Valentine's Day Card

I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day! Unfortunately I've been fighting a very bad fever and cold since last Sunday. At least I was able to enjoy my birthday. I did manage to make this card for my very sweet husband. I stamped and cut out all the hearts using decorative scissors. This is also my entry for the February Card Challenge at Funtoolas. Come check it out!http://funtoolas.ning.com/forum/topics/february-card-challenge

C.S.I. Case File #5

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend! I celebrated a fabulous birthday yesterday! Here's a page I did for C.S.I. Case File #5. I struggled with this all week,  just letting it sit on my scrap table. Finally it all came together over the weekend. I started by painting the floral mask onto muslin fabric.

Here's the Case File.

For my evidence I used frames, cutting tools, (border punch, floral punch, and Cricut,) leaves, and corners. I made the frame around the whole page out of yarn, leaves, and flowers, which I made. I used my Mini Wildflowers Tutorial to make the centers http://dreasscrapsofinspiration.blogspot.com/2011/07/mini-wildflowers.html. The outside layers are flower #3 cut from the Mother's Day Bouquet Cartridge for the Cricut. I journaled around the frame which I have hidden behind the top photo. I also used the IW hidden.

TFL!

Enchanted Love Blooms Tutorial

Hello! I've been on a roll lately making flowers, so I have another flower tutorial for you. I scrapped this photo of me and my hubby from our last wedding anniversary. I really wanted to incorporate the colors and gems for our 10 year anniversary. The colors were silver and blue, and since the gems were diamonds and sapphires, I choose to use a sapphire blue to accent these beautiful Bo Bunny papers from their Enchanted collection. All of the blue you see except for the bling and sparkly paper behind the photo is paint. I started by painting around the edges of the whole page, and used the same technique to paint my flowers.

Here's some close-ups of the flowers.

To make these you'll need some black and white cardstock, black ink, silver embossing powder, paint, a script stamp, a flourish or swirl stamp, and the Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge for your Cricut.For the purposes of this tutorial I'll be showing you how to make the largest black and silver flower. To make the white ones, you'll follow the same steps, but just omit the embossing and use black ink. So they're actually easier. I cut out 2 flowers #25 at 4" and 4 flowers #14 at 3/4", 1", 1 1/4", and 1 1/2" out of black cardstock.

Take the largest 2 flowers and stamp and emboss with silver, using any kind of flourish or swirl stamp. I used Basic Grey's Flourish Edges on mine.

Then do the same with the smaller flowers using a script stamp. If you don't have one, just use the same flourish or swirl stamps. 

Then paint around all the edges of your flower using a contrasting color of paint.

Take the larger flowers and curl the petals up, giving a slight pinch at the ends. 

Curl up all your petals on the smaller flowers too. 

Now just glue all your layers together starting from largest to smallest. I added a rhinestone in the center. I love how elegant these flowers look! Thanks for stopping by!

Water Flower Tutorial

I played with the new C.S.I. Case File #4 over the weekend! I was really inspired and excited to use these colors!I  The evidence I used was frames, which I made for all my journaling strips. I stamped them and backed them with my words printed from Photoshop onto vellum. I also stamped the border around the whole page using Martha Stewart's stamp around the page stamps. I used gesso around the lighter teal paper for my wet medium. For something shiny or reflective, I made these cool flowers! For my testimony I journaled in frames and used the inspiration words, wonder, although I added ful for wonderful, and change, which I made into changing. Here's what I came up with.

Here's the Case File.

The flowers were inspired by this video I saw here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLWfHLZZB_Q&feature=related
I'll show you how I made mine since I did them a little differently. Here's what you'll need.

Supplies:
1.Heat gun
2.Transparency paper or any kind of clear plastic.
3.Stream alcohol ink
4.Blending solution
5.Glossy Accents
6.Tweezers
7.Bead or rhinestone for the center

For the large flower I cut 3 sizes of  a flower in small, medium, and large onto the clear plastic. I made my own template for this based on Tim Holtz' Tattered floral die. Don't worry about it being perfect, since you'll be melting the edges anyway.

Then I used Stream alcohol ink with some blending solution to color the plastic.

This is the tricky part and you may have to try it a few times until you get your desired flower. Using the tweezers to hold part of the flower, I used my heat gun to melt the edges of the petals. Sometimes the petals don't all go in the same direction, so you have to be careful not to hold the heat gun too close. The smaller ones are especially hard to make, but definitely worth it in the end. It looks so much better in real life! It looks just like blown glass.

Then I glued the layers together using Glossy Accents and added a teal bead to the center.

Here's a close-up on my page.

Thanks for looking!

Raffia Flower Tutorial

     Hello! I created this page for a very good friend of mine. This is her oldest daughter dressed up for Halloween about 12 years ago. I've been wanting to scrap these adorable photos of her for awhile now. I also did this for the Denim Blues Challenge at Funtoolas,
http://funtoolas.ning.com/forum/topics/january-denim-blues-challenge and for the January Distressed in the New Year Challenge at Scrabook.com,
http://www.scrapbook.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/1568397/tp/1/ with the twist to use denim. I cut up a pair of my son's shorts which he's outgrown, and used them to create this page. I also have another tutorial for you, with these fun raffia flowers.

Here's a close-up.

To start with, cut a piece of sturdy cardstock at 4" wide for the larger flower, and/or 3" wide for the smaller flower. Wrap your raffia around the cardstock.

Then slide it off the cardstock holding and pinching the raffia in the center with your fingers and thumb.

Use a smaller piece of raffia to tie it all together making a double knot to secure it.

Then start spreading apart the raffia as much as you can.

To fill in the gaps on the 2 sides, I just glued some pieces of raffia together to give the illusion of a full flower. 

After trimming up the stray pieces I just added this silk flower.

You can add whatever flower you'd like, or add a button like I did with the smaller one. 

Vellum Flower Tutorial

Sorry I haven't posted anything all week. I hurt my back last week doing pilates, and really had to struggle to get this page done. It wasn't just the pain that I was struggling with either. I had a hard time with the color palette for C.S.I. color, stories, and inspiration Case File #2.  I originally started with grey cardstock and painted my bricks on that. It wasn't doing anything for my photo until I changed the cardstock to purple. Then it finally all came together. This was also based off of last weeks Mojo Monday sketch at Flying Unicorn. Here's what I did.

The evidence I used was flowers, which I made myself except for the large cranberry ones. For an architectural element I used bricks which I painted using a Prima stencil and a stippling brush using 3 different colors. The swirls were cut using my Cricut, Serenade and Home Decor cartridges. For a sheer element I made vellum flowers which are so easy to make. I inked the blue paper on the bottom to look like water.  For my testimony I chose to document an adventure.

To make the flowers I used my Cricut Mother's Day Bouquet cartridge and cut 3 lavender flowers #35 at 3/4", 1", and 1 1/4". I cut a cranberry flower #35 at 2".

Take the lavender flowers and curl the petals upwards. 

Take the large cranberry flower and glue it to vellum. I used a lavender vellum.

Then I just cut around the petals.

After curling the petals up I just layered and glued my flowers together starting with the largest on the bottom.

Then I added a rhinestone brad, but you could use a button,bead, pearl, or whatever else you'd like.

Try using different colors to match your LO or project. They're super easy and fast to make! Thanks for stopping by!

C.S.I. Case File #1

    I hope you're all enjoying your weekend! I was SO excited to find this new site called C.S.I: Color, Stories, Inspiration. http://csicolorstoriesinspiration.ning.com/
I'm even more excited that I was able to complete the very first case file. It goes beyond just a color palette. Besides the 5 color palette, you have an evidence list, which is just different elements you can pick to use on your page, and a testimony list, which gives you different journaling ideas. I LOVE mysteries, so this was right up my alley. Here's what I did.

This was the Case File.

From the evidence list I used the bow, in my lacing, distressing, of course, a teacup, which I found somewhere on-line, and my lacy element is my doily, which I inked. I also used stamping for the frame around my photo.I used clear embossing powder so, it's kinda hard to tell. I also stamped 2 of my tags with a Prima script stamp. The leaves around the frame were also stamped and cut out.
From the testimony list I decided to use journaling on one of my tags. I took a close-up of it, if you want to read it.The chipboard scroll on the top photo is from Imaginarium designs, which I painted. I made the flowers myself using this awesome tutorial.
http://tina-mypaperpantry.blogspot.com/2010/05/distressed-rose-tutorial.html
Here are some close-up pics.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Mask"querade Challenge

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I made this LO for the January "Mask"querade Challenge at Flying Unicorn. Here's the link. http://flying-unicorn.socialgo.com/forum/topic/722
Obviously the challenge was to use masks, and I've been dying to use the new masks I got for Christmas. I used some glimmer mists (lilac and honeydew) to mask the flowers on the bottom right. Then I used 4 different colors to sew my borders.I used a french knot for my flower centers.

Here's some close-ups.

I LOVE masking, and I have more masks I need to break in, so I'm sure you'll see some more masking from me before the end of the month.Thanks for stopping by!

m&m's world

I just LOVE these photos that my little sister took for me while she was visiting New York! She knows I have a soft spot for m&m's characters, especially the yellow peanut one. I made this for the January color challenge at Scrapbook.com to use all the colors of the rainbow. I love working with color and had a blast making all these m's. I used a circle punch to cut them all out, and then used an m stamp to stamp over them in white ink. I stitched around the circle using my twisted stitch again. This time I used black embroidery floss, and then rotated the colors all around. The m characters were very old stickers I had. I almost forgot all about them.I used my Cricut (plantin schoolbook) to cut the cityscape and title. TFL!

Here's a link to the color challenge if you want to play.
http://www.scrapbook.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/1568603/
Here's a link to the sewing challenge I'm hosting this month that uses this stitch as the twist.
http://www.scrapbook.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/1568551/

Candy Cane Stitch

Hello! Ever since I demonstrated my twisted stitch, I've been meaning to do it in red and white, which looks just like a candy cane. So I found the perfect opportunity on this Christmas 2 pager. I used Bobunny's Tis the season line. It's an older line, but worked perfectly with my pics. I stitched around all the photos in the center using red embroidery floss. Then I wove in my white making it twist like a candy cane. Here's a link to my older post on how to make this twisted stitch. http://dreasscrapsofinspiration.blogspot.com/2011/06/pages-in-time-interactive-blog-hop.html
Sorry, but my links haven't been working lately on blogger. Not sure why. But there's a list on the right with all my tutorials. Just scroll down until you find the twisted stitching link and it will take you right there.

Here's a close-up of the stitching.