Wonderland Mini

As you can see I'm still in Halloween mode and have another mini to share with you. It has taken me a little over a week to get this finished due to a sick little one and that pesky little thing known as my full time job.  All distractions aside, I love making minis. You can finish them in a short time and to me that is all kinds of gratifying. Plus, they make great gifts. I have this little problem, maybe you can relate, but when I buy paper, I almost always purchase several in the same collection and even some embellishments that coordinate for the sole purpose of making a mini album.  It's a sickness really. As soon as I see a collection I like, I can almost see the completed album in my head before I really even know what the design is. Does that make sense? Anyhoo.........

 The photo mat behind the Queen and Alice can be removed, so a photo can go on the page behind it and on the mat.

 A photo can go behind the "frame" on the page to the right

 This page is a pop-up when the book is laying down and the purple mat is removable

 The purple photo mat can be removed and the photo for the right side goes behind Alice

 These photo mats can be removed as well and again the photo can go behind the checkered stripe

 I used a magnetic closure under the tiny pumpkin on this envelope

 I love to do fussy cutting on elements from the papers, you just simply add pop dots to the elements in layers and it adds a sense of depth and dimension. It's hard to capture in photos, especially when you're using a phone to take pics with, but hopefully you can see it a little bit closer here.

I made this mini with a few interactive pages. Some of the photo mats can be taken out and photos placed underneath as well as on the mats.  The pages are made out of long envelopes, which made it easy to make tags to insert into the ends, making for even more photo mats or journaling space.  I used a binding system as well. That was a first for me. I usually use the bind-it-all or use a album that is already bound in some way.  If you get on YouTube there are a ton of videos on binding systems, just pick the one that will work best with the type of album you're working on.

Until next time.........

Altered Clock

I recently stumbled across a YouTube video of a very elaborate Halloween project using the Graphic45 Steampunk Spells collection.  Whereas steampunk is not my normal style, it does fascinate me. I like the idea of the altered aspect of it and how it lends itself to the whole mixed media art form.
Back to the video, it was made by an extremely talented artist named Anne. She is from Norway and is on the Graphic45 design team. I am in total awe of her work. It's detailed beyond anything I've seen before.  After seeing the video I had to stalk  check out her blog. Let me say, she does not disappoint! Everything she does is amazing.  Needless to say it inspired me.  I had seen the Wizard of Oz line from Graphic45 and loved it, so I really wanted to make something with that, unfortunately it is an old collection and I couldn't any anywhere.  So the next best thing was the Hallowe'en In Wonderland collection, which I found some on eBay and snatched them up quickly.  I only purchased a small selection of paper, just 6 designs. As soon as I received my happy mail I set off to work on my next project. I felt like an altered clock was the perfect canvas, an homage to the white rabbit you could say.

To start I had to paint 3 coats of gesso on the clock in order to make the paint stick. I then painted 3 coats of black.  To finish the outside I also lightly sponged streaks of brown paint on top of the black and it gave it an old look. I did some fussy cutting on some of the images and layered them with the help of pop dots.

I made the elements like a pop up card. I made stands using black card stock and glued the elements on top.

I used the glass vial from Melissa Frances, which I've had in my stash for a while now. I also used some moss I had on hand. Other than that, it was all the Hallowe'en In Wonderland Collection.  I love the paper in this collection and have another project to share with you next week. 

Until next time........

Hop Local and Win!

If you like winning FaBuLouS prizes...You better mark your calendar for this Hop Local Event! 

Prizes are being given away from some of your favorite Paper Crafting Stores, Retreat Destinations, and other Local Event Sponsors!!!

Check out this list of Give-Aways...

  The Little Blue House - Paper Arts Store & Studio:

 $60 Gift Certificate 

Whitworth RanchRetreat:

 2 Complimentary spots at a Mixed Group Retreat valued at $370

 Cat's CreationsScrapbooks: 
$60 Gift Certificate

  Craft Coach: 
Scraptastic Prize Basket valued at $50

Crafty CreationsRetreat: 

Vintage Altered Train Case and a $50 Little Blue House Gift Certificate

  ScrapbookCelebrations:
 $75 Gift Certificate

 Crafty Neighbor: 
$50 Gift Certificate and Embellishment Grab Bag

   Very Vintage Retreat: 
Half Price Weekend for 5 guests valued at $250

  The Crafty Scrapper: 
$60 Gift Certificate

Dallas Crafter's Marathon: 
2 spots at a DCM event to use by 4/30/14

 Craft-Inn Retreat:

 2 complimentary spots when you book a minimum of 6 guests

HOW to WIN:

Beginning Oct.17th through Oct.20th, simply visit each of the above listed sites, become a follower of their blog or sign up for their newsletter. Read the post and look for a Treat (a different treat will be mentioned at each destination). As you hop from site to site, you must collect ALL the TREATS! When you are done, you will send your name and treat List to: 

     alltreatsnotricks2013@gmail.com

Your email becomes your entry for the FaBuLouS

 All Treats No Tricks Prize Drawing!!!  

Great thing about this Hop Local Event...You never have to leave your home or office to WIN...You could hop in your jammies, on your lunch hour, or while the kiddos are napping...YoU can HoP anytime from 7am (central) on Oct. 17th through 12am (midnight) on Oct. 20th. 

ALL TREATS WINNERS will be announced on Wed. 10/23!

Good Luck to you ALL and 

THANK YOU for supporting Small Business

 and shopping (and hopping) local!

Until next time......

Back to School

This post is a little late, but I am a firm believer in "better late than never." This will be a short one, so I will get right to the point. My youngest daughter started kindergarten this fall and it has been an adjustment. Her teacher has been extremely helpful in keeping me informed in her progress and for that I am more than grateful.  In order to show her my appreciation I decided to make her a simple treat. During a retreat we hosted a few weeks back, one of the fellow retreaters named Stefani (and might I add an extremely talented crafter in her own right) had these awesome treat stamps that she allowed me to borrow. I used them to make this.......

They are from this great company called Jaded Blossom.  They have a huge selection of these treat stamps that are designed to be used on the bottom of chocolate kisses and peanut butter cups.  They specialize in treat favors of all kinds. They also have a ton of dies that coordinate with the stamps.  Don't forget to check them out! 

Until next time........

Craft Coach Flip Book

Every time we have a group of shoppers in the Craft Coach they are amazed at what they see. We hear things like......

• "This is so adorable!"
• "I can't believe how much stuff you have in here."
• "It looks so much smaller on the outside."
• "Did you do all this yourselves?"
• "What do you do with all this stuff when you're driving down the road?"

Hearing the compliments never gets old and we never get tired of talking about how this whole adventure came about. We worked extremely hard on getting Ramblin' Rose to this point and appreciate all the feedback we get, good or bad.  We are still learning about RV etiquette and all the ends and outs of taking her on the road. We finally have our set up down to just a few short minutes, although we are still looking forward to the cooler weather, because in this Texas heat, even a few short minutes outside can lead to some massive glistening if ya know what I mean.
We have also, thanks to a little bit of creative woodworking, made our very own custom paper racks as well as a custom display stand for a big portion of our merchandise.  Doing so has made it where we can go anywhere and if we get asked by someone at maybe a gas station or fast food place if they can take a look, we can let them without the inconvenience of asking them to wait for 10 minutes while we clean up the mess from all the traveling. So to commemorate all the madness that got us this far I put together a little flip book with a ton of pics from the building process. I used some of the Memory File Folders from Heidi Swapp and a package of ephemera from Pink Paislee. I thought that the idea of map themed paper was a good choice considering what we do. Both the map file folder and the ephemera pack had this great subtle color scheme that went great together. I cut the file folder up into several 4X6 pieces and used some of it for matting as well. One folder went a long way! I loved all the arrows included in the embellishment pack and the quotes on most of them were pretty fitting as well.

We plan on keeping this book on the counter in the Craft Coach so everyone can take a look at all the before and after pics.

Until next time.......

Colors at a Glance

If you're anything like me, you spend just as much time trying to organize your crafting supplies as you do actually use those same supplies.  It never fails, every time I go to stamp something, I end up having to stamp a sample on some scratch paper. I have over 30 stamp pads and even though they have a representation of the color on the lid, it doesn't seem to actually be the true color. So I developed a plan after fussing with them while trying to find just the right color of blue.  I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this idea.  I do recall seeing a ton of pins on Pinterest where people have made paint chips of the colors in their home to take with them, so I figured the same would work for my stamp pad arsenal as well. It was super simple to do and took me maybe an hour to do. 

I punched about 75 circles with my 3/4" circle punch. I had to make two batches, because my sister and I share our stamp pads and I thought I might as well make her one while I was at it. I gathered all my stamp pads and stamped an image on the circles for each color, stamping two for each color as well. After stamping the image I wrote the name of the color as well as the brand. After I had them all stamped, I put an eyelet on each circle so that it would not tear off the string.  My initial plan was to put them on a binder ring, but my eyelets had a smaller hole than would fit on the ring. I wasn't too happy about that, but I wasn't about to start all over. So I'm here to help you avoid that mistake, use the bigger eyelets! Overall, it will serve it's purpose really well I think.  No more color testing! Woohoo!

I keep my swatches right next to my craft table so I can grab it easily and pick the perfect color for any project.

Until next time...........

Sweet Mini

Having a mobil store definitely has it's perks. One of them being, having access to all these great products and getting to create with them.  We've had a sticker sheet from the Echo Park Sweet Girl collection in our store along with a couple coordinating papers. It's this great combination of pretty much every color. There is red, pink, turquoise, yellow, orange, green, you name it, it's in there.  It would probably go with just about any photo, but since it's name is Sweet Girl and it has a floral motif, to me, it screamed mini or brag book material. This mini was a breeze to make.  Just a simple card stock background, one other 3x12 inch strip from a coordinating card stock and half of the coordinating hexagon patterned paper.  I used only part of the sticker sheet, so essentially you could get two or more out of the sticker sheet.  On a few of the stickers I used dimensional adhesives to make it look like they popped off the paper. It really was a quick project and could be adapted to any collection or occasion. 

Until next time.......

Backpack I.D. Tag

I don't know how things are in your neck of the woods, but it's becoming more and more apparent that the first day of school is just around the corner. My oldest is going to be a junior in high school this year (insert horrible realization that I'm only getting older here).  My youngest however is embarking on a new horizon and going to be a kindergartener.  This too brings about it's own sense of sadness and excitement all at the same time.  We already have all her school supplies purchased and loaded up in her brand new backpack. Then it occurred to me that she needed a way to label her bag. I'm not big of monogramming my little one's name on her bag simply because everyone can see it, even the people you don't want to see it. Billie and I were also tossing around ideas for a craft for kids to do at our local community event we had signed up to participate in.  So I came up with an idea to suit both dilemmas, a backpack I.D. of sorts. I also came up with a way to incorporate a little bit of daily encouragement. On one side I stamped a short message of inspiration and on the other side I will stamp her name and my cell phone number in case the backpack were to get misplaced.  I bought the name badge at our local Hobby Lobby. I believe there were 4 in the package for 2.99. I chose to use the new Stampin Up 2013 In Color collection. I love all the new colors and the DSP pack that they have for the colors are perfect. There's polka dots, chevron and even a sort of quatrefoil design to pick from.  The colors are very soft and subdued and kinda remind me of the colors of sherbet. I attached the 3D embellishment with a couple of glue dots, which may not stay attached forever but glue dots are usually pretty good at staying put.  Anyhoo....... here is how it turned out.  

Until next time.........

Explosion Box

For a while now I've been dying to make an explosion box. Basically, an explosion box looks like a simple box from the outside, but when you lift up the lid, it's way more than what you expected. It's like a layered gift. With each layer and each side you can embellish and take an opportunity to give the recipient a little something special. While working on some samples for our mobile store I came across this die cut sheet from Teresa Collins' Stationary Noted line. It's full of beautiful postal themed papers and embellishments. I really liked the color combination as well. It's a great mixture of blue, red, white and some tan thrown in. I also found this awesome red chevron burlap ribbon at Hobby Lobby and thought it would look fabulous together. 

Until next time.....