Welcome Sophia Elizabeth!

Some dear friends of mine from church recently welcomed a new great-granddaughter, Sophia Elizabeth, born Feb. 14!  I was going off to Scrap and Spa, in Union Pier, Michigan, for my annual scrappy weekend and a mini album was the perfect project to take! 

I started with an 8x8 acrylic album I have had so long I don't remember the brand! I chose Crate Paper's Emma's Shoppe collection with lots of embellies from Flamingo Scraps and my stash.

I really love working with acrylics though it can be a challenge to work out both sides looking neat!!

This is my finished cover -- I fussy cut the princess, added Prima bling, buttons, and made a charm of their songbird tiles!

I just love the Studio Calico Wood Veneer Potty People on this page -- a Four Generation picture is so special!

I recently found an old manual typewriter at a thrift store -- $5 and a new ribbon and I was in business!
Here I made jewelry hang tags with time, weight, and length on them.
I made plenty of tags of all sizes to tuck behind photo mats and on pages!

The page on the left is Webster's Pages Sunday Picnic with Prima flowers and leaves.  It coordinated beautifully with Emma's Shoppe!

Prima Trinkets by Marion Smith, seambinding, garment pins, pearls, Maya Road Trinket Pins, Crate Paper Bingo Chips, and miscellaneous embellies and trims ornament these pages!

On the back cover, I used a Maya Road stamp.

One of my favorite things about making minis is lavishing ribbon and trims on the binding rings and tucking in charms!

My friends loved this little book and I had such fun making it!!  I got some other projects done while in Michigan -- can't wait to share them with you!  Thanks for Looking!

My Inner Daredevil!

This layout was done for a challenge over on one of our FAVE sites Sketchy Thursdays!  In addition to using the sketch, the project had to use red, orange, and/or yellow, have a summer subject, and have a journaling spot!

I chose one of my all time favorite collections, Cosmo Cricket's Circa 1934 (I have been hoarding these last few sheets!), for the colors and the journaling spot.  And for the summer theme, I used some pictures from last summer's family vacation to the North Carolina mountains!   The flowers were die cut with my sizzix and were stacked with pop tape for dimension.  The two smaller pictures are also pop taped for depth!

Supplies from Flamingo Scraps --  Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 collection; Tim Holtz distress ink in Black Soot; Glitz orange bling;  Other Supplies -- black glitter alphabets; black cardstock; black paper tape; pop tape; Sizzix flower die.

As the journaling notes, I am a notorious chicken when it comes to thrill rides like rollercoasters and even ferriswheels!  But weeks before this trip, my middle brother (who, by the way, is a thrill chicken as well!) started baiting me about going down Sliding Rock!!  

When I actually saw Sliding Rock, I really think I was more afraid I was going to slip on the rocks and fall on my face (or other end!) before I got to the sliding part!  But just to show my brother, I went down nature's rollercoaster!

Am I glad I did it? -- YES!!!!  Would I do it again? -- probably!!!!  Will I do the next thing he dares me to do ....... thinking .... still thinking!

But I just may have found my inner Daredevil!!!!!

How about you -- are you a daredevil????

Layout Challenge

I participated in a layout challenge with some of my friends and wanted to share with you what I created.

We had 1 hour to complete the challenge. So I was limited to supplies that I had on hand, and photos that were printed. This layout didn’t work with anything I had on hand. But there was no way I was passing up on a challenge. I bring this up because I want to give you another perspective to this drawing, and show you how you can take inspiration from one, and with a few changes, make it your own.

Prima Layout Challenge Drawing from their blog

Notice how the photo is landscape and the elements on the page work around that landscaped photo. This layout was just not going to work with the supplies I had. My photo was Portrait, and my paper design didn't allow for some of the layering in the same places. So I improvised.

From Flamingo Scraps: Prima: Pistachio and Parfait from the Madeline Paper Collection; Monarch Collection - Bling - Flower Center Diamond, Say It In Pearls Collection - Fairy Wings with Flowers - Cream; Glimmer Mist tutty fruity.
Other: Ribbon, Doily, Cricut Home Accents Cartridge "family", EK Success Punches, Martha Stewart Punches for the borders and small paper butterflies, Rosette Trim for the Large Butterflies, and feathers. Sizzix Butterfly die cut.

By taking the same drawing and flipping it I was able to incorporate the elements and still maintain the integrity of the drawing.

When you look at layout drawings don't immediately dismiss them. Try flipping the drawing, or turning it 90 degrees. Looking at it from a different perspective may inspire you and give you more layout possibilities.

Looking for Mojo

Sometimes Mojo just leaves us stranded and we find ourselves in a rut doing the same techniques over and over. I was talking about this with a friend and we decided to do a swap with a challenge to push ourselves to think outside the box.

The mission:

Create a Tag using the #8 Ranger tag in less than 2 hours, with the theme of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue. This could be taken in the literal sense of products, or even in the sense of techniques. The borrowed could be a technique that you recently learned, or it could be a product that was sent as a RAK (random act of kindness). The new - was defined as any unopened product regardless of how long ago it was purchased.

From Flamingo Scraps:  Graphic 45 Once Upon A Springtime collection; Prima Cameo Roses; Tim Holtz Vintage Photo, Crushed Olive & Broken China Distress Inks.

Other Products: Seam binding ribbon; vines; Tim Holtz Fanciful Flights Die Cut; Tim Holtz Beveled Fragment; Glossy Accents; Holographic Embossing Powder; Ranger #8 tag; EK Success Sticker; Glass Beads; Stamped Image; LumniArte Twinkling H20s; Blue Glitter nail Polish; My Mind's Eye Stella Rose Helen Stamps

Something OLD - Once Upon A Springtime, pieces of vines, sticker remnants, and vintage buttons all of these items were from the scrap pile.

Something NEW – My Mind’s Eye Stella Rose Stamp, Fragment Charm and cameo roses I grabbed at the last Flamingo Prima sale.

Something BORROWED - The stamped figure of the woman was RAKed to me by a YouTube Buddy, and I painted her with the Twinkling H20s and Glass charms that were also gifted to me.

Something BLUE - The cameo roses were blue, so I decided to paint my girl with the blue color and add Fairy wings that were painted with blue glitter nail polish. Yes read right – BLUE GLITTER NAIL POLISH. The nail polish added a nice sparkle but also acted like a glue for the black parts of the wings. The wings were cut from the Fanciful Flights die by Tim Holtz.

This is a great challenge to jump start the brain because you have to include so many elements in such a small space. Try it for yourself when Mojo leaves you hang’n.

Page Maps Challenge -- Merry and Bright

For this sketch in the Page Maps Challenge, I did something unusual for me -- I actually altered it to have fewer embellishments!  I decided that the GORGEOUS NOEL paper and ribbon from Teresa Collins spoke for themselves and highlighted these precious pictures of my adorable 14 year old puppy, Bella.  She looks a little sheepish and bored with her Christmas attire -- believe me, the hat stayed on just long enough for me to snap these quick shots!  The journaling reads "I can't believe she made me do this!"

Old Page Maps Challenge #22 -- sketch from Becky Fleck

Teresa Collis NOEL patterned papers and matching ribbon from Flamingo Scraps!

The things we do to our pets during the holidays!  Nevermind -- I smile everytime I see these photos of Bella!

Canal Street in Hollywood Vogue

I took advantage of this terrific sketch for the Page Maps Challenge to showcase some precious vintage photos of my mother using Webster's Pages Hollywood Vogue!  The Hollywood Vogue collection is simply fabulous -- great colors and patterns, and fabulous embellies!!  I am a backside of Webster's Pages kind of girl and the "backsides" were perfect for this layout as the multiphoto sketch covers so much of the patterned paper!

Page Map Sketch by Becky Fleck for Week 2 of Old Page Maps
Challenge 22

From Flamingo Scraps: Hollywood Vogue Collection by Webster's Pages
Other supplies -- thickers and miscellaneous ribbons, bazzill cardstock

This sophisticated collection was just made for vintage and "glamour" shot photos.  Give it a try!!!

Flamingo Five: Hallowe'en in Wonderland

Welcome to our very first Flamingo Five!!  We picked five products then challenged our September Guest Design Team and ourselves to use all five items in our project or layout!!  So without further adieu... here are the five items:

Up first, Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland,Wonderland Classifieds patterned paper:

And for our second item, Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass patterned paper:

The third item is Prima's new Craftables Flowers:

Fourth is one of our favorite staple items -- Prima Pearls & Crystals Ice bling:

And finally, the fifth item is the Flamingo Scraps Vintage/Steampunk Embellishment Grab Bag:

Full of Tim Holtz Grungeboard, watch pieces, clock hands, keys, metal gears, vintage ephemera, navy scallop ric rac, white ball trim.... every grab bag is different!!

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

Are you ready to see what we made?! 

Cindy's take:

 

I have to admit- when I opened the package containing the Flamingo Five, I had a moment of panic. My style is simple, so it is unusual that I use five supplies on a single project, let alone five that someone else picked out!

 

Fortunately, it didn't take long before I realized that these items would make a great Halloween wall hanging. I found an old wooden plaque, inked the edges with black Staz-On, and then used Mod Podge to adhere the dotted paper. I cut out Alice from the othersheet of paper and gave her a bunch of coats of Mod Podge too. With a coat of paint inside and out, and a smear of Stickles on top, the glass dome transformed into a full moon. The grungeboard pumpkin got a coat of paint and Stickles as well, and I backed it with a scrap of black paper. Then I punched out the negatives from the grungeboard butterfly and sprayed them and the Prima flowers with Glimmer Mist to make the pumpkin leaves.

 

 

 

To make the green vines, I sprayed the off-white trim with Glimmer Mist. When it was dry, I wound it around the handle of a foam brush and sprayed it with Krylon. Perfectly curled vines!

 

Supply list:  Flamingo Five; Staz-On - Jet Black; Stickles - Star Dust; Glimmer Mist - Key Lime Pie; Mod Podge; Krylon Acrylic Spray; Paint Delta (yellow) and Americana (brown, orange)

 

Jill's take

 

 

I used both pieces of paper. The flowers are in the upper left corner.  The pearls and crystals in ice are on the letters, the centres of the flowers and are the stars around the moon.  From within the vintage/steampunk bag, I used: ribbon, Tim Holtz grungeboard (moon/pumpkin).  I used my own: piece of cardstock (Bo Bunny), piece of purple pattern paper (Basic Grey) and the lettering.

 

Amanda's take

 

I don't have too many Halloween related pictures, so I ended up making a layout for my husband's book about his bike riding!

Flamingo 5 items, Bazzill cardstock, font is 1942 Report, charcoal Maya Mist and navy Tattered Angels mist.

 

What I love most about this layout is really hard to see... if you look closely to the picture above, you'll see a really subtle watermark effect on the cream cardstock.  I used my new 7 Gypsies gear stamp from the Steampunk stamp set and iridiscent pearl Maya Mist to "watermark" the cardstock with a shimmery pattern.  Just wanted something a little more than just plain cardstock!  

Susan's take

 

When my daughter Jessica was young, my Mother-in-law bought her an Alice in Wonderland dress from the Disney Store because she thought Jessica would look like Alice, at least Disney's version of Alice. Of course, I had to augment the dress with the white tights, black Mary Janes and a Headband to complete the "Alice" look!

 

I've been waiting for the right opportunity to scrap this photo of Jessica and Flamingo Five for September gave me the resources!

 

I used a Border from the Wonderland Die Cut Borders at the very top of the Layout. Bazzill card stock is the base of the Layout and the smaller photo mat. Everything else is from the Flamingo Five Set as follows:

1. G 45's Wonderland Classifieds - The fussy cut Alice, the dotted frame and the bigger photo mat
2. G 45's Through the Looking Glass - The fussy cut Mad Hatter and the horizontal paper strip under the photo.
3. Craftables Flowers - I used Bronze Glimmer Mist on the bigger bloom and Blue Raspberry Metallic Maya Mist on the smaller bloom, then layered them.
4. Pearls & Crystals Ice - Large Pearls used as flower centers
5. Steampunk Embellishment Grab Bag - Grungeboard Moon, Vintage Key, Navy Blue Velvet Ric Rac Trim and Vintage Clock Hands emanating from one of the flowers.

This was a lot of fun!

 

Suzanne's take

 

I have to admit I was worried about this first Flamingo Five challenge!  I'm an "organic" scrapper, could I work with pre-determined products?  Well, the answer is up to you, but I am pretty happy with the result!  I have wanted to scrap these silly pictures of my cat and was inspired by the Cheshire Cat in the Jack o' Lantern. 

 

 

I used both sheets of Hallowe'en in Wonderland patterned paper (1,2), the Prima E-line pearls and crystals in Ice (3), the Prima Craftables Flowers (4) and the lace, rick rack, clock hands, tiny paper bag, gear, and grunge butterfly from the embellie grab bag!  It must be said that Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a teal water color pencil helped me pull everything together!  Now I can't wait for the next Flamingo Five!

Now that we've made it to the end, we hope you enjoyed our very first Flamingo Five and you'll come back and join us on the 15th of each month to see what we made with a new batch of five 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 Blogger Kia: Cool Challenge Wrapup!

I have had such a great time guest blogging and challenging all you Flamingo Fans!  Thank you for playing along with us - I hope you got some layouts done and maybe challenged yourself to step outside your box and design something a little bit different.

We had two entries this week:

Entry number one from Cindy, one of our September Flamingo Scraps Guest Design Team members!

Family
by Cindy312
Scrapbook.com

And entry number two on our Facebook page from Kathleen Natale:

I am pleased to announce the winner of  Cool Challenge #4 is........

Kathleen Natale!!  Congratulations! Please send your shipping info to flamingoscraps@yahoo.com.

If you get a chance, stop by my blog,  Shiny Happy Veggies, where I try out and critique meat-less recipes!

Please join us in thanking Kia for guest blogging for us this month!! We've enjoyed the challenges and loved seeing everyone's layouts!!

My First Adventures in Steampunk!!!!

Once upon a time, I had a career in Historic Preservation.  I was an architectural historian and historian, and while I worked on almost every conceivable type of building, landscape, district, and structure -- I found myself drawn to industrial buildings and structures like textile mills and bridges.  Maybe that is why I am so fascinated by the Steampunk trend in scrapping.  It reminds me of a time when huge, noisy, smoking machines were housed in vast buildings with lavish architectural details and when bridges were works of art and not just a way to get across water.

Steampunk to me is the iron fist in the velvet glove, a steel magnolia, it is, well it is the movie The Wild, Wild West with Kenneth Branagh wearing a brocade waistcoat while manuevering his outlandish mechanical inventions.  It is chainlink and pearls, gears with jewels, it is wings on things that were never meant to fly.  Steampunk is hard and soft, vintage and futuristic.  I may never really master Steampunk as a scrapping style, but I am sure going to have fun trying!

This is my first foray into Steampunk as I braved the Steampunk Challenge on Scrapbook.com in July -- Prima paintable, lots of Tim Holtz distress ink, transparency of an industrial scene, metal elements from Flamingo Scraps Steampunk/Vintage grab bag, distressed, embellished, and inked picture is of my great grandmother

And this is my second for the same challenge this month -- Webster's Pages Seaside Retreat, dimensional seahorse stickers with Tim Holtz grunge board wings and gears, elements highlighted with Crackle Glossy Accents, image of woman and seahorse from internet images is printed on canvas, covered with Antique Linen distress stickles, and embellished.

Since then I have been experimenting with different materials and textures to create Steampunk embellishments of my own!

My experiments in Steampunk Embellishments!

Ranger metal slide mount frame with glass plates and keepsake pocket insert -- vintage image of gears with tiny gears in the pocket and a gear on a jump ring and torn strip of silk for finishing touches

Similar embellie with shell image, tiny shells in pocket, and shell on curled wire and vintage lace

Vintage watch  crystals with tiny watch pieces embedded in them using clear and sepia Glossy Accents -- Crackle Glossy Accents creates a fabulous effect as well!

Whether you go all out with Steampunk, or just incorporate some details into your layouts and paper crafting,  it is an exciting and fun style to play with.  It will really stretch your imagination and creativity and add fabulous texture and dimension to any project!!  And just look around you -- the Steampunk influence is showing up everywhere -- fashion, home decor, and my personal favorite, the new Blue Plate Mayonnaise commercials!!!

Guest Blogger Kia: Cool Challenge # 4

 I can't believe how fast the Flamingo Scraps version of Scraptathlon has gone!  This is our last challenge so I wanted to make it one to remember.  If you missed the original post describing this challenge, here's a link.


Cool Challenge #4 ~ Steam - Peter Gabriel.
The hottest trend to come out of CHA has got to be Steampunk!  Your challenge this week is to find a way to meld the past with the future in a LO. As Steampunk melds the Victorian era with science fiction, what can you find from the past that meshes with your future?

Required Item:
This week's required item is Metal.  You must use something metallic in your Layout.

Here's a sample layout from Amanda:

A note from Amanda:  I'm not sure how "steampunk" this really is now that it's finished... but it is an old layout, using a key and a little vintage looking right?!  This photo is of my grandparents and my thoughts about the photo.
From Flamingo Scraps:  Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante patterned papers, Prima white flower and Say it in Crystals with Flowers bling.
Other supplies used: American Crafts grey thickers and presicion pen, Martha Stewart ribbon loop punch and Making Memories metal heart, key and word "love"

All Layouts must be uploaded to the Flamingo Scraps blog(using Mr. Linky) or Facebook page no later than 8pm EDT on August 29, 2010* to be eligible.

On sale this week at Flamingo Scraps ......Selected Graphic 45 tags, frames and borders for Steampunk Debutante and Hallowe'en in Wonderland, also Steampunk/Vintage Embellishment Grab Bags and brand new from Summer CHA - Vintage Embellishments from Prima!

The winner of  Week # 3's challenge drawing is:

Stacey Rodriguez!  Congratulations!  Please send your shipping info to flamingoscraps@yahoo.com.

I will be back next Monday to announce the winner of Week #4.

*Edited to correct the deadline