Wednesday, April 27, 2011

One Sketch, Two Looks

I love working with sketches.  Before I tried them, I used to think that they would limit my creativity, but in fact, the opposite is true.  Sketches often take me out of my comfort zone and challenge me to work with shapes or layouts that I wouldn't typically come up with on my own.

This is a sketch by Rebecca Peck:


It's really simple, which I like.  I decided to see if I could make two cards, both based on the sketch, that look completely different from each other.

For my first card, I used Prima's Rebellious collection.  It follows the sketch fairly closely.  I didn't want to cover up the cute bird paper with a solid circle, so my solution was a semicircle of Stickles dots, connected with a pen. 

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima patterned paper; stickles
Other: Bazzill cardstock; Fiskars border punch; Zig pen

For the second card, I used Prima's My Mommy and Me collection.  I love the embossed leaf paper and didn't want to cover it with a solid circle either!  I laid out a piece of embroidery floss with the intention of hand-stitching a semicircle, but I couldn't get it to lay flat to see if I liked the design.  Then I realized the curvy floss would make such a cute balloon string!  In the end, I used a pen to draw the string and ditched the floss (and the semicircle) altogether. 


From Flamingo Scraps: Prima patterned paper
Other: Bazzill cardstock; Fiskars border punch; LePen marker; vellum; ColorBox ink; Hero Arts stamp


This sketch was so much fun!  As far as making two cards that look completely different from one another... mission accomplished!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

How I Use a Frisbee When Scrapping

Yes, I regularly use a Frisbee while I'm scrapping!  The inside of a Frisbee makes a perfect paint palette.  It's a nice large work surface, I can mix colors easily, the lip contains the paint, and it's very portable.  But the best part is that clean-up is so fun and easy:



The paint literally peels up from the surface of the Frisbee!  It is so cool!  I've even cut the peeled pieces into shapes.  I've never actually done anything with those shapes, but one of these days I'll do just that.  :)

Flamingo Scraps carries so many great products just waiting for a coat of paint. My favorites are the wonderful chipboard pieces from Maya Road.  I love to give the chipboard a base coat of paint and then a quick spritz of Glimmer Mist.

Anyone else use something really unusual when you scrap?

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Weekend Whimsy: Easter Bunny Framed

With Easter this weekend, I thought it would be great to share with you a little Easter Bunny Story.


From Flamingo Scraps: Fancy Pants Paper - Happy Together - Cheerful.


My family is very close. Holidays are filled with family, laughter, and LOTS OF FOOD. My Daddy has spoiled us for every holiday occasion for as long as I can remember. He delivers candy on Valentine's Day, plays Santa Clause at Christmas, and yes – we are all now aware that he IS the Easter Bunny.

Easter was the first holiday after I said "I Do". Kenny and I had a huge argument just before bed when I asked him if the Easter Bunny was going to come see me. He told me that I needed to grow up and went on and on about how I was "Spoiled".

Later that evening...around 2 a.m.

We were SOUND asleep in our little tiny efficiency apartment. The alarm from the main house was blaring, and all of a sudden lights were everywhere. Within minutes the police were there. Yelling "FREEZE".

Then I hear a humble knock at the door. SCARED to death, I waited for my "new" husband to answer the door. It was my sweet Daddy standing there with the BIGGEST Easter Basket I have ever seen. Right behind him was a police officer. He wanted to know if we "knew" the Easter Bunny.

I believe that was the last time the Easter Bunny visited me at my own home. Oh – I still get an Easter basket filled with toys and candy, but now I have to retrieve it from my Parent's home.


Friday, April 22, 2011

My Easter Basket

When I was a little girl, my brothers and I had  Easter baskets that we used year after year.  Now I am not such a little girl anymore, but I still have my Easter basket that I use year after year!  Yes, the very same one -- now officially an antique and the colors faded from egg hunts in the Florida sunshine!  It was a really big deal every year for us to decorate our Easter baskets.  We would go to the Tulley's dime store and get ribbon and those fuzzy and feathery chicks and roosters and craft away in preparation for the arrival of Easter Sunday.  After church and a family lunch at my grandparents' house, we would hunt for eggs hidden among the azaleas and border grass and coontie fern and birds of paradise!

This is my Easter basket --

and this is a picture, ca. 1961, of me (on the left), my brothers Joe and Bill, and my cousin Jan on Easter Sunday at my grandparents' house -- see my basket!!!!


This year, I decided to decorate my Easter basket once again -- using wonderful Prima flowers and some bright ribbon.  And, of course I had to have a feathery chick!



And the eggs??  Yes, many many years ago, the Easter bunny left them in this basket!

Have a Blessed Easter filled with love, and family, and traditions!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Guest DT Sara Zenger: Webster's Spring Market

Today I come to you with a fresh new layout thanks to the great new collection Spring Market from Websters. I love this collection because its colors are brighter than many of the other Websters collections. My favorite paper is the Market Menu as it has so many cute little signs and advertisements to use up.



Be sure to check out the Flamingo Scraps Store to get your Spring Market supplies!


More of Sara's work can be found here on her blog!!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Guest DT Janie Boots: Let Your Spirit Soar Canvas

Happy tuesday everyone. Today I wanted to share with you something I created in memory of my precious son Alexander. His birthday was April 7 and he would have been 19 years old. I decided to alter a canvas and Alex was my inspiration.



I stamped an image onto the canvas in black ink then I took scotch tape and put it over the image. I then took my electric blue glimmer mist and spritzed the canvas. I let it dry. Then I sprited my cranberry zing glimmer mist over top of the blue but not as much. While it was still wet I took a small paint brush and blended both colours together. I let it dry. Then I took my Tumbled Glass Tim Holtz Distress Ink and ran it over the entire canvas.

Once the canvas was dry, I removed the scotch tape from my image and I started painting it with acrylic paints, I let the canvas dry once again. Then I dipped my paint brush into the electric blue glimmer mist and painted around the stamped image to give it a sky feeling. When it was dry I doodled on the canvas in pencil firt and then traced over it in gold stickles, I also added gold smooch ink to the unicorn image. When everything was dry then I added butterflies and other chipboard embellies, I also added some of the Kiasercraft Pearls that were part of my Flamingo Four package from Flamingo Scraps. I finished the project up by using Jenni Bowlin Alpha stickers and thickers for my title. The Canvas is called " Let Your Spirit Soar" in honor of Alex.

Thank you for allowing me to share some of my world with you this month and I hope I have been able to inspire you all.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Altered Frame

You could hear me scream for miles when Marion Smith, Educator and Designer for Prima Marketing, asked me to design something using her vintage trinkets line. I felt so honored, and wanted this to be perfect.
I decided to create this beautiful frame.


From Flamingo Scraps:  Prima Reflections Paper, Vintage Trinkets, Frame, and Flower; Tim Holtz Walnut Distress Ink; Cinnamon Stickles.
Other Supplies: Tim Holtz Broken China Distress Stains, glass beads.

I started with a simple wooden frame, and painted the base using the Tim Holtz Broken China stains, then edged the sides with walnut ink.  I chose my favorite Prima paper from the winter 2011 release – “Reflections” from the Reflections Collections to cover the frame.


With a second sheet of paper, I fussy cut the butterflies and flowers. This gives the paper a 3D effect, and really calls attention to this beautiful paper.



Then I framed the opposite edge with Marion’s vintage flower trinkets, Cherry Blossom Vines, and a few vintage Prima flowers. For an added "WOW factor, I cut a few petals from the large Vintage Trinket Flowers, strung some glass beads for the center and this beautiful butterfly was born.

Marion said "it's awesome", and that was all I needed to hear!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Weekend Whimsy: National Craft Month Party

Many of you know that I am a rabid Fiskateer.  At the beginning of March, we Fiskateers were challenged to throw a party to celebrate National Craft Month.  The party needed to have a theme, there had to be at least 5 guests, and there had to be crafting.  The best party, as judged by three photos, would win fabulous prizes.  I LOVE theme parties and used to host a lot of them, but haven't since Trevor was born.  The Fiskateer challenge was just the motivation I needed!

I checked the calendar- the best date was only 10 days later.  Not much time to throw together a winning party, but I was determined to make it work.  After much debate, I decided on a theme- 50's Soda Shoppe.  I own a poodle skirt and saddle shoes from my days as a ballroom dancer (I'll tell you more about that someday!) and I figured my friends could wear capris, sweater sets, and ponytails and totally fit the theme.  Food was easy- ice cream sundaes and root beer floats.  I bought some 1950's candy and gum as well. 


Growing up, I attended several weddings with my parents, and my mom never failed to express her shock at the extravagant meals at the various receptions.  At her wedding in 1970, they served nuts and mints.  She claims that in the 50's and 60's (and apparently 1970 as well), no one served food at weddings.  To be a good hostess, you just put out nuts and mints.  The same was true for parties.  I'm not sure if she's correct, but I didn't want to risk being a bad 1950's hostess, so I served nuts and mints.

   
For decorations, I dug out a hula hoop, some fuzzy dice, and an extra pair of saddle shoes (of course I own two pairs of saddle shoes!), then raided my parents' record collection.  I decided on the typical black/pink/turquoise 50's color scheme, with some Fiskars orange thrown in!

I have fabulous friends, who in turn have fabulous husbands who babysat the kids so we could have this party.  One husband went above and beyond.  Carl Sciortino is an amazing artist who creates custom railings and other metal work.  In his spare time, he "whipped up" a jukebox facade for my party.  I hid my CD player behind it and the effect was awesome.

 
The most difficult part was selecting what crafts to do during the party.  There were 8 of us- some are crafters, some are scrapbookers, and one claims to have no crafting ability at all. (Hi Courteney!)  I wanted the crafts to not only fit the theme, but be easy enough for everyone but not boring for anyone.  And because my husband had been laid off and I'm a stay-at-home mom, I was determined not to spend any money on craft supplies.  A tall order!

Fortunately, I have a well-stocked craft room.  Our first craft was rhinestone monogram "pins" for our sweaters.  Next we made carnations using kleenex, which apparently everyone did in the 50's.  For our final craft, we made roses using toilet paper, which my mom says they made to decorate for school parties.  The crafts all fit the theme, were fun, were easy (except the rose!) and I didn't spend a penny on craft supplies, so mission (mostly) accomplished!


Here's the whole group showing off our rhinestone monograms and carnations!


After all the crafting was done, we broke out the hula hoops.  I could still keep the hoop up for a long time, but I'm sad to say that I was sore the next day!


My National Craft Month party was a great success.  My guests and I all had lots of fun, which was my ultimate goal.  But better still, my party won the contest!  Thanks to Fiskars for the inspiration and the prizes.  Celebrating National Craft Month with a party is definitely going to be an annual tradition for me!

Friday, April 15, 2011

Flamingo Four: Fancy Pants Aged Florals

We're back with one of our favorite columns.... Flamingo Five Four!!  You aren't imagining things... we talked, plotted, went back and forth.... finally deciding that we wanted to give this feature a fresh face with our new guest design team so we changed it to Flamingo Four!  The only change?  Four people, four products.... everything else is the same.  Are you ready to see this month's Flamingo Four?!


April's Flamingo Four items are:
1. and 2. Two sheets of Fancy Pants Aged Florals collection patterned papers
3. Kaisercraft Pearls - White Strips
4. A grab bag of white Prima E-Line flowers

All items available at Flamingo Scraps (limited quantities on hand!). We all started with these supplies and the instructions to make something using all four items. Any other items could be added to complete the project.



Are you ready to see what we made?!

Janie's take:
Other Supplies: Maya Road Canvas Dressform

I began by cutting alot of mini circles from the papers then I cut the circles in half. I then flared the ends of the half circles to give a curl and dimension to my project. I started attaching every half circle seperately in a pattern that I thought looked good. I took the Kaisercraft pearls and strung them on a diagonal on the dressform. Next, I sprayed the dressform and the prima flowers with Copper Glimmer Mist and attached the flowers to the dress with a generic orange brad. Thank you for allowing me to show you this project today I had so much fun with and I hope I inspired you to try something new as well!

Sara's take:

My photos were from a photo booth my son and I visited on our 'Date Day'. I used one sheet of the Fancy Pants Aged Florals paper as my back ground and the second sheet as my light green strip that I decorated up with a border punch. I used some of the 12-inch pearl strips to accent the ends of pattered paper. Lastly, I took glimmer mist to some of the great white prima flowers and add blingy middles to them. This was a fun challenge for me, it really pushed me outside my box!

Suzanne's take:
Other Supplies:  Sizzix dies -- tag, large daisies, butterfly and firefly; pearls edged ribbon, Old Lace Glimmer Mist, Pink Cat's Eye Ink, pop dots, misc. Happy Easter sticker

I inked the edges of all paper pieces and Prima flowers with pink ink, layered the sizzix daisies and Prima flowers with pop dots for dimension, pop dotted the butterfly and dragonfly, used Prima flowers to fill in around the diecuts, used pearls in centers of Prima flowers and for spines of butterfly and dragonfly, misted the finished tag with Old Lace Glimmer Mist and tied on the ribbon!

Amanda's take:

As we rapidly approach the ten year mark together this fall, this mini album documents our first five years my husband and I spent together. It's a quick picture story of our travels, our celebrations, our marriage, in just one small little mini! If you'd like to see a picture of each page, you can check it out on my blog.  I used the patterned paper, along with the other patterns in the collection, to cover my chipboard album.  For embellishments, I used my distress inks to cover chipboard pieces, and various laces, ribbons, and trims.  On back cover, some Prima flowers and a few pearls in the center was the perfect finish to my mini album!

So here we are at the end of another Flamingo Five Four and we hope you enjoyed it! Please come back and join us on the 15th of next month to see what we made with a new batch of four goodies from Flamingo Scraps! We hope that we have inspired you and we'd love to see what you make if you do, so please stop by and share it with us!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Did you win?!

If you are......


than you are our lucky No Housework Day Blog Hop winner!! :)

Please send an e-mail to flamingoscraps at yahoo dot com with your address to claim your prize!!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Guest DT Janie Boots: Scrapfest

Happy Tuesday everyone.  I had a very busy and fun weekend.  Here in Ontario, Canada this past weekend April 8th and April 9th we had Scrapfest... Yippee!  I love Scrapfest.  I have been going since 2008. This year was extra special for me. Not only did I get to meet Jodi and Jared the owners of Fancy Pants, but I also got to bring my three little boys along. Oh boy, let me tell you did they ever have a fun time.


Andrew, Brian and Christopher were so excited to go to Scrapfest, they were super stoked to do make and takes. So being the good mom that I am, I arrived at Scrapfest on Saturday morning as the doors opened at 9 am to make sure we avoided lines so the boys could do the make and takes.

They were able to make a candy holder, a scissors holder, and the owner of Scrapfest gave them each their own pair of decorative scissors. Andrew decided his would have pink fun fur on his holder, Brian went for the a silver and blackprint, and Christopher went with the leopard print and then added foam stickers.

They also got to make a flower pin and tags. The boys had a fabulous time. As for me, I'm sure you are wondering... no I did not do any make and takes I did my class and shopping the night before so I was good to go. I had more fun watching the boys and taking pics on Saturday.

The boys are already asking me if I will take them next year to Scrapfest. I told them they will have to be really good.

When I got home after Scrapfest you won't believe it, I had to create two more make and takes for the boys to do I actually let them touch my stickles and my copics... OMG!! Right?! Well they were good and they made me some really cute things.

Thanks for letting me share my weekend with you!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Weekend Whimsy: Angry Birds!

Note:  If you are here for Thursday's National No Housework Day Blog Hop.... please go here!!

I'm totally addicted.  Love it!  Even better?  My nephew loves it too and asks his Grandma (my Mom) to let him play it on her phone! :)  So imagine my happy shock when I found Couture Crochet & Crafts by KT's etsy store:

Awesome!!  Of course, I totally got one for my nephew!

At this point, my husband thinks I'm crazy.  He hasn't played yet, so he doesn't get how absolutely awesome a find this hat is!  The kid will love it!  My parents came to visit last weekend, so I sent this bad boy back to my nephew with instructions to my Mom to tell him his auntie sent it to him and guess what... he loved it!  I wasn't suprised. :)


He even  called me to tell me thank you! ;) ha!  And he wears it everywhere.  I can't believe he's going to be three next month.  Or that my niece is already trying to roll over.  Where does time go?!

I digress.  Angry birds!  Anyone planning on going to see Rio when it hits the theater?!  In the meantime, I thought I'd share this hilarious spoof on Angry Birds:



I love it -- so funny!!  So do tell... are you an Angry Birds addict fan?!  :)

Friday, April 8, 2011

Layout: Almost Four

Note:  If you are here for yesterday's National No Housework Day Blog Hop.... please go here!!

Remember all those Cosmo Cricket 1934 layouts a few weeks ago?  Well, I finally finished another one that's been sitting on my desk since then!

From Flamingo Scraps: Cosmo Cricket 1934 patterned papers; Prima eline flowers, flowers, eline bling & bling swirls
Other supplies: Bazzill cardstock; black lace (unknown); Making Memories cheeky glitter alphabets; black fine point Sharpie; Font is Script12 BT; sewing machine + thread

Just click on it if you want to see it bigger!  And here's a close-up of the gorgeous Primas:

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Guest DT Sara Zenger: Maya Road Bottle Caps

Note:  If you are here for today's National No Housework Day Blog Hop.... please go here!!

Today I want to share with you a little project I made to be displayed in my home. We all love our pictures and scrapbook them but I also like to put mine out for display. Since I LOVE to be crafty an ordinary frame just won’t do!


I used a Mega Bottle Cap from Maya Road (which you can get right here at Flamingo Scraps!) to showcase my son’s photo. I cut some back ground paper for the inside of the bottle cap and then cut the photo a little smaller and give it some dimension with pop-dots.


Then I went to my new favorite paper collection, Toy Boy by Crate Paper (which Flamingo Scraps has in stock!!!) and use the paper collection and its coordinating die cuts to give it a fun look. I also added a large chipboard circle to the back of the bottle cap to prop it up nicely on a plate holder.

This was really easy to make and boy would be make a great gift for the Holidays!

Enjoy!

More of Sara's work can be found here on her blog!!
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