My new layout for the Mojo Monday Sketch Jan 30

I received my January Kit of the Month from Flying Unicorn on New Years Eve and what I treat it was to see these vibrant colors of Graphic 45's Tropical Travelogue after so many weeks of seeing and doing nothing but red and green!  Now I love Christmas as much as the next person but I was ready for something bright and peppy.. and this sure did the trick!

This week it was my turn to do a layout based on the gorgeous Mojo Monday sketch done by our own Laura G. Here it is for your convenience:

I had such a great time layering all these bright papers and placing my elements mostly per the sketch ... I added the bloomers as my ribbon and used some vintage Prima for my florals. The butterfly came in my kit .. isn't it grand? The Garden Isle pp was my fave sheet of the whole collection, so I did want to show it off ..

That handsome sailor in his dress white? My dad back in 1940. I set the hands on the Tim Holtz hardware to read 1941 though .. as a hidden message to myself about how quickly bliss can become a battlefied.  My Dad dearly love Hawaii and all of the South Pacific and he so enjoyed his opportunity to be at sea and visit far away places.  I think he would really like this page ..  I sure do! Many thanks to Alda at Flying Unicorn for providing such awesome products to use!

Thanks for coming by!

Ready ~ Round Robin Layout ~

Hi, everybody! I am back today with a new layout done for Maggi's Round Robin challenge at Flying Unicorn. I had to follow Tammy's awesome page from last week. I was inspired by her glorious butterfly trail and her use of the Martha Stewart Scrolled Heart punch.  I did not do as many flowers as Tammy because this is really a guy page ..

I've used some of my Webster's Pages Ladies and Gents collection for this neat photo of my dgs putting on his shoes right before his wedding last summer.  I had earlier done a similar one of his bride, so that was kind of fun to do.  My laser cut birdcage is an A2Z Scraplets piece from my friend and former DT buddy Ness Waller. I painted it with Glimmer Glam in Dirty Martini and the bird with a red paint. My flowers are Prima Millinery and Prima Corine. The b/f trail is a Prima Say it in Crystals Swirl w black lace.

I've added in some Thickers for my title, a TH hardware piece, a Making Memories frame and black lace and pearls from my stash. I think that is just about it.

Thanks for coming by. I love reading your comments! I know commenting has been a Blogger nightmare lately, so I appreciate the ones I get! Hope you have a great week!

Just a little something to share ..

Today I wanted to bring you a little inspiration using some yummy Creative Imaginations Devotion paper collection available in the Flying Unicorn Store . How perfect they are for the upcoming Valentine's season.

I had this new photo of my dd Danielle that I was wanting to scrap. It was taken with a cell phone and is a bit fuzzy but hey, she's my baby girl! So, I started with Wave as my background paper and distressed the edges altho they have been mostly cropped out. Next I positioned a thin circle cut from the Passion paper to see where I wanted it. Before I adhered it though, I used a Prima lattice stamp to give the page a bit of character.

Taking some brown cardstock I used my Martha Stewart Floral Vine punch and layered that with a strip of the Wings paper where I had used my Martha Stewart Scrolled Hearts punch. Next I layered in an off-white crocheted doily from the craft store and tucked a Kaiser Craft wooden lamp post in behind that. I love using doilies on my page as I just adore having a variety of textures on my work. It makes them more interesting to me.

Behind my photo is a couple of paper layers .. a bit of the Rose Garden paper along with some vintage MME gold cardstock. Everything has of course been inked with various Ingvild Bolme fluid chalk ink pads in various colors. These are also available in the Flying Unicorn store and I can highly recommend them for use on your projects.

The gates are among my favorite Dusty Attic pieces and are the ornate gates in medium. I first sprayed then with Glimmer Mist Chalkboard in Decadence (from the store again) and then touched them lightly with some Ranger Distress Stickles in Vintage Photo. My flowers are a mixed of Prima the Fitzgerald collection in Woodland and Petaloo Mixed Blooms in Red from my stash. Of course, I had to have a few butterflies, so added a vintage Prima butterfly from my stash (finally used it!) and some misc dimensional butterlfies that I keep on hand.

Lastly, I added a "paradise" sticker from my January Kit of the Month to serve as my page title .. I am down to teensy scraps but am hoping to pull off a card at least.

Thanks for coming by. Hopefully you will feel inspired to make something uniquely you. Have a great week!

Best Christmas Wishes ~ SOUS Original Sketch Jan 20 ~

Happy Friday, everybody! Just a few more hours and it will be the weekend .. woohoo! I cannot wait! Today it is time for a new sketch reveal over at Stuck on U Sketches. This week's sketch is a new original done by our very own talented Nanne'.  When I first saw the sketch, I knew immediately what I wanted to do! And secondly, what photo I wanted to use .. my 3 dd's.

It is hard to see in the photo .. but I did a neat paper folding technique that I learned from my friend and team mate Tammy Henderson at Flying Unicorn. The link to her tutorial is HERE . You definitely need to check it out! Hopefully, the close-ups will help you visualize! It is time consuming but I love the effect and plan to do this again soon!

Because this was my first attempt, I used some older Glitz Maya paper that I kind of liked. But in the process I learned that Navy Blue looks great with Christmas colors! Hopefully, you can see where the folds are. I highlighted as many corners as I could by adding a navy pearl. When I was finished I mounted this to a co-ordinating sheet of Glitz since it ended up being about 10x10 when finished.

My title piece is a Dusty Attic nameplate that I painted gold, then added a tag from a BoBunny Father Christmas collection and finished it with a Petaloo Canterbury red velvet poinsettia.

Then I mounted my matted photo and framed it with this awesome Petaloo Poinsettia & Berries Branch in  Cream ...  with some more of the red  poinsettias added to it. This was tied with a gold and green ribbon. 

The lower left corner looked a bit sparse so I added a BoBunny dimensional sticker fron the Father Christmas collection.

Once all that paper folding was done, the rest was fairly quick and easy! And something very different from the remainder of my Christmas pages.

So, I hope that you will join in on the sketch fun this time! You will have 2 weeks to upload your project!

Remember that we have a special Sponsor for the rest of the month over at Stuck On U Sketches.

Stephanie from Whimsical Designs has donated some of her very own stamp collections to some very lucky winners of our sketch and die challenges this month..so remember, the more you play the more chances there are of you winning.

Thanks for coming by! I hope that you have a scrap happy weekend! I know I will! The Flying Unicorn Pajama Party and Crop is all weekend. The info is is on my right sidebar at the top. Hope to see some of your there!

Focus on Graphic 45 ~ Flying Unicorn ~

This week at Flying Unicorn we are focusing on Graphic 45 products. So, I have contributed some new projects utilizing my January Kit of the Month "Wishing and Hoping," as well as a few older projects. The one above was a fun page to do and was a great way to get some more mileage out of a few precious scraps of my favorite papers.

Next up is a quick altered charger I did with some of the G45 tags and paper. Then I added in the fish net and shells from the kit plus some Prima flowers from my stash! I plan to add some more embellies but was running out of daylight to take my photo!



I loved doing this one! It was actually the first project I did with my kit! I kept everything in the ivory and black tones with the small pop of hot pink and the colored Prima candy because the destination here is Mali, Africa not the tropics! The fringe at the bottom was all done by hand .. wish I had some of those fringing scissors!

I have one more layout done with my kit and it is my absolute FAVE! But I can't share it until Jan 30th! Just know that it is coming .. and I  LOVE it!

I'm sure you recognize this older layout using Steampunk Debutante!

Still one of my favorite pages!

This one was done with Baby2Bride .. I just adored how it tunred out!

 I love Baby2Bride!!!

Well, I hope I got you in the mood to shop! If I did, then head on over to Flying Unicorn and see about some retail therapy .. which in turn leads to scrappy therapy and that is loads of fun! Thanks for coming by!

Irish, Darling ~ SOUS Original Sketch 1-06-2012

Hey there, everybody! Time for my first Stuck on U Sketches  reveal for the year! Nanne was our sketch designer this week and it sure was a fun one to do! I did flip the sketch for my purposes to show more design on my awesome Creative Imaginations "Devotion" papers which I got from the Flying Unicorn store. 

This photo is of my mom and yes, I've scrapped it before .. but you know me .. I love it and haven't grown tired of it yet. But the reason I used it is because my Dad carried this photo of her in his wallet. And the layout is really all about the love letter that he wrote to her ..  and which is hidden behind my title flap. I first scanned the letter and used that as a photo mat so that the viewer would get a hint immediately of what the page is all about.

I did some distressing, added a circle instead of a square, and did some punchwork .. the rest is pure embellishment. Vintage Prima and Websters, lace and pearl button.  Here are a few close-ups:

Using my Martha Stewart Scroll Heart punch.

Vintage Prima

Strip journaling as per the sketch.

The title flap where I've used my new MS Wild Flowers punch. The title was cut with my Cricut using my Gypsy Font. Dad always called my Mom "Irish" so I added a shamrock ..

The letter which was written on an onion skin paper has been folded for many years and is now tucked away in this acid-free memorabilia pocket. It was written in 1945 and starts off with "Irish Darling .. " Thus the title!! Such a great love they had for one another!

Thanks for coming! I hope that you will visit my DT sisters and see what they have done this week! Here's a copy of the sketch for ya! Hope to see you playing along!

Oops .. almost forgot .. we have a new DT member debuting this week! Agnieszka better know as Bellaidea is now part of SOUS! Please be sure to welcome her!

We also have returning Guest Designer Lisa Gregory with us today! And she is sharing a gorgeous page as well as some new Zva Creative items in her role as a Zva Creative designer! Many thanks, Lisa! Hope to see you back soon!

All right, ladies and gents .. now it's time for you to play! Let's scrap!