Just add glitter and stir!

My guest today is the delightful Maggi from Just Add Glitter and Stir! She's super fun and has a wicked sense of humour (check out her photo in which she's eating a crocheted sushi!) I "met" her through her X'mas in July blog party (2009) and we've been exchanging comments and emails ever since....:)

Here's a look at some of Maggi's work...

Maggi is sharing with us a really cool technique for backgrounds that she used on this layout...:) Read on for the tutorial...:)

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When Y asked me to be a guest blogger on her fabulous blog, I was so excited! Then I was nervous, then excited again, then a little sleepy and then super excited! :D I am so in love with the gorgeous layouts and cards that Y creates and am so honored to be a part of the fun happenings here at Do More With Less.


For those of you that don't know me, my name is Maggi and I live in the United States. I've been doing one craft or another for as long as I can remember, a trait I got from my mother who is a Crafty Goddess and knows everything Mod Podge. lol I like to try all kinds of different mediums and materials, most recently I have really jumped into incorporating mixed media in my projects, rediscovered my love for crochet and I just learned how to cast resin.

I'm inspired by so many things around me, most recently: Jpop (Japanese pop music), bright colors, vintage magazines and the amazingly creative bloggers our there that share their talent (including Miss Y here! :). For Y's first challenge, I created a layout using plastic canvas instead of traditional card stock.That was such a fun layout to create and it really got my wheels turning on what else I could use as a background!


So for my guest post here, I want to share a layout I recently made that has a non-traditional material as the background. I was inspired by this post at Gauche Alchemy which led me to this post  at Way Crafty which listed various techniques involving melted crayons. Hmmmm, interesting no? So, can you guess what my background material is? :D

For my "card stock", I took two pieces of wax paper, some crayons Toot got at a restaurant (Thanks Olive Garden! :D), a cheese grater (no longer used for food!) and my heat gun.

I grated different colored crayons onto one piece of the wax paper.  You'll notice on Way Crafty that her crayon pieces are bigger than mine.  I used very fine pieces of crayon so next time I do this, I'll use bigger chunks.  You get a nicer, brighter color effect that way, lesson learned! :D

Then I covered this with the second piece of wax paper, turned my heat gun on the "sandwich" and the magic begins!  The crayon pieces melt and meld into one another and form a rainbow of color ready for you to add your creative stamp.

I then stitched the edges together using my sewing machine (hand sewing or gluing would work fine too) and trimmed the edges off (I didn't worry about trying to stitch or trim evenly).  I added some "clouds" using the end of a paper towel roll, white paint and white glitter.  The fence is made from plastic canvas and sequins, the grass is from my lunch of delicious sushi, the title is Thickers and the flowers are Prima and Basic Grey bling.  I made the stems by twirling colored wire on a skewer.  The sun, "apples" on the tree and butterfly (accented with Stickles) are all part of various mixed media color kits from Gauche Alchemy.

I had so much fun creating this layout!  I challenge you to look for everyday objects, packaging or things you would normally throw away and incorporate them into your projects.  Keep those scrapbooks acid-free but go crazy with those extra pictures and hang your funky layouts on the wall or give them as gifts.  Inspiration (and free crafty supplies) are everywhere! :D

Thanks so much to Y for letting me take over her blog for a bit, muwahahahaha!  :D  I've had so much fun over here at Do More With Less, I can't wait to see what Y (and all of you) create next!  If you would like to see what I'm up to, please feel free to visit me over at Just Add Glitter and Stir.

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Are you inspired to try something other than cardstock or patterned paper for the base of your project?
Leave your project links in this post by Thursday, 8th April 2010. Winner gets a RAK of course! :)

I will share my inspired project in my next post...:) It's not so fancy like waxed paper...just packaging..:(