Latest posts from Merly Impressions

When I first started Scrapbooking I was given some advice: “Whatever you are able to spend on your hobby, try to spend at least 50% of the total amount on lasting items such as stamps, punches and dies”. At first I didn’t really see the point but after a while it hit me.

That’s when I decided to take notice of that advice and I started investing my money in stamps. And I fell in love! I was sold by the fact I could use them again and again, telling a new story each time! They could become an embellishment, an accent, a texture, a pattern, etc… The sky is the limit! After years of learning, trial and error I am now confident in creating a layout from A to Z using only my stamps ( and a few flowers, cheeky me! lol!).

So we at Merly Impressions decided on a regular project – I will meet you here once a month to share with you a layout created with stamps and share a few tips and techniques. I am sooo excited about this! Ready to start? Well this month I show you how to create a sheet of background paper using your Kaisercraft stamps.

Step 1: Stamp all over a sheet of plain white card stock your “Grid Background” stamp with some “Old Paper” distress ink.

Step 2: Rub your “Old Paper” ink around the edges of your sheet using a blending tool or a sponge.

Step 3: Stamp your “Grunge Background” image on the bottom left corner of your sheet and the top right corner. The top right corner is only a detail so make it small.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 but using your “Bubble Wrap” stamp and making it more prominent.

Step 5: Finish off your paper by using the frame stamps from the Chanteuse Collection.

There you have a bespoke sheet of paper! Of course the best thing about this is that you can create your paper so that the colours match perfectly your photos! Feeling overwhelmed? Follow those tips: Start with the lighter colour for the largest surface finishing with your darker colours for your details. It’s all about trial and error so get your stamps out and try creating your design on cheap plain paper you won’t be sad to throw it away if it doesn’t work! Don’t give up if you don’t like the results, sometimes adding a couple of extra images or details really make it work and last but not least: look at the papers you already have to see how it’s done. Manufacturers are the professionals and know how to put images together to create enviable backgrounds so get your inspiration from there. Find a paper you like, look at it in detail, decide what you like about it and then try to reproduce it with your own images!

So now you have created your background you have to use it and this is how I used mine:

I created my own patterned papers with a variety of Distress inks, paint as well as the stamps I used to create the background. I added a few gorgeous Kaisercraft Paper Blooms as well as some Resin Flowers and pearls. I finished off my layout by creating my title/ journalling with some mini alphas and with my Grunge Font stamps. I hope that this inspired you to try for yourself! I had so much fun and so will you! Don’t hesitate to share with us your creations on our Facebook page or in the comment section bellow!

Emilie

I recently bought a new border punch which set me off on a punching frenzy. Border punches are a great way of adding texture and definition to pages without adding any bulk.

I have used the Kaisercraft These Days collection for this layout. As you can see I used the punches in a few ways that add a delicate lacey feel.

For this edge I punched a couple of strips of paper and then lightly spritzed it with water. This allows you to crumple the paper together to form a frilly edge. When the paper dries, it sets in place and becomes firm again.

Of course the punch around the page allows us to edge our background papers. I added little dots of Perfect Pearls as an accent all the way around.

You’ll frequently see small envelopes on my layouts – I love envelopes as a way to hide my journalling. If ever I come across a small envelope, I pull it apart and draw around it to make myself a template. I have quite a little collection going now!

Lastly, I edged my circles with a punched border just like the ruffled border only this time snipping the inside edge to allow it to bend around the circle.

Thanks for popping in.

Morag x

Welcome to the third and final part of this “Under £10 Project”. Have you had fun so far? We hope you did and we can’t wait to see how we have inspired you!

So far we have used a journal pen, paint and careful cutting out to create two layouts from our Charlotte’s Dream themed Under £10 kit. For the last part of this project I decided to focus on making the most of what we have left:

In part 1 of the project we cut a hole in the centre of the “Vision” paper. For this layout I covered the hole with a big square of the glossy “Prayer” paper. I used white paint to tame the brightness of the aqua so that my photograph wouldn’t be too overwhelmed. Once the paint has dried, rub it off with a damp tissue to get the glossy pattern to appear.

You don’t have the letters you need to finish your text? How about “texting” it? I know a lot of people don’t like those abbreviation but they are part of our everyday life and they really are a testimony of our generation and of the modern days! Also use numbers to replace some letters such as an upside down 3 for a E or a 0 for a O…

And to finish off, layer stickers or paper snippets in place of embellishments. It will add interest and details where you would otherwise have had just one poor flower on it’s own!

Want to know what was left at the end of those three projects?

This is not much for sure but I know I could decorate a card with it – and I just might so watch this space! Also alphas are always a keeper for sure so there will be no waste there.

I hope you liked those projects and that you will be back for next months Under £10 Project.

Emilie

Many thanks to the scrappers who made our May crop so successful. We hope everyone who attended had as much fun as we did.

The kit for May was based on the Charlotte’s Dream collection from Kaisercraft and included instructions and stash to make two layouts that we called “The Happy Couple” and “Family” although some scrappers interpreted the layouts very differently.

Since this was a special extended event (running until 8:00pm) we also put together a small Beyond-the-Page project to give our scrappers the chance to create a very personal Photo Display similar to the one below that I created as a sample.

We also laid on a raffle with some lovely Kaisercraft prizes and some food for everyone so that we could go on crafting until 8:00pm. Thanks go to:

• Annabelle for the fantastic food she laid on
• Mim and Nathaniel (Annabelle’s husband and son) for their help on the day
• Merley for the muffins and cupcakes she made
• Paul’s Mum for making the (very popular) coffee and chocolate cakes

And thanks again to our scrappers for making it such a great day. Below are some pictures taken on the day (click the image once to open it and click it again to close it).

Chrissy   xxx

That rare photo in our household. My DH caught on camera! I thought I’d make the most of it and turn it into a layout.

I used papers from the These Days collection for my layout. The background is Tradition. I used a brick wall stencil to add a little detail to the centre of the paper so that I didn’t need another paper.

I created a small corner detail using a sting of pearls and a resin flower.

The flowers are spiral circles rolled up to create roses. I used a mixture of cardstock and patterned papers. If you look really closely, I added small flourishes using Perfect Pearls.

I found a handy quote to tuck in behind the flowers to finish it all off!

Thanks for popping in.

Morag x

Welcome back to the second part of our “Under £10 Projects” for May! We hope you enjoyed what you’ve seen so far.

Today I have completed another layout using the Under £10 Kit featuring the Kaisercraft Charlotte’s Dream collection. This time I will show you how to give the impression that you are using a lot more layers than you actually are.

I created the impression of an extra layer of paper on the top right of this layout by drawing over the existing pattern with a black pen in the place where I would have normally added some extra papers. It brings detail without needing to use any more stash.

You see it doesn’t need to be perfect! I also jazzed-up my glossy paper by rubbing some distress ink over it. It really made the design pop out! It’s a great way to make any gloss or varnished paper stand out! Why not try this technique with an image you have clear embossed on card stock?

A great way of adding layers is by cutting out a shape in your background, backing it with some paper so that you can re-use the shape you first cut out: example with the bunting: I first cut the triangles out of the background to then re-use them by turning them over and sticking them down. Also try and make the most out of the strips that come at the bottom of your Kaisercraft 12×12 sheets.

Running out of Alpha stickers? Have you ever thought of using the “negative” image of it? It really can add interest to your title and get you out of a sticky situation! (Do you like the pun?!)

I hope I have given you a few more ideas and techniques and inspired you to try them out. Keep your eyes open for the third and last part of our “Under £10 Project”!

Emilie

Hello everyone! It is the 15th of May and you know what now happens on the 15th of every month: we announce the new theme for the Merly Impressions Monthly Challenge!

We had such amazing entries last month! We were amazed by how many of you took part even though I hadn’t been very kind with the subject by asking you to Scrapbook about yourself! But you all rose to the challenge and did an amazing job. So this month I decided to be a bit kinder to you all by proposing a sketch:

There is no imposed theme – all you have to do this month is let this sketch inspire you! You can flip it, rotate it, make it yours BUT we still need to be able to see it in your design.

Please link to your creation in the gallery below before the challenge closes at 1:00pm on 12th June. We will then choose our favourite, most inspirational, representation of the sketch to win this months fantastic prize - a choice of paper packs from Kaisercrafts June collections plus £10.00 worth of coordinating products – a total prize value of about £20.00!  Wow!

So here is my interpretation of this challenge:

Let me tell you first that I am NOT a sketch person so this was truly a challenge to me! I usually end up with a layout completely different from what I had in mind before I started so following a sketch and staying true to it is very difficult for me! I used papers from the gorgeous Charlottes Dream collection including the awesome paper pad.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I absolutely love this collection! So pretty!

We do hope that you have fun with our challenge and that we bring some inspiration your way. Here is a reminder of the rules as we would like all of your entries and hard work to count:

1. Entries should be linked to the gallery at the bottom of the challenge post (see instructions below)
2. When linking to your blog, please link directly to the post showing your entry (not just to your blog home page)
3. If you include your entry in a post on your own blog, please link back to the challenge post on our blog
4. You may enter the challenge more than once as long as each submission is with a different creation
5. Each creation entered must be “new” (not previously entered into another challenge)
6. The challenge is only open to residents of those countries to which we ship (shown here)

Entries failing to follow the challenge guidelines may be deleted. Please see the Monthly Challenge page for full details of the rules.

We noticed that it was difficult for us to view any of your entries linked through Facebook therefore we are kindly asking you if you could please post your photos on the Merly Impressions page as this should make it easier for us all to admire your work. You can also email your entries directly to us at info@merlyimpressions.co.uk and we will add them and link them through our Photobucket gallery.

All your comments and feedback are highly appreciated! Hope you will have a lot of fun with us!

Emilie

Emilie has looked through all the entries in the Merly Impressions Challenge for April and chosen the one she thinks is most inventive and inspirational. So we can now announce…

That the winner for April is GlitteryKatie with the layout shown below.

Emilie thought that Katie’s layout was quirky with lots of interesting touches such as the arrows and the repeated photos. Well done Katie – we will be in touch soon to get your prize to you but, in the meantime, here is a nifty badge to put on your blog:

We had lots of great entries for the challenge and Emilie would like to highlight the following entries as her Top Acts among the remaining layouts.

And here is a badge for the Top Acts:

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to enter our April challenge and we hope that you’ll all enter the May challenge that will start very soon.

Chrissy  xXx

Last Thursday I was able to introduce you to the new project we have just launched at Merly Impressions: the Under £10 project where I put together products for a total value of a maximum of £10 and design a minimum of three layouts with them without adding any extra papers or embellishments. Well today I am very pleased to let you know that we have decided to make your life that little bit easier by putting those products into a kit.

No subscriptions, it is just a matter of you liking it and buying it! It is perfect for you to play along with my projects! Don’t forget there are two more layouts to come! You can find my first layout here and you can purchase the kit here. Want to see more? Well, let me tease you…

Liking what you see? Then join me with this project! It’s a lot of fun! Keep your eyes open for the next two layouts!

Emilie

The Merly Impressions May Crop is nearly upon us so we thought we would let everyone know about the kit our croppers will be using on Saturday 19th May.

The kit uses Kaisercraft’s collection called Charlotte’s Dream. This collection features a soft colour palette of light turquoise, coral and brown with exquisite vintage designs. The kit will include four 12 x 12 papers, three sheets of cardstock, Lace, Jute, Rhinestones, a Wood flourish and the NEW Kaisercraft Wood Grain Background Stamp.

The theme for the two layouts is “The Happy Couple” & “Family” but you can adapt your layouts to suit your photo’s.

The first layout, that we have called “The Happy Couple”, includes one photo measuring approx 9cm by 14cm high. preferably featuring shades of turquoise, coral and Browns. A Sepia photo would also work.

The second layout, that we’ve called “Family”, includes four photo’s, three of which measure 13.5cm wide x 9cm high and the fourth measuring 6cm wide x 8.5 high. The photos for this layout are to fit in pre-cut apertures in a frame made to replicate the beyond-the-page nine-frame photo display.  I have used Sepia toned photo’s for this layout but shades of turquoise, coral and browns would also work.

You are obviously free to alter the title (and therefore the theme) of the layouts and you can also add journalling.  We will bring a template to help you mark out the frame part of the Family layout.  We will also bring our usual supply of tools, the Cricut Expression machine, Grand Calibur and Big Shot to the crop if people would like to use it to create their own title or cut out other embellishments. Other items used on the layouts which you may need to bring are Crystal Lacquer, a journal pen and an Edge Scraper Tool. You will also need to bring a small pair of scissors because there is a little delicate cutting out on one of the  layouts. I have also used a script stamp on the “Happy Couple” layout, you can either use a similar stamp or the Wood Grain one in the kit.

We will post larger images and close-ups of the layouts after the May crop.

The kit will cost £10 on the day but is entirely optional. Because of the extended crop hours the cost for May is £8.00. The location of the crop, together with other details, can be found on our Crop Dates page.

Chrissy  xXx