Bloom and Grow and some peaks

I did this LO as a survival one for scrapfactor but didn't get to use it - thankfully.  Another mix of papers on here - the ledger piece is MME, and the others are a mix of MME Jack and Jill and echo park for the record - this is a real use up your stash with the strips of paper.  This is one of my favourite shots of my young man out and about - he's growing up so fast.  The flowers are die cut with the Tim Holtz tattered rose die and then I water distressed them, layered them up and stuck buttons threaded with yet more string through the middle.  The lace flowers are literally some lace that I stuck around a small 1inch circle that was covered in tape - you pleat it as you go around and they come out really well.  For the circles I used a collection of plates in various sizes from around the house.  I made the scalloped bit around the edge of the circle with  a one inch circle punch....you will notice that it goes up to the flowers as it wouldn't have worked to go all around the circle :) so the not quite joining up right bit is hidden away.  The leaves are cut out green cardstock inked and then wrapped around some flower stems and the alpha is a glittered American Crafts thickers set.  A few dots of paint and my martha stewart doily lace punch - still love that pattern, some doodling around the scallops.

Also here are some peaks of the September Scraprat kit which gets revealed tomorrow.  It's beautiful and full of lots of lovely goodies and beautiful papers.

Aim, Fire

Another grab box LO, this is done using some more Crate Paper - Portrait, Echo Park - Country Drive and Glitz papers, toy box embellishments and a maya road doily......and some twine :)  I finally found a site (which I can't remember) that had a method for sticking twine and string like things in wavy patterns on your LO - so here is the tip - use some wet glue that dries clear in a tube with a fine nozzle - I found a scotch acid free glue in a tube in my local shop, mark lightly in pencil on your LO the swirly path you would like the twine to take, then squeeze out  line of glue - just small bits at a time.  On my LO I did the right hand side portion down to the doily in one go, then carefully lie the twine on top.  The nice thing about the scotch glue is it dries fairly quickly - and is very much like PVA just with a nice nozzle :)  The other twine item I had spotted on my blogging journeys was Hannah's flowers - I cut a small circle out of card and then placed glue on it, and twirled the twine around, placing a button in the centre - they are so easy to do and work really well on boy LOs too as they aren't overly flowery (not that that stops me).

This LO is some shots from our holiday in May where we all had a go at archery - twice it was so good.... the journalling is on an echo park block behind the photos.  The inspiration for this LO was from the archery boards - I cut the circles out using a mixture of plate and compass, then inked, stitched and distressed the edges.  Before I put the photos on I flicked the paper with some water down white paint, and then once dry stuck my photos and all the embellishments on.  The title is girls paperie - ecclectic - the Fire didn't stand out enough in the biege colour so I covered it in firebrick distress ink - took quite a while to dry.  So here are some close ups, and some close ups of the flowers.

Nestled in the Woods

Here is my first page using my grab box stash, this is a shot of my youngest in some woods near his grandparents house....of course up a tree :)  I liked the nature elements of the prima paper and the colours seemed to fit well with the picture....the other thing I noticed on this paper was that Prima give you a little block of colours, along the cut off strip, that co-ordinate with the paper which I think is a great idea and can make it easier matching everything together.  I started the page by cutting around some of the leaves and bird nest so that would be able to pop over my picture.  I mounted the photo on some white cardstock and then used some prima stamps to stamp around the edge - to co-ordinate with the paper stamping around the edge, and inked it with tea dye distress ink and then ruffled the edges.  I then layered up the glitz papers that were in my pack and matched with the prima colour blocks, stitched and inked and ruffled them and used a cocktail stick to curl down the right hand corners.  Once I knew how large these pieces were I think carefully cut a chunk of the prima paper out so I could use the other side - the dotty yellow/brown piece and inked and ruffled that too.  I then spritzed using my broken china distress ink mix on to the prima paper - just a little bit of blue. 

The flowers are made from the glitz papers using the rose tutorial, and I added some leaves and rock candy stickles to them.  I also found a bird stamp which I coloured with some pro-markers and cut out, and punched a mini butterfly from some left over paper - then doodled the wings (loosely copying the prima ones) on to it.  I used some of my crate paper die cut sheet for the photo corner and the boys will be boys piece, and the brown envelope that came in the box hides my journalling.  For the envelope I used the crafty individuals woodgrain stamp - I cut a small rectangle for the mask and then stamped over the envelope and hand-wrote Notes on it.  I added a small tag and some seam binding.  The alphabet is glitz (came in my last grab box) - little bit of glossy accenting on the butterflies and here are some close ups :)

Butterfly Birthday Card

Here is a quick birthday card that I made using Hannahs grab box - there are still a few boxes left and they are packed with lots of different patterned papers from echo park, prima and glitz and embellishments - doilies, twine,pockets..lots of goodies.  I love butterflies - so I stamped up my crafty individuals butterfly in brown stazon on some of the glitz paper then cut around it.  I used the back of an echo park journalling card for the mount, and stuck my butterfly on.  I had some old wire from a wedding favour (if you use wire clippers on a paper clip it could work too - must try that) and I curled some antenna using a cocktail stick, stuck those behind my butterfly and then added a few gems for the body.  Once that was all done I put some stickles in a blob on the wings and with a wet paint brush brushed the stickles across the wings - so you just water down the stickles a little bit.  I then bent the wings up a bit (tho I know they will flatten when I post the card - might have to leave instructions for my friend to 3d them again :)).  I added some twine across the bottom of the card (there has been a blog hop at the twinery...and there are lots of twine ideas so if you need some inspiration click here).  I hand wrote 8 and the happy birthday - and hopefully she'll enjoy the card...and the present :)  

My boys and grab box news

I had this LO tucked away and was reminded by the news of more Handmade Hannah grab boxes of which I am a huge fan....tomorrow morning they go on sale at 8am (Wednesday) - so get one if you can they are packed with lots of lovely items.  This LO compiled from lots of goodies from my last box consists of a rare shot of me...and my boys in the bluebell woods, we cycled in just before the bluebells faded in April.  The papers are mostly Echo Parks country drive tho there is a little MME too.  I made the flowers from some poundshop organza - I cut some circles and then melted the edges VERY carefully over a candle, and layered them up, either stitching or bradding (new term) them together.  There are some DCWV green chipboard pieces in there and prima pearl swirls.  For the circle I used a plate and then punched out some circles which I cut in half - once these were all stuck in place I then stitched over it a couple of times.  A few flicks of paint and some punched out butterflies using a Martha Stewart punch, a little doodling and a girls paperie alphabet, and nearly forgot the sun and clouds - and all put together.  So I encourage you to grab a box and have a play :).

Woodland Walk

Good Morning everyone, back from my hols now and this is my first LO class for UKscrappers.  You can go over to the site and download the pdf to create this LO.  The papers are Cosmo Cricket Social club with some jillibean soup and october afternoon in there too.  I did a white wash for the background, and some paint flicks then lots of machine stitching a little hand stitching for the suns rays and made some rosette flowers - so lots of different techniques you can have a go at.  Do let me know if you have a go at this class at all or play around with any of the techniques as I would love to come and have a look.  The link for the class is here - have fun.

You love to Climb

This LO is another park shot from Mothering Sunday, this park has some super climbing frames and with a bit of a hand we got both of them up the frame and ready to pose for a photo.  The papers I have used for this are from Cosmo Crickets Social club.  I created the diecut from one of my stencils and then edged it with blue paper which I cut around with scalloped scissors.  There is quite a bit of stitching on this LO, I wanted to have a go at some free stitching (which I think means taking the foot of your machine - if it dosen't - that is what I did).  I stuck some hessian having frayed it a bit on the page and then stitched around it.  I layered up lots of different strips behind the photo and added the stitched lines across the edge of the die cut.  I've seen lots of little flags so with a cocktail stick, some paint and old book pages and a stamp I made myself some.  I also added some blue paint splots that I sprinkled some embossing powder on and gently heated.  The title is jillibean soup corrugated card and cosmo cricket mini alphabet.  I covered the corrugated alpha in blue paint and then dry brushed green and then white paint on the edges, a few buttons and this is the result.  Not so much time for crafting at the moment, but lots of photo taking of my kids - I'll have a big photo order soon :)  

Also if you want some inspiration then there are classes to do on the home page of ukscrappers each week during the summer all in pdfs that you can download.

Stars

I made my DS pose for some photos and here is one of them...I have some funny faces too that I will have to scrap. 

 I used a mixture of papers for this one - not sure where the die cut sheet came from I think it is MME, but the other papers are Cosmo Cricket Togetherness and October Afternoon - Fly a Kite with a jillibean soup journalling circle.  The stars are cut with a cuttlebug set of dies, and the rocket is by sizzix.  With the offcuts from the stars I cut I used it as a stencil to paint stars on the paper.  There is a bit of bubble wrap print and some printing using corrugate card.  The scalloped edge to my papers was done using a corner rounder punch - you take the guard off and then it works as a great edger.  I used some of the circles from the die cut background sheet on this too.  The other punch I have used is Martha Stewart double loop punch for around the photo.  I used lots of black gel pen on this and doodled around the stars and circles, and then for the word 'stars' I just added some white gel pen dots.  No flowers on this LO, but I have some more string....with knots tied in it....there really are lots of uses for it on a LO (:))