Gracie's Magical Dear Lizzy Crocheted Flowers Matching Page

Last weekend, I went with my good friend, Nicole, to a Diva Designs crop in Topeka, Kansas. I had so much fun and got some cute projects finished. I finished my Gracie layout! Yippee! The neat thing about this side of the layout is that the big picture can be opened to reveal four more pages! This cool idea comes from the pages of the new Magic Scrapbook How-To book. It is fabulous!

The flowers are so bright and happy that I found it easy to find the perfect cardstock to match! I used white cardstock for the base, Topiary green, Lagoon blue, Sunny Yellow, and Hollyhock pink for my colors. Close To My Heart has 60 colors of beautiful true to color cardstock with a white core! You can get 24 sheets of six matching colors, or 24 sheets of one color...it is up to you!

I also used Lagoon blue Mini-Medley Accents and Cocoa Collection of ribbons. I just love the little tags and corduroy ribbon! The title is made of various chipboard letters that I simply used Liquid Glass to adhere the paper after I traced and cut out the letters. (I can't BEGIN to tell you how much I use Liquid Glass!). Using accents and ribbon on my pages just makes me happy. I also got some stitching in as well by stitching a Tulip red border with embroidery floss on the Sunny Yellow cardstock before I adhered it to my page.

I had so much fun making this page and I hope you find some time to do a little work on your own projects!

I Heart Donna Downey!

Long story short, I luv Donna Downey and I am taking her 12 week creative course. This was our week one project and I absolutely had so much fun making it! It is a canvas camera bag and it is TOO CUTE! If you are one of the lucky ladies that attends the Flint Hills Sheek Boutique at the Clarion Hotel from 9am to 3pm, you will have the chance to purchase some of my hand crafted gift items perfect for friends and family. (Honestly, you won't want to give them away though!) When you register for the Sheek Boutique Crop that evening from 6pm to midnight, you may win one as a raffle prize! WHOA! It's a lucky girlie that wins one of these!

I will be creating some different designs in the coming weeks. I have fallen in love with using my Acrylic paint for more than chipboard! (Although, I love my mini albums!) I have just felt like expanding my creativity to even more mediums to enable me to keep my classes and workshops fresh!! Pls email me at amymuse@myctmh.com for your registration and full details. This crop will only be open to 30 lucky ladies to give you the most croppin' space available!! Yippee!!

Inspired by Dear Lizzy Flowers!

While browsing the isles of The Scrapbook Store inc., I came across these vibrant Dear Lizzy crocheted flowers. They reminded me of the new stamp colors that Close To My Heart introduced this fall season. I was so inspired by these happy flowers that my creativity just shot off like a brush fire. It may not seem like it at first glance, but I had so much fun with a lot of different techniques in this layout.

Of course I sewed! Who wouldn't want a home spun look to match these fabulous flowers. So stitching is the first technique. (No, cheating by doing faux stitching, though that would be fine, too!). Then I used my 1 1/4" Circle Punch to create the faux scalloped edge in the new Lagoon color from the Summer Celebration Collection. I also cut a very quick fringe from Topiary cardstock to make cute faux grass that boarders the bottom of my block. Using this technique reminded my of elementary school making fringe flowers by cutting the fringe and rolling them into a flower. (Hum? Future technique?)

The cloud I used the Childhood Stamp Set (D1358) and stamped the image with Crystal Blue ink. Then I took a fine point glue "pencil" and traced around the image just quickly. Then I sprinkled the image with flock to give my cloud a fuzzy, home spun feel. I found the doggie in the A Birthday Wish (D1238) stamp set that I have been dying to use! First I stamped the image with the brown Staz On ink pad and then I used Brown Bag reinker and the Waterbrush to color in the image adding more water as I got closer to the face of the image. It may be hard to tell, but I stamped the image twice and cut out just the head of the dog and adhered it on top of the first image with foam dots for dimension.

I finished everything off with the inspiration for the layout, the Dear Lizzy flowers and some corduroy ribbon from the Cocoa Collection of ribbon rounds. I thought about adding some Lagoon and Hollyhock buttons, but I decided against it. Of course there has to be at least one sparkle! Can you find it?

I am not quite finished with the second page, but I will post it soon. The left side of this layout has the MAGIC using a flip flap technique! It is adorable! I got my instruction to complete this layout in the brand spankin' new Magic How-To book. (I never thought I would like any book better than Imagine, but I love, love, LOVE Magic! It is totally my style of scrappin'!). Hope you like my page and until later, Happy Scrappin'!

Hooligans Level 1 Kit with Flip Flaps!

The new Hooligans line from Close To My Heart is adorable for Halloween. I got this idea from my fabulous friend Tina who resides in Florida. She used an Olivia Level 1 Kit and Close To My Hearts new Flip Flap Assortment to make this cool 2 page layout. I decided I wanted to get a bunch of Halloween pictures taken this year and I really wanted to do a Wowie layout to get lots of pictures scrapped. Naturally, this idea is PERFECT to accomplish all of that at a low, low cost! I just used a Hooligans Level 1 Pack ($9.95) and two Flip Flaps ($3.95) from the package to complete the pages on this post!

This is the left page of the two-page Hooligans Level 1 Layout!

This is the right side of the Hooligans Level 1 2-page Layout!



This is the two Flip Flaps outside the right side of the Hooligans Level 1 Layout.

 It may not be easy to tell, but they open like a door to reveal the inside!





This is the inside of each Flip Flap "door"! How cute are those googly eyes!



Now, this playful layout only uses the Hooligans Level 1 Kit which comes with four pre-printed cardstock layout pages, additional patterned paper and cardstock, and two pages of stickers. The Flip Flap assortment has 12 Flip Flaps in a few different sizes to meet your needs. I had so much fun making this layout and I can't wait to get some good photographs on them!

Of course, I like to bling up my layouts, so you know I will be posting the "blinged" up version fairly soon! With the new Hooligans Woolies and sparkles, this layout is going to be perfect for my needs! The crazy thing is, I was able to make six cards using the leftovers and still had scrpas for my stash! I never realized Level 1 Kits are so versatile! Whop-whop!

My Team Christmas Swap Card

I CANNOT believe I have not posted for over a month! I bet someone is thinking about putting out a APB on me! I have been swamped lately at my Army J-O-B and the many projects I have taken on since Jared went to Germany to occupy my time. He says I have taken on way too much, and there may be some truth to that! Yikes!This is my team Christmas swap card I made while I was in San Antonio. It was really nice kicking back and ordering room service. I caught up on all my blog stalking, FB, and Twitter! HEHE!

The funniest thing was, of course, I found a scrapbook store about 5 miles away from the hotel. This wasn't your ordinary franchise store either! I was warmly welcomed to join in on a little cropping and getting to know the locals. The store is called The Scrapbook Store inc. and I must say, the owner was fabulous and made me dream of opening my own store someday! Their theme is a home away from home, and boy do they make it happen. I spent the whole weekend there!

For this swap, I decided to go for it and get out of my comfort zone a use Close To My Heart's Clear Cards. The top picture is the card from the front, and the second picture is the card's inside.  I had so much fun using the Ms. Holiday Cheer Stamp Set and the Creative Basics Mistletoe Collection. (Notice how I used the ribbon from this kit to make the "leaves"! Too cute and clever!) I used a few embellishments as well, okay alot of them! HA! I used the new Red Sparkles from the assortment pack and the flowers, and epoxy brads from the Mistletoe Level 2 Assortment. These embellies are hot! I can't wait to join in on a Valentine's Swap! Yippee!

Oh, and if you are one of the girlies that joined Donna's swap, than you SO MUCH! All of the cards were just gorgeous! We are just such a creative bunch of friends! If you would like to duplicate this card, or make your own, check out my website to place an order, or host a party and get your products for free! Whoopie!