St. Maarten and Amy Tangerine

Ahhhhhh, a day off from both jobs!!!   Still in my pj's, drinking a cup of coffee, and getting lost in Pinterest-land!     Then it hit me...HELLO!...you have a blog...you haven't posted in a long time!!  Get to it!

So, here I am.  Sharing a project I made for display at The Scrapbooking Studio in Bloomington, IL. 

My beautiful niece (and god-daughter) Jen and I took a trip to St. Maarten this summer to celebrate her high school graduation.  We had such a great time.   It was relaxing, yet adventurous.  And fun!  So, I decided to work with the Amy Tangerine line from American Crafts to highlight some of the pictures.  The bright colors are perfect for this tropical theme.

The first picture here is the left side of the layout:

And here is the right side:

All the papers are from the Amy Tangerine line as is the adorable little felt camera embellishment.

The flowers are made from Zipper Trim from Maya Road.  I'm now addicted to making flowers out of this stuff!

Here's a close up of one of the zipper flowers:

I added a rhinestone button I had laying around.  I think its from Bazzill.  Here's a tutorial from Caroline at Maya Road on how to make the zipper flowers.  Once you get the hang of it, they're super easy to make!

And of course, you can get all your supplies at The Scrapbooking Studio!

Merry Christmas to all!

Linda

Snowy Landscape - Memory Box

Do you have last minute Christmas cards to make??  Well, this card is it.  The Country Landscape die from Memory Box is just wonderful.    It's the perfect thing to make a quick but beautiful holiday card. This is one of the most popular card designs at The Scrapbooking Studio in Bloomington, IL. It's really pretty, but so easy and fast to put together.

For this card, I simply die cut the Country Landscape from white shimmer paper and then die cut a 2nd one from scraps of paper from the Yuletide and Tinsel 6X6 paper packs.   I paper pieced the corresponding trees and houses from the scrap pieces and attached them to the shimmer white piece.  This was attached to a piece of the light blue snowflake paper from the Yuletide pack and added to the front of the card.

I added the Star of Wonder at the top, stamped All is Calm in the lower right corner...added a touch of Stickles...and we're ready to go!

Enjoy your day!

Linda

Christmas Wall Hanging

In today's post, I'm featuring another project I created for display at The Scrapbooking Studio in Bloomington, IL. 

I love looking through my mom's old picture album when she and my dad first started their family.  The photos I used here are of my brothers at Christmas time 1961.  My parents never did have a lot of money, but they made up for it in love and filled our home with happiness.

I'm featuring papers from Echo Park Season's Greetings Collection.  But you'll see pieces and parts from many of my favorite designers and companies including Maya Road, Ranger, Tim Holtz, and Kaiser Craft.

Here's the entire wall hanging.  The frame is just a cheap bare wood frame that I bought a few years ago. I think I got it at one of the big chain hobby stores.   I painted it with black acrylic paint.  I cut Echo Park Ornaments paper the size of each frame and then distressed each piece with a paper distressing tool and distressed with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink.  I glued each piece to one of the frames and then used an Exacto knife to cut out the center.  Finally, I took sand paper and gave all the edges a worn look and distressed again with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink. 
For the words on each frame, I actually cut the phrase from a piece of Seasons Greetings Borders paper.   Here are the details of each frame.

I used Tim Holtz Idea-ology Metal Corners.  The green strip at the bottom is cut from the Echo Park Season's Greetings Borders paper.  I added Glossy Accents over the green and Christmas Red Stickles over the red dots.  No project is complete without Stickles! :)  The flower I made from Maya Road Satin Pleat Edging in Golden Yellow.  It's super easy to make.  Just follow the instructions in this video.  The center of the flower is a clear Raspberry Bead from Maya Road that I colored with Alcohol Inks....or you could use Copic Refill.

Here's the second frame:

The background paper is cut from a sheet of Echo Park Season's Greetings Christmas Ads paper.  I just distressed it slightly with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I cut one of the cards from the Journaling Cards paper and adhered it to a piece cut from the reverse side of the Christmas Ads paper.   The list of toys are actually toys from the 1961 era.  In fact, I'm pretty sure my oldest brother received the Handy Andy Tool Set which contained REAL miniature sized tools for kids.  There's a large chunk out of a concrete pole in my parent's basement as proof they really worked!

The vintage wood snowflakes are from Maya Road and I just distressed them with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink and added a red rhinestone to the center.  The tree, I die cut out of Grunge Paper using Sizzix Tim Holtz Snow Tree die.  I cut a second tree out of the reverse side of the Echo Park Poinsettias paper and distressed it with Antique Linen Distress Ink and adhered it to the Grunge Paper tree.  I just added a bit of Star Dust Stickles to the swirls on the tree.

Finally, the third frame...

Again, I added the metal corners from Tim Holtz.  The wood curl is from Kaisercraft.  I just colored it black with a Sharpie and then covered with Diamond Stickles.  The stickles are clear until you use them on a dark background.  I didn't even realize they would come out this yellowish green!  The metal charm is from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Christmas Adornment pack.  I colored the holly and ribbon with Copic markers.

Sorry for such a long explanation!  The best part is that all of the supplies to make this project are available at The Scrapbooking Studio in Bloomington or Moline, IL!

Talk to you soon!

Linda