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! 

Weekend layouts

I did a few layouts on Saturday afternoon. The one above I used watercolors to paint the chipboard. Paper is Crate Paper.

This layout is K&Company. I diecut the big heart then pleated paper to go around the heart and stitched it onto the layout. The hearts at the edge of the photo are paper flowers which are cut into hearts using two petals.

And this one. . . I used old Sassafras Lass and Prima. Didn't pay attention to colors of the flowers since there is always a bunch of things going on with their papers. Looks way harder than it was. I was tempted to burn the paper vs. curling but with my luck I would have been homeless today. Yeah heat and I don't mesh.

SEI Jolie Chocolat layout

Here's a layout I did for the February layout challenge at the SEI Lifestyle blog. I used their Jolie Chocolat line of products. The base was done on DCWV's metallic cardstock which was distressed with Heidi Swapp's distresser and distress Inks. Then I cut the large butterflies on the Pazzles and shot them with two colors of Glimmer Mist. From there I layered SEI's coaster tags, stickers, and rub-ons. The layout was then finished off with Prima flowers and the pearl accents. . . oh plus the SEI ribbon. BTW if you can't tell Riley is doing a saute and flying like the graceful little butterfly she is. 

Christmas is sneaking up on me!

This year has been trying. . . .so many bad things have happened and I'm just trying to understand everything. After every occurrence I've neglected the crafting. Christmas is really sneaking up on me. I guess the best part of the year is that it has moved quickly. Have you ever noticed how life now moves much faster than when you were in high school? Gees those 10 months of school lasted forever and as soon as you knew it, there were another long torturous 10 months.

Anyhow, I managed to get myself into gear and start producing. Recently I took my mom up an "outlet" warehouse that sells old Red Envelope products. This year they've had more of the rejects. There were a lot of the silver plated items with the wrong engraving and I took advantage of that. How else is a girl going to get products that have sold for $90 for $1-$3? What they don't know is I'm here altering everything. Here's the first in what I purchased. It's a silver plated ornament. The only thing "wrong" with these is that there was no engraving on the ones I picked out. I took some Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses and covered the box. I have a dozen and yes have only completed one so far. The ornament measures about 4" wide. Michael helped me take off the silver string and his way of helping was to cut them vs. taking the knots out. So I'll have to seek another alternative for the other 10 he helped with.

The flower on the front is Prima of course. I know you already know me so well. What I did here was made it into a hair clip. This clips onto the bow as another part of the present. Well hope you enjoy taking a peek. . . it makes me forget about how life currently is.

Halloween keeping me busy!

So it was brought to my attention this week by Bonnie that I've been MIA for too long. Sorry. . . I've been caught up in phone interviews, scrapper's block, working on a fabric Christmas album, and making Halloween candy bouquets for Riley's teachers. I did manage to spin this baby out real quick. I haven't finished it because Halloween hasn't happened yet to give me good photos. I had gotten this heat sealed corrugated cardboard from a book order. It just screamed the look of spider webs to me when I peeled it open. It was going to be 2 layouts but I was stumped. I had a messed up canvas panel so I got to painting over it and made a mini album. I'll show you the individual photos once completely done. It's a combination of last year's Prima Little Boo and this year's BoBunny line. Oh since I took the photo, I added more ribbon to the rings. I tried to use random scraps I have around because I am horrible at using things up (then they get ruined in the drawers and I throw them away).

Painted the panel with Golden acrylic paint. Sanded the edges to distress. The cardboard edges were cut with the large deco scissors from Dollar Tree. Oh the stamp is Pink Paislee.

Saturday morning layout

Riley stayed over with her paw paw last night so I got up and started scrapping. Here's another fabric layout. I cut the bracket shape with the Pazzles (I just love this bracket and I know you see it all the time from me) on My Mind's Eye cardstock and the fabric. Then I layered striped fabric behind the photo as well as Prima packaging. Put on some leaf ribbon I got the other day at the sewing show and made the fabric flower. Used K&Company fabric brads my step sister Susan gave to me. Then added some accent Prima flowers + bling. Oh and can't forget the Prima canvas tag. It was amazingly quick. Oh and I added some Glimmer Mist to the fabric flower to make the flower stand out from the background.

Even with the flu. . .

I scrap. I have these crazy moments when I buy papers that aren't quite me. I'm not into vintage but I couldn't help buying two sheets of Webster Pages. I guess they appeal because they are different. So I thought about what papers could go with one of them. . . none in my collection. I'm not good at mixing and matching paper lines. I've been meaning to try something out for a long time but never got around to it. I created a custom mask on my Pazzles and it worked beautifully. Placing it on the paper took a few minutes because it was a cut that wanted to tangle. Spritzed it with two colors of Glimmer Mist to give it a bit of interest. I commited myself to using my stash so I grabbed an old Fancy Pants Crush paper for background paper. Punched the stitch holes with the Pazzles and it didn't put it in the place I wanted so I just tore around the stitches. Used Prima flowers and felt. Went into my sticker drawer and out came an old Quick Quotes vellum piece. Felt like it was lacking interest, so I stamped a Glitz Girls distress stamp. As always, the layout didn't turn out as I had planned but I like it.

Cupcake shaped layout

Here's my day 2 shaped layout. It's a cupcake. . . we love cupcakes around here! I created the Pazzles file off of the Maya Road chipboard mini album. So if you are interested in a JPG template or the WPC file, let me know. . . . SEI papers, Pixstix (embossed puffy paints), Colorbok, Oriental Trading.

I also wanted to show you the hanging canvas panels I made for Riley's preschool teachers. I'm starting to think I have a style with these photo extraction type of layouts. Paper layouts the sun goes on the left. The digital layouts I put the sun on the right. Kind of weird. . . I used Prima (of course) paper and flowers, Hampton Arts stamps, school house from ScrapbookGraphics.com, Fancy Pants trim, Glimmer Mist, May Arts ribbons. Panels from Dick Blick. Using my stash baby!

The green layout is Rusty Pickle with Prisma Color markers. And the other one is Prima Marketing papers and flowers, Rusty Pickle chipboard, Fancy Pants stamps, Autumn Leaves stamps.

Painted paper layouts

These are the painted paper layouts (and one orange canvas with Hambly transparency) I did for the Donna Downey canvas album. They were all simple to go with what we had done in class. Honestly it was difficult to come up with something different, yet simple to keep with the theme. And the handout wasn't too much help because we did variations of the pages because she got confused with her two sample books. Once I got the pages into the protectors, they seemed flat compared to the canvas pages. And the protectors are a bit short of 8" so the pages slip around. So I took additional embellishments and glued them onto the page protectors. But that was all an after thought once the photos were shot.

Weekend with Donna Downey!

I spent this weekend taking two of Donna Downey's classes at Scrapbook Island. The project that is pictured is the canvas Prima album. It's not even half done. . . can you believe that? It's 20 pages and you'll only see about 8. I have yet to do the paper pages but will post them as soon as they are completed. I also took the watercolor class but that still in the works. Can't wait to try this on my regular canvases. I'm even thinking of hitting up Adam at Prima and placing an order. They have some new flowers in that I can make hairclips with.

Jenni Bowlin layout

I don't usually buy vintage style papers but the new Jenni Bowlin papers were calling me last week. Part of it was with the intentions of using scallop circles punched out of leftovers from the altered book to create flowers. I sprayed a few with glimmer mist last night and decided it didn't look as good as my first one I had made. So I decided to move on with the layout. I used one of Riley's Chinese New Year photos. I did the layout while watching Dancing with the Stars. I don't tend to watch but there was nothing on and rare. . .Riley was asleep. She woke up right after and that meant Sprout TV and Mickey Mouse for me. Used Prima flowers, felt and brads (from Peaches just because it was sitting next to me in the bedroom). Also a few Basic Grey rubons.

Dying to scrap all day. . . .

I'm telling you I'm going through serious withdrawls. I've been dying to scrap all day long. Then of course I get the time and don't feel like it because I'm too tired because Riley has had nightmares the past two nights; keeping me up. I'll tell you a funny story. . . but don't laugh. So I went to have my eyebrows done this morning. I get off the train and go to the appt. Well check my messages and the new boss text me last night at 8:30pm telling me not to come into work until noon. Well I'm already in the city at 9. What to do? I stayed at the spa and slept in the relaxation room for an hour and a half. Telling you Iwas tired. Oh and of course I had my free (well technically not because I paid for my service) breakfast, tea and snacks too. Felt great until about 3. But anyhow. . . .I went shopping at Britex and bought grab bag ribbon and leather remnants. Oh the leather. . . .printed. . . time to make mini albums.

So here's my layout for Feb. 25. Gees the class is almost over. What. . . 3 days left. Tomorrow is a 30 minute layout. Wonder if it'll be faster to do digital. We'll see. So back to the layout. With the news of CK Media going down the tubes. . . today's challenge was to use scraps. Again. . . that's back to my resolution. Funny thing is that this layout was expensive. Here's the rundown:

Pink Paislee mini album kit (that was way over priced --maybe I shouldn't order online like that)
Cardboard from a 52" LCD TV (we did get a good price and even got $30 from Circuit City through ebates when we bought it from Best Buy. Haha if CC wouldn't have screwed up the order. . . )
Ballet costume (that was over priced too)
Lace and elastic given to me. . .yes that was free.
Fancy Pants rubons
BoBunny rubons
Bling. . . oh a few cents
Prima Flowers. . . never cheap
Glimmer Mist
Acrylic paint (Riley did it BTW)

All in all. . . probably about $1900. Hahaha. . . guess it's like Visa. . . Riley's happiness. . . PRICELESS. (Trying to convince myself.)

Rainy morning layouts

I wanted to do some quick layouts before I pick Riley up from school. The Halloween photo is from 2007 and the other is her first day (second year) of preschool (she has an apple shirt on which goes with the theme). I used Prima Marketing Little Boo papers and DCWV. Used Pazzles to cut and pen outline letters and apple core and random SEI and Oriental Trading brads. Be back in a bit hopefully to show you the Valentine's clear album.