Haberdashery

I broke back into my new box of goodies for a second LO and decided to work on a photo from this summer.  Now, as you may recall, I live in Sweden and belong to the local quilt guild.  There are many lovely ladies in the guild and recently one of them decided that she wanted to practise and improve her English further and what better way to do that than to create a small sewing group where we all speak only in English for the meetings?  Naturally they needed some native English speakers to help so myself, my best friend Ingrid and her mum (Swedish but lived abroad in the UK and English-speaking military bases most of her life) were also asked to join.  We have such a great time together - language is so much fun to play with and use.  Anyway, it only seemed fitting that we should be called the Haberdashery group - so that's the little story behind this LO.

 Haberdashery

So in planning out this LO, I realised that Carta Bella's Hello Again collection would be perfect with all of its cute speech bubbles, friendship quotes/sayings and patchwork hearts.  The sticker sheet was great for those little accents and I also used one of the pink papers in the layering.  I also loved this watercolour floral from Crate Paper's The Pier and decided to put it center stage for the background - you know I must love it because I'm so not a floral person, normally!

You may also have been wondering, after I spent all that time last month gushing over my 'new-to-me' manual Olivetti typewriter, when I would finally start using it with my LOs.  Well, this is the one; the big debut!  I thought it would be fun to add a definition of 'haberdashery' under the title so out came the typewriter and I merrily typed away on some vellum.  I really liked how it turned out.  I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that these green flocked Thickers (that I have a secret loathing towards) perfectly matched - I'm always so thrilled when I find something I can use them on and I usually enjoy them more once they're part of a LO.  And no LO about a sewing group is complete without some stitching, of course.

I have to admit, my embellishment clusters were more eclectic than they usually come together, especially this top piece.  I really loved that twisted arrow with the text and I was over-joyed when I found a small doily (just what I'd been looking for to add there).  I added the red geo tag to bring out a bit more of the red in the background paper, then felt the red needed more balancing in the bottom cluster...

Hello, enamel dots!  The perfect embellishment when you just need that small pop of colour.  You'll notice I also added in buttons and tufts of thread to again re-inforce the sewing theme.

In the center of the page I did a little DIY embellishment.  The speech bubbles sticker was too large to fit so I cut out a set from the paper, then added the 'chit chat' with my Olivetti and layered it up with some other bits and bobs.

And this may sound silly but my favourite part of the page (along with the vellum typed definition) are these little dates I typed onto the journaling card.  I was just so chuffed with myself that I got them lined up so perfectly on the faux tape detailing and they really look like part of the original card.  Small things.

I shared this LO on my FB so many of the ladies in the group have seen it and they're all so tickled about it; none of them scrapbook (it's not overly popular here) and they asked me last month to bring my current album, which was fun and different.  Sharing my creations with others is always such fun!