Pointy Hat, Butterfly Wings and a Black Dress

So if witches a wear pointy hat and a black dress all year round, how do they dress up for Halloween?

Butterfly Wings, Beads and Glitter!

This gal has it all going on...from the tilt of her hat, to the Stickle embellished butterfly wings, she is ready to party all night!

Two Black Bats

 This image of a 1800s era girl in a Halloween bat costume and the flourish and swill background (embellished with a glitter pen) both came from Graphic Fairy. The edges of the tag were embellished with Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany Distressed ink. 

I finished the tag off with a couple of die cut black glitter paper bats...after all, if you are Bat Girl you can never have too many bats!

Twelve days to Halloween and nothing to wear for a costume.

I love the look of vintage Halloween...I'm talking way old, like 1920s-1930s. That was the era that Halloween parties and dressing up was for the adults. They would have big extravagant parties that would last way in to the early morning. The costumes at that time were very creative.

With that in mind, I created a tag with a vintage 1920s look.

 I'm not sure where I found this image of a woman draped in a textured shawl, from that era. I dressed her up in a pair of black and orange butterfly wings that came from Graphic Fairy (thanks GF love the wings!) and embellished with Black Stickles and a glitter pen.

The background of the tag was stamped then layered with a black doily and a “Petrified Butterflies” label.

All about Alice

As you might know,  Alice's life changed forever when she tumble down the rabbit hole and arrived in a fantasy world called WONDERLAND.

Of course an adventure such as that has inspired the creating of

“ALICE TAGS” 

Alice's long fall down the hole ends at a hall of doors in various sizes...

all locked. She finds a key to a door too small for her to fit through.

Of course our heroine finds a bottle that is labeled “DRINK ME”, and contains a magical potion to make Alice small enough to fit through the little door.

There is a curious tea party hosted by a Mad Hatter and his friend the March Hare

 (and a sleepy door mouse)

They are all waiting for Alice to join them...she's late!

The white rabbit is the court's trumpeter for the King and Queen of Hearts.

The big question is...who stole the Queen's tarts, that she made all in a summer day?

Is that cat sitting on the book Alice's cat Dinah...or the Cheshire Cat?

Hum...curious and curiouser

Long Division, Telling Time and a Calico Cat

This distressed Graphic 45 ABC  Primer patterned paper  brings back the basics  taught in school in the "good old days"...Reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmeti.

This little boy may know his numbers... 1 through 10,  but could long division be far behind? 

The half page is covered with red gingham, and embellished with a vintage looking chip board piece, that warns the next lesson is "telling time".

I love the calico cat sitting next to the student on the red stool

The back of the book is embellished with two alphabet  pages...maybe from an old "ABC book"

The only things missing  from this mini album are some grade school photos

Have a Star-Spangled Day

Happy Birthday U.S.A!

Shamrocks, Glitter and Faeries

Here we are  already into March...have you gotten use to writing 2012 yet?

It is rapidly approaching "WEARING O' THE GREEN" day...yes you may decorate your house with shamrocks, Irish lace and leprechauns and pour green food coloring into all your baking.   

In honor of St. Patrick's Day  I have created three new tags:

Talk about "bling"... this GLITTER LACE tag is  covered entirely  with extra fine glitter using a resist technique. Embellished with a large glitter covered shamrock, green Stickles and green rhinestones.

 The background of this tag is patterned paper that has the appearance of Celtic Knots.The vintage image of this little Irish Lass is embellished with flowers, distress ink and green Stickles to give her a bit of sparkle.

Ireland folklore is full of faeries of all kinds. The faerie on this tag has butterfly wings, embellished with black, crystal and blue Stickles,  green rhinestones, gold braid and flowers.

You want to come play "tags" with me? I will be teaching these St. Patrick's Day tags this week at Scrapbook Barn. Friday March 9th  10:30am to 12:00 noon and  5:00pm to 6:30pm. You can call the store and sign up for either class.

Birthday Tags

Instead of sending a card for a Birthday Greeting how about a Birthday TAG! Or if you choose to stick with tradition, you can tie a Birthday TAG onto the gift. Yes I've been playing with TAGS again...this time for Birthdays

I found the black and white photograph at an antique store of a 1950's Birthday party with kids holding balloons. With a bit of photo editing I added an "old photo" frame. The manila shipping tag was covered with colorful birthday balloon tissue paper...I embellished it with a big glitter balloon and a few gold stars.

 This "Birthday Fairy" image is one that Suzee Que shared on a Flickr group I belong to...thanks Suzee Que! The blue Fairy Wings are for sale at my Etsy store. 

 A designer from Switzerland (I think it was Switzerland...I can't remember how I found it!) had a tag on her blog using this great technique of applying  a bit of glue to one side of the tag and laying a page from an old book on top of the glue, when the glue dries you mist it with water and remove the old page. I embellished the tag with die cut flowers, a reduced image of a vintage birthday post cart and a lot of distress ink.

Bee's Backdoor

We have come to the last pages of the Bee Hive album... do I hear a sigh of relief out there? This book went together fast...I just took forever to blog.

I still think the honey combs are fun embellishments.

I am adding the back of the album to this post... I knew you couldn't wait for one more post.

I like to make the back of the album as fancy as the front of the album so I used a patterned paper with lots of embellishments. Maybe some where in all this faux stitching and lace is the bee's backdoor.

Ruffles, Doilies and Polka Dots

This Maya Road mini album had quite a few pages to cover. Luckily the Sassafras Lass patterned paper gave me plenty of options.

The "stripe" paper had all the elements found in the paper line, lace, stitching, embroidery, doilies and sewing patterned tissue paper.

This sewing patterned tissue paper ruffle was on the bottom strip of the paper...the bar code was on the reverse side. The "ruffle" made the perfect embellishment.

Patterned Paper, Bilng and Wild Honey...

This Sassafras Lass paper is too fun...with the fabric, stitching, buttons, lace and embroidery embellishments on the patterned paper...I didn't need to add much else to complete the pages of the Bee Hive album
These covered honey comb shapes were an easy addition to the page.

A bit of bling and "Wild Honey" distress ink to dress it all up.

Coming to the "Cool" part

The second pages are were the "cool" begins. This Sassafras Lass patterned paper comes with it's own embellishments.
The button, lace, stitching, ticket, embroidery and all the layered bits and pieces are the patterned paper.

I love adding embellishments to my projects...the only thing better than adding them is when the embellishments come already "built in" to the patterned paper!

The blue cross stitching on the honey comb is patterned paper too. The amber rhinestones...no, their not part of the paper.

Bees and Embroidery

We carry some wonderful Maya Road mini albums at Scrapbook Barn...made from wood, canvas chipboard in different shapes and sizes. I was given this Bee Hive album to design. The first page of the chipboard album has a arched opening and a "bee"...(if you squint you might be able to see them in the photo) the back of the book has a honey comb design.The challenge was to find a great paper worthy of such a fun album. Sassafras Lass has a patterned paper line called "Mix and Mend" that looks like embellished vintage embroidered tea towels, note paper, doily's , little blue hearts and yellow roses.

This is a GREAT paper...worthy of a FUN album!

Here comes the Bride

Have you been wondering what I created for my Mystic Paper Design Team project...?
All that luscious Cosmo Cricket "Everafter" patterned paper and stickers became a bride mini book...

Using a handmade book, I added the paper...

remember it's double sided so the possibilities are just about endless.

I used vintage bride and wedding party images...

and made about a half dozen different kinds of flowers to embellish the pages...
along with the stickers I added a tag, buttons, ribbon, lace, jewelry, rhinestones, Stickles glitter, beads, distress ink and a dove...

After all June is the traditional month for weddings!

Yasu is traveling, but have you taken a look at what Lindsey and Sheri created?

Play Day

Last Friday Becky from Whymsical Musings shared a collage sheet on her blog. She hoped we could find a bit of time to create and enjoy, while remembering those we love and those who serve our country. I printed off the collage sheet and on Monday I played all day.

Did I have a million other things to do ...yes.

But it was sooooo nice to just play. And isn't that what ATCs are all about?

Thanks Becky!

Aberdeen on Holiday

Remember back to the beginning of the

Summer Book post...I was whining about not taking a trip this summer. These are the pages that started the whole book. The first"NO" is pointing to an embellishment that says "journey". The second "NO" is to a washer that says "destination" and the third "NO" is to a strip of negatives (no pictures). The page on the right with the three butterflies was the first page. At the bottom of the page was another summer incident. We have some friends George and Linda that live in Shetland. Of course Shetland is famous for their wool sweaters and they raise sheep for the wool. While Linda was growing up her family raised sheep. Linda and her sister got to have a lamb to raise. As the lamb got older and became a sheep it was destined for other things besides being a pet. The sheep that weren't raised for their wool were sent off to Aberdeen (to become some body's dinner). Linda and her sister would come home from school, unable to find their pet sheep were told by their mother " They have gone off to Aberdeen on holiday". So when I called my children to tell them the news of the cat, I told them Dingbat had gone off to Aberdeen on holiday.