Lipstick and Curls

I've defaulted on my Christmas challenge this month, in favour of catching up on a few layouts. I'll get back to it in March, and make double the amount of Christmassy things.

For now, here's a page I made with the most recent Creative Scrappers sketch. I stole the title from these ladies who I would love to enrol for my wedding day but can in no way afford them. So... in their place, I'm teaching myself how to be vintage :-). A few weeks ago I tried my first hairdo. It was for date night (actually, we went shopping in Ikea). I'm really happy with the results.

Materials used: GCD, Doodlebug and Graphic 45 paper, Making Memories alphas and Thickers.

Sharing the Love

As we're approaching the end of February, I'd like to fit in one more love-themed posting: this time, I'm moving the focus away from me and sharing the love with My Talented Family instead.

First up, my little bro. You may remember me gushing about how my brother's surprise craftiness blew us away at Christmas. Well, here are the photos to prove it!

The vinyl bowl and picture frame:

 

 

And the bag he made - replete with French seams:

Next up, my mum. This is only a tiny snapshot of her talents. Really, she should write her own blog to show them off. She made me a bag for Christmas too:

And when we first announced our engagement, she set to work making a book in which we could record all the developments as we organised the wedding. It took us a couple of years, but we're finally able to use it:

 

 

 

 

 

And now for my dad. He's been involved in the crafty stuff, too. Unfortunately I can't get to the Christmas decorations I wanted to show you so we'll just have to make do with feathers and glitter (yep...!):

 

 

 

'What the....?' you may be thinking. Well... he likes to go fly fishing, and tying flies is a pastime of his which would often see him coming to me to borrow nail polish, old tights and hair ties. I can assure you that these flies look exactly like the real insects they're imitating (in other words, really quite gross).

And finally for now, my fiance. He plays guitar and, along with a trumpeter friend of his, has been playing to crowds for the last year and a bit. A bit of blues, a bit of ska, a bit of everything - but all interpreted in their own special way. They sound amazing - take a look at them in action!

Postcards and Previews

The heart month still isn't over, as my postcard this week proves:

I tried my hand at an arty printed postcard this time - taking a photo opportunity from the piles of wedding invitation prep. We have this neat little portable postcard printer, that in theory should be taken with us whenever we go away but rarely is... anyway, it came out beautifully. It's better for photos than our regular printer.

I've also been working on testers for wedding venue decoration. Here are a few peeks:

 

 

 

I am so in love with music score paper flowers right now! And check out that last pic - a tissue paper lollipop!

Tester Page

OK - this is a tester page. It's a layout using many different techniques and styles - a horrible mish-mash of things. I don't like it, but I wanted to try a lot of different approaches and I'd rather have one whole page I'm not happy with than seven pages which I mostly like but contain little bits I'm not happy with.

Some thingsI tried were mixing (if not matching) paper patterns, masking/misting, covering doilies with Cosmic Shimmer Mist, making flags with ribbon and sticks...

 ... heavy embossing on white-backed paper...

 ... lots of paper layering...

... building up layers on nice bought chipboard shapes (these ones from the Restoration collection)...

.... and painting and stamping on plain chipboard...

This page was a result of me editing a long document for many hours (days, in fact) and every now and then remembering this thing I once did called scrapbooking... and pining for a chance to stick and cut and stamp and paint, and then going totally overboard once I finished working on the document. Like a kid in a candy shop, you might say. So, I'm not happy with it (I didn't even give it a title), but I'm sharing it to show how important to me planning and spending time thinking about a page is. I actually made another layout straight afterwards, but it was one that had been brewing for a few weeks, and I'm infinitely happier with it. I'll share it in a fortnight or so, when the XOXO March challenge is up and running.

Love and Project Restyle

This really is turning into a month of love for me. I've still got heart projects to share!

First up, a teeny-tiny mini book. This book came together with items from opposite ends of the scrapbooking spectrum: its cover is cream cracker packaging salvaged from the recycling bin, and inside are beautiful Melody Ross sentiment cards which always happen to say the right thing at the right time.

 

 

 

 

The other project I finished last week was February's Project Restyle submission. I took this ill-fitting and unflattering shirt:

and turned it into some of the cards you saw on Sunday, as well as some stuffed hanging hearts that you caught a glimpse of on Tuesday:

There's still a lot of fabric left over, so... hmmm... what next?

Sending the Love

It's not often a word or phrase shared between my family and me, but that's not to say it doesn't exist between us. Far from it; I've been supported in more ways than I could ever have asked for, in every decision I've made, from going away to university to going away to Belgium.

A little postcard sent with love is a tiny acknowledgement of this love and support.

The words are letterpressed and the fabric hearts are ones I cut and sewed myself. The little image on the left of the postcard is courtesy of Renoir.

Come back next week for a much bigger nod to my family, when I'll be Sharing the Love.

Just My Type

Very often I really struggle to express through spoken word the feelings and thoughts that are in my head. And on rare occasions I struggle to express through written word what I want to say. Today is one of these, so I'm going to let my photos do the talking. This is a little set of cards I made at a friend's request, just in time for their valentine to receive them tomorrow.

Let's Have a Little Heart-to-Heart

The February scraplift challenge on the True XOXO Girls blog is up, this month with this fantastic prize sponsored by Candy Shoppe Designs:

For February I decided to make something a little different. I gave you a little sneak here. I was playing around with paper and I thought, hey, since I won't be sending my valentine a card in the post (because I live with him), why not make a card that can absolutely not be posted? This is what I came up with:

 

 

And just because I was feeling like sharing the love, I made a little tutorial for this card so you can have a go yourself.

Step 1: Take a piece of card (not too thick) that is 30cm long and as tall as you wish (I think I went for about 18cm but it depends on how much 'heart' and how much 'flat' you want). Mark as below (in centimetres, at intervals of 7.5, 3.75, 7.5, 3.75 and 7.5).

Step 2: Cut where the dotted lines are and fold where the bold lines are, so you end up with this:

Step 3: Stamp on, or add patterned paper to, the middle part of the card. You will cover most of the pattern, but that's OK:

Step 4: Turn the card over and decorate the 'wings' (I stamped on mine because sticking another layer of paper would make them too bulky when it comes to the manipulation stage) and the sides of the card. The middle part should stay blank as this will be the card base:

Step 5: Roll up the corners:

Step 6: Turn the card back over and strategically position double sided tape, like this:

Peel off the backing tape and stick down, following the direction of the folds.

Step 7: Turn the card back over and add some double sided tape to the patterned edge of the wings, but don't peel off the backing just yet:

Step 8: Start to bend (NOT fold) the two wings, by bringing the edges together up high and then pushing down gently:

Step 9: Open the wings up again, add an a final strip of double sided tape along the inside middle of what is going be the heart:

At this point you'll need to take a little strip of card and roll it into a tight tube. I don't have a photo for this but you'll see why in step 11.

Step 10: Peel off the backing from the tape on the inside middle part of the card. Now fully bend the wings and push them down to make contact with the tape. It should be just enough to hold them in place while you take care of the rest:

Step 11: Peel the backing from the tape on the wings. Holding your little paper tube in place, bend the wings for a final time and stick them to each other, with the tube stuck in the middle. You'll need to reach inside the heart with your fingers and squeeze (ignore the disturbing metaphor there!):

Step 12: Make some hearts (I lost my photos for this). Add a length of floristry wire to each one (for the flat hearts I cut two of each and then stuck them together, thus concealing and holding in place the wire). You can then insert them into the little paper tube 'vase' stuck in the middle of the heart. If they're not too heavy, they'll stand up!

And that's it! If you do make this yourself, let me know because I'd love to see what people come up with. I'll be back on Sunday with more love. Until then, to borrow an apt phrase from a blogging friend of mine, scrap to your heart's desire!