scrapologie

Inspiration Board - La Famille, Seven Gypsies Style

I finished this project some days ago and wanted to share. Ever since I picked up these Seven Gypsies tags, and these too, I wanted to do this project. The designs on the tags are so gorgeous that I wanted to be able to display them so you could view them in one seeing without having to look at them separately. The solution was to lay them out on an inspiration board.

I used an art board from Michael's, similar to this one, that came pre-gessoed. I then adhered Seven Gypsies patterned paper from the Notting Hill Collection to the board. My project took two 12x12 sheets. Then the fun part! Start out by laying out all your tags on the board in the order you want. Then start adding embellies, Sarah Lugg style, and once you have everything looking the way you want, assemble the tags individually doing whatever is necessary to secure each embellishment to its tag. Finally, lightly draw out pencil lines and line up the tags spaced apart equally and then adhere them to the artboard. I loved the little hinge corners that Seven Gypsies makes that I put on the corners of the project. Gives a truly professional look. You can do this with any type of tag, or cover the tags in other patterned papers. I really loved embellishing each of the tags - it's a great way to showcase those special embellies you've been saving. My project was family themed. Each tag has meaning to me for some aspect of my family and the hopes and dreams I have for them. You could certainly add family photos to the tags; I chose to keep mine sort of abstract - the family theme is implied but the deeper meaning of each tag is personal and known just to me. I will hang this in my studio for inspiration. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage Roses and Moonlight by the Sea

Hello dear friends! Sorry I have been so absent. Today is my birthday, and I am 41 years *young* ;)! I had to take the day off work for some pampering -  I spent the morning at the salon and got a new haircut, then took a little shopping excursion and had lunch at my favorite restaurant. My loved ones will be taking me out for dinner and dessert and I am looking forward to time with the family! At 41, I am truly happy and blessed. I'll try not to subject you too much to my inner reflecting - birthdays are when I tend to get sentimental and philosophical, by turns, lol!

Thank you for coming back day after day, even though I don't always show! It's high time to dust off the old blog. Lots of good things happening, and some upheaval too. I will post pics of Murphy, our new puppy soon. It's been hard to get him to sit still long enough to snap the pic, lol! He is absolutely adorable though, I promise to post pics soon!

I am going through a lot of personal changes right now -- the company I work for is restructuring and I have been interviewing internally for another position while I continue to work in the current position, and traveling for work like a gypsy, to boot. In addition, I've been swamped with design projects so am trying to keep my head above water.

Alekha graduated from kindergarten last week and that has been bittersweet for me. I read on Melissa's blog that she is going through the same thing with her little one and her post just resonated with me. I felt as though I could have written it! My one and only baby is growing up and I have a sense of panic on the one hand - that time is passing us by too quickly -- and on the other hand, a desire to grab her and spirit her away to Never Never Land where we'll never grow up and can play at tea parties and "school" and all the other Mommy-Daughter moments we share, forever. Would that childhood could last forever.

I've also been busy on the creative end. I find that no matter how busy I get, I have to reserve time to create. Art is my sanity. These cards were made with Basic Grey's new Wisteria collection - the colors remind me of the seaside, moonlight and vintage roses. It's a breathtaking collection. The rubons and trim are from Melissa Frances. I am giving away the second card (Do what you love...) as a thank you, to one reader. Just post a comment here - how about for fun, telling me what you'd love for your birthday, and I will pick a winner next Friday.

 

This second card features a rubon from K&Company, the rest of the product is Basic Grey except for the mini blue pearls (Kaisercraft) and the gold pearl (K & Co.) The trim might be from Making Memories, I'm not sure.

Also, the Jenni Bowlin Studio June kit is debuting soon. Make sure you get over to the inspiration blog -- Doris is hosting daily prize giveaways in honor of Jenni's big reveal June 1st - the new site will be called Mercantile, and each monthly kit beginning with June will have an exclusive patterned paper available only to kit club members. There are plenty of sneak peeks posted of the gorgeous summery June kit. The top secret gallery is filled with gorgeous work from the DT already and I'll post a peek or two soon, so be sure to check it out June 1st!

So excited....

Bobby and I decided yesterday, after giving it much thought, that we were ready to welcome another bundle of fur into our home. Our first dog was a rescue dog - a lovely red golden retriever who came from the rescue to our home and died in my arms three years later. She developed cancer and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do - putting her down. That was about six months after Alekha was born. I missed her but stayed busy with caring for a new baby and then running my business. I felt the time wasn't right to get another dog. Recently though I have been having doggie dreams mixed in with some baby dreams and I figure it's a sign - my doggie mommy instinct is kicking in again. Bobby knew a coworker who had adopted a Goldendoodle and (a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle for those who don't know) and she told him that they still had a male puppy available. He moved pretty swiftly in calling them and putting the puppy on hold. He'll be delivered to us tomorrow, I am so excited! And even better, it's a surprise for Alekha who has been pleading for a dog. Here are a few things in the meantime to share with you... a few quick card projects. I'll be posting doggie pics over the weekend!

 

 

And  some JBS projects. This one was made by outlining a paint palette (smallish sized) on chipboard, cutting that out, and covering with paper and embellies.

 

And one last card:

 

A reluctant little model

It's getting tougher and tougher to get this one to let me take her photo. I am having to resort to cookie bribery (like Keisha with her girls!) This is her look of barely concealed exasperation after only four or five shots! Sigh. You SEE why it's hard for me to routinely get new pics for scrapping. I am going to have to be a bit more creative about getting her picture.

I have a few card projects to share today. The first one features all Melissa Frances paper, Melissa Frances transfers, Melissa Frances sticker and the flourish chipboard is also an MF Product.  Ribbon from May Arts, flowers from my stash and a brad from Making Memories, plus a fair sprinkling of glitter from Martha Stewart.

I know fall is months away but I couldn't help but do up a couple of quick Halloween cards. The first card features mostly Melissa Frances product. The clouds are a Quickutz diecut. I used my Fiskars border punch to imitate a fence in the background. The tree and moon chipboard are both Melissa Frances products, as is all the patterned paper. The ribbon is from May Arts and the sticker is also from Melissa Frances.

This second one features all Jenni Bowlin product, excepting the orange dot paper which is from My Mind's Eye and the mini alpha stickers from Making Memories. The hat is fashioned from one of Jenni's mini scalloped chipboard banner panels.

More to come tomorrow. I'll leave you with this sweet vintage image. It's almost FRIDAY, hurrah!

Jenni Bowlin Studios May Kit Projects

I have been missing from Blogland, but needed a bit of a break which was a good thing because it gave me some time to get caught up on much needed attention around the house. Hope you had a nice Mother's Day. The weather was perfect and I was served breakfast in bed by my sweeties- two slices of toast with butter and jam (Alekha so proudly presented it to me with a lovely hand drawn card) and a cup of hot tea made by her Daddy. I'll be back to posting vintage images soon, but in the meantime,
Jenni Bowlin released a brand new patterned paper collection called Front Porch this month and they were my absolute favorite thing about this kit -- the colors were so wonderful and the papers so easy to create with. Jenni also added some amazing new talent to the design team - Amanda Johnson, Lisa Dickinson and Keisha Campbell, so the gallery is utterly stunning this month. Go look! Here are my contributions:

This one was inspired by Keisha, I love her use of vellum on her layouts:

I used the project kit to create this fun birthday banner with these luscious new bingo cards!