Scrapping Heaven!!!!

Sorry that I have been a bad blogger lately...I am on VACATION!!!!! Not just your ordinary pack your bags and get out of Dodge vacation, but I am in the fabulous Rocky Mountains right outside of Baily, Colorado...Me and 12 other fabulous Swirlydoo Princess's are having a blast!!I bought my trusty assistant along, my fab daughter!! Our plane touched down at Denver International Airport on Wednesday,Krissy picked up Gabbie and I at the airport and took us back to her gorgeous home where we unpacked, got familiar with the family, and we were headed out the door to go to Sams club to shop for the weekend!! After all our wonderful scrap retreat is from Thursday to Sunday.Needless to say we were shopping for about 2 hours and it was fun...Got home, unloaded the truck full of groceries!! I'll tell you the weather was gorgeous...70's..Yesterday morning, Kathi, Kathy, Tina, and Meg arrived..Then we packed up and headed out to the cabin, the higher we got into the mountains, the more it snowed..It was a beautiful sight..What a fabulous place!!! We all settled in and then it was time to go to the airport to pick up Shelly, Rae and Manda!!! Krissy did a lot of driving yesterday..But with her Hummer she could brave every weather condition in the mountains..They finally arrived!! Some of the girls were already up in the scrapping barn, scrapping, while I was making dinner in the Fabulous fully equipped gourmet kitchen!! Love it!!! It was Italian night,spaghetti and meatballs, salad, garlic bread, and nobody had room for dessert...Then off to the scrapping barn where we scrapped till the wee hours of the morning!!! Krissy has got to be the most generous wonderful fearless leader of all!!! She is truly our Swirly Queen...The goodies bags, and what she provided for us as far as scrapping products is a scrappers dream!!! It was one goody after another!!! Let the games begin!!!! So take a look at where we are...More pics to come!!! One more Swirlydoos Princess to arrive today!! Jan!!!! Then we will all be here...

Just Be Me

This LO was done in between my Design Team assignments at Swirlydoos. Although the embellies came from past kits and the gold organza flower is one that I did in a tutorial on my blog for a series of fabric flowers I am doing for Swirlydoos. The leaves are a future tutorial in the works. The elegant scroll frame is from Scrap Girls. I am always collecting digi kits for their elements!! This one is divine...I printed it on a light patterned paper and further enhanced it by painting it with a small paint brush and Glimmer Mist. I used a few different colors then went over it with Perfect Pearls powder to give it shimmer. I painted the chip board letters with Luminart paint...Loooove that paint!! The paper is K and Company new Susan Winget Nature 12x12 Designer Paper Pad. The paper is to die for!! Love it!! The photo is my daughter a couple of summers ago on one of our excursions to downtown Safety Harbor. Just love the charm of that town...

Ribbon Flowers

These Flowers are just to easy to make. I have reels and reels of all kinds of ribbon.I invested in a couple of very well written books on ribbon work.These flowers are the first in a series I will be doing for Swirlydoos. So get your ribbon on, here we go...



~~~Ribbon Flower Supply List~~~
Ribbon 1 - 1.5 inch ribbon works best. Gross grain, satin, silk, polyester, organza.
(note: if you buy wired ribbon, you could pull out the wire with a pair of needle nose pliers. Cut you ribbon first, then remove the wires.)
Needle and thread. Heavy duty thread works best
scissors
buttons, brads, small flowers, pearls, seed beads.



***Step 1***

Cut (5) 3 - 3.5 inch lengths of ribbon. The wider ribbon looks best cut in 3.5 inch lengths and the narrower ribbon looks best cut in 3 inch lengths.



***Step 2***

Find the middle point of your ribbon by folding the ribbon in half meeting the cut ends together. Crease the fold, open the ribbon and fold length wise as shown wrong sides together. With your needle and thread. Sew a few tiny whip stitches where you marked the crease to hold the fold together. Knot the thread and snip close to knot. Repeat until all 5 are done.



***Step 3***

The fold is not shown, but take your ribbon piece and with wrong sides together, fold over in half until your cut ends meet evenly. You should see your petal shape as in the photo. Finger crease the top. With your needle and thread, sew a running stitch along the cut ends, stitch together all the way across as shown. Pulling the thread through.



***Step 4***

Repeat step 3 until all 5 petals are strung side by side on your knotted thread.



***Step5***

Carefully pull and gather your petals on the thread. When you are satisfied with the arrangement attach the first petal to the last petal and whip stitch them together and knot it.




You are now ready to attach any middle you want. You could even make tiny ribbon flowers and layer them for the middle. Here are some different flowers I created. Have fun with ribbon...And how beautiful would a layout be if you wove your ribbon across your page and end it with a ribbon flower. Now I am off to create that Layout!!

New Diggs, New color theme!!!

Inspired by the piece of K and Company scrapbook paper that I used as a backdrop for my Sheer Blooms II tutorial post, I am in the middle of putting the finishing touches on painting my new scrapbook room. I am trading rooms with my sweet daughter who wants a smaller bedroom..Yay!!!!Although 13 x 14 is not small. That gives me the bigger room with 2 huge picture windows and lots of light!!! 15 x 18...I think once I get all of my furniture in the room, A trip to Ikea is my next shopping excursion....Good bye old beautiful room....Hello Fresh and Funky...Sour Lime...With a touch of turquoise and rose...And my black furniture....Smooth....Here are the before pictures, and Gabbie painting the new room for me..Isn't she the sweetest??? And a photo of the new color scheme...

SHEER BLOOMS II TUTORIAL

So I couldn't get enough of Organza flowers, I had to create more. So I have decided to create a series of fabric flower tutorials for your scrapbook pages. Of course for you seamstresses, they would look beautiful on garments and head bands as well. So here I give you Sheer Blooms II.



~~~Supply List~~~

Sheer Organza Fabric or fabric of your choice
Scissors
needle and thread (I strand 2 threads together for strength)
buttons, pearls, sequins, brads, tiny flowers, ect...



~~~Step 1~~~

Cut 5 circles out of your Organza. I used a jar lid as my template. It was 3 inches wide, but you can use any size. You can use any type fabric. Cottons work beautifully. So do silks and satins.



~~~Step 2~~~

Fold your circle in half, wrong side together, right side out.



~~~Step 3~~~

Take your half circle and fold in half again point to point. You should have a cone shape. Note: If you are using cotton fabric, you could press the piece at this point to give you a nice sharp petal. I like the fullness of the Organza so I only finger press the crease lightly.



~~~Step 4~~~

Sew a running stitch along the open curved side of your quarter folded circle as shown.



~~~Step 5~~~

Take your next quartered circle and repeat the sewing, stringing it on the same thread.




~~~Step 6~~~

Repeat until all 5 petals are strung on the thread then pull to gather as shown.



~~~Step 7~~~

Now join your 2 end petals together and knot and fasten the thread.



Now you are ready to add what ever centers you want. I was inspired by Primas centers and created the small beaded center on the bottom right flowers by stringing glass beads in a pattern on wire and twisting into petal shapes and adding a larger pearl in the center. And how pretty would these look if you sewed on some sequins to the tips of the petals. I will work on that idea for one of my next LO's.Hope you like these flowers as well...

SERENE

This is a LO I did for April Round Robin Challenge at Swirlydoos...I was first in my group again!! Talk about the pressure.But so much fun...Everything in the LO is done with pieces of past Swirlydoo kits. Even the distressed corrugated card board is from the box my last kit came in.
I just adore Digital elements that are in some digital kits...So once once in a while, I purchase overlays, brushes, frames and those kind of things from Digi companies. I have quite a collection, The ornate frame around the photo is an overlay that I opened in Photoshop, scaled it to the size I wanted, and then printed it out on parchment colored card stock and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I keep forgetting I have these things!!! I was going to print it out on transparency and alcohol ink it, but I didn't have time...Next project. And a tutorial on how to do it too!!

KITTY AND THE FISH...

I was invited to be part of the Birthday Bash Celebration at Creative Scrappers, and be one of their Guest Designers for sketch reveals..I was given a sketch done by Beckie Dreyer and this is my LO. I used part of the kit from our Swirlydoos April Kit Park Avenue. They are having games and giveaways at Creative scrappers...Check it out!!

Time Flies...

Where does the time go...My daughter will be leaving for the military sometime this year...I always knew this day would come when your kids will be out of the house because they are all grown up...My son got married 3 years ago at the tender age of 20, after buying a home on his own...Him leaving was traumatizing enough....Now my baby...Don't know what I am going to do...Probably fall apart...

SHEER BLOOMS

I am always inspired to create more flowers. In one of our last Swirlydoos kits, we received these beautiful Prima blooms...Oh yea, I thought to myself...I could do these!!! So here I give you, my version of Prima's MADRIGAL BLOSSOMS...



~~~Sheer Bloom Supply List~~~

Sheer Organza Fabric or fabric of your choice
Scissors
needle and thread (I strand 2 threads together for strength)
buttons, pearls, sequins, brads, ect...




Step 1

Cut 5 3x3 squares of fabric



Step 2

Fold the square in half wrong sides together (right side out) to form a triangle shape. Starting on one end of the triangle sew a running stitch from one point to the opposite point on the open sides of the triangle as shown.



Step 3

Now gather your fabric triangle into a petal shape by pulling the thread through



Step 4

With your square of fabric, repeat step 2 and three on the same thread.



Step 5

Gather your thread once again next to the last petal you just formed...Repeat until you have all 5 petals on the thread.



Step 6

Your string of petals should look like this.



Step 7

Now gather your petals tightly and attach the last petal to the first petal to form the flower by sewing them together..on the backside, which ever you choose to be the back side, make a few stitches to secure. Knot your thread and clip the thread.



Step 8

Now you are ready to sew or glue on your center. In this photo, I sewed on some pearls with stamen. In the title photo, I sewed on some pretty buttons. Get creative with your centers and show me what you can do!!



I have been creating baby headbands for my newborn shoots. The model in the photo is Gianna...She is my daughter Gabrielles very first doll, Gianna. She is almost 19 years old, a little dirty and worn, but still intact, and sits at the bottom of her bedroom closet. Her name was "baby" until Gabbie was old enough to give her a proper name...Dont know where Gianna came from, but we still call that dolly Gianna to this day...I often made them matching outfits because that doll never left her side... That doll is a precious memory for my daughter...

Simply Gabbie

Sometimes, you look at a specific LO and it just inspires you...Gives you that itch to scrap...Well, This is the case here. I was cruising my fave blogs last night and came across "Such a Pretty Mess". Gabrielle Pollacco's Blog..And there it was, my latest inspiration. It was her "Beautiful" LO, the one she submitted for the Graphic 45 call...I love the way Gabrielle uses book pages peaking out from behind photo's, and her eye for design..It is always so pleasing to the eye. Balanced, so to speak. Well I used the new K and Company Tim Coffey designed papers Blossomwood...Each paper is more beautiful than the next, And the colors are so rich. This LO is done between my Swirlydoos Design Team assignments. Although the flowers and embellies came from past kits.Did some machine stitching and ribbon threading. And the photo??? My DD Gabrielle (Gabbie)doing those self portraits again!!...TFL

Forever Beautiful

Swirlydoos April kit is out...Park Avenue is just delicious!! All brand new Websters Pages paper from the new line Life's Portrait. Lots of beautiful embellies and if you cant get enough, the add ons are wonderful!! I shared files of the butterflies and vines at Swirlydoos, the larger leaves were scanned from another line of WP paper and printed up, cut out, and stickled.I made the larger flowers with the exception of the orange middle in the middle flower, that was a white Prima and I painted it with Glimmer Mist. Did some machine sewing cut the title with my Cricut Expression. The photo is my DD when she was a toddler, getting those toes in her mouth!!