August Flamingo Four

It's time for August's Flamingo Four!  This month, three other designers and I worked with these four items:

                                        1) Fancy Pants rub-ons

                                        2) Maya Road Vintage Trinkets

                                        3) miscellaneous empty box

                                        4) two chess pieces

Abigail's Take

I took the red handle off of the clear plastic box and replaced it with a piece of twine. I wanted it to be more of a shadow box. I used some Pink Paislee Secret Crush paper to make backgrounds for the shadow box. I used the rub-ons to decorate the paper, added the flower and then the chess pieces.

Erin's Take

We always get the oddest items for our Flamingo 4 projects, which is so much fun.  I never know what I am going to create until I let the objects sit and marinate for awhile.  I knew I wanted to do something with the box as a hidden object inside it, then it hit me, the chess pieces are the hidden items. I played with the beaded flowers and bam - pull them apart and you got wings.  This got me thinking of the Disney movie Fantasia on the scene with all the mythological creatures, and in it were the Pegasus mom and dad with the babies.  Dad is a black winged horse and mom is a white winged horse (the babies are all different colors of blue, pink, yellow, etc).  I envision the box as their secret love nest, the hidden romance of good and evil, light and dark, or something like that.  So this is our glimpse of the mythological hidden romance.

I pulled apart one of the beaded flowers and placed 2 petals on the white chess piece as "wings" and then placed the remainder of the flower on the black chessmen for his wings. They are nestled in a "bed of grass" which is Maya Road trim.

All around the box I used the rub-ons to decorate the love nest.  I overlapped and surrounded all sides of the box with the flowers, vines, and dots from the rub-on pack.

After taking off the red handle, I used wire to secure hold the front of the box open and then used Zip-Dry glue to glue the hinges in place so the box would stay in a permanent open position so it appears that we are peaking into the box.  I then removed the wire once the glue dried.

Alicia's Take

The chess pieces really presented a challenge for me this month!  I started out by coating the entire inside of the box with Staz-On ink in Teal Blue and let it dry.  Then I put a rub-on accent across the bottom of the lid of the box and around the sides.  I knew I wanted to adhere the Maya Road flower to the lid of the box, but I needed to figure out what to do with the chess pieces.  I decided to use them as "stamps" to stamp the circle images in Gesso on to the box. After they dried, I colored them with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Sweet Cherry.

Here is a look at the back side of the box.

Now I have a little box to house some of my sequins when I travel to crops.

Cindy's Take

When I begin a Flamingo Four project, I try to focus on the most difficult item(s) first.  Rub-ons and flowers could go on anything... layouts, cards, tags, altered items, etc.  But an empty box and chess pieces can't, so I decided to start with those.  As I played around with them, I realized that the chess pieces fit perfectly in the box.  Hmm.. what if I filled the box with all sorts of game-related items?  

By happy coincidence, I had a deck of miniature playing cards sitting 2 feet away on my desk, so I pulled out the 4 aces and put them in the box.  The fit was perfect.  I added some poker chips, dice, and Scrabble tiles until the box was stuffed.  

On to the rub-ons.  One of them said "Play," which was perfect for my theme.  I transferred it on the box, then added a few white dots to draw attention to the word.  

Finally, the sequin flowers.  After experimenting for awhile, I took apart the flowers and put the sequins in the bottom of the box along with some additional gold sequins.  They provided a great bed for all the items to sit in and helped give the box a more finished look.  

Here's my project:

 

That wraps up another fun Flamingo Four! We'd love to see your take. If you make something using the same four supplies as our designers, send us a picture and we'll feature it here on the blog. To find the materials we used (and so much more!) visit the Flamingo Scraps store!

A Peek into my "Beautiful Life"

Hello All!
Alicia here again with another week of Project Life, this time I used the "Beautiful Life" collection from Echo Park.  This is such a great collection of papers that work so well for so many occasions and I love that it comes with three different alphas!

Here is a look at the two-pages together:

Here is the left side.  Moving I used one of the Heidi Swapp labels to tell where the boys were in the top picture.  The title card, except for the "Polaroid" around the week number, is completely made from bits that come in the "Beautiful Life" collection.  The polaroid was stamped from the Maya Road "Photo Frame Singleton" stamp set.  The first card in the middle road is made from the "B" side of one of the 3x4 card sheet in the collection and one of the Heidi Swapp Tags.  I attached the tag to the card with a piece of yellow seam binding to create a great place for some hidden journaling.  Cutting the picture of the strawberries in half allows me to use the smaller pockets to hold another 4x6 picture.  The alpha on both the strawberry picture and the boys picking strawberries are the two smaller alphas included in the collection.  The "captured" sentiment on the picture of the boys repairing Sam's car comes from the Maya Road "Snapshot Words" stamp set.

 This is the right side of the spread.  All of the cards on the top row are from the card sheet in the collection.  I covered the seam between the picture of the flowerpot my son made for me for Mother's Day with some more of the yellow seam binding, then colored some of the Studio Calico Wood Veneer Banners and Stars for accents.  On the second row, I used some more of the Studio Calico Veneers to point to the pictures the journaling on the first card applies to.  The mother's day card is another one of the 3x4 cards with some Heidi Swapp letters.  The "ticket" on the family picture is also from the accent sheet that comes with the collection.

Here is a quick list of the products I used to get this look:

Echo Park "Beautiful Life" collection

Maya Road Stamp - Snapshot words

Maya Road Stamp - Photo Frame Singleton

Studio Calico Wood Veneers 

Heidi Swapp - Serendipity File Labels

Heidi Swapp - Tags

Heidi Swapp - Color Shine

Seam Binding - Antique Gold

Hope everyone has a wonderful day!
Until next time!
Alicia

Fun To Make & Fun To Get Christmas Tags

Hello All!
I am back today with four different tags for our Christmas in July fun!
Up first, is a fun tag that I made using the patterned paper from the Traditional Red and Green kit, a piece of transparency and a couple of punches.  I started out by cutting the patterned paper and transparency into a tag shape.  Next, I punched out 15 green triangles and one gold star from some gold vellum that I had in my scrap pile, and glued them into a tree shape onto the transparency tag.  I cut a "trunk" for my tree from a scrap of textured brown card stock, and then added a few rhinestones that I cut apart from a Prima embellishment to act as ornaments for my tree.  To finish this tag, i just layered the transparency on top of the patterned paper and secured them together with a bit of flashy ribbon.

Next up, I cut a base of solid colored card stock and rounded the corners.  Then I stamped a lacy design and heat embossed with holographic embossing powder to give the background a little more interest.I added this great Santa card stock sticker mounted on red card stock and adhered it with Pop Dots.

 For this tag/card, I decided to make it more card-like, but instead of folding it in half, I folded it a little off of half and placed a strip of the green dot paper where it could be seen when the card was closed.  I thought this gave it a little more interest.  The sentiment on the front is a great chipboard element that comes in the pack in the kit.

Lastly, I made this quick tag using some basic red card stock, another piece of the scrap gold vellum, my Martha Stewart Stars Anywhere punch, and some more of those adorable card stock stickers that come in the kit.  

I hope these have inspired you a bit to make a few tags for those special gifts for the upcoming holiday season!!  Also, if you are interested in the Melissa Francis Floral Frog that I have used to hold the tags up for pictures, Suzanne has those available as well in the store!

Until next time!
Alicia

Star Light, Star Bright - Christmas in July

Hi Flock-Followers!
In honor of our "Christmas in July" festivities, I have created these great paper ornaments!  I saw these in a magazine a while ago, and loved them!  They are very easy to make, with minimal supplies, but they do take a little time to put together, primarily because of the drying time for the glue I used.

To make all three of the stars above, I only used three pieces of 12x12 card stock/patterned paper!  The first step to making these beauties is to cut your paper into squares.  Each of these require eight squares of paper to create.  For the large one, I used two pieces of patterned paper from Pink Paislee's City Sidewalks line and cut them into 6x6 squares.  The two smaller ones were made from one piece of 12x12 white card stock that I sprayed with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Sweet Cherry on one side and Chartreuse on the other and then cut into 3x3 squares
Here are the four patterns featured on the pieces of City Sidewalk paper in the big star. .

Start off by folding your square into a triangle.

Then fold it again into a smaller triangle.

Then, on the open side of your smaller triangle, make three parallel cuts through both layers, leaving about a quarter of an inch at the end (please excuse my chipped nail polish.)

When you open up the triangles back to a square, it will look like this.  Take the inner most part, and fold the peaks to meet and glue into a tube.

Next, take the next set of peaks and fold those the opposite direction as the inner-most set and glue those sets together.  Keep alternating directions until you have them all glued together.

Here are two of them finished in each of the patterned papers.  Once everything is dry, it is time to glue them together.  Glue each of the small sides to the large side of another (see picture below).  Continue doing this until you have eight of them forming a wreath.  I held mine together at the glue points with clothes pins overnight while they dried.

Once things dry really well, I took a needle and some thread to the inner points and tied them together to ensure they they will hold the shape that I want them to have.

Here is one of the finished small ones.

  And here is the big one.

These are so pretty in person!  They take a little time to make, but are very simple and make a great impression!  My husband was amazed by them and the fact they were just made from a couple of pieces of paper!
Check out the great Traditional and Bright Christmas in July kits that Suzanne has put together in the Flamingo Scraps store and get started on your own Christmas crafts now, so you can leave the stress behind you when December rolls around!
Until next time!
Alicia

June Flamingo Four

It's time for another Flamingo Four!  This month, three other designers and I worked with these four items:

                                1) wood frame- Sheffield Custom Frames

                                2) snowflake stencil- Tattered Angels

                                3) dimensional quotes- miscellaneous

                                4) cupcake topper- miscellaneous

Melissa's Take

I'm not going to lie! This Flamingo 4 was a challenge for me. I started off with the frame, and painted it with gesso as a base, and then misted it with Primrose Color Shine. Then I took some modeling paste and tinted it with Georgia Peach Color Shine and used the mask to lay down the modeling paste. 

Next, I played with the cupcake topper and decided I liked the color, the texture, but not the stick or the clip for it, so I took it apart! From there, I decided it made a nice backer on the frame and gave it a great burst of color, so I used some glue dots to stick it to the back. I decided that I would feature one of the dimensional quotes, so I cut a small piece of chipboard, painted it with gesso and then sprayed it Primrose to match the frame. Once it dried, I attached it to the cupcake topper and then stuck the quote over it. For added interest, I attached a few flowers.

Abigail's Take

The first thing I did was to paint the frame with Tim Holtz Distress Paint. I used the Walnut Stain and let it dry completely. Then I used the Weathered Wood to go over the surface, but avoiding the nooks and crannies. Lastly I used the Snowflake stencil from Tattered Angels and misted over the frame with a light blue. I then I used some Pink Paislee Secret Crush paper to make a background.

I could have put the paper closer to the front, but I wanted to make kind of a shadow box effect.

I love the slight hint of a pattern created with the stencil and the faux vintage effect of the layering of the paint. 

Alicia's Take

For this month's Flamingo Four, I decided to create a frame with a bit of a "textured" look to it.  I painted the frame with a base coat of yellow paint, and let it dry.  Then I used the snowflake mask across the face of the frame and applied the pink paint to it.  After that layer dried, it was a bit too bright for me, so I watered down some apricot colored paint and did a light coat across the whole thing, then followed that up with a watered down whitewash coat as well.  Once I had it toned down, I decided to cut the stick off of the paper flower and adhered the "Life is in Bloom" saying to the front.  I adhered that to the frame and tucked the "Beautiful" metal embellishment behind the flower to create a little cluster in the bottom corner.  Now, all I need to do is find the right picture to put in it!

Cindy's Take

Last time, I struggled with incorporating the very heavy metal clothespin into my project.  This month, it was the cupcake topper that really challenged me.  That and the fact that none of my quotes had any of the same colors as the topper.  Then there's the stencil.  A snowflake stencil would be easy for a winter project, but there are no winter colors in any of the other items... and besides, this is June!  

As I played around with the frame, I realized that the opening was the perfect size to hold a gift card.  I popped a Baskin-Robbins gift card into the frame, then noticed that the pink of their logo matched one of the dimensional quotes I needed to use.  I cut down the quote from "Enjoy your life" to just "Enjoy" and started playing around.  What if I used the blue of the logo to paint the frame, then used just part of the snowflake stencil to stamp in pink?  That would have more of a summery tropical feel instead of a wintry snowflake feel.  It took awhile to mix the perfect shade of pink and to decide what part of the stencil to use as a stamp, but with three items used, the project was definitely coming together.

But what about the green and orange cupcake topper that was nearly as large as the frame?  It just wasn't working.  Eventually, I tore it apart.  I used the chipboard hook end and painted it the same blue as the frame and attached it as a hanger.  I cut the tiny bit of green tissue paper from the orange and used it as an accent color.  Here's the finished project:

When the gift card is removed, the recipient can use it as a frame.

 

That wraps up another fun Flamingo Four! We'd love to see your take. If you make something using the same four supplies as our designers, send us a picture and we'll feature it here on the blog. To find the materials we used (and so much more!) visit the Flamingo Scraps store!

Found Inspiration - Serendipity

Hi Flockinistas!
It's Alicia, here again with another layout using Heidi Swapp's Serendipity line.  :)  Sometimes, inspiration comes from the strangest places.  While flipping through a magazine, last fall, this ad really had something that caught my eye, so I kept it in a binder so I could refer back to it when the time was right.

Initially, I thought that it would be the ombre effect of the blue pellets that would be my jumping off point, but when I saw the "sun rays" in the yellow Heidi Swapp Serendipity paper, it brought this ad to mind,and I had to dig it out.

I traced the lines of the "rays" with a yellow marker to define them a little better, without making them standout too much.  In place of the product in the ad, I flipped the design and placed my picture on the right side, instead of the left.  The letters that I dug out of my stash for the main part of my title play on the ombre effect, like the pellets in the ad.

Here is the side-by-side comparison... not an exact replica, but you can definitely see the inspiration that was sparked by the ad. 

Products used in this layout:

Heidi Swapp "Serendipity" 12x12 paper

Heidi Swapp "Serendipity" file tab stickers

Prima Washi Tape Stamp #1

Prima Chalk Ink

Pink Paislee - She Art - Rub-On Doilies

Pink Paislee - Luxe - Silver Arrows

Don't forget to always be on the look out for inspiration!  

Until next time!
Alicia

Project Life - Serendipity

Hello All!
I am back with another Project Life spread.  This time it is for Week 13 of 2013, which was the week leading up to, and including Easter!  For this spread, I used the Serendipity line of papers from Heidi Swapp to set the color scheme for the week.
Here are the shots of both sides together, including an insert - it is a cute bunny that the boy brought home from school!)

I just love how the colors of this Serendipity line go so well with so many spring activities.  The pink banner on the close up of the Easter basket is from a scrap of the Heidi Swapp Color Pop banners that I had left over from another project.  The heart on the picture of my husband and son is one of the Pink Paislee Portfolio Ephemera.

The "fun" on the top left picture is from the Pink Paislee Artisan Words, and it is colored with Color Shine in Tropicana Teal .  I used one of the Heidi Swapp Color Magic notes as the base for the title "Dyeing Eggs" and used her Color Shine Sprays to give it an ombre look.  The little envelope on the second row is by Webster's Pages, and there are more of the Pink Paislee Portfolio Ephermera on the bottom two pictures and the pink polka dot heart is cut from another section of the leftover Color Pop banner! 

Just because I love it's character, here is a close up of the boy's bunny that I adhered to some of the Heidi Swapp paper to help it stay in the page protector.

Suzanne has a great sale going on the Pink Paislee Portfolio kits!  I love this line and keep coming back to it time after time.  I have included links to all of the great products I used to get this look and they are all available in the store at Flamingo Scraps!

Until Next Time!

Alicia

Quick Frame

Hello Flock Fans!
Alicia here, and I am back with a quick frame idea.

First, I coated the whole frame with a coat of pink paint, then let it dry.  I then cut this great polka dot paper from the Heidi Swapp Serendipity line to size, inked all of the edges with Prima Chalk ink in Attic Dust, and adhered it to the wooden frame using a little Modge Podge and a foam brush.  I made sure to give it a good coating and let it dry.
I used my circle punch to create the different layers of the flower and inked those edges with Attic Dust as well and then distressed the edges and layered them, finishing the flower off with a rhinestone in the middle.  For the banners, I took two of the Heidi Swapp Color Pop Banners, and sprayed them with Heidi Swapp Color Shine and then layered them together and adhered them to the frame.  I finished it off by adding the sentiment with some random letter stickers I had in my stash.  It came together pretty quickly, I just had to do a little waiting to let things dry.
Make sure you check out the Flamingo Scraps store to pick up some of this great Heidi Swapp stuff before it is all gone!!
Until next time!
Alicia