A Great Love Story - 1st Valentine

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog update for a special post-Valentine layout!

Perhaps this sounds shocking but I've never made a Valentine's LO before; I've never really had reason to.  Until now.  You see, over the Christmas holidays while I was visiting my parents and the ice storms hit, we spent part of an evening without hydro.  We lit candles and huddled down under blankets in the living room and just talked; and my Mum shared with me the most touching story about my grandfather buying me my first Valentine card just weeks after I was born.  In fact, that whole first year of my life, he bought me a card for every celebration.  Cue sappy nostalgia and I knew I had to record this precious story.

1st Valentine

My original inspiration for this LO actually came from some Dear Lizzy patterned paper of colourful little envelopes sealed with hearts.  I had every intention of using it on this LO but it was just too busy and detracting from the other elements but it sparked the inspiration to use the mini envelopes with hearts in lieu of a photo or the card itself.

I'm totally in love with this collage of elements; there are so many little bits and bobs I've been holding onto for just the 'right' LO - the Maggie Holmes fabric frames (especially this polka dot one with 'loved' stitched onto it), the Amy Tan ticket, the resin cameo from Marianne's lovely Stash Busters prize parcel, the little yellow bow - the list goes on.

I loved the vintage watercolour slide frame of the original Crate Paper patterned paper I used for the background.  Then I did some mixed media work on it; creating a gold sunburst coming out of the envelopes with some Heidi Swapp gold lame mist, some texture paste hearts between the rays and then an explosion of some truly awesome puffy stickers I found at my local grocery store of all places!  Some fairly generous Heidi Swapp primrose spatters, too.

Incidentally, I've since asked my Mum about that old Valentine card and if there's any chance she may still have it.  It may be buried in a baby album or an old photo album; I'll have to see when I return for Christmas again this year but either way, the story is now recorded and when I've finally found the right words, they'll find a home in that little pink envelope.  Love you, Grandpa.

Summer on the Horizon

I feel like I've sewn my brains out these last few days (not a bad thing, just saying) so I'm switching gears back to scrapbooking.  I've had one partially started layout sitting on my table for far too long for my liking and while I wanted to get it finished over the weekend, that didn't happen but today was the day - hurrah!

So for this layout I tried something different from what I normally do.  Using colour palette charts seems to be all the rage in scrapbooking lately and I do love the Design Seeds palettes so when I saw this one, I knew I had to use it - orange, yellow and turquoise - *happy place*...

I pulled entirely too much paper and 'stuff', which resulted in being overcome with choice - never a good thing for me.  I worked on whittling it down, thinking I knew what I wanted to make and in the end it went in a rather different direction - different but good.  Here's the final layout:

Summer on the Horizon

I made the sun burst from vellum, which I misted in a bright orange, then cut out the rays and stitched them down with my sewing machine.  For the sun itself, I painted a doily using the same orange mist.

For the water I layered up stripes of different turquoise papers in an ombre effect and tilted them here and there like moving waves.  Then I layered up some turquoise sewing thread over top for some texture and held it in place with pearls for 'sea spray'.

I kept the few embellishment clusters small because I really pushed myself to go into excess on the rest of the page - something that is hard for me to do but I really wanted that boldness and overpowering feeling of joy that a multitude of gold sequins gives (or is that just me?).  And that adorable butterfly shaped paper clip?  I found that at an art/stationery shop in Ystad the other week - sooo cute!

Lastly, I used this page to play around with some homemade texture paste (talcum powder, glue, paint and a bit of water) and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  I cut my own triangle mask from some cereal box cardboard to use with it.  Easy peasy.

Feels good to get this project completed and I feel like I've stretched myself with some fun, new or different techniques.

WIP Wednesday

Today I have a whole slew of goodies to share with you so let's get started and dive right in.

First of all, I've been making (slow) progress on my embroidery quilt.  I didn't realise when I bought this quilt, which is actually suppose to be a BOM (block of the month) that there were nine months included, each month consisting of two panels of six squares to stitch - if you're keeping count, that's 108 squares altogether - yikes!  Anyway, I've been working on month #6 blocks recently and this little teddy bear turned out super cute.

Each of these picture blocks has a co-ordinating saying that will go on the backside.  They're not quite as much fun to stitch, since they're all text and they take a lot longer but I've been portioning it out by doing one picture block, followed by the matching text block so that I don't get too bored or risk leaving all the text blocks to the end.

Next up, I'm heading off to the cottage with friends tomorrow so I've spent the day preparing my next project to take along with me - those super cute citrus felt coasters I pinned on Sunday!  The website provides a printable template page but as I don't have ink in my printer, I decided to make my own templates using various glasses to trace around, which has the added, handy bonus of ensuring my coasters will fit my glasses.  I've done all of the cutting and matched up embroidery floss for the needed colours so now I just need to do the stitching - can't wait!

I also did a bit of scrapbooking work today, but the layout is far from done.  Yesterday I pulled a variety of papers but wasn't quite ready to work on it beyond that.  Today I got some good inspiration for the top portion of the page, including mixing up some homemade texture paste - such fun!  I also made my own little triangle/arrowhead template to use with the paste and it's turned out great.  I will definitely be using this more often.  I pulled out some vellum today, too, along with my Mr. Huey's mist and the sewing machine.  Here's what I have so far:

Incidentally, I ended up with such a large number of papers that I was having trouble weeding down which ones I wanted and I resorted to this:

Yes, that's right, I had to move to the floor to lay them all out so I could mix and match.  Someone please tell me I'm not alone in this and you've found yourself here, too?  I've set the rest of the layout aside for now while I process the bottom part of the page in my head for a day or two.  I know how I want it to feel, I just haven't quite figured out how to get it there yet but I'm challenging my inner Janna Werner and Wilna Furstenberg and perhaps a little Michelle de Leon, too.

And lastly, something that is not a WIP but actually complete - tetra-pack chooks!  I'm so ready for Easter now!

These little gals are so easy to make - literally two stitch lines - although placing the bits (especially the comb) was a little tricky.  If you want to make your own, check out Red Ted Art's Juggling Chooks.  There isn't a template for the felt bits but they're very easy to make - one triangle, a three-hump cloud-like shape and a heart folded along the line of symmetry is all you need.  If you're a papercrafter and have the Martha Steward heart punch, that's probably about the right size, even.  I made the eyes with a colonial knot (slightly larger embroidery knot) or you could use a standard French knot.  Oh, and since these will be decoration only and not for juggling, I left out the rice and filled them just with stuffing, although a bit of rice or sand would give them good weight to sit, too.