Spooks in a Bag!

Last December Graphic 45 and May Arts teamed up for a blog hop featuring projects posted on the blogs of both company’s design teams. I hopped along to Laura’s blog and found 

“A Bag Full of Holiday Tags”. I absolutely fell in love with her project!

Now here we are two months short of a year later - just in time for Halloween - and I have the perfect paper collection in mind to re-create Laura’s project for Halloween; Echo Park’s Chillingsworth Manor! This is one of my favourite collections for 2012 - papers with spooky elements, yet a sophisti-cat-ed style!

This project uses a gift bag as the holder for a group of large tags – a unique way to display your ghoulish photos and Halloween journaling of the past or the present.

                    

Whether you are looking for a great Halloween gift or a little treat for yourself, this is fang-tastic!

5 Kits Only 1 kit remains available –  $34.95 each per kit, taxes included (plus shipping and handling which will vary by your location). 

My contact info is info@sharkaleigh.com ~ Sharka

A Touch of Paris

Our 2nd Annual "A Touch of Paris"... Join us if you can! ~ Sharka

Summer Mini Album

Today I have a new summer mini album to share with you, and I have three of the album kits available for sale!

Mini albums are one of my favourite projects to create. They are a great way to get a group of photos scrapped quickly and easily, and they are also really FUN to make with a bunch of friends.

I held a class last week for three young ladies (daughters of a friend of mine) and they all made their first mini album ever. We had a great time and the theme was of course, “Summer FUN”. Here are some pages from the album I created for that class.  The album is 12 pages (including front and back covers).

If you need a place to store your latest summer photos and are interested in a kit, please let me know. All materials and instructions needed to make the album are included (except for the materials for binding).

Because it is pre-cut, it is relatively quick and easy… Materials are packaged individually by page which makes following the full color instructions a breeze! Finish it off by adding your photos and the provided embellishments.

3 Kits are available –  $29.95 each per kit, taxes included (plus shipping and handling which will vary by your location).

My album has been bound using the Zutter Bind-it-All. You will have to have your own Zutter and Owires to bind yours in the same manner. 

My contact info is info@sharkaleigh.com ~ Sharka

Halloween in August!

HeLLO!!! (ween) Long time no post… had to spend some time getting rid of the cobwebs that were starting to form on my blog! Of course we’re coming up to that time of year when we start to see cobwebs, goblins and ghosts all over the place!

I was watching one of Jim The Gentleman Crafter’s videos on how to make his Haunted Panorama… and just had to make one! After hubby played golf, we drove out to Langley (45 minutes on a good day) to get some supplies and found nothing Halloween. Because the traffic going home was crazy we decided to drive over the Golden Ears Bridge where I asked politely, “Can we stop at the Michaels just on the other side of the bridge?”

We came out of Michaels empty handed as well and continued on. That evening I checked both Hobby Lobby and Joann’s websites and found nothing online. I either found the paper mache round boxes to be ‘out of stock’ or a ridiculous price for shipping just two to Canada so gave up on that!

The next day I was determined to find the supplies to make two panoramas and drove to both our local Michaels stores, Walmart, Party Packagers and any dollar store I passed along the way. I finally came home with a fancy cylinder shaped wine box, raw wood fences, miniature sisal Christmas trees (I was going to make them black), a Halloween decorative pick and a skeleton garland.

I managed to make ONE of the panoramas with a pumpkin theme. The second one should not take me as long, lol, and it will have a haunted house in it. 

I cut the cylinder wine box in half to get two panoramas. I made the bases and tops with chipboard. For this first one I painted my fence to look old and rickety and then dove into my bins marked ‘Halloween’ for old paper and all the embellishments, etc.

Lastly, I grabbed a battery tea light from my studio today (couldn’t find any yesterday while grocery shopping) to put inside… At first I thought maybe this was a project that wasn’t meant to be, but I did it and am really happy with the results!!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha… ~ Sharka

Studio Tours... Harmony Arts Festival

I said the same thing last year, “I can't believe the Harmony Arts Festival is but a few days away”, but this year it has really snuck up on me! I thought I still had a few weeks…

I will once again be participating in two events; two paintings for sale under the "big white tent" as a North Shore Artists’ Guild member, and in the Studio Tours along with 15 other fellow artists’ at 195 Studios.

The Studio Tours are a unique opportunity to meet the artists in their studios. We will be there to give personalized tours, answer any questions or simply just “chat”.

HAF is August 3-12, with the studio tours on the weekends only. See our listing for dates and times in the HAF Guide (Page 10) in Sunday, July 29^th’s North Shore News or online.

If you are able to make it to the festival, the BIG white tent will be located west of the Silk Purse in West Vancouver's John Lawson Park. For both events, come and browse through a great collection of art, from oils and watercolours to acrylics and mixed media... ~ Sharka

"A Window in Tuscany"

It was nice to finally finish my painting today, “A Window in Tuscany”. This one took me some time… but I’m happy even if I am the turtle racing the hare, lol!

I’ve had the photo in my reference file since 2008 and when I went through them, I kept putting this one back. I knew I would paint it one day. I had hoped that by the time I got around to it, I would have actually had the experience of seeing a window in Tuscany. Tuscany is on my bucket list!

I almost had it finished last week, but my old stone Tuscan wall was a tad flat and dull. I rushed over to Opus (the art store) and bought some molding paste. I laughed because a while back I had a few jars of it and didn’t think I’d ever use it – so gave it to a friend. Maybe keeping one jar would have been a good thing.

I enjoyed using the paste and think I’ll be using it again for paintings where I want to create and enhance the texture. You might say I went outside my ‘box’ on this painting as texture is not typically in my repertoire.

I hope you enjoy… ~ Sharka

4-legged Memories

In the last few months, four of my friends have sadly lost their 4-legged companions to Rainbow Bridge. One friend lost two within a few weeks of each other… :(

I knew I had to do something so I decided to create a doggie mini album for all the memories.  I finished the album this week and would like to share some of it.

  

For the album I used an older paper collection by Basic Grey© called Max & Whiskers and I used Kathy's (from Paper Phenomenon) hidden hinge binding system. 

We are animal lovers ourselves… we have a 13 year old tabby named Kramer and a 7 year old (her birthday was on Wednesday, July 4^th) cocker spaniel named Molly. She is the “Princess’” of the house!

If you would like to make one of these mini albums for yourself or as a gift, I will be selling a few of them as a kit. It will have complete instructions, photos and materials. If you would like one already assembled instead, I can do that too… you can email me any time at info”at”sharkaleigh.com to order. ~ Sharka 

(Sorry... As of August 29th, this kit is sold out)