Spring Bird Cage

It's been warming up around here and I'm seeing so many things pop up that are signs Spring is in full bloom. I can say my eyes have been itchy for over a month so I know they are. But one of the truest signs is that we have had a hummingbird nesting right by our porch for at least a month now. We had another bird how seems to love the porch but it's not so exciting. What you are seeing in the photo are the two hatched babies. So this leads me to my project today.

In February, my step sister gave me three fabulous bird cages. Now I wouldn't say they necessarily are my "style" but I make things my style (if I even have one). 

Inside where all those colorful eggs are is a candle votive holder. One day Riley and I were picking up her friend for a playdate and we found a warehouse sale. I bought a punch of these for $0.50 each in different colors. So I first laid down leaves from flowers I got at Dollar Tree. Next I put the votive holder in the cage. It would have helped a lot if I knew the top opened too! I put another layer of leaves together while stacking them with 3D glue dots. You can actually see under the branch that the bird is standing on a dot.

Again, some of the newest flowers at Dollar Tree with Prima flower centers and Melissa Frances pearls.

Finally the most time consuming part of this. I diecut two chipboard pieces. Then I used two font sets and one corner stamp from Melody Ross' Chip Art Tools. Actually I painted the chipboard red first. Then I stamped my metal stamp into archival ink. I hammered in the design to deboss and stamp. I added an additional 7 Gypsies color wash. I have no clue where it came from. Probably from my step sister Susan! I glued the two pieces of chipboard together while sandwiching a layer of gathered lace in between. To hand the piece I also added clear nylon fishing wire. The bead caps were colored with Chili Pepper alcohol ink by Ranger and pearls added to the top.

All this was inspired by a cute mama hummingbird who almost poked my eyes out while I was shooting photos of it's babies. Boy do those hummingbirds fly in fast. It's a good thing they are loud and I could hear her coming! 

Peeled Paint and Alcohol Inks

If you know me, you know I kind of like to have inky fingers and hands. So today I pulled out The Sampler kit and played around with a peeled paint technique. I took Annonce paper by 7gypsies and applied a thin, streaky layer of Mod Podge and dried it with a heat gun. Then I took Vaseline and randomly placed it onto the paper; it will serve as a resist without leaving oily spots. After I grabbed a stiff bristle brush and painted pink acrylic paint on top in a thin coat. Let dry. Here's my favorite part. Have paper towels on hand and wipe away the surface of your paper. I like to press pretty hard to remove a bit of the print. I repeated everything again with green acrylic paint. Depending on how much paint and Vaseline you use, you can get a pretty good peeled look but I opted for a subtle coloring. You may think I could have just inked the surface but if you could see it up close, you would see that the paint is streaky which you wouldn't get with ink. I like to use this technique on papers that aren't quite the color I wanted for a layout or are sometimes too busy of a print so the paint (heavier layer and I tend to use it as a white wash) will tone it down a lot.

Another technique I used was the coloring of the 7gypsies Words paper clips with alcohol inks. To match that under the brown lacey trim, there's a layer of glitter.  Riley did a video tutorial on how to color glitter last year when we made fairy wings as favors for her birthday party.



Since I used all of the beautiful buttons in the kit on the shadow box yesterday, I used a button from my stash and colored that with the ink as well. Plus if you only have clear/white bling, you can color those too with a cotton swab to match elements in any project.

The heart shaped doily was from my stash but I backed it with a heart shape I cut from the 7gypsies Words paper clips packaging so that the title would not get lost in the background print.

I really love the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Firefly Festival fabric paper. I used it as the center of the flower. There is an adhesive backing on the paper but when I tore (about an inch strip) the adhesive was left behind. I simply twisted the fabric and spun it around in a spiral. Here you can also see that the button and the glitter match.

And before I forget. . . I did use the Core' Dinations Night Fall cursive cardstock.I first had the cardstock as the mat but thought it really stood out too much and didn't quite mesh. I had Riley sand the cardstock with a sanding block in a vertical direction. Then I took a green distress ink pad and wiped it across the letters. From there it didn't quite have the look I wanted so Riley sanded horizontally to give the cardstock more texture and to have the letters have more of a dimensional look.

To go along with all of the sanding and streaking, we sanded the photo across everything but the face and the hand with the pepper. Riley really wasn't too happy about that but she says she likes the layout now.

Scrapbooking Supplies R Us

Hi everyone! I survived the long drive across Nevada to Utah and made it through two days of the Making Memories warehouse sale.  I came back to a great honor. Holly, the Design Team leader with Scrapbooking Supplies R Us, had chosen me to be the guest designer for the month of May. I picked up The Sampler May kit yesterday afternoon and am excited to share with you the first project I made with the kit.

When I saw the gorgeous TPC Studio Boho Blooms Floral Border paper and sticker sheet, I knew it screamed canvas shadow box. I thought about it as I feel asleep last night. The paper paired with the wonderful Orchestra paper from 7gypies was screaming to be used. The inside of the box is where I used the Coredinations cardstock. I sanded it to bring down the yellow tone a bit and then spritzed it with Pineapple Glimmer Mist.  Oh and I adored the trim included in the kit where I used a bit on the outside scalloped frame.
I added the Prima flowers (which were spritzed with Pearl Glimmer Mist) and placed the vintage buttons from the kit as the center. I almost wanted to hoard versus use the buttons!

It really is difficult to do a shadow box justice in a photograph. So if you have some time next week, (assuming you live in the area), please do stop by the Memories Live On store in Cupertino to have a peek at my work in person and shop all the wonderful goodies that are constantly coming into the store.

Disney altered book

I did a Disneyland book this afternoon for my mom's friend who lives in SoCal. We met her (and her daughter and grandson) on the last day at the park. I used Sandy Lion and Pinecone Press paper. Chipboard is also Sandy Lion. There's Stickles, Maya Road Ribbon, K & Company glitter chipboard, 7Gypsies knob, The Cat's Pajamas dew drops, Heidi Swapp stamps, Momento inks, and Lil' Davis chipboard. I used star Christmas tree trim I picked up years ago at Big Lots as well.

I didn't want to fill up the book with photos but put a few inside. Because I won't be completing the book, I didn't want to print up or adhere the photos to a mini album (contained inside the drawer) because you never know how much paper would be needed.

One thing I've learned is that I really need to practice making things for boys or not to want to use flowers. I didn't want to use bling or glitter but I couldn't resist the glitter. Michael says boys don't want to look at this type of stuff but Tony has a sister too. They can share.