Guest DT Tonya Gibbs: 2011 Calendars - Office Gifts

From Flamingo Scraps: Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante patterned papers; Tim Holtz Gears; 7 Gypsies Paddington Stamp set; Steampunk Grab bag; Prima Say it in pearls and lace bling.

Other supplies:  Bo Bunny metal brads;  Karen Foster Screw top Brads; Metal Charms; Paper Shapers Clock faces; Satin Fabric; Tim Holtz Ball and Chain; Tim Holtz Crackle Medium.

Every time I look at the Steampunk paper by Graphic 45 I’m inspired. So I figured if I made a calendar it would offer inspiration for another year. With each turn of the page month after month, I will be stimulated to create.  There are 6 chipboard pages, a month on each side. The pages are cut from the Tim Holtz Baroque die.   Calendars can be downloaded in the MS Word or PDF format from the Internet. I printed mine on a neutral cardstock for added stability.

They have been placed on the pages with an ornament hook, so they can be replaced year after year.

This project is awesome for using up random scraps, because each page can be unique.  Just remember to keep each page somewhat flat, so it doesn’t get too bulky.  The die cut will allow the calendar to stand freely on its own with the extra pages.

Want to see more?  Here's a video on my youtube channel you can watch:

More of Tonya's work can be seen here on her website or here on her youtube channel!

Guest Blogger Heather Landry: Fancy Pants Wishful Thinking

I am so excited to be posting today at Flamingo Scraps!  Thank you very much to Susan, Suzanne and Amanda for having me!

I've been having a ball playing with the beautiful Wishful Thinking line from Fancy Pants. I really love the color combination and it works very well with other lines that are currently in the store! In the two layouts that I created, I explored creating dimension with paper. I even have a little tutorial to share on using Glimmer Mist to make die cut flowers more dimensional.

In this first layout I created dimension by adhering the border punched strips really well. Then I pulled the scallops up and bent them away from the page. I also did the same thing with the banner that I fussy cut out of the Wishful Thinking paper.

I inked all of the edges with pink ink to make them stand out a little more, and I added rock candy Stickles to the journaling spot and the banner. Here's a detail shot of the ruffled punched edges. Very girlie and fun to make!

On my second layout, I used Pearl Glimmer Mist to wet my flower diecuts so I could shape them the way I wanted to. They held their shape really well when they dried! Here is the layout I created...

This is a close up look at one of the finished flowers. The flourish below it was stamped directly onto the layout. Then I attached the flowers to the layout on top of the stamping.

Tutorial: To create the flowers you will need die cut flowers of any shape or size, pearl Glimmer Mist, a tool with a rounded or curved edge (I used one of my Cricut tools that is meant to pull paper off of the mat.), and a mouse pad.

You will want to shape your flowers one at a time so the Glimmer Mist doesn't dry out. I sprayed a flower, then placed it on my upside down mouse pad. The foam under side of the mouse pad gives a little and will let you push against it without tearing your flower. A word of caution, be gentle! When the flowers are damp, they tear easily.

Press down on each petal with your tool as shown. Different movements and tools result in different effects. It's definitely something you'll want to play around with to see what you like. If you use the curved small edge, you get a ruffled distressed edge. If you use the blunt edge you will get a more cupped dimensional shape to your petals. Here is a photo of the three completed flowers after I layered them with brads.

After I attached the flowers to the layout, I decided they needed a little something extra! I used Cotton Candy Stickles on the edges of parts of the flower to make them stand out even more.

Supplies from Flamingo Scraps: Fancy Pants Wishful Thinking Papers, Pink Paislee Cupid Paper and Embellishments (Brads, Rub Ons, Sticker Borders, and Journaling Spots), Rock Candy Stickles, Cotton Candy Stickles, and Pearl Glimmer Mist.

We thank Heather for joining us again to share even more of her fantastic work with us!!  To view more of her layouts and read about her adventures of three adorable kiddos, please check out her blog! 

Guest DT Jolaine Frias: Wicked Fun Mini Album

Today, I'd like to share a mini album I made using the super fun line Hocus Pocus by Pink Paislee.

From Flamingo Scraps:  Pink Paislee Hocus Pocus

In this mini, I'm planning to showcase photos of my kids pumpking picking, carving their Jack-o-Lantern, and trick or treating. They dressed up as Spiderman and Wonder Girl hence the "super' theme going on here. On the cover, I added some of that spooky net I kept seeing at every discount store last month. My favorite part of the mini is the cool bottle of blood (Tim Holtz re-inkers and water) hanging from the binding. Hope you like it!









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

Flamingo Five: Dear Lizzy Enchanted

Welcome to our this month's Flamingo Five! Five items... lots of creative points of view!! Miss our first two installments? Check out September's Hallowe'en in Wonderland Flamingo Five & October's Maya Road Coaster Album Flamingo Five. Shall we get started?!

November's Flamingo Five items are:

1.  American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted - Refined Percy front side (white & pink pattern)

2. American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted - Refind Percy back side (sea foam green solid)

3. American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted - Sir Charlie

4.  Prima Say it in Pearls 3 Flowers Swirl in Snow

5.  Flamingo Scraps Cheep Trims: Beaded Lace

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?!

Jolaine's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Glimmer Mist Sweet Clover and Vintage Pink

Other Supplies: American Crafts Thickers

It was my first time playing with Dear Lizzy papers. They are so playful and girlie! As soon as I saw them I knew what I wanted to do. You see, my five year old daughter loves to come into my scrapbook room and use all my cardstock and tools. I have been meaning to make her an art journal and I think these were the perfect papers for it! I sprayed the lace with Sweet Clover Glimmer Mist and the roses with Vintage Pink. To make the mat for the title, I cut two ovals out of the stripe paper and decorated the border of one of them with a Martha Stewart corner punch. All I added were the alphas to make the title. I simply altered a composition notebook and gave her the scraps to play with along with a glue stick and scissors. She was over the moon!

Tonya's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Maya Road Hanging Chandelier Trinket Beads

Each year I make Christmas tags that I place on packages for select friends and loved ones.  These tags can also be used as Christmas Tree ornaments.  I always make sure to cover the back to give a clean finish on both sides.  They are very well received, and it is fun to see past ornaments on family trees.   Since it is mid-November, I decided to make Christmas tags with my Flamingo Five supplies.  Although the supplies aren't Christmas themed, I think they still have a nice seasonal look. I was able to create four tags with the supplies. I also added the Maya Road chandelier crystals for added bling.

Amanda's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Cotton Candy Stickles

Other Supplies: Stampin' Up Heart punch; Studio Calico polaroid stamp; Basic Grey chipboard "a"; Pink Catseye Inkpad; Micron pen

When my sister, Katie, had my adorable nephew Creighton he was five weeks early.  My sister was carrying around a stack of photos in her purse as she went back and forth to the NICU for 10 days so I made her a cute little photo album to hold the photos.  A few weeks ago, she asked me if I was going to make her another little photo album to put Abigail's first photos.  Of course I am!  And these papers were perfect for it. :)  So I covered the album and made a cute first page to add a photo to when Abby makes her arrival in the next few weeks!

Suzanne's take:

From Flamingo Scraps: Flamingo Five items; Maya Road mega super bottle cap; Tim Holtz distress ink in frayed burlap

Other supplies: Spellbinders die; Tim Holtz rosette die;

Last, but certainly not least, are Suzanne's ornaments!  Looks like Tonya and Suzanne were on a similar wavelength this month!  She made two fabulous ornaments with this month's Flamingo Five items.

So here we are at the end of our third 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!

Weekend Whimsy: Are you ready for your annual dose of tryptophan?

Image via here.

I know I am!! :)  So it's that time of year... time to start planning and prepping for Thanksgiving dinner!  For the last eight years, we have hosted dinner at our house and cooked most every dish.  And we love doing it.  We divide the duties between the two of us and now that we finally have it perfected, I think we are going to skip it this year and let someone else do all the cooking. :) 

My dear husband Brian cooks the bird -- don't ask me how... it involves a bag or foil (both work well), butter under the skin and some combo of fresh herbs.  It's delicious!  And we cook up the following menu:

Cranberry-Orange Chex Mix  (our go-to snack throughout the day)
Parker House Rolls
Cornbread with Honey Butter (take one stick of butter at room temp and stir in 3-4 big spoonfuls of honey to taste!)
Green Bean Casserole (the secret to taking to a new level?  Fresh green beans and we make homemade french fried onions.... so super delicious!)
Candied Yams using real yams of course (and we won't talk about the year I carmelized the marshmallows, added a second batch to the top and then burned them campfire style!)
Cranberry Sauce
Classic Stuffing (I make it as dressing - we've had it with and without the cherries and pecans, both ways are yummy!)
Mashed Garlic Potatoes
Gravy (made from the cooking of the turkey of course!)
Brian's Turkey

So if you aren't stuffed from all that and imbibed from some white wine to chase it with.... we have a long running dessert bar.  For real.  You will be in a food coma on my couch listening to us play yahtzee or scrabble.  Promise. :)  And, fair warning, you are lucky if we come into the dessert portion of the feast with only 4 or 5 choices since we can never agree on one or two options!   So we usually end up with the following desserts made by the following chefs, all depending on who will be attending:

Pumpkin Pie (Me) with homemade whipped cream (my husband) -- this makes the list every single year!
Chocolate Pie (the husband)
Lemon Pie (again, the husband) with homemade graham cracker crust (my husband)
Dutch Apple Pie (Me) - I substitute a crumb streusel topping in place of the top crust
Chocolate Wafer Ice Box Cake (the dessert loving husband of course!)
Lindy's New York Style Cheesecake (Me) - this is the *best* cheesecake recipe EVER!  It takes practice and multiple takes to get used to it - worth all the hassle.  I don't ever make any other cheesecakes now!

In honor of the impending holiday, I think I'll be going for a run this morning.  And every morning until turkey day is upon us!

So what do you make?  Or buy?  Which dessert would you want on the menu if you came to our house for Thanksgiving?! :)

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted: Several Mini Collections in One!

Suzanne and Amanda here with you today.  We both are just loving working with the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted line and wanted to share it with you.  With tons of patterns, it is almost like several mini collections in one.  First, we must say how fabulous the color palette is!

Here are the patterned papers together, along with the coordinating cardstock (all available in the store):

Aren't they fabulous?!  The best part is that you can regroup the patterns to focus on certain color combinations.  For this layout Suzanne concentrated on the patterned papers with lime green and purple patterns:


From Flamingo Scraps: American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted collection, Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Dusty Concord,
and miscellaneous trims from my stash.

 Three different patterned papers combined with coordinating cardstock from the same Enchanted collection give an entirely different look!  Here Suzanne focused mostly on the pinks and teals from the Wonderful Alice patterned paper (flower pattern):



From Flamingo Scraps: American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted patterned papers and fabric brads, coordinating
American Crafts cardstock, miscellaneous embellishments.



Amanda chose an entirely different color palette, focusing first on the peach, hot pink and lime greens:

From Flamingo Scraps: American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted (cardstock, patterned papers); American Crafts Thickers (Rocketeer); Prima Love Letter Roses (Rose Quartz)

Other Supplies: Martha Stewart punches (ribbon loop and doily); Anniversary sticker (unknown); American Crafts pen (stamp marker)

And a close up of the fabulous patterned paper -- it's pretty and shiny!

 

Then for a fourth entirely different palette, Amanda focused on the light teal, light lime green and light pink combination:

From Flamingo Scraps: American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted (cardstock, patterned papers); Stickles (stardust)

Other Supplies: Cricut (Simply Sweet cartridge); American Crafts pen (stamp marker); Martha Stewart punches (ribbon loop and doily); corner rounder

The stickles added a lot of sparkle to the page and as soon as there are some pictures of Amanda's niece once she's born in the next few weeks, she'll have this cute page for her niece's scrapbook!

We hope you have enjoyed seeing the versatility of this collection today!!

Guest DT Tonya Gibbs: Holiday Organization

From Flamingo Scraps: Teresa Collins.Noel Collection

Other Supplies: House of 3 (digital brushes) and Martha Stewart (punches)

My house is like a Merry-Go-Round during the holidays, with cheer competition, football playoffs, decorating, parades, parties, photos, shopping and the list goes on and on. A few years ago I started a holiday planner to help me stay organized. When I got the Noel collection from Flamingo I knew it would be the chosen paper for this album. The paper is very durable and has a watercolor texture to it. Very rich, and the colors are very sophisticated. The album has a simple design, because it needed to hold TONS of information. I have found that it has become my right arm this time of year.

It is very similar to the Ali Edwards 25 days of Christmas, but with a twist. It isn’t something to document the entire 25 days, but it does help document the ciaos that surrounds the holiday season. It has plenty of space for sales fliers, coupons, receipts, calendar entries, schedules, menus, and yes even photos. When the organizer part is done, I will replace some of the pages with photos and keep this as a mini album. The great thing is it helps me organize for the upcoming years as well.

Want to see more?  Here's a video on my youtube channel you can watch:

More of Tonya's work can be seen here on her website or here on her youtube channel!

Baby Shower Guest Book Layout

When I throw showers, I like to look for fun ways to create a guest book.  For my sister's baby shower a few weeks ago, I wanted to create a fun guest book.  I opted for a space saving version... a layout instead of a book!

From Flamingo Scraps:  Prima Sugarplum Roses in Eggplant

Other Supplies: Bazzill Basics die cut scallop paper, American Crafts thickers, GCD Studios patterned paper, Imaginesce rhinestone rubons, sewing machine + thread

I punched out several dozen hearts and had everyone sign one side.  For the other side, they wrote their guess for how many candy corn pieces were in a baby bottle.  Win-win... a fun little game and a simple guest book layout that can slide right into my niece's baby book!

Guest DT Jolaine Frias: Parisian Anthology Wedding Layout

Hello ladies, Jolaine here! Today I'd like to share a LO I made using goodies from the Parisian Anthology collection available at the Flamingo store. These are fabulous and soooo much fun to work with! Because of their simplicity and elegance I couldn't resist making a wedding page, but the colors can be customized to fit any style.

From Flamingo Scraps: Pink Paislee Parisian Anthology collection (papers and embellishments)

All the papers are resist-embossed on one side and can be inked or sprayed with Glimmer Mist to reveal the embossed patterns. They can also be colored with Perfect Pearls! Didn't I tell you? FUN!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, have a very creative week!








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

Just another Monday...

Image via here.

We have all been so busy behind the scenes, we don't have a finished scrappy post for today!  Suzanne has been busy packing & shipping your orders.  Susan has been sick for the last few weeks and is finally feeling better... she's a trooper so she's been continuing to add fabulous new products to the store regardless!  And me?  I've been working my regular jobs and gone from home, so I wanted to let you know that we updated the blog a bit to add a new feature to our Design Team Page -- photo albums of our scrappy projects! 

Coming up this week we have another post from Jolaine and Tonya, as well as several posts highlighting one of our favorite new lines... American Crafts Dear Lizzy Enchanted.

Nothing exciting for today, but we hope you all had a great weekend and happy Monday!!

Weekend Whimsy: Life is Short

Earlier this week, I discovered this here:

Image via Holstee. 

This will soon be mounted on some pretty paper, framed and on my scraproom wall.  I love it.  Perfection.

Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating.

Amen. :)

Altered Storage: Box for Primas!

Now I never thought I'd hit a critical storage problem with my Prima stash.... but really.... I should have predicted that!!  :)

Earlier this year on Julie Fei-Fan Balzar's blog, I saw this post and filed it away in my mental to-do list.  And then this weekend... I had some storage issues and I remembered her solution.   So I cut out one big rectangle and I had this:

Of course, I couldn't just leave that postal box alone.... now don't get me wrong, I really love the special kind of love only a trip in the mail can give to a box..... but it definitely needed a makeover! So I grabbed three pieces of patterned paper, decorated that box, tossed it on the shelf and loaded it up with some goodies from the store:

Julie is right, it's the perfect size for those fabulous Prima packages!  I decided to use a hot glue gun to secure the flaps in lieu of duct or shipping tape.  Worked like a charm! :)  I loved it so much, I made another to use as a catchall for my pictures waiting to be scrapped and mini albums in progress.  I know I'll definitely be making some more!!

Perfect way to recycle those fabulous postal boxes that transport your scrappy mail from Flamingo Scraps... don't you think?!