Ribbons of love

This photo is not the best, the colours aren't really right. It definitely looks much better in real life!

The latest challenge at Get Picky is a photo inspiration challenge. As well as being inspired by the photo you also had to include some fabric somewhere on the layout. I chose to use a couple pieces of lace. The photo made me think of flowers which in turn reminded me that I wanted to do a layout using a quote I found online somewhere about mothers. A while ago, after finding the quote, I asked my Dad for some photos of my mother and amongst others he sent me was one of my Mum with the flowers in an Auckland garden (Botanic Gardens?) during one of their trips to New Zealand. So, long story short, this challenge seemed like the ideal time to scrap that photo and use that quote!


I used a whole lot of papers and embellishments from my stash. I'm trying to be good and not buy too much new stuff and use up some of the old things. So, I really can't tell you where anything came from. The background is a piece of purple patterned paper (from which I cut out the centre - after all, you can't waste it under another piece of paper!). On top of that is a piece of white Bazzill cardstock and then another piece of a different purple patterned paper. 

I once again used several of my cutting dies to make embellishments. The doily/medallion embellishment in the bottom left hand corner was made from a small daisy, layered on top of a cut and fold flower, layered on top of a decorative doily, and all held together with a white brad. I put together a stick pin with a small bag of beads, etc. from a Stampin Up friend, and attached a metal Mother tag that I received from a friend in the US for hosting a swap. I had a short piece of flower lace which I cut in half then stuck down along the left and bottom sides of the layout. I then stitched a small yellow bead to the centre of each lace flower. 

I printed the quote: "Mother, the ribbons of your love are woven around my heart" onto a scrap piece of yellow gingham paper. The font is called Bleeding Cowboys. I found a few yellow hearts amongst my embellishments to go at the bottom of the quote, as well as a couple of purple ones which I stitched on top of the yellow lace. 


The butterfly I cut out with my favourite die from Marianne Creatables (LR0115). I actually cut it out of the packaging for some tea samples I got in the mail. It's very glossy, cardstock weight paper with lovely swirls of yellow and pink. The spray of flowers is made up of small flower sequins which I attached with yellow and purple brads. 


The whole thing didn't quite turn out as I had imagined, but I'm not disappointed with the result.


Till next time, happy days. 


Francine 

Bract vs Flower

 
I completed this layout for the October Get Picky sketch challenge. It's their one year anniversary and they're having a blog hop as well! Of course I've left it to the last minute again as the challenge closes at midnight tonight, but I did manage to get it finished! 

Kaleidoscope before cutting with the decorative doily die

Kaleidoscope before cutting with the lotus die

Other than the ribbons and flowers from my stash I made all of my own embellishments. I made a couple of kaleidoscopes from the photos and then die cut them with my Big Shot. I made a couple of other die cuts from paper from my stash and used some glimmer mist with a brass stencil that I had forgotten I had. I used some fired brick distress ink to colour the edges of the papers, and after cutting the letters for the title out of the pink polka dot paper that I used, I coloured them with my Sakura Stardust pens (Rose Star and Gold Star) so they would match the pink bracts picture and the yellow flower picture. That was pretty much it - finished!

journalling

I do have several more layouts to share, I just need to find some time to post them first.

Die-Namics decorative doily die cut

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Fillable Frames Die #10

Decorative Label punch (EK Success/SU)

Limitless layers (circle B/lotus 3")

Cuttlebug Baby Face alphabet (for letters)

Cuttlebug Typewriter (for small arrows)

EZ Cut Small Corner#2 (Sullivans)misting through Anna Griffin Brass stencil (5800S)

Father/Dad

(Poor picture quality - sorry! Despite it being a sunny day I still got glare, and I took several photos before I gave my perfectionism away!)

I decided fairly last minute that I would enter the latest Get Picky sketch challenge. With Father’s Day coming up soon I decided it would be good to make a layout about Gary and chose these two photos of him and the children I thought were nice. As I’ve always loved the saying “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad” I decided (unlike me) not to do any journaling and leave it with the quote. I did write the dates of the photos on the back of the page though *wink*.

The challenge was to use this sketch.

For the layout I used lots of things from my stash. I’m mostly trying to do that at the moment, but because I can’t help myself when I see nice things, I still do have some new things too. Here’s what I used:

· Cardstock: My Mind’s Eye (Penny Lane) (new from the Craft Show)
· Cream patterned paper: TLC (stash). I cut the word Dad from this paper too using Cuttlebug Curls and Swirls alphabet die.
· Brown ribbon and brown/white flowered paper (American Crafts) – left over from an LSS challenge. I cut the word SPECIAL, the small hearts, the arrow and the asterisk out of this paper with my Cuttlebug Typewriter alphabet die, and the two snowflakes with my (new from the Craft Show) Marianne Creatables die (LR0125).
· Brown chipboard tag and string – clothing label
· Brown stamped love heart – leftover from a Kaszazz workshop I hosted some time ago (stash)
· Dad acrylic word – Go West word chime coloured with pinecone Versamark ink (stash)
· Large round brads – from an Apron Strings kit (stash)
· Small metal button – Smart Kraft (new)
· Lace – unknown (stash)
· Butterfly – Porta Craft (stash)
· Brown jute string – left over from a bit Kylie gave me for this layout.
· Chipboard ribbon slide, pink heart, flourish (if that’s the right word for it!), and cream spotted ribbon – all TLC (stash)
· Small envelope – K&Company (stash)
· Metal letters (father) – unknown (stash)
· Dymo

Phew! That was a lot of stuff. I’ve been seeing lots of layouts on the net where people have clustered a number of small embellishments and wanted to try it, so this is my first attempt. Turned out pretty good I think. I want to try it again on my next layout. We’ll see how that goes again.

One last note about the Marianne Creatables snowflake die. I have been buying a few different cutting dies lately and absolutely love the Papertrey Ink and My Favorite Things (MFT) dies that I have. They cut very well and the die cut just falls right out. It is rare that paper gets caught in the die and if it does they have tiny holes that you can poke them out with a paper piercer. The two Marianne Creatable dies that I got at the Craft Show on the other hand, make the most beautiful die cuts (my other one is a butterfly - LR0115) but the paper sticks in the die. It takes about three times as long to remove the paper and all the little bits from the die as it does to actually cut it! It’s driving me crazy. So today I thought, what if I put a piece of wax paper between the die and the paper I’m cutting out. Well, that worked like a charm and the die cut just fell out. I have yet to try it on the butterfly die which is the worst one for keeping bits of paper in it after cutting, but I suspect it will work well too. So I guess I need to keep up my supply of wax paper now! Seeing as I have a nearly full roll of it from about 1990 though, I don’t think that will be a problem!!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine