Expecting New Arrivals and Nesting!!!

NOOOOOOOOO!  It would be a major medical miracle if I were THAT kind of expecting!!!!  But I did go into SERIOUS nesting mode around about the time sneak peeks of new CHA Winter 2012 releases started.   Though my whole house is undergoing a purge and organize regime, most of my time has been spent on my craft room and the spaces that house Flamingo Scraps!  I noticed that craft room re-dos were being discussed all over Facebook and very popular on Pinterest! 

And can I just say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE Pinterest!!!  My mojo that was lost, now is found and I attribute it all to pinning!!

Everything used to be in stacked plastic drawers in the middle of the room --
this layout is much brighter and easier to get around in!
Almost everthing is in an open container -- you won't use what you can't see!!!
Love the Hobby Lobby "clip it ups,"  especially at 50% off.  Sewing machine and carts
with pictures underneath the table.

Fabric bins from Kmart, Michael's, and Big Lots
are labeled with chalkboard paper tags!

Ribbon in bins by color, buttons by color in glass jars,
bling, glitter, paints and mists -- I spray painted baskets I already had!

Paper storage, odd craft supplies, items for altering, stamps

Flowers!!!  The lazy susans are great for creating more room and getting to
what you have.

Some pinterest goodies -- pink tiered stand -- it is on a lazy susan --
Dollar Tree jars and candleholders, individual dessert dishes with
bling, beads, and buttons by color.

Art, artifacts, and objects that make me happy and inspire me!

Die cutting machine, dies, other large tools

Stickers, ephemera, alphas, grunge board, inks

Well, I guess I am all ready for the new arrivals!!!  Can't wait!!!  Stay tuned to Flamingo Scraps' Facebook Page, here at the blog, and our newsletters for updates on new items in the store!!!

Suzanne's Favorites from 2011!!!

I will think of 2011 as the year I realized some truths about my papercrafting!!!!  And I think it is all due to some of the fabulous products that came out last year!!

I realized I have a strong tendency toward graphic collections -- I always assumed I was a shabby chic crafter,  but now I think of myself more as vintage graphic!!!  I fell MADLY in love with Fancy Pants' It's the Little Things and Lily Bee's This and That!

"It's the Little Things" that matter! 
Layout of class Tonya Gibbs and I took with Marion Smith!

Hugs Tag
Lily Bee -- This and That,
Maya Road Chipboard Coaster Tag, Pink Paislee Chipboard Letters.

With these two collections, I became almost fearless mixing patterns and textures!!!!

I remembered that I love words.  Though I am not a consistent journaler, I have always loved using words as accents on pages.  I also remembered that I CAN stamp and love to heat emboss thanks to these FABULOUS Art Journaling Stamps from Maya Road!!!!

Maya Road -- Art Journaling Stamps
Late Winter Release 2011
Available at Flamingo Scraps

Tag using MR Art Journaling Stamps, Tim Holtz Alterations Dies,
Recollections paper, misc. clear embossing powder,
feathers, bling, and fabric strips

I love bright, vivid colors!!  I simply fell head over heels for the colors in Webster's Pages Sunday Picnic!!  Having this as a fave is kinda cheating as it came out at the tail end of the year.  I am just enchanted by the Perfect Accents and truthfully, I'm afraid this might be one of those things that is too beautiful to use!  Look for other styles of these to be in the store -- one set even has a FLAMINGO CAMEO!!!!

Webster's Pages Sunday Picnic Perfect Accents
Available at Flamingo Scraps

And lastly, my "why didn't I think of that" new product -- Cosmo Cricket's Glubers (which simply flew out the store and were impossible to find).   Another item that made me remember I love to make my own embellishments and the results are not too shabby...well, they are kinda shabby, but not in a bad way...OH!!!  You know what I mean!!!!

Cosmo Cricket Glubers

The adhesive holds the trim --

Add a sparkly center and you are good to go!

Gluber Flower, upper middle,
Made With Cotton Crochet Trim from Flamingo Scraps

We will be reporting next on our favorites from the new releases at CHA Winter 2012 and let you know what we will be carrying!!  Check out the PREORDERS of Tim Holtz now available at Flamingo Scraps.  In addition, the Maya Road Art Journaling Stamps and the Webster's Pages Perfect Accents are on sale through Thursday!!

Now back to deciding what to order!!!!  If you see steam rising from the direction of the Sunshine State -- it is my brain on sensory overload -- in a good way!!!!

Weekend Whimsey!! My Bottle Trees!!!

I am very proud of my deep Southern roots -- albeit put down by poor dirt farmers in the 1700s.  As a historian, primarily of Southern culture, and my very Southern grandmother's best student of traditions, superstitions, and folklore, I carry on these beliefs and customs hoping they will survive the passage of time!

For instance, I cut off the point of a piece of pie and eat it last for good luck and  I would never let a New Year's Day go by without turnip greens and blackeyed peas for folding money and pennies.  My Christmas tree is (almost) always down before New Year's Day, and when I have failed to complete this task, I can hear my Granny admonishing me and warning of bad luck in the coming year!!

When I had my house painted last year, the discussion of colors included the proper shade of "haint (haunt) blue" for my porch ceiling (a traditional method of warding off ghosts) -- alas, it really didn't need painting, so I must trust in other means to keep my house safe!




The porch of my grandmother's house with its properly blue ceiling!


Enter my bottle trees!

Bottle trees have their roots in Africa and the belief is that evil spirits will be captured inside the bottles and trapped forever.  Some believe the spirits are attracted by the brightly colored (most often cobalt blue) bottles and slip inside and are trapped, while I have always heard the spirits roost on the tips of bare branches and are prevented from taking up residence by the bottles!  Bottles on a window sill serve much the same purpose, preventing evil spirits from entering one's home through the windows!




my kitchen window


I had always known about bottle trees, but became particularly attached to the notion after reading "Livvie," a short story by Eudora Welty, in a college course on Southern Literature.  This fabulous photograph of bottle trees was taken by Welty when she worked for the Works Progress Administration during the Depression.

Throughout most of my adult life, my homes have had some sort of bottle tree -- or at least blue bottles in the window sills -- what are some of the cultural beliefs and folklore you keep alive??

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!!!!

Gone Scrappin'....

So sorry we've been MIA for a few days... we've been scrappin' and laughin' and having a good old time in Michigan!  We're back now and we will catch up the blog later today...  which means a few more posts today.  :)  We also have a few layouts to share with ya... and this picture:

Aren't Susan and Suzanne too cute?!  :)

Thanks for understanding and we hope you enjoy all the posts! 

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!

Weekend Whimsy: Beer and Bread

One of my husband's hobbies is beer and wine making.  Off and on for the 31 years we've been married, he has brewed beer and vinted wine.  Lately, he's been brewing quite a bit of beer with a new twist, he's been brewing it from scratch!  He actually buys the grains, then crushes them and then steeps them to make the beer wort.

Steeping the grains

The gauze sock holds the grains while they steep at about 150 degrees for about an hour.  Once the hops and malts are added you have a wort - a wort is simply young beer.

Once you have finished brewing, you pour the wort into a carboy and let it cool a bit.  Once cooled, you add the beer yeast, pop on an air lock and wait for fermentation to happen (go yeastie beasties!)

Wort in the carboy with an airlock

It took exactly one batch of beer with crushed grains before I realized what a waste it is to throw out those steeped grains!  The beer needs the starch from the grains but they provide lovely fiber and vitamins for bread!

This is what the crushed grains look like before they are steeped

David may be the beer maker, but I am the bread maker.  There's nothing I love better than homemade bread.  I make bread 2-3 times a week.  So you can imagine how thrilled I was to recycle these grains for my bread!  The next time David brewed, he packaged the steeped grains in sandwich size baggies and froze them for my bread making.  I now have dozens of grain packages in the freezer.

Beer Grain Bread Dough

Sub rolls I made with beer grains

David has gotten into the bread making aspect of this too!  He brought home a recipe for a carrot raisin sweet bread.  We added some of the beer grains and experimented.  It turned out great!  We decided to try making muffins with it next time.

So I left you hanging with the beer wort.  How does it get from wort to that bubbly goodness that tastes so good from a frosty mug you ask?  The wort is usually through fermenting in about a week.  At that point, you can add some primer (basically a malt sugar solution) and siphon the wort into bottles and cap them.  Wait another week and you have drinkable beer!  David and I just bottled my Oktoberfest beer last week..  He's got some stout that he made from scratch and a Foster's clone he made from a kit that is ready to drink right now.

Von and Jessica helped us bottle this batch

Is anyone wondering about the legality of brewing and vinting your own beer and wine?  In Florida, you are allowed to produce up to 250 gallons per year for personal consumption another 250 gallons if you are married........hmmmm, I wonder?

Have a great weekend!

Getting to Know You: All About Style!

We thought it would be fun to start doing a new column every once in a while... we'll answer a question, but more importantly we want to hear from you and get to know you better too!  Without further adieu... here's our first question!

What's your crafty style?
Simple? Shabby Chic?  Graphic? Distressed? Eclectic?

Suzanne says:
I would have to describe my crafty style the same way I describe myself -- ECLECTIC!!!  I enjoy all types of paper crafting -- layouts, altered objects, decorative projects.  And I have been known to try other crafts as well; my mother and grandmothers had me knitting, sewing, and embroidering from a young age!

Please see Suzanne's blog post about this fabulous banner!

Susan says:
I'll try almost anything once so I'd have to say I'm eclectic.  Although I tend to favor vintage, grunge and distressed styles.  My style tends to be more simple when I am recording family history as opposed to scrapping a photo that caught my fancy - then it's all about the art!


The journaling strip idea was scraplifted from a magazine.  I used all sorts of items from inked cheesecloth to popsicle sticks and beads.(Please excuse the shadow from the stitched scan)

 Amanda says:
This is such a tough question for me!  I'd have to say that I'm an eclectic-graphic-simple.... sometimes paper, sometimes digi scrapper.  I love experimenting with new stuff and using patterned paper as my main design guide, all while trying to keep it simple and tell a story!

Product info listed here.

Cindy says:
I am a clean and simple scrapper.  My layouts usually feature straight lines, multiple photos, handwritten journaling and minimal embellishments.  I love to take photos from many different events and tie them together into a single layout, like I did here:

From Flamingo Scraps: Crate Paper patterned paper

Other Supplies: Bazzill cardstock; Scenic Route letter stickers.

Tonya says:

My style is a mixture of Graphic & Grunge . The messier and more distressed the better.   A layout isn’t finished if the paper hasn’t been ripped or inked.

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima Say it in Studs; Prima Shabby Chic paper; Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Milled Lavender; Tim Holtz Vintage Photo; Tattered Angels Rose Tea Glimmer Mist

Other Supplies: Pink Cardstock; Vintage Buttons; Vines; Lace; UTEE – Ranger; and Martha Stewart Butterfly punch 

If there's a question you want to see us answer, please leave it in the comments or e-mail it to us at flamingoscraps at gmail dot com! 

Weekend Whimsy: Life in Florida: FLORA

A few weeks ago,  I blogged about the animals so this week we'll take a look at the plants.

Right now the azalea, dogwoods, redbuds and wild plum are in bloom.  It's a great time to be in North Florida if you love to take photos of flowers and plants.

White Azalea

Pink Azalea

Very soon, the citrus trees will be blooming.  I LOVE it when they bloom.  It's usually still cool enough to have the windows open and the spring breeze wafts the heavenly perfume of the orange blossoms inside!

I believe this one is called wisteria.  It will begin to bloom in a few weeks and will continue for most of the summer.

And my amaryllis are already putting out new growth.  By Easter, I will have huge trumpet shaped blooms.

Later in the summer, we will get some hot weather favorites like Hibiscus.

And Bromeliad.....

And Crepe Myrtle.....

I think this one is related to the Bird of Paradise.....

And I don't really know the name of this one!

Anyway, just a few of the Floral beauties we have in Florida!

Have a great weekend!