I'm Back with Marion Smith's Cottage Chic Mini Book

Hi Everyone, Well it certainly has been awhile.  My life has had some major changes, the most major one being the loss of my job.  I have been actively seeking new employment but so far I have not found anything.  But right now I am pursuing different avenues.  I really would like to do something that I enjoy.  I would like to be my own boss, make my own schedule.  So I am looking into direct sales.  Right now I am looking into Mary Kay, NAA, Jamberry, Gold Parties, and I have been doing Premier Designs.  Would love to hear input from anyone who has an opinion on any of these or would like to add any.

Anyway, one thing I would really like to do is get back to my love, Papercrafting.  To kick that off I entered Marion Smith's Cottage Chic Mini Book Contest.  Here is my entry.  This was so much fun to do!  Marion's designs are exactly what I like, the Shabby Chic, Vintage, Victorian look, I love her digital downloads!  If you haven't checked out her site, you want to do that...very beautiful!  www.marionsmithdesigns.com. 

Let me know what you think.

Stayed tuned, I have a really cute Christmas Pocket Card coming up next,...yep Christmas, never too early to start getting ready.

Halloween Is Over

Did someone say Halloween is over?  Oh my, where does the time go.  I made this cute little card and never posted it on my blog.  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I love creating Halloween cards, decorations, etc.  Every year I take my son trick or treating in my old neighborhood in downtown Stroudsburg.  Many of the houses go all out decorating there and it is a blast to see all the neat houses.  One house even has a huge screen showing spooky images, critters that jump out at you, a werewolf locked in a cage who sometimes manages to get out of that cage.  Great fun! 

Anyway back the card.  The base is an easel card. 3 Different papers were used on the front.  I zigzag stitched one layer.  The top layer is edged in glitter glue.  The base the cute little witch is on is a spellbinder die.  The rose is also Donna Salazar's spellbinder rose die. The cute little witch is from Krista Smith from Saturated Canary.  She has such wonderful digital stamps!  The bat and the skeletons are SVG files. Martha Stewart punches were used on the bottom.  For the drippy goo, I used Inkssentials Glossy Accents to make the drips look really gooey, it worked out great!

If you have any questions, contact me, I would be glad to help you create a Halloween card...that we can save for next year.  Then we can be ahead instead of behind.

Exploding Box Class on Ustream

I finally completed my Exploding Box Class on Ustream. There are two parts to the class and you can find them here.  There is one kit left in my Etsy store.  I am currently working on a new kit and hope to have more kits available soon.

The box that was done in class will be put on ebay this evening. Here is a sneak peek:

The Vintage Look Exploding Box

Yahoo!   I finally finished my exploding box!  A lot of time went into this, but I am very pleased with the results!  The pattern for this box came from the talented people at SVG.  The pattern includes many extras like flower patterns, frames, pockets, and tags.  The fairies came from SVG as well.  You can find them here. 

The paper that was used for this was K&Company Ancestry.com Designer line. The roses on the top of the box and inside the box are the roses that I teach in my rose tutorial.  The butterflies are a spellbinder die.  A couple of other spellbinder dies were used as well.  But the box comes with so many extras that these dies are not necessary.  All you need is your imagination to come up with some additional ideas for decorating your pages using the components supplied with the pattern.

I will be posting a youtube video as well so that you can see more of the box.  For those of you who may not own a cricut to cut out this pattern, I will be posting 3 kits in my etsy store. 

New How To Make Paper Roses Video

I love flowers. I am always looking for new ways to make paper flowers.  I love trying out new flower making tools. So when I saw the Spellbinder Donna Salazar Rose Creations Die Set I had to get it.

This set makes beautiful roses.  Check out the video for a look at some of the roses I have made using this set.  The video also shows you how to assemble the roses.

The roses in this video are going to be used for the exploding box class I will be doing.  I'm hoping to have this class ready to go by next week. I have made a great deal of these boxes and everyone just loves them. They are a unique and decorative way to display your precious photos.

Butterflies, Butterflies, Butterflies, and Fairy Wings

I love butterflies.  I use them in almost every scrapbook layout and album I do.  I was very excited when I saw the new die release by Spellbinders and Donna Salazar.  Its called Wonderful Wings and wonderful it is!  I was quite happy with this system.  And no, I am not affiliated with the makers of this system.  I just really like it and thought I would share. 

It comes with 4 butterflies and one fairy wing set.  There is one solid piece for each item and one "Lacy piece".  You can put them together to make a wonderful 3 dimensional butterfly. 

The two wings on the bottom of this picture are the fairy wings...can you just imagine all the possibilities with these?  Other than the 2 green based butterflies, the rest are all from white card stock.  Yes one of my favorite things to do is to see all the different possibilities I can come up with using white card stock.  I used the same techniques for the butterflies as I did for my roses.  So check out that video if you need instructions.

If you would like some of these butterflies and don't have the Spellbinder system, I have posted some white cardstock butterflies in my etsy store.

Shabby Chic Scrapbook Layout

Labor day marked the end of my busy season at work...woohoo!  So now I can dedicate myself to my love of scrapbooking and paper art.  I have so many projects in the works!  I have so many ideas that I can't wait to make reality! 

Scrapbooking can be an expensive hobby, if my husband knew what I had invested in all my supplies, he would probably file for immediate divorce, that or decide he was entitled to go buy his own toys, like more expensive parts for his bike. So lets keep it a secret....shhhh.

Anyway I have decided to finish off some of my projects, and let you know what I used to make them.  If you don't have the necessary tools to make the project, I will be posting some very inexpensive kits so that you can make the project without spending an arm and a leg on tools you may need.

This page started off with a 12 x 12 light blue cardstock base.
Next a white piece of 10.25 x 10.25 cardstock was added after a Martha Stewart punch was used to punch a border around the entire piece of cardstock.
The edges of both pieces of paper were lightly chalked with pink chalk and then sprayed with Krylon Workable Fixatif. (yes that is how it is spelled on the can)
Lots of layers in this one...
Next came a light pink piece of 6.75 x 8.50 cardstock with Martha Stewart punch used to do the border.
A white piece of 6.50 x 8.25 cardstock came next using the same Martha Stewart punch for the border.
Peeking out ever so slightly is a dark pink piece of 5 7/8 x 7 7/8 cardstock that I used my Purple Cow paper cutter to give a wavy edge to.
A light pink piece of 5.75 x 7.75 cardstock was then added using pop dots to give it some lift.
The last layer is the lovely picture that I purchased from Beth Neumann.  Her blog can be found at: tatteredchic.blogspot.com. I burned the edges to add to the vintage look. I used pop dots to give it dimension when added to the layout.
I added a piece of lace to the bottom.
On the top of the page a beautiful flourish was added. I added glitter to this flourish to make it stand out more. The flourish came from one of my favorite sites http://www.svgcuts.com/.  It is from the Jacquelyn's Swirlies SVG Collection.
I used a dark pink cardstock for the base of the butterfly.  The top layer of the butterfly used a coordinating patterned paper.  The butterfly also came from svgcuts.com.
The dark pink bird flourish was from http://www.dianasdesignsonline.com/.
The lovely vine with the little pink flowers was from PepitosRoom on http://www.etsy.com/
Some mulberry roses that I purchased on ebay were used on the top and the bottom. 
The larger roses were made by me, check out my video tutorial for more information.
To make the flater roses I used my Spellbinder Grand Calibur machine.  I used a Donna Salazar Die cut called Rose Creations. The leaves were from Heartfelt Creations that comes with added stamps that used a green ink for to give a realistic look to the leaves. 
Green wire was curled around a skewer and the smaller leaves were attatched.
A silver metal corner embellishment was added with a matching bird that was purchased from ebay (I can't remember the seller, so sorry) finishes this creation off.

I will have 10 kits available for just $18.99.
The kits will contain:
1 12 x 12 blue cardstock
1 10.25 x 10.25 white cardstock
1 Doilie
1 6.75 x 8.50 piece of pink cardstock
1 6.50 x 8.25 piece of white cardstock
1 5 7/8 x 7 7/8 piece of dark pink cardstock
1 5.75 x 7.75 of pink cardstock
1 rose image
4 mulberry roses
Bird Flourish
Butterfly
Vine with flowers
Components to make all larger roses (6 all together)
Leaves already stamped
Wire for smaller leaves
Cardstock will NOT have borders on them unless you specifically ask for the borders to be added.  I will add punched borders at your request free of charge.