Weekend Whimsy: Captain Kangaroo

Captain Kangaroo is responsible for me being a paper crafter.

Many of you Baby Boomers will remember Captain Kangaroo and the Treasure House.  Captain Kangaroo and his cast of characters were a great way to start your day!  Captain would always get sucked in by Mr. Moose and his knock-knock jokes.  Every encounter with Mr. Moose ended in the Captain getting doused with ping-pong balls.  Mr. Green Jeans taught us about animals and Bunny Rabbit always got the carrots.

I loved the Tom Terrific cartoon and all the wonderful books Captain would read to us.   Remember "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel"?  Or how about "Caps for Sale" or "The Story of Ping"?

But my favorite segment was always the art projects.  Captain would demonstrate the art project that usually consisted of construction paper, craft glue and an oatmeal or shoe box.  I loved the sound of the blunt-tipped scissors cutting the construction paper and watching Captain squeeze the glue bottle.  Inevitably, I would then go and get my art supplies and try to duplicate what Captain Kangaroo had just demonstrated.

I'm still doing this only Captain Kangaroo has been replaced by Live With Prima!

Thanks for walking down Memory Lane with me this weekend!

Flamingo Five: Maya Road Owl Coaster Album

Welcome to our next installment of Flamingo Five!  Five items... lots of creative points of view!!  Miss our first installment?  Check out last month's Hallowe'en in Wonderland Flamingo Five.  Shall we get started?!

October's Flamingo Five items are:

1. Maya Road Owl Coaster Album

2. Prima Pearls & Crystals Ice Bling

3. Maya Road trinket pin grab bag

4. Prima E-Line & Craftables flower grab bag

5. Flamingo Scraps Cheep Trims:  White Cotton Braid

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?!

Diana's take:

From Flamingo Scraps:  Flamingo Five items, Pink Paislee 365 Degrees Collection.

Here is my Owl Coaster Album. I used the Flamingo Five items as well as papers from Pink Paislee 365 collection. I used the 6x6 paper pack -- the perfect sized papers for this album. I also cut my photos using a 2" scallop punch, adhering them with either Glue Dots or Pop Dots. One thing I wanted to note about my approach to mini albums: I always break them in half. Most minis are sold in way more pieces than I need for a single project, so breaking this one in half makes two 3-piece (or 6-pages back-to-back) albums. I like that it stretches my purchase further and makes the mini less intimidating to fill.

Genie's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen and Peeled Paint.

Other Supplies:  Bazzill Basics cardstock, Fancy Pants patterned paper & buttons (Little Sprout), Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Ink in Butterscotch, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type, Spare Parts letters, Crafter's Workshop Template.

I think the theme of my layout is INK!!  Just about everything used here is altered in some way with Tim Holtz Distress Inks or Adirondack Alcohol Ink.  First I created the background using a brick template and Distress Ink.  I inked the lace trim and the flowers with two colors of Distress Ink, and the pearls were altered using Adirondack Alcohol Ink.  Chipboard is always a challenge for me, but this cute owl gave me my title and worked well as a journal spot once covered in patterned paper (and inked, of course!)

Amanda's take:

From Flamingo Scraps:  Flamingo Five items; Ranger Cotton Candy & Icicle Stickles; Prima Clear Stamp Paintables Flower #1; Tim Holtz Distress Ink in tattered rose

Other Supplies:  Basic Grey Urban Prairie patterned papers, Fiskars postage stamp punch; Martha Stewart butterfly confetti punch; American Crafts pen

I absolutely LOVE this coaster album from Maya Road!  So much so, that I made this, saved the other four owls from the set and then made another album out of a second coaster set!!  You can see my other owl mini album Who Loves You? over on my blog later today.  I have been wanting a place to jot down quotes for later use and this is the perfect size!  I just cut some white cardstock and stamped it with a new Paintables stamp from Prima & some tattered rose distress ink to give it a little bit of a background.  Super easy and now I have a cute new critter that lives on my desk! :)

Suzanne's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Maya Mist in Cherry Metallic (Cardinal) and Lemon Metallic (Straw)

Other supplies:  Daisy D's pp from my stash; Bazzill cardstock for the journaling; embroidery hoop

In my family, owls mean one thing -- my Daddy's nickname for Mama -- The Big Owl.  Dating back to their college courting days, it refers to Mama being the president of Chi Omega Sorority, the owl is their mascot, during their senior year at the University of Florida.  This little owl mobile incorporates the colors, purposes, ideals, flower and gems of Chi Omega!

So here we are at the end of our second Flamingo Five 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 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!


And don't forget about our anniversary giveaways... make sure you enter yourself in each week's new giveaway on Wednesday!!  

Guest DT Genie Smith: Using Vignettes & Actions in Photoshop

Hello all!  Genie again, and today we're going to explore Photoshop.

Just a few notes: I use a PC with Windows Vista and PhotoShop CS3; there are going to be differences between operating systems and PhotoShop versions!

One of my favorite techniques is a vignette.  A vignette is a subtle darkening or lightening of the edges of a photo.  It doesn't seem like much in writing, but it really draws the eye into a photo.  There are many ways to do everything in PhotoShop, but my fave to create a vignette is quite simple.  Choose the elliptical marquee tool and set the feathering to 150-250 px (I am usually working with photos sized roughly 8x10 and set my feathering to 200 px).  Draw your ellipse on the photo so that the edges of the marquee nearly touch the edges of the photo; you don't want to obscure anything important to the composition.

Invert your selection (in your upper menu, choose "Select" and then "Inverse"--keyboard shortcut is Shift + F7).  Next, we're going to adjust the levels of the selected area; go to "Image," "Adjustments" and "Levels."  In the bottom of the levels window, choose the slider on the right side of the bar and pull it left until the edges darken to your liking.

Voila!

Before

After

Experiment, too--you can use the Fill command to create a colored vignette (be sure to change the opacity of the fill, I use 40-60 percent opacity), or the Gaussian Blue filter to blur the edges.  If you'd like to create a lighter vignette, you would use the slider on the left side of the bar and drag it to the right.

I also LOVE to use actions on my photos!  There are so many actions available online, and many of them are free.  I find most of mine by doing a Google search for "Photoshop CS3 actions."
One of my absolute faves is called Aly's Vintage, by Alyson Comacho, and you can download it here, along with many other free actions.  Actions are easy to install; you need to find your Adobe folder on your hard drive (it should be in your Program Files folder), then your Photoshop folder, then the Presets folder.  In the Presets folder, there should be one called Actions, and you simply drag the .atn file into that folder.  In PhotoShop, open your Actions palette.  In the top right corner, there's a little menu icon; when you click it, you should get a menu and one of the options will be "Load actions..."  From there, simply navigate to where you just saved your action.  Then it's as easy as selecting the action in the palette and pressing the play command.

In this photo, I used Aly's Simply Vintage and added a dark vignette:

Experiment and have fun!

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

Anniversary Month Prize Blog No. 2

The winners from Prize Blog # 1 are... 

Kathy -- Marion Smith Flip Flap Album Kit

Lady Cindy -- Marion Smith Halloween Treat Box Kit

Tracy Pea -- Marion Smith Floral Photo Frame Kit

CONGRATULATIONS LADIES!!!!  Please contact us here, on Facebook, or at flamingoscraps@yahoo.com and give us your snail mail addresses so we can send you your prizes!!!!!!

If you do not yet follow our blog, now would be a good time to do so!  Also, please go tell your friends or re-post this on your blog!

Today's question is:  Which adhesive do you use most?   Just post your answer in the form of a comment.

Just post your answer in the form of a comment to be entered in this week's giveaway!

Deadline for comments is Monday, October 18, 2010 at midnight EDT.  Just post your answer to our question to be entered for our random prize drawing next week!

Winners and prizes announced Wednesday, October 20, 2010.

Guest DT Diana Fisher: Pink Paislee Mistletoe & Co. Decor

Hi there, it’s Diana with you again today.

I am a Pink Paislee nut. Love their work… all of it! I hoarded pieces from their holiday line last year, so I happily dug those up last week and got to working on this cute little altered jar (from Prima) and faux flower decoration.

From Flamingo Scraps:  Pink Paislee Mistletoe & Company collection

First, I ran the cut-to-fit piece of paper through my Xyron Sticker Maker (which is now broken… grr….) and adhered it to the glass. Then I did the same with the die cut label.

For the stick flowers, I used BBQ skewers you can get at almost any grocery store.  I had some pre-cut felt flowers already. Then I covered some pieces of the Maya Road Buttons Mini Chipboard Set with papers, sanding the edges. I adhered the finished buttons to the felt, tied them off with ribbon, and even added some holiday embellishments.

To get the flowers on the sticks, I ran the pointy end up through the ribbon on the other side of the chipboard, between the felt and the button. For extra good measure, you can add a Glue Dot, but if you tie the ribbon tight enough, it will stay as is.

There you have it! A cute little home décor item.

More of Diana's work can be seen here on her blog and make sure you swing by Sketchy Thursdays to play along with her fantastic weekly sketch challenge!

December Daily

Every year I've loved reading Ali Edwards' December Daily project posts... and every year I wish that I was playing along.  Well no more reading and wishing... this year I'm jumping in and making my own!  A few weeks ago, when I first got my new Teresa Collins Noel papers + chipboard covers from the store, I knew they would be perfect for this project.  So I set them aside along with some Maya Road snowflakes:

Last Friday, Ali Edwards did her first post about this years December Daily and she's using the Teresa Collins chipboard covers!  I'm looking forward to putting my first December Daily album together this year.  I have some fun stuff planned and my first niece is due Christmas Eve.  Lots worth capturing. :)

Have you played along before and made a December Daily album?  Are you playing along this year?  I'd love to see your albums!

Weekend Whimsy: Olive Garden's Pasta e Fagioli Soup

I'd like to share one of my favorite recipes.  It's a copycat recipe of Olive Garden's Pasta e Fagioli Soup.  I make this all the time - it's Italian comfort food!  Be sure to sprinkle some Parmigiano Reggiano cheese on top and don't forget a slice of crusty Italian bread.  This is a great meal for a chilly Autumn day and it freezes well too!

Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, diced (1 cup)
1 large carrot, julienned (1 cup)
3 stalks celery, chopped (1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 15-ounce can red kidney beans (with liquid)
1 15-ounce can great northern beans (with liquid)

1 15-ounce can pinto beans (with liquid)

1 15-ounce can black beans (with liquid)
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 12-ounce can V-8 juice
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 pound (1/2 pkg.) ditalini pasta

1.    Brown the ground beef in a large saucepan or pot over medium heat. Drain off most of the fat.

2.    Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and sauté for 10 minutes.

3.    Add remaining ingredients, except pasta, and simmer for 1 hour.

4.    About 50 minutes into simmer time, cook the pasta in 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of boiling water over high heat. Cook for 10 minutes or just until pasta is al dente, or slightly tough. Drain.

5.    Add the pasta to the large pot of soup. Simmer for 5-10 minutes and serve.

Serves 8.

Mangia Bene!

What Goes With What? Webster's Pages WonderFall

Webster's Pages is one of the best when it comes to producing embellishments to go with its paper collections, so there is no dearth of gorgeous items to complement the WonderFall collection.  However, Flamingo Scraps carries so many beautiful items from different manufacturers, it would be a shame not to explore the other scrappy goodness that coordinates with this lovely collection in shades of yellow, orange, green, grey-blue and burgundy.



Webster's Pages WonderFall -- NEW at Flamingo Scraps

 


Trims

Maya Road's pleated grosgrain ribbon trim in cream, Maya Road's velvet rick rack in brown and orange;
Cheep Trims daisy Venice lace trim and daisy trim with black centers.

 

Alphas and Numbers

Pink Paislee alpha in bayberry, Prima holographic alpha that changes in the light from yellow to rust to rose, Maya Road's chipboard alphas in several fonts, and just for fun Maya Road's Wooden Bingo Numbers that echo the number pattern in the paper!

 Flowers

Primas galore coordinate with the gorgeous Fall colors in WonderFall -- cottage flowers, zazi flowers in french blue, Sweet Taffy flowers in blue, Sirah glimmer leaves, elines in Beautiful yellow, craftables to alter at will, and Fluture butterflies

 Bling

Prima eline bling in garnet, sunflower, and morning, pearls and flowers swirls in light brown and pale yellow, bling and lace swirl in brown

 Inks, Paints, and Mists

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists in Olive Vine, Pomegranete, Lemongrass, Tattered Suede,  Tim Holtz Distress inks in Mustard Seed and Bundled Sage, Distress paint in Mustard Seed and Weathered Wood, stickles in yellow and patina, and distress stickles in mustard seed and weathered wood.

Check out the gorgeous Webster's Pages embellishments made to coordinate with Wonderfall -- but don't forget to poke around the store for other goodies that go with this beautiful paper -- you are sure to find just the right combination of products to inspire your next project!

Guest DT Genie Smith: How to Make your Photos Look "Professional"

Hi Flamingo Followers!  Genie here for my very first post of the month; you would all laugh if you could see how nervous I am...and how many times I've rewritten this!!  I've spent the better part of the last 15 years as a professional portrait and wedding photographer.  I've photographed under many conditions, and I'd like to share some tips on how to make your photos look "professional" without ever having come near a studio.

The obvious choice is to photograph outdoors, on location.  Look for an outdoor area that gets plenty of shade, or choose a mildly overcast day.  If you have to work with sun, try to work first thing in the morning or later in the evening when the sun is lower.  It rarely works well to have your subject facing into the sun; it creates harsh shadows around the eyes and causes most people to squint.  Put the subject's back to the sun; use your flash or a large piece of bright white cardboard to fill in the shadows.

Use your surroundings.  Here, there were two large, beautifully planted beds with lots of  color and texture.  I placed my niece between them and chose an angle that used the roses in the foreground and the large leaves in the background.

With a small animal (or a baby, for that matter), cuddling is the key!  Put the heads close together and crop tightly.

For a larger group, try to keep heads at different levels.  The ideal shape is a triangle, with the "tallest" person in the center.  You can achieve this by using people's heights or by having some of your subjects sit or kneel.  Try some poses with people grouped closely together, and a few with the group spread apart a bit more.

Try an interesting angle!  In the photograph of my daughter on the beach, I tipped the camera and it gave the portrait motion.  In the photograph with the tree, cropping out the top of her head draws your eyes into the photo and spotlights my favorite feature, her pretty blue eyes and that spattering of freckles!

You can achieve studio-like portraits in your home, too!  I made these images of my new baby on my living room floor, using my Boppy covered with a towel or blanket and a piece of white matboard for a background.  I chose to use the floor near my sliding glass window because it gets indirect light on sunny days; the building casts a shadow on our deck so the light that comes in isn't direct sunlight.  Try to set your subject at a 45 degree angle to the light coming in; traditional portrait lighting illuminates one side of the face fully, with a triangle on the opposite cheek.  If it seems that the shadows are too dark, use another piece of white matboard to fill in the shadows.  Make it the third leg of an imaginary triangle, and move it around until you can see the difference.

Finally, I want to take a moment on the Rule of Thirds.  This is a compositional rule of thumb used throughout the visual arts that states that an image should be divided into nine equal parts by a grid of two vertical lines and two horizontal lines.  Important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or at intersections.  Doing this will create more energy, or visual tension, in your images; you can see this in my portraits.  Try an experiment; take a photo of a landscape.  First, put the horizon at dead center.  Next, put the horizon at the bottom third.  Try the same with a portrait; put the subject's head dead center, and then move it up to the top third.

The best advice I can ever give is SHOOT!  Keep shooting; try different angles, crop close, crop loose, change the location of the point of interest.  But most of all, have fun!

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

Anniversary Month Prize Blog #1

Every Wednesday in October, Flamingo Scraps will post a Prize blog.  We will ask a question, you will have until the next Monday, October 11, 2010 at Midnight EDT to answer by posting a comment.  We will randomly draw from the list of commenters and award two to three prizes the following Wednesday.  Among these prizes are such fabulous things as Marion Smith Kits, Tim Holtz' "Compendium of Curiosities" and one Teresa Collins Stamp Machine!!

If you do not yet follow our blog, now would be a good time to do so!  Also, please go tell your friends, re-post this on your blog or share it on Facebook!

To enter the prize giveaway, just answer the following question in the comments section of this post:

"What is your favorite paper line ever made?"  

Deadline for comments is Monday, October 11, 2010 at Midnight EDT.

Winners and prizes announced next Wednesday, October 13, 2010.  Good luck!

Guest DT Diana Fisher: Maya Road Laundry Day Chipboard

Hi there, it’s Diana with you today. So happy to be blogging for Flamingo Scraps. I have a soft spot in my heart for Susan, Suzanne and Amanda. So, when they invited me to be part of their GDT plans, and especially part of their birthday month of October, I was over-the-moon excited.

In a previous order from Flamingo Scraps, I had picked up the Maya Road - Mini Chipboard Set - LAUNDRY DAY. LOVE!

Today I wanted to share with you the way I most commonly use these tiny little pieces of awesomeness. If you’re like me, you buy things because they are adorable and worry later about how you’ll use them.

 The first thing I made is a tag. I made this using older Webster’s Pages paper (also purchased at FS, but since sold out—of course!) and Prima - E Line Pearls & Crystals - BISCUIT.

The paper was cut, corners rounded at one end, hole punched and threaded with ribbon, and then embellished with a variety of fussy cutting from the Webster’s Pages papers, rub ons (from American Crafts) and layered with embellishments. I used a combination of felt and punched papers to accent the chipboard onesie that I covered with more of the paper.

The other way I use the Maya Road - Mini Chipboard Set - LAUNDRY DAY pieces is on cards. And I love using the laundry line look.

I used Pink Paislee-Queen Bee Collection- HONEY BEE paper for this card.

Cool tip on using clothespins with the laundry line look: If you want the clips to look and be flatter than using the whole clothespin—take it apart. I snap them right in half, taking the spring part off. Then I even cut the tips of them off, making them shorter. Sand the cut portion a bit and use Glue Dots to hold them into the paper. Easy! And the postal service will like you a lot more, too, if you have to mail it.

There you have it! Thanks for reading my post today on what you can do using the Maya Road - Mini Chipboard Set - LAUNDRY DAY collection.

More of Diana's work can be seen here on her blog and make sure you swing by Sketchy Thursdays to play along with her fantastic weekly sketch challenge!

Amanda's Top Five Scrappy Must Haves

Okay, so I've noticed lately that I really have my set of go-to tools and supplies.  I thought it would be fun to share and ask you to share your favorites too!!

1. Punches:  I use them on most projects these days.  My most favorite punches?  Fiskars Threading Water, Fiskars Apron Lace, Martha Stewart classic heart and Martha Stewart butterfly confetti. 
2. Thickers:  I love these things.  I'm totally and hopelessly addicted.  And now Flamingo Scraps carries them... this does not help my addiction to them at all!! :)

3. Chipboard:  I also have a love for chipboard.  I kinda have more than I could ever hope to use!  My weakness?  Maya Road chipboard.... like this:
   
   
4. Bling:  Now let's not forget about the bling stash.  I also tend to use this frequently on my layouts!  I have not one but two bling containers.  :)

5. My Sewing Machine:  I love to add real stitching to my pages.  Now I've been known to fake stitch a time or two with a paper piercer + pen or add them with stamps, but for the most part I use my sewing machine.  No special trick to it... I sew on paper just like I do on fabric!! The machine doesn't like chipboard (it would break a needle) or other items with dimension (like things that have been adhered with pop dots), so I typically add the stiching before I start layering on other embellishments or my title.

So clearly, this list could go on for quite a while... but I'll stop here!!  Other essentials include inspiration (blogs, books and magazines), patterned paper, flowers, adhesive and cardstock, but I have to say these are my favorite five items.  What are yours?