Tuesday 28 February 2012

Something New!

Good day all! This morning I got to try something new!
Wallpapering!!
The experience was actually not all that unpleasant and surprisingly easy! As a special surprise for our fabulous boss, a co-worker and I decided that our store washroom needed some fancying up! So off Jennifer went and bought some absolutely gorgeous wallpaper. I offered to help out and we met this morning to get it done! With a little smear of some paste and some trimming of the wallpaper, we got it all done up nicely!

After we were finished, I decided to take home some of the scraps of the wallpaper that were left over. I knew I had one of those cheap Micheals wooden frames laying around and I thought it would be a good idea to make a matching frame for our accent wall.


First I painted all edges that would not be covered by the wallpaper with a black paint dabber. Then using Modge Podge, I adhered the wall paper to the frame. Using a craft knife, I cut off whatever was hanging over the edges of the frame and the center. (If you cut like I do with a craft knife, you may have to touch up your paint,  I scratched some of it off while cutting! Oops!!)

Next I cut out some flowers using Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers die. I cut several flowers in black cardstock and a couple flowers in the wallpaper. I then misted the flowers with a bit of water and crumpled them up. I also sprayed the black flowers with Tattered Angels Pearl Glimmer Mist. Using my heat gun I then dried the flowers and layered them together using a hot glue gun. (You can also layer them together using a brad as well.) I finished off my flower by glue gunning a large white rhinestone button to the center and then sticking a pearl in the middle of the button.


The background of the frame is just some black cardstock glued to a cardboard insert that came with the frame and half of a white doily. 

I had purchased some butterfly mirrors from my local dollar store and decided they would be perfect for this project. I adhered them with my glue gun and added some Liquid Pearl accents. I love Liquid Pearls. They are so easy to use and are great for finishing off a project!!



I then printed a quote off the computer onto white cardstock and trimmed it to look like a banner. I then distressed the edges with my black paint dabber and adhered it to some black cardstock. I finished off the banner by adding some rhinestones and then adhered it to my frame!

So whenever you have some scraps of anything, wait before you throw them in the trash!! You might be able to use them!!

 

Saturday 25 February 2012

This is Life

Good Evening!!
I was just looking out my window and thinking how thankful I am to have a warm house to live in. It is rather windy, cold and generally blustery outside today! Atleast we have yet to receive the predicted snow that was to come today! Maybe we will get lucky and it will bi-pass us!!

But today seemed like a good day to just sit indoors and do a little crafting! How can I complain about the weather when it gives me an excellent excuse to do what I love to do!
Scrapbook!!!

But before I drag out my "stuff" and reek total havoc upon my kitchen table (hehe!!!), I wanted to share with you a project I just finished working on!


This layout is a picture of my grandpa (who is the the young boy standing in the back row next to the tall girl in white) surrounded by other unknown family members. With this picture I knew I wanted the layout to be a pretty simple page. I wanted to portray the way of life that my grandpa had growing up, where there was no computers, no cell phones and no gaming consoles!!! When spending time with family really mattered and fresh air was a way of life!
I used a Kaiser Craft wooden embellishment, broken apart so I could place it in several spots on the layout. These wood shapes are a great embellishment that can be inked, painted or sprayed with your fave glimmer sprays. I chose to leave my wood raw for this page, to give it a more natural look.
I also used some MME burlap trim and by using my black paint dabber I was able to give it a dirty kinda look. I also used a Tim Holtz mask to create the barbwire on the background. I love this mask. It comes with several types of borders and you can create the negative or positive of the border. When I use masks or stencils, I like to use the Ranger Inkessentials blending tool and foam pads with distress ink. I like the control it gives me to be able to ink exactly where I want to ink and I can give it a nice soft look or darken it easily. The Distress inks are also my favorite inks. They have great colors and work perfectly for distressing. There are some great YouTube videos on how to use these inks. Another great tool is the Tsukineko Sponge Dabbers. These little dabbers fit right onto your finger like a thimble and are great for even more control when inking stencils or masks.

 I then stamped a simple little quote from a Technique Tuesday stamp set I have (one of my fave sets by the way!!) and a leafy border stamp on a little of the edges. To finish off the layout I did a free-hand black border using a fine-tip black sharpie pen and inked the edges with a black paint dabber.

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

Thursday 23 February 2012

DIY

Good Morning! 
As I was sitting here enjoying my coffee and perusing through Pinterest, I noticed a couple of my friends had found a link to a fabulous video on how to make your Cricut mats sticky again! Yyyyaaayyy! I was so excited I just had to share this!
(For those of you that are not familiar with Pinterest, it is an online site where you can create virtual pinboards where you can gather inspiration and ideas! Click here for more info.)

 You can click on the word "video" to go directly to the Pinterest link or you can click HERE to go directly to Laurie's blog (but you'll have to do some searching for the video). Laurie's blog is called "Hiding in My Craft Room" and it is full of great ideas!

I also wanted to mention that I still have space left in my layout class on February 28. You can click here for a link to the store's blog to get more information or stop on by to check out the full class project! And don't worry if you are unable to take the class,  kits will be available after with full instructions and color photos!


Sunday 19 February 2012

INSPIRATION!!

So I wanted to quickly post a link this morning to my awesome friend Ivana's blog! A couple weeks ago I had told you all how I had made some beautiful embellishments using a silicone mold from Wilton's and some FIMO
Well I gave Ivana some of these embellishments and being the super creative person she is, she set to work creating some beautiful cards using the embellishments! So please check out her blog and scroll through to view the wonderful talent she has!! 
Thanks so much Ivana for being such an inspiring person and a fabulous friend!!


Friday 17 February 2012

On The Mend!!

Hello Everyone! I am so sorry to have kept you waiting!! This week has been a pretty lousy week!! First I woke up on Monday with a vicious head-cold! Then by the end of that night I had the stomach flu!! It was not a flattering sight!!! But now, at the end of the week, I am feeling much better!! And I have to say a HUGE thank you to an incredible boss who covered me while I was sick! 
Thank you Lori!!! 
It is such a great feeling knowing that the people you work for (and with) care so much!!
I love my job!

So while I was sick this week I didn't get alot done including not being able to get my craftiness on!! But I plan to make up for it this weekend!! YAAAYYY!! Me and my daughter are going to go scrapbook the night away tonight and have some much needed mother/daughter time at the store so if there is anyone who wants to join, we hope to see you there! And then my sister is going to come on over tomorrow and we are going to hopefully get some more creating done! It is so fabulous having family that shares my passion for papercrafting!

I am going to leave you with a layout I did a couple months ago but thought it would be appropriate because banners seem to be all the rage right now!

Such beautiful kids hey!! They take after their momma!! LOL


The paper I used was "Vintage Vogue" by Pink Paisley.
I had really struggled with this picture because of the colors and because I wanted the layout to have both a feminine (for my daughters) and masculine (for my son) feel to it. To bring out the girly side, I used my lacey border punches to punch out the top ends of my strips behind the photo and by bringing in the purple, I was able to make my daughters pop out of the picture.

A trick I like to do is buy up all those little shaped title and journaling pieces that some lines come out with and use them as templates only, so that I can make my own coordinating pieces for my projects like I did with my title piece in this layout! I traced a journaling card with a fine-tip black sharpie marker and then cut it out leaving a slight border around the traced line. I then stamped my title and inked the edges with a paint dauber. 


To bring out the masculine parts of the layout I trimmed the ends of the strips to look like a banner and created a smaller banner leading to the edge from the photo. I also inked all my edges with a black paint dabber and traced a free-hand border with a black sharpie around the whole layout. The background is just a very plain and simple ledger paper that also keeps it from being to girly.

 The ledger paper also had this little area on it that I thought would be perfect for writing the date of the photo but it was such a light purple and didn't really stand out much. So again, using my fine-tip sharpie (I couldn't live without these awesome pens) I traced over the pattern to make it stand out.

Thanks for stopping by!! I am off to getting ready for my weekend of creating!!!

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Distractions!

So I got a little sidetracked from creating with my little FIMO embellies by some new product that came into the store yesterday!! OOPS! Hehehe! 
But I couldn't resist playing with these awesome new products from companies such as Authentique, We R Memory Keepers and My Minds Eye!!

Below are some of the layouts I completed!





This cute layout was created using a Authentique line called "Celebrate".
I found that it worked really well with these pictures of my nephew's first birthday!!




I made the banner by using some of the triangular banner pieces from the 12x12 sticker sheet and a black fine-tip sharpie. I then added teeny tiny red rhinestones to give it all a finishing touch!




This is another line from Authentique called "Genuine". I especially loved this line because of the blue denim look. It worked so well with my little sisters enagement photos! I love the casual look!




I incorporated a fantastic stamp from a MME line called "Follow Your Heart". I stamped the floral cluster with Midnight Stazon and the honeycomb with a gold paint dabber. I also used the stazon for stamping the tiny words onto the photo!


To add dimension to the layout, I cut part of the butterflies from the paper with a craft knife leaving the bodies still attached to the paper. I then adhered dark blue cardstock to the back to cover the hole and pop dotted the wings.




Another layout using the "Genuine" line from Authentique! And here I remembered to add in my homemade embellishments!!! To make them stand out a little, I painted them with a gold paint dabber and adhered them using scor-tape!







And finally a cute little card! 
I love, love, love border punches and here I used my latest punch purchase by Fiskars. With the little bits of scraps leftover after punching my bottom edges, I trimmed some out and pop dotted them around the sentiment.
I also used some of MME twine from their "Kraft Funday - Bright Days" and sewed lines on to the corner of the card, sorta weaving as I went. In order to get the lines straight, I first drew them on with a pencil and erased the pencil marks after. 
After I had stamped the sentiments, I covered them with glossy accents to give them a little more dimension.

I hope that once you see these lovely new lines you will get just as inspired as I did!!

Tuesday 7 February 2012

BACK TO NORMAL!

Good Afternoon!!! 
For the past week my household has been a bit out of wack due to my 15 year old niece coming to stay. It gave me a small taste of what the next couple of years will be like as my daughter will soon be a teenager!! Trying to squeeze bathroom time in to have a quick shower or trying to find my missing blow dryer!! Make-up and boys!! Yikes!!
But now everything is back to normal (our normal anyways!!), much to my husbands relief! He was getting a little overwhelmed with all the estrogen! And I found some time this week to get my craft on!

While shopping yesterday at the local Micheals store for a certain craft item my kids needed for school, I of course wondered through the whole store (because of course you have to do that!!)) and I happened to find these awesome Wilton Fondant and Gum Paste Molds!! Now anyone who knows me well can tell you that the kitchen is not my favorite place to be, unless it is sitting at the table crafting! But my mind started churning with ideas of what I could use these molds for and I thought about a baggy of FIMO I had stashed in a drawer. So I quickly searched my emails on my phone looking for my 40% off Micheals coupon and purchased the beautifully detailed Baroque mold.

When I got home I busily started making some beautiful pieces! The FIMO that I have is white so I will be able to use different color mediums (you will have to watch which color mediums you use because not all will stick to the FIMO!!) to customize these detailed embellishments!!



I'm going to leave you with this pic but I will post some more when I get some projects completed using these fun new embellishments!!

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