Life in upheaval

Hi everyone! Not a lot of crafting going on here these days. Layoff in November has hub's looking for a job that we can live with. In the mean time we had to leave the house we were renting and moved in with my son. Hopefully we won't be here for too long. Don't like that we have invaded my sons home. Also hoping the next move is a permanent one. It will be our 4th move in less than a year!

All my happy, scrappy, goodies are packed away in a storage shed. Waaaaaaaaa!!!!! I did keep on hand my crocheting so I could make some butterflies for a couple of my Bella friends and some fabric to make some shabby chic flowers. However if this takes too long I will be hitting the stores for what ever I can find to feed my crafty addictions.

Happy Crafting everyone!

Shabby Chic Flowers

I made these flowers the other day. I have been loving the ones Carla has made over at Bella Creations and had to try them myself.

 These are fairly flat so I think they will fit onto a scrapbook page nicely.

 This is a closeup of my fav in that group. Love the white of it all.

 These I got a little bit fancier with, adding pearl strings, feathers, fabric rosettes, and a flower made with ribbon & button.

This was a rosette i decided to try using fiber as well as fabric. 

I have to say it was a little tricky trying to twist them both together but I love the look.

Thanks for looking.

Have a scrappy day!

Oops... I forgot to mention, I used the Tim Holtz die for the flowers up above and I want to mention, if you also use his flowers, you might not want to try fraying the daisy cut. I tried several ways and it just wanted to fall apart. If however you tried it and you were successful please let me know how you did it.

Happy Valentines Day!

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is having a  
Very Happy Loving Valentines Day!

This is a mini I made for a dear friend over at Bella Creations. 

She finally got it so now I can post pics.

For Heather:

She can remove the card from the front...

although she says she likes it there and that is great because I do too! :)

The inside:

 I love how the eyelet & lacing came out on the binding. The creamy white binding is canvas that I painted.
I used ribbon so she can tie it closed.

And the lovely Bella got a Valentines Day card also. Some of you may remember seeing this:

How Heather didn't see this I don't know. I do know however that she would have requested a sticky note if she had!

Thanks for looking!

Have a Great Valentines Day!

Stay warm & safe, it's pretty windy out side here.
Hug's!

Another bookmark

I did this one today for the Bella Muse Challenge at Bella Creations. We were provided with this image to do whatever we wanted with it. I chose to make a bookmark. I love this image!

I covered the bookmark with patterned paper, then inked the edges of the bookmark and the photo with Distress Inks-fired brick red and weathered wood. Next I sprayed the whole thing with a perfect pearls spray I made.

You can see a little bit of the sparkle on this photo. I love the sparkle in real life. Can't wait to use this one!

Thanks for looking! 

Stay warm everyone!

Trying to keep busy

Been in a bit of a fog again lately. Waiting for news on a new job for hub's and it is taking forever, driving me crazy! I hate the wait and unknowing. 

Anyway, this is what I have been doing while playing the waiting game:

This is Oh la la's Feb. Bookmark Challenge. Had to be a bookmark and use the little bunny there. He originally was holding a top-hat but I removed that and had him hold a heart. He is looking for his "love bunny". The vine came from a Bella friend who sent me some swap goodies, Thanks Anita! It was originally white, I added a bit of ink, Rangers Distressed Peeled Paint, to give it a green hint. The sunflowers came from another Bella, Thanks Heather! The bookmark was inked with Rangers Distress inks, Firebrick Red and Tea Dye, then a thin coat of Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint.

This one is for the Feb. Nuance De Couleur Challenge. The colors this month were mint green, brown, black and white. It's funny actually, I didn't have any mint green patterned papers until a few days before this challenge was posted. I bought this paper because it was different for me. Got it home, looked at it and thought, now what am I going to do with it? I was beginning to think I wasted my money. Thanks Maggie! 

We could do a card, layout, altered piece, etc... It had to have a clip art image and at least one 3d element. 

I actually didn't do a lot to this one. I inked the edges of the white card with Rangers Distress Black Soot ink and I added some Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint to the image. I used my I-rock from imaginisce to add the gems on the bottom. The flower is mine.

These are my cards for the Jingle Bella Christmas Card Challenge. We had to make 6 cards and, in honor of Valentines Day, we had to make our cards using the color red. This is a monthly challenge I am loving. When Christmas rolls around I will have one less thing to worry about. All my cards will be done. Yay!

This one is for the Feb Cartes Classiques Challenge. We needed to use the colors brown, maroon, & cream. We needed one 3d element, ribbon or fibers & a quote of our choice. This one for some reason was a tough one for me. I had all the elements on my desk for days but I just couldn't get it to come together in a way that I liked until this morning. That could just be because of the mood I have been in lately but I am finally happy with how it came out. I inked the papers with Rangers Distress Antique Linen Ink, used my Martha Stewart edge punchers and the butterfly is mine.

All of these Challenges are from Bella Creations. 

Thank you all for looking!

Stay warm everyone!

Ribbon Flower Tutorial

I have had several requests for a tutorial, from some of my Bella Beauty friends over at Bella Creations, so I am going to do my best here.

These are some of the ribbon flowers I've been making. 

You will need these:

 Start by folding the ribbon so you have a triangle... 

 feed the needle into the lower part of the triangle as shown, this will be the top side of the petal...

Trim the excess ribbon, pull the thread through leaving a bit of a tail, you'll need this to tie it off in the end. Continue making triangles and threading them through, you'll need 5...

 Once you have all 5 on the thread you will need to flip them over and tie the ends together forming your flower.

Trim the excess thread. I usually add a little bit of glue to the little bits of raw ribbon ends so they don't fray. 

 

Add a pearl, gem, button or what ever you chose and you've made yourself a ribbon flower.

I hope that looked as easy as it is. The trickiest part, I think, is getting that triangle. 

Happy ribbon flower making.

Liebster (Love) Blog Award

Yesterday a very special online friend of mine sent me a Liebster (Love) Blog Award. Thank you Heather! 

Heather is a very talented artist, her flowers alone are to die for. She has gotten me to step outside of the box and produce some of the lovely things I have done recently. (canvas's) She is a drawing, painting, collage making, scrapping, stamp making, all around artistic wonder. Please pop over and view here blog here. 

Love ya girl!!!

The Liebster (Love) Blog Award is given to bring new blogs to light. It is a great way to get new blogs seen by people who might not otherwise see them. If you have been tagged and would like to participate, create a post, use the Liebster (Love) Blog image, then link to 3 to 5 other blogs that you follow.

Here are a couple of blogs I follow that I will share with you!

Tabby's blog

Tabby is an inspiration to all who are trying to find a way to save money and shop wisely. She is sharing here experiences in how she managed to cut her debts. She also has some great coupon using advice. Give her blog a look, maybe she can inspire you too!

Shawn's blog

Shawn is a stamping & inking whiz! Put some inks in her hands and watch her go! She has produced some beautiful projects that she is happy to share with us all.

Shawn is also a Loose Leaf Tea drinking lovely lady. Being a tea drinker myself I've gotta love that. I haven't tried the loose leaf yet but she has me hooked on the idea, so when we are settled I'll be looking for some. 

Natasha's blog

Natasha is a very talented scrapper. She is The Eyelet Queen! She will take a few simple eyelets and make a lacing beauty out of them! And her hand stitching is wow! This young lady was one of the first online beauty's that have inspired me. She has some gorgeous layouts and loads of tutorials on her blog to share with us all.

Thanks for looking today! 

Have a great day everyone!

Shabby Chic

This is my entry for the Tres Chic Challenge over at Bella Creations. We had to create anything in the shabby chic style. The must haves were to use the colors creme, pink & turquoise, use a flower or flowers, ribbon or lace and pearl here & there. The sentiment I put on there looks darker in the pic than it actually is.

This is the first time doing this style on purpose. I am still new to all of the styles. I always just did what felt good to me at the time, not really paying attention to a style.

Stay warm and safe out there in all this icy wintery mess we have going outside right now.  

Thanks for looking.

Scrap happy!