Introducing ..... Julie Schinkel

#artdecocreations #couturecreationsaus #ultimatecrafts

Hi everyone, my name is Julie Schinkel. I'm a born and bred Brissie girl and have lived in this wonderful city for most of my life. Compared to most people, I'm considered a relative newbie to the papercraft world.

My journey began in 2011 as a form of therapy after being diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2009. Prior to that I had been working in the IT industry for 22 years, my last role being my department's website co-ordinator.

Over the years I have dabbled in arts and crafts of some kind - from art class in high school to ceramics and tapestry. I did manage to finish a tapestry piece but found it wasn't my thing. I like getting messy!

During my short time in the papercraft industry I have discovered OTP items, card making, art journaling, ATC's/tag swaps, stamping/colouring and mixed media. I'm also an accredited colourist with both Spectrum Noir and Copic. I have been on a few stamping/colouring design teams and was also a member of Artdeco Creations Roundtable Creative Team in 2016/17.

My styles can range anywhere from shabby chic, grunge, lots of flowers, mixed media, distressed to clean and simple. It really depends on my mood at the time and also the photos/pieces I'm working with. I'm probably what you'd call an 'old school' scrapbooker though. I like the photos to be the main focal point and make the paper/embellishments compliment the photo.

Photography is also another hobby of mine and I love being able to create layouts as a way to display my photos. The two hobbies go hand in hand perfectly and can be seen over on my blog at juliescrafthaven.blogspot.com.au.

I'm excited so let me share with you my first blog post.....

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Hi everyone! I'm super excited to be sharing my very first project as part of Artdeco Creations Creative Team for 2017/18. I'm honoured to be a part of this team and be creating for Artdeco Creations, a local company based here in Brisbane, Australia.

Today I'm sharing a mixed media layout featuring an upcoming collection designed by the talented Denise Boddey due in August. This collection is called "Bohemian Bouquet" from Ultimate Crafts and it's gorgeous! The blues, reds and yellow toned pages give you so many options - either use them separately or combine them to create a bright, colourful project. Here is my layout and steps to showing you which tools and products to use and how I created it.

I took some Couture Creations Anna Griffin Matte Texture Paste and mixed it with some Couture Creations Anna Griffin Mix and Match Pigment Powder in Blue.

I then took the Field of Daisies 6x6 stencil and applied the paste in randomly on white cardstock, from the top left down to the bottom right of the page. Rotating the stencil when applying pastes/sprays gives more variation to the pattern. There is no rule saying that you have to use the stencil in the same direction each time, so go for it and experiment. That's what creativity is all about.

Next I took some more of the Couture Creations Anna Griffin Mix and Match Pigment Powders in Pink and Red and mixed them together to get the tone matching the colours used in the papers. I then added water to the pigment powders and created splatters across the page with a paintbrush. I didn't add water to the page itself, I let it dry as is so the colours wouldn't muddy.

Next up I chose three papers from the 6 x 6 paper pad and randomly tore them to create a mat for my photo. The "clean" edges were distressed to match the torn edges. The more distressed the better.

The dies in this collection are simply gorgeous and it was hard to choose which ones to use. I ended up choosing the Curling Floral Decorative Die and Orchid Decorative Die dies as they best complimented the pieces from the Diecut Decoupage Set that I used on this layout. I die cut these using blue glitter cardstock and pink foil cardstock. You could also use Couture Creations foils for these as well. I cut the blue die cuts in half so I could arrange them better on the layout.

I took some Ornate Corners chipboard pieces from the collection and covered them with Ultimate Crafts Liquid Drops 3D Pearl in Flamenco. I squeezed some out onto a Couture Creations non stick craft mat and by using my finger, lightly covered the chipboard to give it a hint of colour and compliment the rest of the embellishments on the layout.

And here is my finished layout along with some close ups showing how I arranged the embellishments. I can't do a layout without some bling, so I randomly added some Couture Creations 2mm Gemstones in Pink Lace and mixed gemstones in Blue Iceberg. I also added some Blue Iceberg gemstones to the chipboard pieces as well. The quotes are from the 6x6 paper pad which I cut out and "inked" with the Flamenco Liquid Drops. I randomly stamped across the page using stamps from the "Be Yourself" stamp set using black archival ink.