Studio update.....

ok, back in business.....gave the studio a trial run tonight after stenciling the floors.....made 10 envelopes in 20 minutes-the studio gets an A for efficiency.  Speaking of stenciling the floors....ever wonder how you can use your cricut for home decorating?  Stay tuned for tomorrow night's entry ;)

I'm taking a break from working on finishing the studio to enter the third and final leg of this little journey :)  

So, you got your flower face all dried to a nice, loose cone shape from being pressed wet into the towel.   Now take the flower face and place it upside down on the backside of a mousepad.  Use a rounded, blunt object-I prefer a stylus for dry embossing on a light table.  

Work the rounded end of the stylus into the tips and edges of the flower petals, moving back and forth.  Keep in mind, it's not the pressure you apply that curls the paper, it's the repetitive motion in the same direction that breaks the fibers of the cardstock. So, EASY KILLER!  ;)

When you've done this to all your faces, take a small hole punch or use the tip of your exacto knife to cut a center into each face.   Insert a brad thru the hole in every layer.  Don't set the brad just yet.  If you want to add streamers or ribbons in-between the layers, do it now using clear glue.  Then sandwich them together, open the back end of the brad so it holds them all together and woot woot: vagablooms!    When the glue is dried, flip it over, an, using epoxy, attach a barette clip.   Nice!

Hope you like these.   A great way to use up ugly scraps and leftovers.  xoxo!

Part 2:  Prepare to get messy!   woot woot!


Ok, so you start the vagablooms with punched or die-cut flower shapes.  I also use random shapes that, when piled together also look like flowers.  I hate to be traditional ;)    You want them of varying sizes because when you are done, you will be stacking them on top of each other from biggest on bottom to smallest on top.   Some of them I will run thru an embossing folder for extra texture.   I like to use cream cardstock or the ugliest patterned paper i can find.  This project makes anything look beautiful.   The illusion that makes these "pop" is the layering of textures with complimentary ink colors.  I start with the basic colors of dye based inks and a patterned stamp-yes, even on patterned paper\, and stamp on a pattern.  Then I take pigment based inks and apply them on top of each other with various smearing/smudging methods.   I like using burnt orange with indigos, maroons with dark green-complimentary colors.   The next layer is adding a few shots of pearlized spray inks-easy to make your own, fyi ;)   Or hit them with some pigmented metallic inks.   Now, here's the key:  spray each  flower face with a coat of clear acrylic sealer.  Let them dry.

 

 

When the sealer is dry to the touch, take a folded up towel-you want it really thickly folded.  Set the flower faces on the towel and spray them pretty good with water. 

Don't drown the poor things, you just want to saturate the cardstock fibers so you can press into the middle of each flower face so the petals get pushed up.  

Set these under a lamp and every so often keep pushing in the centers so once the cardstock dries, the fibers will have re-shaped it into  an inverted cone shape.  You can also take the flower face, spritz it a little bit, crumple it up into a ball, unroll it  and them smoosh it into the towel.   Once you get the hang of this procedure you can mass produce these babies for ever.  Tomorrow night, the magic happens!   Stay tuned....

FYI:  This is gonna be a three day blog.     ;)

Part 1:   So here's the thing; I have taken over my family's old homestead.  The house my siblings and I grew up in.  As much as there are memories I wish I didn't have about the place, there are many more that I get to re-live every day just by coming home.  This house has always had my soul I suppose, but never my whole heart. Until now! It has taken me a couple years to get to the point of re-decorating.   The first room I choose to tackle is, of course, the scrap studio :)  priorities huh?  lol.   So, that's where I've been for the last month....holed up in the glorious world of re-decorating.   Well, the room is almost done and at least it is usable now!   I'll give you guys an oldie but a goodie project to try your hand at while I finish the final leg of this journey.   These are very cool, very simple hairpieces.  I got the idea from my other hobby of living history which sucked me into a world ofeverything vintage and somewhat tacky and from the problem of "What the hell do I do with this??" syndrome-you know, when you have a few ugly brads leftover,  some grundgy pieces of glittery  ribbon and a random feather or what not.   What?  You mean not everyone has these things laying around thier house????   lol, Enjoy!

It starts with the Vagablooms.

 

 



Here's some more V-day cards, assembly line style :)

ok, got some pre-made tags cut out of a sheet of do-da paper. I Inked the edges first in a maroon color, then a dark brown and ran black lightly round the edges.  When doing tags like this, don't forget to use a hole punch to punch the hole where you can tie on a bit of  ribbon.  In this case i used rafia, and ran the dark brown ink over it for texture.   I used the tape runner to attach only the end of the tag opposite from the rafia hanger.  This allows the end of the tag with the rafia to stick up and give it some dimension.   I then took some metalic filigree corner stickers and attached them to the tags.   Using a foam dot, I placed on a heart I die cut from sparkly embossed paper that I had inked the edges of also.  Voila, quick and simple :)

Here's a few more I did with some sparkly velvet flowers, die-cut metalic hearts and sentiment stickers:

And what's the best way to distract a complicated brain?   Scrapping of course :)  I'm now using the term scrapping to mean; anything paper crafty you can do with paper scraps, not necessarily scrapbooking and not necessarily card making. Scraps are involved in both hobbies, so therefor "scrapping" includes it all.    Spent an awesome weekend with my nieces doing some full moon scrapping.  Got alot of cards done!  Here's a few V-day cards:

I tend to make my traditional holiday cards from unexpected sources.  Using non V-day paper on these, I intead used some vintage, some winter and some from the Bird Song line from Graphic 45.  I used my Bigkick to die cut and emboss some hearts.  I did use sime do-das mad from Graphics 45 V-day paper.   It'sa challenge to use non-conventional sources.   Try mixing things up once in awhile ;)

Happy new year my peeps, I hope you are preparing for a fantabulous year od scrapping :)   Well, hurry up!  father time ain't gonna wait for ya!    What a whirlwind xmas was.  I was really happy with hoe my cards came out.  Funny, I think last year's cards sucked but I had lots oforders.  This year I think they were awesome but I got no orders....goes tos how you that you can't turn a hobby you love into an income.  

So, I cleaned out the scrap room last weekend.  Santa got me a gift certificate to Michael's so I stocked up on storage and project boxes.  Thanks Santa! xoxox   People,you have got to organize your projects!!! Here's a quick way I came up with:

I got a 12x12 project box (two of the same color if it's a doozy of a project)  I labeled each box with the project name using address labels and indicated one of two, two of two, etc..this way when I am done with the project, I can peel the title off the box and use it for another project.)   I went thru all of my supplies and pulled out all corresponding papers and do-das for each project and placed them in each box.  Then, in an expandable monthly folder I separated the photos into catagories for each project.  Each "daily" slot wil hold a spread in the scrapbook.  Into each slot I added papers and do-das I wanted for that particular spread.   Wow, what a difference this makes.   Now I can do a spread from my St. Thomas trip one day, and move to vintage base ball the next.  This works great for those easily distracted by monotony.

And speakingof being easily distractable by monotony, now i am cutting up papers to make do-das.  A great and useful money saving no-brainer project.   Ok, back to it now!!!      xoxox