Guest DT Celina Matthews: Lady Luck

Hi, everyone! I wanted to share this page with you all because it reminds me of summer and all its glory. The photos are of some ladybugs my family and I saw in our flower beds and one that happened to choose my son's hand to land on. In my family we believe ladybugs are good luck and so this was a happy sight for us. I used Webster's Pages' Spring Market Collection for this page because the berry bushels, gingham patterns, and bright flowers remind me of summer.

From Flamingo Scraps:  Webster's Pages Spring Market Collection patterned papers, Bloomers, Flowers and Sparklers.

In this close up you can see the fabric bloomers, sparklers, and a flower from Webster's Pages, along with some Yellow stickles I used to dot around the die cut. Webster's Pages coordinates their papers and embellishments beautifully, so I love picking and choosing what I am going to do with their products.

 

More of Celina's work can be seen here on her blog!

JRR Hill Family -- Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden!

I am really fortunate to have lots of vintage photographs of my family.  And when I first saw the shabby elegant Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden Collection, I just knew it would be perfect to highlight some of my treasured old photos!

Supplies from Flamingo Scraps -- Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden patterned paper, Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden Metal Butterfly Charms (sold out), Graphic 45 Staples Stickers, Prima Bling, Prima Bronte Blooms in Powder Blue, Ranger Black Diamond and Cinnamon Stickles; other supplies -- miscellaneous bling, Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch, miscellaneous glittered alphabet

The elderly gentleman with the long beard is my great great grandfather, James R R Hill.  We haven't yet figured out what the two Rs stand for!  The man in the long tie and the woman with the braid on her blouse are my great grandparents, Arthur H. and Della Dutton Hill, and the little boy standing to the left of the pram is my grandfather, Arthur Milburn Hill!  James and his wife Nancy Knowles had 12 children!  Bless Nancy's heart, I have a portrait of her and she looks like she had 12 children -- she is nicknamed the Ugly Lady!

This detail shows the double mat, inked in Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Peeled Paint and a cluster of punched butterflies punctuated with the Metal Butterfly Garden Charm.

This detail shows one of the gorgeous images from the patterned paper that I cut out, inked in Peeled Paint Distress Ink, and highlighted with Prima Bling and stickles!


I loved working with the colors and patterns of the Butterfly Garden Collection and will be sharing another vintage layout in the collection soon!

Guest DT Monique Nicole Fox: I Have Been Cuttin' Up!

I love patterned paper.  When I see some awesome paper my mind starts thinking about cuttin' it up.  The minute I saw the Daisy Bucket Posh Posies Collection at Flamingo Scraps, I had to add it to my basket.  It was screaming "Cut Me"! 

I cut up the "Chic" and "Swanky" papers to make 2 cards and 1 layout.  Here it is....

 

From Flamingo Scraps: Daisy Bucket Designs Posh Posies patterned papers

Other supplies:  Studio 18 bling; Misc flowers; Hampton Art/Studio G "Happy Birthday" Stamp

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima Love Letter Roses Jude; Daisy Bucket Designs Posh Posies patterned papers

Other supplies:  Studio G "Happy Everything" stamp; Studio 18 bling; lace; ribbon; Halcraft large white blank card

From Flamingo Scraps: Daisy Bucket Designs Posh Posies patterned papers

Other supplies:  Greenbrier Intl 8 inch heart doily; Studio 18 bling;, misc flowers; buttons; blue cardstock; Studio G stamp "Beautiful"

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

Circle Punches

I don't own a lot of punches.  They are bulky and hard to store, so I am extremely selective about the few that I have.  If a punch isn't a multi-tasker, there's no way I'm keeping it.  A friend once gave me a cow punch.  It was cute, but I can't imagine any situation in which I'd need a cow punch, let alone enough different ways to justify keeping it.

I have three circle punches.  One is 2.5", one is 1.5", and the last one is 1/2".  I use them often.  And just as often, I wish I had a 3", a 2" and a 1".  I'd definitely be willing to devote the storage space to those, especially since I'm no longer hanging onto things like the little (never)-used cow punch.

Technically, I have a few more circle punches.  My Crop-a-Dile punches 1/8" and 3/16".  My desktop 3-hole punch is 5/16" and my single hole-punch is 1/4".

Here is a card I made from the scraps from my latest layout. 

From Flamingo Scraps: Fancy Pants patterned paper

Other: Ranger ink, Colorbox ink, Penny Black stamp, Rubber Stampede stamp

I used my 1/2" circle punch once and my 1/4" hole punch numerous times.  How many can you count? 

 

Answer: I used the 1/4" inch hole punch 26 times!  Now that is a versatile punch!

I love how easy it is to get such different looks from a single tool.  I'm sure I didn't even scratch the surface of how a single hole punch can be used on a card.

Weekend Whimsy: Trevor's Zoo-themed Birthday

As I've mentioned before, I love planning themed parties!  This year, Trevor chose a zoo theme for his birthday.  We always have two parties for Trevor's birthday- an outdoor BBQ for family, then a separate party for his friends.

Unfortunately, this year it was raining on the day of the BBQ, so we had to move the party indoors. We decorated the house with homemade lions, pandas, monkeys, and giraffes.  I made a banner using animal alphabet letters that I found at Goodnight Stories. 

We played a rousing game of Pin the Banana on the Monkey.

(My husband Steve was clearly not the winner.)

We did a word search that had a hidden message inside.

I made a small error when I created the word search.  From now on, "elephany" is a valid word in family Scrabble games.

We played Zoo Animal Memory.  I revealed 20 stuffed animals and gave everyone two minutes to memorize them.  Then I covered them up and everyone had to write down which ones they remembered. 

The kids did two crafts- first, they used zoo stamps and stickers to decorate plain white treat bags, then they made Zoo Animal Shrinky Dinks.  I printed out some zoo animal shapes, which the kids traced onto shrink plastic.  They colored in their designs, cut them out, and punched a hole.  Everyone gathered around the oven to watch the magic! 

Next, it was time to break the Zebra Pinata.  I'd planned to do this outdoors, but because of the rain we ended up in the garage. 

While the kids were breaking the pinata, a few adults stayed inside to hide candy and presents for our traditional candy hunt. 

Finally, we all enjoyed some giraffe cake. 

For the party with Trevor's friends, we kept things a bit more simple.  We played lots of rounds of Animal Bingo.

We played a simpler version of Animal Memory. 

We used the same animal alphabet from his banner to make goodie bags.

And we served cupcakes inspired by Betty Crocker.

I had a great time planning Trevor's zoo-themed parties!  It was a really easy theme (in contrast to the Maze Party I did last year!) and it turned out really well.  Most importantly, Trevor loved them.

Flamingo Four: Prima Coquette Collection

Welcome to this month's.... Flamingo Four!!  Are you ready to see this month's items?!

June's Flamingo Four items are:

1. Prima Coquette Collection "Starlet"
2. Prima Coquette Collection "Vanity"
3.  Prima glitter black ribbon
4. Prima Say It In Studs

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?!

Celina's take:

Squeee! I love getting scrappy stuff to play with and when I got the Flamingo Four items I got really happy! The purple papers are gorgeous and I have a thing for polka dots, so these were so much fun for me to use. I decided to scrap a photo of my eldest daughter since June is her birth month and the colors remind me of her bubbly personality.

I used the Flamingo Four papers along with paper from DCWV's Mariposa Collection and the Pink Paislee 365 Degrees Collection, and some black cardstock. I used turquoise trim and green polka dot ribbon from my stash with the black sparkly ribbon from the Flamingo Four items to make a border.

Then I used the black ribbon to make a Loopty Loop Flower which I have a tutorial for on my blog.

The purple roses are Love Letter Roses from Prima and the fabric roses are bloomers from Webster's Pages. I used green mini roses from Prima as well. And I added some Prima Bling Flower Centers from the Flamingo Four items and some Ranger Liquid Pearl flourishes for some sparkle.

Monique's take:

Monique made this gorgeous card!

Cindy's take:

I was so excited when I opened the package containing the Flamingo Four- purple, silver and black is one of my favorite color combinations!

I started with an unfinished wooden box from Michaels' dollar bin. I painted the whole thing black, including the gold hinges. Then I used Folk Art's Extreme Glitter over the black.

I cut the two Prima papers to fit in the center area and attached the ribbon across the top. I used about a dozen coats of Mod Podge to seal it. Finally, I used one of the Prima embellishments on top. I whipped up a coordinating card.

Here's a closer look at the box. I really like how it turned out!

Other supplies: Folk Art paints, Mod Podge, Michaels wooden box

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 Celina Matthews: Father & Son

To celebrate Father's Day this June (19th), I wanted to create a page of my husband with our son. My hubby is such a wonderful dad and although our son is our third child, there is a special bond between them. Maybe it's because he's our only son or maybe it's because he is my husband's namesake, but whatever the reason, they are very close.

When I saw this Webster's Pages Time of My Life paper from the Ladies & Gents Collection, I knew it would be perfect for this project. I then chose a coordinating paper (Webster's Pages Framed Beauty) to go along with it. The title letters are from my stash, which I colored with Lettuce Alcohol Ink.

I fussy cut the clocks from the paper and glued it over the second paper then added the rest of the Time paper to the other side.

That side of the paper is inked using various masks by Tattered Angels and Tim Holtz, and Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass. I then stamped clocks using various stamps from my stash and Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Vintage Photo, and Broken glass. The turquoise and green trims are from Webster's Pages as are the flowers, which I misted using homemade mist of water, Distress Ink re-inkers in Broken China and Antique Linen, and perfect pearl powders. The sparkler stones are from Webster's as well. I then finished up the page with some faux stitching with a Sharpie marker.

 
More of Celina's work can be seen here on her blog!

Guest DT Monique Nicole Fox: Gimmie an "S"!

Gimme a "S" for sweetness. Pink Paislee sure embodied some sweetness when they created the Sweetness line!
 
This line inspired me to make a mother and son creation with some wood, a Sweetness heart die cut, ribbon and flowers.

Here is what I started out with........

 

Are you ready for some sweetness?  This sweet creation is called "Family". 

 From Flamingo Scraps: Pink Paislee Sweetness patterned papers and canvas borders

Other Supplies: misc flowers won from Tara Orr; Ashland spring floral bushes; sheer ribbon; Greenbrier Intl wood word "Family"; Studio 18 rhinestone strass

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

Fancy Pants -- It's The Little Things with Marion!

In November of last year, I road tripped to She Scrapbooks with dear friend and Flamingo Scraps Design Team Member, Tonya Gibbs, to take classes with the fabulous and talented Marion Smith!!!!  I'm not sure whether we laughed more or scrapped more -- our table was labeled the "bad" table!!   It was so much fun to meet Marion and to meet a number of ladies in person that we had come to know online from Marion's Live With Prima Shows!!!

I feel a little like I'm cheating, using Fancy Pants' It's The Little Things to scrap a Prima experience!  But I used Prima bling so that makes it OK, right????  And I had been dying to use It's The Little Things, one of my favorite collections of all time!!!!

Supplies used from Flamingo Scraps -- Fancy Pants It's The Little Things paper collection, Prima bling, American Crafts Thickers; other supplies -- black bling strips, Tim Holtz clip stickpin, cat's eye ink.

This collection has such fabulous colors and patterns just begging to be layered and combined!  To pick up the shapes of the flowers, I scallop cut the striped pattern and fussy cut the scallop on the center strip.  All the edges were inked in a soft greenish blue.  The main title is in Thickers and I used a Tim Holtz clip stickpin to hold the small journaling block.  I highlighted the pictures with Prima Say It In Crystals corners and some strips of miscellaneous black bling!

It was a really fun weekend and a great scrapping experience!!!!

Suzanne

Guest DT Celina Matthews: Man and Wife

Hello! This is my first layout as a Guest Design Team Member for Flamingo Scraps and I decided to take it into consideration that this is the month of June; the traditional month for weddings, Father's Day, the start of summer vacation, and my eldest daughter's birthday.

From Flamingo Scraps: Pink Paislee Parisian Anthology collection patterned papers; Antique Linen Distress Ink; Prima bling flourishes and flowers

Other Supplies: doilies; lace; white Perfect Pearls powder; Recollections flowers; Petaloo flowers; Tim Holtz flowers; White Opal Liquid Pearls; American Crafts Thickers in LAX

For my first page, 'Man and Wife,' I scrapped a vintage photo of one of my great-aunts getting married in the early 1950's. I love the cut of her dress and her groom's tuxedo. I got the inspiration for this page from a challenge asking for a crème monochromatic color scheme with a twist of being vintage. When I looked for photos to scrap, this one screamed vintage and softer colors to me. The papers I used are from the Pink Paislee Parisian Anthology Collection, which I then inked with Antique Linen Distress Ink. I then placed some similarly inked doilies under the photo mat. The lace strips are from a roll of lace I bought at a big-box retailer that are misted with a solution of Antique Linen Distress Ink re-inker, water, and white Perfect Pearls powder.

The lace flower is also misted with this solution. The flower was made by sewing a straight stitch on one of the lace trim's edges and pulling the string to make ruffles then adding a pearl button for the center with adhesive. The rhinestone flourishes are from Prima which I cut into sections to use around the page. The other flowers are from Recollections, Prima, Petaloo, and Tim Holtz.

Here is a close up of the lace and the White Opal liquid pearls I added over the doilies and throughout the page.

The title letters are Thickers in LAX and painted with the same White opal liquid pearls to give them a softer finish. I also accentuated the oval frame on the paper with liquid pearls.

This was such a fun opportunity to create a page for my family's heritage album. I hope that it inspires you all!

 
More of Celina's work can be seen here on her blog!

Guest DT Monique Nicole Fox: Pink Paislee Papers Sure Are "Fetching!"

When I think of Pink Paislee, I think "fetching". Their patterned papers are so "fetching" that I bought the last of the "Fetching" line from Flamingo Scraps. They do have lots of other Pink Paislee lines though.

Here is a card and a layout I made with the Pink Paislee "Charming" and "Appealing" patterned paper from the Fetching line.

 

From Flamingo Scraps: Pink Paislee Fetching patterned papers; Prima Flower Love Letter Roses Jude

Other Supplies: Halcraft blank white card; sheer ribbon; Studio G stamp "Happy Everything"  

 

From Flamingo Scraps:  Pink Paislee Fetching patterned papers; Prima Love Letter Roses Jude

Other supplies: sheer ribbon; doilies; MAMBI "sweet" rhinestones

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