creates.

So that’s it from me… the mod podge is dry and my canvas is calling me!

Hope you’re all having a great Monday xx

1 comment:

  1. Wow! I really love the new covers of your planner Shell!! I particularly love the quote regarding teaching in the way the child learns. So important for kids like my son!!

    Your canvas is looking awesome! If the progress is this good, I can't wait to see it finished. xoxo

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