Saturday, April 27, 2013

Precious - Maja Design




Hello friends :) This is my last project for Maja Design as guest for April. It was  a wonderful month and I really want to tank Jenny and the Maja team for having me. I tell you girls, once you have worked with these papers you'll be as hooked as I am!! :) I just love this little photo of my darling niece Isabella...she was still so little and my heart aches every time I look at her photos. I especially love the way she always put her little hands together :) Miss this little girl so much...time to plan another trip to Australia :)  I made this layout using the following colelction of papers:

Maja Design: Life In The Country:








Maja Design: In my Flower Bed





















Maja Design: Strawberries With Ice





















Maja Design: Sowing Seeds BS





















Maja Design: Kitchen Garden





















That's all for now :) In the next few weeks I have to work furiously on my daughter's wedding stationery and that is going to be an absolute blast!! Till next time..happy scrapping!!xx

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Wonderful Joys of Childhood






















Hello my friends:) I was lucky enough to be honored with a Guest Spot for Berry71bleu this month and this is the layout I created for Debbie's April Challenge: Flowers. Once again I used papers from Maja design's Vintage Summer Basics collection and also a little from the Vintage Spring Basics Collection.








Maja Design: Vintage Summer Basics 1921





















Maja Design: Vintage Summer Basics 1922





















Maja Design: Vintage Spring Basics 7th of April BS





















The flowers are all hand-made and here are a few close-ups. Here you will find a tutorial on how to make the little beaded flowers.



The little butterfly at the top is from Imaginarium Designs and I have no clue where the other chippies came from. I really need to take better note of my products as I usually throw the packaging away once everything is in it's designated place.:(

Thank you very much for looking and have a wonderful weekend!!

Hugsxx


Thursday, April 18, 2013

My Molly - Maja Design

Hi friends!! I have another project to share with you which I did for Maja Design and I'm feeling rather sad that my month as guest is almost over :( I am loving each and every one of these papers and I would just like to mention to my South African friends that these papers are available from Scrap and Card Boutique . Merle has a lovely selection of Maja Papers.  The little lady in the photos is as most of you know by now, my sweet Miss Molly. The two of us are joined at the hip :) If you're curious to know how I made the beaded flowers on this layout, I have done a little tutorial which you will find at the end of this post. I have no idea what flowers they are so I kind of invented a name for them and called them "Beaded Delphiniums"..lol!! They look so cute if you do them in blue because then, at a glance they really do look like little Delphiniums.:) AND they are super easy to make.  Yes, I know that Delphiniums don't hang downwards and they are not viny either but in the scrapping world we don't care, do we?? LOL!! Oops, almost forgot to give Vicky Alberto credit for teaching me how to make the white flowers with her wonderful tutorial which you can find here. Whilst mine are not nearly as pretty as Vicky's, I just love them and loved making them :) Thank you Vicky...your flowers are just awesome :)x

Products used:







Vintage Summer Basics - 1922





















Vintage Summer Basics - 1904 BS





















Vintage Summer Basics - 1933





















I have also used the beautiful flourish from Flourish With A Bling being FWAB Grace Pearl Flourish.

Other products used:
Imaginarium Designs - Silver fern leaf
Imaginarium designs - 4 Small Butterflies
Martha Stewart Punch
Clearly Impressed Stamp
Prima Bird Cage
Chiswick Alphabet 2

I also stumbled upon a beautiful sketch on Pinterest and traced it back to Scrap Friends. 
I thoroughly enjoyed working with this sketch and just wanted to say thank you for the inspiration :)






















Here is the littlle tutorial as promised. Should you give it a try, please send me a link to your layout so I can admire your beautiful little "Delphiniums"...lol!

Materials needed:

Wire
Florists tape
Seed beads (colour of your choice)
Glue gun
Wire Cutter



















Step 1.
Cut a few pieces of wire in different lengths.

Step 2.
You now have to work relatively fast as hot glue dries very quickly. Heat up the glue gun. Take one strand of wire and adhere hot glue to one end of the strand. It looks very "blobby", but don't worry about that. I covered about 3.5cm with hot glue.










Step 3.
While the glue is still hot, dip it into your little bowl of seed beads and twirl it around so the beads can cover all the glue.





















Step 4.
Whilst the glue is still warm, press the beads firmly into the glue using your fingers. If you find that not all the spots are covered, you can always just add an extra little bit of glue on those spots and then dip it back into the bowl of beads.
















Step 5.
Gently remove any excess loose beads and this is what it should look like when it's nicely covered.


Step 6.
Now you can take a strip of florists tape and start winding it around the wire starting close up against the beads, working your way down.
And this what they look like when they are all finished and ready to "prettify" (is that a word?) your page!!

I think they are just too cute and the nice thing about them is that there are no two that are the same. Have fun and I hope you enjoy making them as much as I did!! 

I have the flu so I'm on my way back to bed and no doubt Miss Molly will join me :)
Till next week, take care and stay safe!! xx

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Up Close and Personal - Maja Design






















Hi everyone :) This is another Guest Creative Team Member project for Maja Design. I've been wanting to scrap this photo for over a year but just couldn't find that "perfect" paper until I saw this "Walking In The Forest" collection from Maja. The photo was taken on one of the very rare ocassions that I go away for a weekend. Getting this close to an elephant was to say the least an amazing experience. One of the very few regrets I have in life is that I didn't follow my dream of becoming a Wildlife Conservationist and if I could have my life over again, that is what I would do.:) Oh well, back to scrapping...lol!! I took the time to do a little tutorial on how to make the pinecones which are tucked between the flowers as you can see in the close-up below. Hope you give it a try:)

 Products used: Maja Design







Maja Design: Walking In The Forest - Knitted Sweather





















Maja Design: Walking In The Forest - Autum In the Air


 Maja Design: Walking In The Forest - Autumn In the Air BS


Maja Design: Walking In The Forest - Flannel Shirt

 Maja Design: Walking In The Forest - Die Cut Sheet


Friday, April 12, 2013

Joyful - Flourish With A Bling Blog Hop

Hello again friends and hoppers! We hope you're having a fabulous time on our Flourish With a Bling Blog Hop, and getting lots of inspiration on how to put your FWAB to good use. Haven't the projects you've seen so far been amazing? Well there's plenty more eye-candy to come!You should have arrived here from Angella Peardon's blog. But in case you stumbled here by chance I suggest you start at the Flourish With A Bling Blog and go from there. If you get lost, here's the blog hop order:

Flourish With A Bling
Amanda Redcliffe
Angella Peardon
Catherine Lane (You are here)
Elena Olinevich
Emilia van den Heuvel
Ilene Tell
Jennifer Hodge
Kate McCulloch
Natalie Elphinstone
Sandi Smith
Sonia Thomason
Flourish With A Bling

We're so excited by all the changes that have been happening at FWAB over the past year. We've had the addition of a new Design Team, some stunning new products (the Elise flourishes) and the most exciting of all is FWAB going retail! That means you can buy all your favourite bling straight from the FWAB store itself!Some of my favourite pieces are the FWAB Grace Pearl Flourish Pewter and FWAB Adhesive Pearls 100 Pack Plum and here's a project I made with them to show you how you can use them.






















Your next stop on the Blog Hop is Elena Olinevich andI just know you're going to love what she's created. Don't forget to follow the Hop all the way back to the FWAB blog and leave a comment there for your chance to win the grand prize and here it is:

The winner will be announced next Friday the 19th!! Good luck, thanks for stopping by and happy scrapping!! xx

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Pine Cones Tutorial

I needed some pinecones for a layout and I was desperate to find a way somehow to make them and I searched the net and couldn't find anything or at least nothing I liked so I figured that I'm going to have to dig deep into the little bit of creativity I have lurking around somewhere and after lots of trials, this is the idea I came up with to solve my problem. I know there is a Sizzix die out there but I was not going to buy a new machine to solve my problem, however tempting it was...lol!!

You will need very basic materials:
Tan cardstock
Glue
Decorative scissors (scallops)
Walnut stain distress ink
Scissors
Stylus

Step 1.
Use a pencil and draw a spiral on the wrong side of your cardstock measuring approx. 7.5cm in diameter. I drew the spiral free hand as I don't know of any other way to do it.


















Step 2.
Use your decorative scalloped scissors and cut out the spiral all along the pencil lines.


















Step 3.
Turn the spiral over to the right side and ink the scalloped edges of the spiral with Walnut Stain distress ink.



















Step 4.
Use your small scissors and make a small snit  a little more than half way between every scallop.


















Step 5.
Turn your spiral over to the wrong side again, place it on a mousepad or any foam pad and roll the entire spiral with your styles, especially the pinecone petals, and you will find that your spiral starts curling. Don't worry about the pencil marks as they will not show once your little cone has been completed. This picture does not do justice to how you need to press down on the spiral and roll at the same time as it is pretty hard to do that with a camera in the left hand and a stylus in your right hand but I'm sure you get the idea. The down side of being alone at home most of the time is that you have nobody to take the photo when you need both hands...lol!

















This is what your spiral kind of looks like once you have finished the step with the stylus.



















Step 6.
Now we need to start rolling this spiral. So, with the right side of the spial facing you, grab a thin paintbrush or knitting needle and secure the tip of the spiral to the spiral with some glue. I use a knitting needle and please ignore the "used" look of it...it works hard especially when I use it to work with wire..lol!



















Step 7.
Start rolling the spiral and at the same time put a few blobs of glue at intervals along the bottom edge to secure the spiral. Roll the spiral round and round and with each twirl roll it slightly downwards so that with each turn your petals will be below the prevoius layer of petal. You don't want it to become a flower. By the way, this method makes the cutest little flowers too. Once you have done a few turns, remove the knitting needle or whatever it is that you are using and turn it with your fingers....much easier and you have more control.
 













Keep rolling around and downwards and don't forget the little blobs of glue at intervals and it should start looking like the one in the pictures below.































Step 8.
When you get to the end, put a good blob of glue in the centre to secure the bottom edge of the spiral to the bottom of your little cone. Oops, it looks like I put too much glue on but it worked out well in the end. Press the end of the spiral firmly against the bottom of your cone and leave it until the glue is dry.

















It should now look similar like the one in the picture below which is a sideview of the cone.



















And here is a picture of what your cone should look like at the bottom.



















Step 9.
Once the glue is dry you can now take a pair of tweezers or something and just gently start folding each little petal slightly outwards.


















And this is what your little cones will look like when they are finished. I hope you like them :)
















































It took me quite a while to complete this tutorial because I had to rush out to the vet to get some cortisone for Miss Molly and on my way home I found a newborn calf in the middle of nowhere and his mother was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't just leave the little baby and started devising all sorts of schemes to get this little calf home at least until I could get hold of the SPCA to come and collect him. Little did I know that this rescue mission was going to be a case of biting off more than I can chew. Nobody wanted to help me get the little calf into my car because they were afraid of being accused of stocktheft. Well, that was the least of my problems and when I finally  got the little calf home I realised how dehydrated the little creature was. How do I get him to drink something?? I proceeded to pour some milk into a bucket, held my fingers in the milk and pushed his head down into the bucket and he immediately started suckling on my fingers and that way the two of us managed to get some milk down his little throat. Needless to say that by this time I actually became quite attached to the little calf and wanted to keep him but I knew that my husband would most definitely draw the line right there. A cow in my neighbourhood??? He doesn't think so...lol!! Well now the little calf is with the SPCA and I'm feeling quite bereft....:(. And now that I've got that off my chest I hope you enjoy and understand my tutorial :) I'm not very good at explaining things. I would much rather show than tell...lol! If you would like to give this a go and there is something you don't understand OR you have a better way of making pinecones, please let me know :) I would be very happy to hear from you :)

Till next time, take care and be happy!xx