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

A Bunny layout for Spring!

I created this layout for a couple of challenges, one at Swirlydoos, and one at Flying Unicorn.

The bunny itself, was created by a friend of mine who does Pointillism artwork.  The patience that it takes to do this is amazing.  Double click on the picture to bring it closer and you will see that it was made by applying small dots of colour, one at a time!!  Thank you Rachel for giving me such a beautiful picture to work with.

I had fun with my Martha Stewart punches and used a variety of them for this:  Wildflower, Cherish, and Branch.  The fern-like leaves were done with a PoppyStamps die called "Meadow Leaf".

I found this technique to color the Dusty Attic chipboard frame, and used Lindy's Stamp Gang "Magicals" paints in the following colours:  Blue Hawaiian, Fuzzy Navel Peach, My Mojito Green, and Cosmopolitan Pink.

The daisies were made using Heartfelt Creations stamp set Daisy Patch Flowers and misted with Tattered Angels "Vintage Pink" Glimmer Mist.

For the background of the layout, I used a Prima mask and misted it with Tattered Angels "Frost" Glimmer Mist.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday!

I'm hosting a challenge at Swirlydoos!

I'm very excited today as I've just posted all the rules for the first challenge I've ever hosted at Swirlydoos!  You need a Swirlydoos kit to participate, but there's a few kits still for sale in the Boutique.  Head over there, pick yourself up one, and join in the fun.  You'll find all the details of my challenge here.

Here's the layout I used for a sample.

These pictures are of my daughter, Melanie, 6 years ago when she graduated from high school.  She has been studying at SAIT in Calgary, the past couple of years, for a Chemical Engineering Diploma and has done so well, and enjoys it so much, that she has decided to move down to Butte, Montana in the fall and pursue a Degree in Mechanical Engineering. I will miss her deeply, as she has turned into a wonderful companion, but I watch her leave with pride because I know she has strong wings carrying her, and she will, indeed, achieve the lofty goals she has set for herself.

The flowers that I've used on these were from a tutorial by Lisa Gregory.  They took awhile to make due to drying, painting, etc, but they are so pretty they were definitely worth it.  Here is a closer picture of the flowers.

The Dusty Attic chipboard was painted, very simply, with Pumpkin Smooch.

Around the edges of the photos, I created a "feathered" look with Distress Stain "Picket Fence".

I made an error on this layout, and had to cover it up by misting with Glimmer Mist "Midnight Blue", and I liked the effect so much that I let loose and misted everywhere!  LOL.  You will be able to see it better by clicking on the layout picture and enlarging it.  Thank heavens for mistakes .... you learn so much from them!

I hope everyone is having a nice April 1st and that you didn't have any tricks played on you!

Tim Holtz Creative Chemistry Day 1

Tim's class started today.  It was very interesting and informative.  Then he gave us homework ... yes it's true,  LOL. 

We were to get familiar with the supplies we have on hand.  I went through and catalogued all my paints, etc.  This was a very good exercise for me because now I know exactly what I have and more importantly, where it is!!  I'm looking forward to tomorrow when we're going to start "playing" with our stuff!

If you would like more information on this class, go here.

Precious Moments

For the Swirlydoos round robin challenge this month, we were to scrap a picture of a "human" baby and use green in 50% of the layout.  I had a lot of fun working on this. 

It is a picture of my first grandchild, Emily, and it brought back so many memories.  My first baby-sitting "job" was in the hospital when her mom and her dad wanted to take a little walk down the corridor.  I remember feeling over-whelmed with love holding her in my arms and looking down at her little face!  :) 

I have this lovely La Blanche stamp that I was looking for a chance to use:

So I embossed it using a beautiful shade of embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang called Weeping Willow.

The chipboard frames were painted with Distress Crackle paint in Picket Fence.

And there you have it... a precious moment with Emily.  Thanks for taking a look!!

Have a great week.

Cute storage jars

I had some fun this afternoon with Modge Podge and paper and a jar that was destined for the recycling bin!  Here's what I started out with:

And here's  what I ended up with:

I found I had a lot of these jars and I decided this would be a pretty way to store my paper flowers.  Here's a view that shows you the flowers inside:

A tutorial for covering the lid can be found here.  The beautiful seed package label is from Lisa Valentine at Swirlydoos.  Just look under "Swirl-a-Palooza Crop 2/18/12", she has several different ones available to copy and print.  I have several more jars and intend on using each of the labels to decorate them.

Look at me ... I'm getting my scraproom organized one jar at a time!  LOL.  I hope you enjoy this simple, but lovely, project!