Over the weekend, I had the privilege of taking a class with Vicky Alberto.  She is such a talented designer and a great instructor as well.  I had a great time and learned several little tips that will help making my layouts go a little smoother!  You can see Vicky's beautiful work on her blog Simply Paper (And Creativity).

Vicky had us lift a layout of hers, and showed us how to make lovely little roses.  (They were quick and easy.)  If you go to her blog, she has several flower tutorials, that are all so pretty.

This is Vicky's layout that we lifted.

I followed Vicky's layout pretty closely, just changed the flower embellishments slightly.  The picture is of my beautiful great niece Aveda.

I made this embellishment from a button that was in Aveda's great-great-grandmother's button jar.  I tucked a little doily from Close to my Heart, behind it.

This is the little flower Vicky showed us how to make.

One thing I changed from Vicky's layout, was the photo mat.  Instead of painting the matting white, I chose to go with a darker mat (I thought it looked better with the picture I chose) and then I sanded off bits of the paper to lighten it.

It was a great class and was hosted by our LSS Paper and Lace.  Vicky is coming back June 16th to teach another layout using Pion paper.  She will also be teaching us another flower tutorial.  If you live near Strathmore, AB, I would strongly encourage you to register with Pam Malone from Paper and Lace.  It's a chance to learn from one of the best in the industry!

Hope everyone had a great time on National Scrapbooking Day!  I learned how to make an awesome little note clip from, get this - a mouse trap - to hang on the wall.  Lisa Gregory did a Ustream Video for Swirlydoos and it was so much fun!

My project went from this:

To this:

Mine is going to be for my dad for Father's Day.  He loves taking objects and making them into something else, so I think he will love this.  I've also included some buttons from Grandma's (his mother) button jar, just to make it a little bit more special!

I did the background using Beate's tutorial.  It gave such a cool look to the trap and it is just done with masking tape and ink!  The beautiful glass knob, corner pieces and pen knib, is by Tim Holtz, the two square metal pieces are by CTMH, and the rest are Grandma's buttons.  I used one of them to make a stick pin out of one of the discarded pieces of the mouse trap.

This was a fun little project that didn't take very long at all.  I encourage you all to give it a try, I know you will like it.

Have a great day!

Linda