Weekend Whimsy: Squirrel in the Transformer!!

Last Saturday morning, I heard a loud popping sound, almost like a small explosion, outside my house.  The electricity went out and my immediate thought was "squirrel in the transformer!"

I grew up in a VERY small town in a very rural county in Florida.  Every so often, on an ordinary day, the power would go off with a popping, explosive sound and we would invariably know a squirrel had found its way into the transformer.    For all my life, no matter where I lived, from the Carolinas to New Jersey, if the power went off with a popping sound, I would say, "squirrel in the transformer!"

Now my more urban friends and neighbors thought this was the silliest thing, and I was assured that that could never happen.  Even when I moved back to that rural county, some friends laughed and told me the transformers were animal proofed!

Imagine my glee and sense of vindication last Saturday!!  After numerous calls to and from Florida Power and Light, checking all my breakers, and several hours of no power -- lo and behold, I got an AUTOMATED phone call --  "we have determined that the cause of your outage was a small animal in the transformer!!"  An AUTOMATED call -- clearly this happens often enough to have a canned reply from FPL!!!!

So, next time your power goes out with a popping explosion, and no other explanation -- consider that there could be a squirrel in your transformer!!!!

Twist it up

I was browsing the internet trying to find inspiration for jewelry designs and I stumbled across an artist Kayleigh Designs who creates whimsical bent wire jewelry.

Jewelry by KayLeigh Designs

I thought these would make fun embellishments on a scrapbooking page, so I tried my hand at it. Here are a few things I created:

From Flamingo Scraps:Maya Road Trinket Dangle Chandelier Charms
Other Supplies: 20 or 18 gage wire, beads, and charms

It is really easy to do, all you need is a little imagination, a roll of 20 or 18 gage wire, wire cutters, objects to wrap the wire around for great shape designs, and some extra trinkets, buttons, beads or metal embellishements.

For the pieces above I decided to make them fit the Adage Tickets from Tim Holtz. I selected my ticket, made a clip from the wire by wrapping it around a pencil twice, affixed the ticket to the clip, then began to shape the wires around the eges of the tickets, working in beads here in there for interest.

Warning - playing with wire can be very addictive!

I think these are a fun way to display dangled charms, titles, and clip memorabelia on scrapbooking pages, mini albums, and cards.

Guest DT Jeana O'Laughlin-Pigott: Mother's Day Cards

Luckily for me, May is a quite eventful month craft-wise! There has been something almost every weekend! There's Mother's day, my step-mom's birthday, and my dad and step-mom's anniversary! Today I would like to share some of the Mother's Day cards I did this year. I know a LOT of mom's, between all my aunts, friends, and women who played a big role in me becoming who I am as a mother today, I usually have quite a few to give out!

These were made with the Lily Bee Design Vintage Poppy paper collection, which you can find at Flamingo Scraps for an INCREDIBLE price!! I was surprised, it usually can take me up to 2 hours to make one card but my mojo was working for me the day I made these and ended up creating 6 cards in about 2 hours! What fun!

 

From Flamingo Scraps: Lily Bee Design Vintage Poppy papers; Prima flowers from Prima grab bag

Other supplies: Prima flower center, stick pin from Tiffany Solorio Morgan's etsy shop, ribbon from stash, flowers from stash, stickers from stash

As you can see these are fairly simple cards, but the paper is soooo pretty I had a really hard time covering it up! I know they also aren't typical Mother's day cards, but sometimes I like to switch things up and highlight a favorite part of someone's qualities rather than the traditional sentiments :)

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

Flamingo Four: Prima Urban Cosmos

Welcome to this month's.... Flamingo Four!!  Four people, four products.... four totally different products.  Are you ready to see this month's Flamingo Four?!

May's Flamingo Four items are:

1. Prima Urban Cosmos Metro
2. Prima Urban Cosmos Village
3. Prima Lace Trim
4. Prima Damsels 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?!

Heather's take:

When I got my package with the Flamingo Four products for my guest design team spot I panicked a little bit! The papers and flowers were gorgeous, but since I normally scrap with bright colors I was a bit intimidated. I've worked on the layout for two days now and I finally like what I've come up with. Thank you so very much for having me this month. I really have had an amazing time!

Supplies: Prima Swaney Flowers, Prima Urban Cosmos Paper "Metro" and "Village", Prima Trim.

I planned this page around the printed swirls on the paper. I just loved the pops of green and I even used my craft knife to cut along one of the swirls so I could tuck the photo into the design. I cut part of the title and the flowers on my Cricut. To add dimension to my flowers I put them on an old mouse pad and used a flower roller tool from Imaginisce to curl and shape them. I also fussy cut one of the flowers out of the Prima paper because I wanted another green accent. Everything is pop dotted up for dimension on different levels! I adhered and stapled the trim and then took another look at my page.

I liked it, but it was missing something! I pulled out some office supply tags and inked them with Tim Holtz Peeled Paint and Victorian Velvet Distress Ink. I adhered those and added a few iRock gems as well for a bit of sparkle.

Jeana's take:

Hi everyone!!! I was so excited to see the elements for the Flamingo Four challenge! It was so hard to choose which side of which papers to use though, they are all so inspiring! I ended up choosing the one I did because of the use I was planning ahead for it. I made this to go in a shadow box frame for my step-mom. Her birthday was this month and she always goes all out with decorating and planning for everyone in the whole families birthdays, so I wanted to make her something she could use over and over any time of year. The colors did turn out kind of fall-ish, but they match her home decor and I think the brighter colors in the flowers and bling make is versatile :)

My step-mom loves "I Love Lucy" so I was super excited when I found a birthday quote by Lucille Ball! I printed the quote out on some green Recollections card stock and trimmed it down to a make shift tag and inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress ink. The orange border strip is also Recollections card stock folded accordion like also with the edges inked in Vintage Photo.

There are some orange Recollections flowers mixed in with all the fabulous Prima flowers. Thanks for all the inspiration, and the challenge of incorporating all four items!!

Suzanne's take:

Like Heather, the Flamingo Four color pallette is not one with which I usually work, but I loved the challenge! I made a card using the Metro paper and overlayed a scalloped cut panel of the Village paper. Edges were inked with cocoa brown dewdrop ink -- the front was trimmed with the Prima lace and flowers -- the inside was punctuated with one of the small Prima flowers and the "Thinking of You" sentiment was cut from the Village paper with a sizzix die! I love that the card is patterned on the inside -- the Metro paper was perfect for that!

Tonya's take:

These are photos of my nieces playing with my camera at Easter. In the large photo Amber, the photographer, said she wanted to take photos just like Aunt Tonya, Adalyn was obviously tired of the flash, she is covering her eyes.  I added Stickles in Orange, Yellow, and Burgandy to the yellow paper to make the designs and text stand out more.

So here we are at the end of another Flamingo 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!

Guest DT Heather Landry: Remember When...

Hi everyone! It's Heather again and I'm back with the last of my guest design team posts. I'd like to thank Suzanne and Susan for having me. It's been a wonderful experience working with everyone here at Flamingo Scraps!

The layout that I created this time was inspired by a sketch from Sassy Lil' Sketches.  I used the March 14th sketch. They also create card sketches to share at the site and if you struggle with card making you'll love them!

From Flamingo Scraps: Cosmo Cricket Salt Air paper, doilies, chipboard, and stickers; Prima Sweet Taffy flowers, E-Line gems, and E-Line flowers

I used several different punches to anchor the leaning photo block. I also added a large crochet flower from the Sweet Taffy collection for the same reason. I thought that it would really work well on a page about my grandma because she crochets and is very crafty. I altered the photos by converting them to black and white because the children were wearing really bright colors that clashed with the paper I wanted to use. I like the way it turned out because it matches the vintage feel of the "Salt Air" collection. I also added "Rock Candy" Stickles to the chipboard to give it a bit of shimmer and interest.

In this last post, I'm sharing the links to the rest of the sketch blogs I've found. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do!

1. PageMaps:  Becky Fleck has been creating sketches longer than I've been scrapbooking! She's always up on the latest styles and has amazingly detailed designs.

2. Sketch Savvy: Susan Stringfellow creates really great sketches with clean lines. She does a great job with sketches that include a lot of photos.

3. Inspired Blueprints: This site has an amazing design team! I am always awed by their creations with the wonderful sketches that are available there.

4. Creative Scrappers:  I really love that this site features sketches that are made by different girls. If one sketch doesn't fit your style, the one next week probably will!

5. Helen Croft: She has sketches and awesome tutorials on her site as well as really neat giveaways.

6. Once Upon A Sketch:  A new sketch blog that is only a few months old. They've attracted an amazing design team. I love going to peek at what they've created.

That concludes my list! If you know of any other ones, feel free to link them in the comments. I'm always looking for more inspiration.

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

Scrapping CHA

I took 683 photos during the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) tradeshow back in January.  It was really difficult to select which ones I would scrap, but I eventually printed my favorite 30.  Those had been pushed to the back of my desk as I worked on other assignments and projects.  But when I saw the latest sketch from the Scrapping Stamper, I thought it would work really well for my CHA photos.

Obviously, there were WAY too few photos on the sketch for my 30 pictures.  I narrowed down my favorite photos even further and fit 18 on the page.  It was somewhat busy, so I removed the matte that is behind the 6x4 focal photo in the sketch.  Keeping the focus on the photos, I decided to make my embellishments monochromatic.  I also reduced the number of embellishments from 9 to 3.

Here's what I made:

 From Flamingo Scraps: Fancy Pants patterned paper

Other: Bazzill cardstock; Scenic Route chipboard; Family Treasures flower punch; American Crafts pens

I was able to use the Fancy Pants "Beach Bum" paper (blue and striped) that I fell in love with at CHA.  I love the way it looks paired with the Fancy Pants "Summer Soiree" (orange with red accents).

This was a really fun layout to make!  At a glance, it reminds me of all the fun I had at CHA and the fabulous friends I made.

Weekend Whimsy: Party Like it's 1999

In February I wrote about the classes that I took at CHA, including Pat Davenport's "Elegant Glass Etching."  As I mentioned in that post, it was Amanda's first time etching glass, but I had done it once before, way back in 1999.

In 1999, I was 27 years old and single.  As a fifth grade teacher, my workday ended by 4:00 PM.  When I wasn't dancing, my evenings were usually spent crafting, inventing recipes, or planning parties.  For New Year's Eve 1999, I put those three hobbies together to throw my most ambitious party ever.

Somehow, I got the idea in my head that I should host the most fabulous dinner party of all time to celebrate the new millennium.  The dress would be formal, and I would serve a different course every hour on the hour from 7:00 PM until the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000.  I would pair a different wine with each course. (My guests were spending the night.)  I spent weeks planning the menu, testing recipes, creating games, and working out every last detail.  To serve as place cards, I decided that I would use beautiful glass votives, etched with each guest's initials.

I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that I didn't actually know how to do glass etching.  No matter!  I went to Michaels and bought etching cream and a dozen votives.  I found a lovely font and printed out each person's initials.  I traced the letters onto contact paper and painstakingly cut them out with a craft knife.  Wow, was that ever difficult!  It took forever and I made many mistakes along the way.  When they were finally done, I applied the contact paper to the votives.  That was hard too!  The actual etching was the easy part.  Here's mine, from back when I was Cindy Jones:
 

Please ignore the wax splotches and poor photography.  I've learned that glass is really difficult to photograph!

I spent the better part of three days preparing the food, every bit of it from scratch.  The menu was as follows:

     7 PM: Spanikopita and Sun-Dried Tomato Palmier appetizers (paired with Fume Blanc)

     8 PM: Salad of Romaine, Pear and Gorgonzola with a Walnut-Bacon Dressing (paired with Pinot Blanc)

     9 PM: Cream of Cauliflower Soup and Cloverleaf Rolls (paired with Chardonnay)

     10 PM: Chicken and Beef Fondue with Baked Potato and Glazed Carrots (paired with Pinot Noir)

     11 PM: Lemon Souffle with Candied Tangerine (paired with Orange Muscat)

     Midnight: Champagne and Assorted Cheeses

I am so glad I put all that effort into throwing an over-the-top party to celebrate a one-in-a-lifetime event.  Of course, I scrapped the party.  Take a look at how I was scrapping nearly twelve years ago, before I'd ever seen a scrapbook magazine, visited a scrapbook store, or met anyone else who scrapbooked:

What great memories!

Mama and Me -- Graphic 45's Once Upon a Springtime

I will be 55 this month!!!  Clearly, I was born before the advent of  all the modern technology that allows prospective parents to see their babies and even know their gender before they are born!  But I do have this --

a picture of my mother, in 1956, when she was pregnant with me!

This year for Mother's Day, I was at a loss as to what to give my mother, until I remembered that picture!  I knew at once that I wanted to share it with her and that Once Upon a Springtime would be perfect to present it!

(sorry for the glare on the photo!)

I used a chipboard page from a Maya Road Large Tag Coaster Album as my base.  Layers of the beautiful, soft patterned papers of the collection were inked with Tim Holtz Distress ink in Peeled Paint and Dragonfly cat's eye ink to define the edges and rounded corners.  Fabulous green Prima lace edged the chipboard base and formed the accent flower.  Miscellaneous glitter letter stickers spell out the title You & Me.

Mama was more thrilled than I could have hoped for -- she did not remember that she had given me the photo.  She said at once, "I was pregnant with you, I always wore that violet corsage and the doctor loved it."  Then she said, "Look how happy I was!"  It was a wonderful and memorable Mother's Day for both of us!

Guest DT Jeana O'Laughlin-Pigott: Keepsake Banner

One of my fellow Army wife friends contacted me awhile back and asked if I would be interested in making something to showcase each month of her adorable daughters first year of life for her 1st birthday party. Naturally, I was very excited to help! At first we were thinking a big poster like display, but we wanted it to be something they could easily keep forever. I considered a mini album, but we wanted it to be easy for everyone to see without having to flip through anything.

So, we decided on a banner. It was the perfect decision! Could be hung anywhere and stored easily as a keepsake.

 

 From Flamingo Scraps: Fancy Pants Wishful Thinking paper, LOTS of Prima flowers, Prima "say it in pearls" swirls

I already had in mind to use my favorite line that Flamingo Scraps carries (Fancy Pants Designs Wishful Thinking) as I had seen a lot of her pictures and knew the color scheme somewhat. I also decided to incorporate some papers from DCVW's Nana's Nursery Baby Girl collection. Between the two lines I was able to find enough patterned papers to pair with the pictures.

This is the first banner I have ever incorporated pictures in. I usually just cut out the word I was displayed with my Cricut and dress each letter up a little. So, I went into it thinking more mini album minded, without the added pockets and foldouts for extras. I also knew it needed to be super frilly and girly, with lots of embellies. So, I gathered up lots of Prima, lace, and just about everything pink I had in my stash... and after one looooong night of scrapping, this was the result!

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

GLUBERS! Funny Name, Fabulous Idea!!!

When we first saw Cosmo Cricket's new products for CHA Winter 2011, we wondered what the heck GLUBERS were!!!!  Well, Amanda found a video for us demoing the new item and we knew we had to give these babies a go!!!

Glubers are nothing like what they sound like (I won't even go there!), and they are soooo fabulous that our own Tonya dreams about them (but I'll let her tell that story!).  Glubers are very thin, flexible, plastic discs that are sticky on both sides and they are the bomb for making flowers!!!  Glubers come in packs of assorted sizes (sorry, we've sold out!) and packs of 2" discs (backordered, but soon to be listed in the store!). 

All sorts of materials, including ribbon, lace, paper, and fabric, can be used to create numerous flower types!  They are so easy to use, the directions actually say "a child can do this" and "a man can do this."

I created this flower using a 2" Gluber, Prima lace, and a pearl center --

To make this flower, I cut a length of the Prima lace and peeled the protective plastic off of one side of the Gluber.  I pressed the end of the lace onto the sticky surface and began to pinch pleat the lace around the outer edge of the disc.

When I completed the circle, I repeated the process with a  shorter length of the lace.

I then added a jewel to the center --

I peeled the backing off the disc and applied it to my project!!!  Easy!!  So easy, a man could do it!!!

I can't wait to try different materials and create more wonderful flowers!!  GLUBERS!!  Funny name, fabulous idea!!!

Guest DT Heather Landry: Just Add Water!

Hi everyone! I'm back with the next in my series of guest design team posts here at Flamingo Scraps. I have a lot more sketchy inspiration for you to check out today.

I created my second page using a sketch from The Scrappiest. Liz creates sketches with clean lines and interesting details. I've saved all of them to my hard drive for later use because they are that great!

I don't usually layer photos on top of one another so the sketch really made me think outside the box. I tend to be a very linear scrapper.

Supplies: I used the Cosmo Cricket Salt Air paper, doilies, chipboard, and stickers that I purchased at Flamingo Scraps to make this page. I used the Seafoam Green Maya Mist again to lightly mist the background. I also used Prima E-Line Gems and Flowers.

As I worked on my page, I came up with a quick tip for altering Thickers on layouts with a water theme. I placed these yellow Thickers on my page for my title, but I thought they were too plain. To dress them up a bit, I added diamond glaze on top of the letters. Even when the letters are dry, they still have a wet look that works really well with the photos! I've included a close up photo so you can see the details.

Here are your links to two more inspirational sketch blogs! Be sure to bookmark them for tons of inspiration when you are ready to use your Flamingo Scraps goodies.

1.) Ideas For Scrapbookers-  You can find sketches from many talented ladies all in one place on the Ideas For Scrapbookers blog. I may be a tiny bit biased since I'm on the design team! You can find sketches that I've created here as well as tutorials much more by an amazingly talented group of ladies.

2. Pencil Lines-  I really like this blog because the sketches are really easy to work with and the design team members are usually some of the first to use new products. It's a great way to get a peek at what all of the new lines look like in action around CHA!

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