Fond Farewell

This will be last post as a guest designer for The Beary Scrap. Before I show you all my layout, I just want to say how happy I am to have had this experience. Thank you for coming to look at my layouts and cards and thank you for giving me the privilege of being able to see all of your beautiful entries in our challenges. 


For this layout, I challenged myself to use the scraps from last week's layouts. I am sure I am not alone when I say I have a big bin of paper scraps that I can't bear to throw out but never seem to turn to them when it comes to making something. So the pile just keeps getting bigger! I figured the best plan of attack was to use them right away. 

I took my pile of scraps from the Cosmo Cricket 6x6 pads Upcycle, Social Club, and Salt Air and cut them into varying lengths, some at an angle. I didn't hesitate to use the negatives of the circles I punched or the little remaining pieces of border-punched paper. I adhered all the strips with my Pink ATG and then hand pierced a curlicue border all the way around the edges of the layout, and stitched with embroidery floss. 

Using spray mists (check out the Glimmer Mist on sale), I splattered a few inky blotches over the background.

Using Pink Paislee Artisan Tape, I made some pennants as an embellishment. I simply wrapped tape around the top of the toothpicks and then cut the ends of the tape into pennant shapes. 

Thank you so much for looking. I really look forward to seeing what sorts of embellishments you come up with! Remember, you have until 11:59 on June 30th to be entered to win a gift card to The Beary Scrap store. 

Hello, Sunshine

Hello everybody! Brenda here. It is hot here. In one sense, I feel lucky because we have perfect weather from November-May, but the rest of the months are just plain too hot. My layout today is aptly titled, "Hello, Sunshine."

The day my daughter was born was an uncharacteristically gloomy. But the moment she was born, it was as if I had my own little source of sunshine. I used the Cosmo Cricket 6x6 pads Upcycle, Social Club, and Salt Air. I inked the edges of the circles with Distress Ink in Vintage Photo. On the outer edges of the kraft paper, I used Pink Paislee Artisan Tape to create a frame of sorts.

For this week's theme of a DIY embellishment, I decided to decorate a manila tag to use as part of my title. I wrote out the word "sunshine" and then used a paper piercer to poke holes for hand stitching. After I was done stitching the title, I outlined it with more stitching in a different color floss. For my last DIY embellishment, I made a twine circle by punching out a circle from cardstock and covering it in adhesive (I used my Pink ATG). Then I knotted the end of twine and placed it in the center of the circle, twisting the twine all the way around itself until I was satisfied with the size of the circle. Then I trimmed the cardstock down and adhered my twine circle to the tag.

For an extra bit of flair, I did some random stitching with my sewing machine on two of the circles. 

Thank you so much for looking! I can't wait to see all the DIY embellishments you all come up with. I'd love to learn a few new techniques. Have a wonderful weekend!

Flower Pin

Please scroll down for our Beary Sweet Challenge #25 Winners!

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Hi, it's Gini here to share my first Nature-theme challenge project. For me - what springs to mind is flowers. I've loved studying flowers since I was a pre-schooler, so making handmade ones is right up my alley.

My project today is a little different. I made a pin. (Now, I'm not promising this won't end up on a layout, but for now, it's a wearable pin). I am so in love with the seam binding that Kimm is carrying in the store - and if you haven't tried it yet, you will fall in love too! I mixed two colors on my flower - Apricot and Melon. My center button is a custom epoxy I made using Cosmo Cricket's Salt Air and the Epiphany Craft 14 mm round tool and Vintage Setting. For my leaf flourish, I used a Heartfelt Creations/ Spellbinders die - and cut it out of grunge paper. I painted it using Distress Crackle paint. Then, cut out patterned paper form the Salt Air line, added some Distress Ink in Shabby Shutters and glued on top.

This challenge will go through the end of the month, so we would love to have you play along!

This sketch is in the bag!

Sometimes it's good to go rummaging through drawers - you find things you forgot about. This weekend I was looking for something, and stumbled across this little purse template (from about 10 years ago). I thought, hmmm.....that was cute, and didn't think any more about it. Then I pulled out the papers that I wanted to use for my Beary Scrap card this week - Cosmo Cricket Upcycle - and I saw the papers with the little purses...and a light went off! So sometimes projects come together after careful thought and planning and other times - it's just a happy whim!

After I put the purse together, I added some Tim Holtz chain for the handle, a handmade flower to dress it up a little and some Kaisercraft pearls to finish it off.

So do you have a great project story that just fell together? I'd love to hear it!

~Gini~

A Card to Say Hello

Ahh, the weekend finds us again. I am especially excited about this weekend because I am going to the Scrapbook Expo! But before I do that, I wanted to share with you a card that I made for a friend of mine. 

I will be seeing this friend of mine at the Expo and I thought it would be the perfect occasion to make a card for her.  I started by taking a piece of Kraft paper from my stash and using it as the base of the card. Then I took four different patterned papers from the Cosmo Cricket Upcycle Mini Deck and inked them with Tim Holtz Distress Ink. Then I machine sewed my squares of patterned paper in a wonky, zig zag fashion. I let all the imperfections be as it is generally my motto that imperfection is interesting and beautiful. 

I took some seam binding and scrunched it up and adhered it with some glue dots. Then I took a brad from the My Mind's Eye Lost and Found line and put it in the center of my scrunched "flower." I used another glue dot to adhere the butterfly to the side of the "flower," and added a paper doily cut in half from my stash. I used the Martha Stewart Large Double Arches Punch  to punch a border strip in another piece of patterned paper from the Upcycle Mini Deck. 

Lastly, I took a label sticker from my stash and used My Little Shoebox's Mini Alphas to make the sentiment (love those alphas!). 

I really hope you'll be inspired to join us for this Wings challenge. If you do decide to participate, please have your creations linked up before 11:59 EST tonight (April 30th). Thanks for looking!

Wings and Feathers

For the rest of April, our challenge is to use something with wings. The DT was also challenged to use a feather on our card. I used the gorgeous new Cosmo Cricket paper - Social Club. Now, one of the designs does have a peacock feather on it - and I thought about letting that count as my feather, but I decided why not add a real peacock feather? The stamp is a new image from Belles n Whistles Fairy Friends collection - Lily Pad Dreams. I colored her with Copics and added Stickles to her wings for some shine.

So we would love to have a great project fly to us from your blog! There are so many possibilities - birds, butterflies, fairies - even some great Steampunk designs! So get creative and join the fun!

~Gini