Easter, Chicks and Grandpa

I have a wonderful childhood memory of a Easter at my grandparents house. We had a big family dinner and a egg hunt with my cousins.

 

  The big excitement was Grandpa brought home chicks and bunnies from the Feed Store.

All of us grand kids held, cuddled and loved on those cute little babies.

The world was different back then...simpler, or maybe that's the way I remember it. Now a days you just don't bring home chicks and bunnies to entertain the grand kids.

Still...it's a nice memory, of Easter, Family and Grandpa.

Happy Easter

Arizona Flower Fairies

It is that time of the year here in Arizona, when we hit in the neighborhood of 115 degrees or higher during the day. Which creates a real hardship on our “Flower Fairies”. 

In Arizona we can pretty much garden year round...except July, August, and most of September, then it gets a bit rough for any thing to grow, except weeds. During the rest of the year our flower fairies reside in among the flower and vegetable gardens.

In the winter while the rest of the country is freezing cold and up to their knees in snow...Arizona has beautiful gardens and the flower fairies are doing their happy dance.

 

Are you wondering where the Arizona Flower Fairies go to in the Summer...
 they hide out at the mall or the movies where they can use someone else Air Conditioning to keep cool, just like everyone else!

Lily of the Valley, Mr. Selfridge and black dresses...

I worked on this card while "Mr. Selfridge" was airing on PBS. The program had more story lines then a Soap Opera. The first couple of weeks I was having a hard time of keeping track of who was who at Selfridge's store...every one dressed in black...very professional. 

 The logo for the perfume line that Mr Selfridge had created for the store...that "anyone could afford" was Lily of the Valley. Probable a very abundant flower in the English country side...

Those delicate little white fragrant bell shaped flowers have a marvelous vintage look.

I wonder if you can still find the Lily of the Valley cologne at Selfridges in London...or do they only carry the modern designer brands?

Redford, Gatsby and 3D...

I hear the new "Great Gatsby" movie is suppose to be good. A friend of mine (with fantastic taste and a wonderful imagination...so she would know) says the movie is good and worth going to see. Oh by the way, she saw it in 3D. It's not that I'm doubting her, I just can't see any actor but Robert Redford playing Jay Gatsby.  Now there's a classic!

I love that era...the 1920's with the Art Deco design...and the stunning fashions.  The clothing was dazzling...Rayon dresses up to a ladies knees...how shocking!

  Hair was cut short and with a Marcel wave...what would their grandmothers say?

 The time of  "Gatsby"...the Roaring Twenty's, was pretty hot stuff...plenty of inspiration for a movie.

Dancing through the Daises

This dainty little  girl is dancing through a back ground of pink daises,  blinged with Fruit Punch and Lime Green Stickles.

She is all dressed up in a blue frilly dress, that has been outlined with a glitter pen and Waterfall and Star Dust Stickles. She is carrying three gold hearts in her skirt. Handing from her hand are two red heart rhinestones.  The edges of the tag are inked with Spun Sugar Distress Ink

Upcycle, Re Purpose, and Valentines

As promised I have Valentines Day tags to share.
I love the charm of a 1900's Valentine postcard...hearts, flowers, cupids and ethereal photos of young ladies staring off in the distance. 

By cutting out the wonderful vintage image, layering it on a pink flower patterned paper... adding Fruit Punch and Star Dust Stickles, glitter pen, a bit of pink lace, Prima flower and a red heart rhinestone you get a "re purposed","upcycle" Valentine Tag.

If you listen very carefully you can hear what the young girl is saying...
"This is boring, why can't we go to the mall?"

Full Moon, Mermaid and Birthday Card

Everybody that still has their Christmas decorations up raise your hand...I finally got the last of  mine packed  and put away today. On to the next holiday...Valentines Day. I have been working on Valentines tags,  will share some of them with you when they are finished.

I do have a Birthday card to show off.

This Mermaid  is all blinged out in rhinestones and Stickles. I outlined her long flowing hair  and the scales on her tail  with a glitter pen and the steps she is sitting on are highlighted with a white Gelly Roll pen.

The foamy water lapping over her tail is created using clear micro beads, Star Dust Stickles and two sizes of rhinestones.

The Full Moon is smiling down on the Mermaid  as she sits on the steps that lead into the Sea. I used tiny rhinestones and Stickles to embellish the crown of flower she is wearing. The edges of the moon and the card distressed with Tim Holtz Crushed Olive ink pad. To finish the collage look of the card I used a K and Company Clearly Yours, Tim Coffey epoxy sticker.

Red Velveteen Dress

I remember as a kid , my sisters and I would get new  red velveteen dressed for Christmas

This image of a Victorian girl, wearing a red dress reminds me of those holiday dresses.
The tag is covered with a patterned paper of red sheet music and a patterned paper of red and green paisley. Edges of the tag are distressed with Tim Holtz's Antique Linen. The bouquet of holly that she is holding is accented with red and green Stickles

Santa's Elves, Snow Queen and Christmas tags

Like Santa's elves, I have been busy working at my design bench. I haven't been making toys, I  have been creating Christmas tags. My table was covered from one in to the other with vintage Christmas images, holiday patterned paper, embossing powder, Stickels, rhinestones, embellishments and a dozen different colors of Tim Holtz Distress Ink

The craft  tag for this lovely Snow Queen was covered with distress ink and then embossed with Stampendous Shabby Pink Embossing Powder, it gives the Flourish background stamp  great dimension. The Snow Queen image was cut from a Vintage postcard, embellished with Stickles and finished off with gold pleated ribbon and white lace.

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!

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.

Here comes another one!

Here we are two and a half weeks into the New Year and it's already time for another holiday... we have 27 days until VALENTINE'S DAY. True, it's not as big a deal as Christmas...but one that needs your attention anyway. Cards, candy, flowers, and decorations.

In honor of VALENTINE'S DAY I created three tags to teach at Scrapbook Barn. I have never gone for the traditional red and white color scheme...these tags are  a bit on the wild side.

I like the vintage look of the  Frances Brundage harlequin children images. The background of the tag is a collage created of different rubber stamps.

I have wanted to design a tag using a cup cake for a while now. Valentines Day was the perfect occasion. I asked my friend Wendy, and her husband Bill, owners of Leaky Shed Studios if they would create a chipboard die cut of a cup cake that could be covered with festive patterned paper  and embellishments. I used the Ranger Liquid Pearls in White Opal to frost the top of the cup cake and finished if off with a  large red heart rhinestone.

THANK YOU WENDY AND BILL!

The background of this Cupid tag was done using a Sizzix Embossing Folder and a mixture of 

Perfect Pearls and Distress ink re-inker...very shimmery. The Cupid was embellished with Stickles and hot pink rhinestones.

Let's face it...LIFE IS ONE DARN HOLIDAY AFTER ANOTHER!

Holiday Spirit

It's almost Halloween...ghost and goblins and things that go bump in the night, candy over load, trick or treaters and the really scary part there are 54 days between Halloween and Christmas...and they threw Thanksgiving in the middle! Yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year!

And speaking of Christmas...I designed this Christmas album using Kaiser Craft's Beyond the pages Georgina wooden album...

Great patterned paper and yards of festive ribbon...

Lace and distress ink...

Rhinestones...

and Stickles.

 Kinda gets you in to the holiday spirit doesn't it?

Yes this fun album is for sale at my Etsy store.

Baby Tags

I've been playing with TAGS again...this time it's all about the BABY.

 This cute baby boy image is from a vintage woman's magazine cover. Bits of lace, blue checked patterned paper, some Stickles (blinging up the bath water), distress ink and a blue butterfly charm

For a baby girl it's all about the PINK ... vintage baby girl card image, ribbon, Stickles, pink patterned paper, a doilie, distress ink and a pink ribbon flower.

I put the cap on the Stickles for this antique looking tag... vintage baby photo and buggy ad, ecru lace, distress ink, tissue tape, and 3 three old buttons from a button box.

In my spare time...

Last Christmas season I gave my darling daughter a banner I had made for a design team project...you remember the one. I designed it using the
Cavallini & Co. vintage postcard wrap.

She liked it so much she still has it up. In June I decided it was time to make her a new banner she could keep up all year. My plan was to do this in my spare time...which I don't have.

DD has black and white accents in her home, I started collecting black and white patterned paper, embellishments and a bit of bling.
Sweet Wendy over at Leaky Shed Studio had given me some of their chip board die cut banner letters to spell out: H O M E. The letters have holes at the top to run a ribbon through to created the banner. I covered the letters with the black and white patterned paper, leaving the holes covered. I placed them on chip board die cut pennant shapes that I had my DD cover in the back and white patterned paper ( The only was to get this done was to make it a team effort). I had great plans to layer each pennant and letter  with tons of embellishments... in my spare time.

In the end I kept the embellishments simple...doilies, silk flowers, ribbon, gems and Stickles. 

I don't plan on going in to the banner making business, but it was fun to  work on a different kind of project with and for my DD.

HOT PINK with ZEBRA STRIPES

Did you know that HOT PINK with a ZEBRA print is the "in" thing right now?

I had no clue!

I needed to make a card for my neighbor's daughter...I asked  her mom what kind of things she liked..."HOT PINK with ZEBRA print."  So I went off looking for something  HOT PINK with ZEBRA  print. The first few places I looked I had zero luck. Then I found the mother load. I found HOT PINK with ZEBRA, patterned paper, 1 1/2 inch ribbon and  some flower embellishments...so many choices! I decided using all three would be overkill. I selected one and headed off to play.

I printed off a cool vintage image, added some polka dot ribbon  (I didn't want to over do the HOT PINK with ZEBRA print), some fairy wings...If you are going to be using HOT PINK with ZEBRA stripes you have to do a over the top card...and that always calls for Fairy Wings!

I added a bit of Stickle and of course Hot Pink Zebra stripe flower embellishments...

With a large hot pink rhinestone in the center of the flower. (trust me, in real life the flower is HOT PINK)

I was having so much fun playing, I made a few extra. My Tucson Sister took one to give to her youngest daughter that just passed her cosmetology boards...Way to go Maddie!!!

Victorian Scraps, butterfly wings and Stickles...

I had planned to use flower Victorian Scrap (die cut) images in my tag class. I printed off a collage sheet of the flowers, cut them out with finger nail scissors to get in all the little nooks and crannies and tried to come up with a design idea. In the end I went a whole other way with the tags. Which left me the Victorian flower scraps to use in making cards. The Victorian Scarps are resting on this young girl wearing a bonnet, along with a punched tissue paper flower with a beaded center, purple Stickles, butterfly wings and a few paper flowers in her bonnet.

Now for something really different

This is what you get when you combine Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante patterned paper, some copper Stickles, a few layered Tim Holtz Gadget Gears...

Wild Honey Distress ink, Kaisercraft Turquoise Acrylic Paint and Shadowbox frame, and a handful of amber rhinestones...

It was fun to design...but I don' think it will go with the decor in the living room!

Here comes the Bride

I have been designing cards again...
The image for this bridal shower card is from Suezz Que...I love the cloche veil...very big in the 1920's and 30's. I used Star Dust Stickles to add a bit of bling .
The paper is Basic Gray Wisteria, inked with Crushed Olive Distress Ink...one of my new favorites. I also used the Crushed Olive ink to stamp on the background.
The flowers are cut from organza lace...they were too white so I spritzed them with some diluted Crushed Olive re-inker and added rhinestones in the center.

Butterfly, Bird Cage and Bling

I'm sure you can tell by now I did a lot of cutting out of the different images on the Websters Pages "Life's Portrait" patterned paper. The green flower on this page was a piece of Webster's Pages ribbon...they call it "Bloomers"
This time the hidden tag is on a corner...

Soft yellow velvet ribbon... amethyst rhinestones and pearls...

and of course a lot of Stickles!