Back to the Beach

I have found a few different companies that I absolutely love. This project is specifically for one of my new-found loves. Their challenge this month was "Back to the Beach." The company is "May Arts Ribbons." I submitted my project idea and got to pick some of their ribbons to work with. I was a little frustrated in the colors, my screen showed some of the blues to be blue, but they were more of a teal. Gorgeous and excellent feel to them, but not all of them made it into this project. They were also very generous with the lengths they sent, I asked for 6-8 inches and they sent me a yard of each one I requested.

Another company that I used for this project was Maya Road. I had received an alphabet of their plastic letters and it came in a really cool tin that worked perfectly for this idea.



Here's the tin with the alphabet taken out and ready to be painted.



Here are the ribbons that I ended up using. I used each one at least once and most of them twice.



Here's the front with the picture placed inside as I tried to figure out how I wanted to do this. I just painted the letters with acrylic paint and the edge of the top as well.



I used the ribbons to make a layered flowers, a giant ric rac base, then the velvet ribbon was folded and looped and then the blue was gathered with a shell button for the center. I also layered my stamp pads around the edge to soften the white and make it look more sand-ish.


I glued the blue around the upper edge for the sky, folded the satin/grossgrain ribbon for the bottom and framed all around it the brown velvet. Then I took a bunch of buttons and cut off the shanks and layered them around the bottom edge.



Just a close up of the bottom corner.



Here's the whole inside of the tin. This picture is actually of me and my hubby when we were dating.


You can see more of the layers of the flower here. (My hubby says the flower is too big, but somehow that's just how it turned out)



My finished project for the "Back to the Beach" contest.

Needed Motivation

Hey everyone out there, have you had a good day? I've been feeling like I've been stuck in a rut and my week of GIU sucked up all of my creativity for a while. So today, after putting the kids to bed and listening to them talk and play for almost 2 hours before they fell asleep, I decided that I HAD to do something. It didn't matter what, I just had to do it. Right after that amazing hectic week, I took four coordinating pages and cut three of them up for "One Sheet Wonders" I did this for several reasons, one of which was so that I would have everything ready to craft at a moment's notice, especially if I needed a card right away. Well, once again the Unity KOM Challenge Sketch helped me out with using some of those pieces of paper. I used two stamps from the latest KOM "Happy Thoughts" and paper from DCWV Stack 7.


I hope you all have a great week, for us it's the last week of school, and I'm going to be helping my son finish up his teacher's quilt and make a card to go along with it.

GIU Wrap-up and Winner

So did you guys all have fun this week? I know I did. Here's one last project for you. I did pick up some more of these notebooks so I can put together a tutorial for you on how to make your own.



The winner is:

Desi said...

I wouldn't have thought about this! Great use of inexpensive materials to make some hidden storage areas. Stamping on the painted surface is fantastic!

May 20, 2011 4:26 PM

Look for an email from me soon with details on your set. Look for some more fun posts coming up as I get into summer projects with the kids and get started on school wardrobes.

GIU-Day 5: CD Mini Album

Did everyone get a chance to see yesterday's project? If not, it's okay, you'll see it again today. This is my mom's Mother's Day gift, and yes it is late, but I've already told her about it. On Easter Sunday I took some very special pictures, individual and family. I'd been wanting to take these pictures for months. For my hubby's birthday I ordered these overalls for the family and I finally got an excuse to dress everyone just right and snap some shots.

Here's the supplies I used for the whole project: My Mind's Eye Bohemia Bluebird papers and embellishments, ribbon from Joann's, sticky adhesive, cd tin from Essential 7, old cd's, family pics, April 2011 KOM from Unity. Side note: my husband says to tell you not to go out and buy brand new cd's for this project, you can just save scratched, old, don't want, won't play cd's for this project.

Here's the cover again, I did change out the center of the flower for a shiny dot, the square just didn't look right.

Ready to see what's inside?

I took 8 cd's and laid them out in a row and glued the ribbon on both sides, to make an accordian fold album. Then I cut out background circles and glued those down too. On the cover I used a simple rub-on sentiment.

The first page. I wanted to keep it simple enough, because with 8 cd's and 16 layers of cardstock and all the pics added, I didn't have too much space left to add embellishments if I wanted it to still close. I used the family name stamps from the KOM.

Just the word "sister" added to a piece of chipboard.

I cut out the word "fun" from the word strips for this set. But this was his "pose" for the camera.

Just another word strip.

"Dad"and "mom" stamps on a diamond.

It's really hard choosing my favorites out of the family pics and getting them to fit, so I chose a couple for the next pages and split this one.

Now everyone knows, the bigger the "young" the harder it is to sit still. So I put a few different pages, because in one everyone is happy, but they are not looking at the camera. In another we have the starts of a meltdown, you know how it goes.

Trying a change of scene for this pic, it's funny (to me at least) to see how some of the kids are great with sitting still and getting pictures, but there's just that one that won't have anything to do with it. At least he's still in the picture. I just love how my P-I-T's pink boots are sticking straight out in front of her, she just HAD to wear them that day. And she had insisted that Mommy match in hairstyles and everything.

So for my mom, if you're reading this "Happy Mother's Day" But you might not be seeing this in person for a little while, I don't know if I can part with it-I might have to make me one too.

Don't forget to leave comments for today and all week for your chance to win one set of stamps from Unity Stamps.

GIU-Day 4: CD sized Tin

Sorry it took so long for this one. This is a cd sized tin that I decorated with My Mind's Eye Bluebird papers and used some stamps from a KOM, I honestly don't remember, but I will go look it up. To find out what's going inside, come back tomorrow for my last day of GIU.



Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered into my giveaway of a set of Unity stamps. You have until Monday May 23 to enter.

Quick Note-Delay

This is just a quick note to let you know that there will be a slight delay in today's project post. I was up until midnight last night working on today and tomorrow's projects. I have to run out the door right this very minute to get my son to a checkup. I will have the post up as soon as I can, I'm even taking my netbook with me this morning so I can hopefully get it up rather sooner than later.

GIU-Day 3: Butterfly Jewelry Frame

Hey everybody! I know that it's not quite morning when I'm typing this, but I figured with this being the day this project was posted over on Unity, early was probably a better bet than waiting until morning, besides, by the time I finish typing all of this up, it will most likely be Wednesday already. I am also getting shelves installed in my craft corner tomorrow and can finally get stuff organized (I hope).

This project was inspired by my one of my super sibling-sister-in-law. She took a canvas and cut out the inside to frame the plastic canvas for her earring holder. I wanted to do something a little bit more suited to me and went frame hunting at DI. I saw this picture and went back to it three times and walked away again before inspiration struck on how to make it look just the way I had in my head.

Seagulls on a beach are peaceful and the picture is still intact for use somewhere else, maybe.

I took the glass, picture, and backing out of the frame and cut plastic canvas to fit it.

Then I painted it a solid black.

While at Joann's last week, I scored this awesome stack on the clearance rack. I chose the pearl gemstone white paper for this project, and all it took for the whole project was one 12 x 12 paper.

I then cut strips to fit into the grooves of the frame. Don't worry about those slightly visible seams where the strips meet, they get covered up later on.

These are the butterflies I used. They were: "Dream Big", "Blossom Soup", "Just You: 03/11 KOM", and "Be You".

Then on the rest of the paper, I stamped out 4 of each of the 6 butterflies in black. One of those itty bitties was a stack of three butterflies that I cut apart.

These are my current inks. Not much, but they worked great for this project. After the black ink was dry, I cut out all of those butterflies. Then I stamped lightly over the entire butterfly with one color so the black was still very much there and the pearl showed through a little bit as well. I also didn't want the butterflies to compete too much with the earrings hanging inside it either.

Here's the lower left corner, I attached the butterflies bodies with foam squares and folded the wings up. Some of the bigger ones, I curled the wings a little bit with a pencil.

Here's the upper left corner.

Upper right corner.

Here's the finished project with the plastic canvas in place. I think that if I were to remake this one, i would probably take the white paper, stamp all the colors all over it and then stamp the black butterflies on it and cut them out. Also it would be fun to make it in certain colors to match the decor and tastes of the person receiving it. For my P-I-T, I would make it all pink and white. I'll just have to keep my eye out for a great frame.This project did take me all day to do it, what with waiting for paint to dry, but it was perfect for my on that specific day because my 3 year old was sick and kept wanting mommy to snuggle with him and I could take a few minutes to do a step and then get back to him.

Don't forget to leave a comment to enter to win a stamp set from Unity this week. Giveaway ends on Monday, May 23.

Growing in Unity-Day 2

Hey everyone! How's everyone doing this morning? So far, so good for me, plans for today involve cleaning up some more, talking to you lovely people, creating something fun, and hopefully putting up some shelves so I can organize my crafty space.

Today's project is one I've had my eye on for a while. I have had in my crafty books one called "Artsy Collage: Word & Sayings Collage Kit" from Hot Off The Press. If you look at the cover, in the upper right there are two jars, I love the idea of these jars. These ones are called "Secrets and Dream Jars." I wanted to do something similar, but stamp them instead of decoupage them.

I went with two different themes, but one is incomplete at this precise moment because I need to rethink the last stage of it.

I found, on my last trip to D.I., these wonderful square jars for 50 cents each. One of the lids stuck a little bit, but they were perfect otherwise. I was going through my stamps and one theme just started to jump out at me.

The first one got painted black. I used just a regular acrylic paint and foam brush.

Then on the sides, I lined up 3 small snowflakes, 2 from the "Mitten Weather Flourishes" stamp set and the third one, the one on the left, was in a grab bag of stamps that I had gotten from Unity a while ago. I stamped them in white ink.

On the lid, I put one of the big snowflakes and a sentiment from the same set, "Mitten Weather Flourishes."

I tried to add some glitter to the inked stamps before it was dry, but somehow it doesn't quite show up as well as I had hoped.

You can see the sparkle a little bit better on the lid.

Here's the first one finished. I was thinking about putting some Hershey's Hugs and Kisses inside it and giving as a Christmas gift.

The second one I painted green.

Then I streaked some blue across the green to give it an interesting texture. I had some blue cardstock that matched the blue paint and I tore that up into strips to go around the base and a square for the top. Then I sponged the green paint on the edges of the strips and used the paint to ink up the definition stamp from the new "Uniquely Unity" stamp set from Archiver's. I repeated that stamp across my strips and on the top square.

Here's the papers glued down around the base. I was going to put a tag on the top with the stamp "Good friends are like stars, you don't always see them, but you know they are there"

My problem, though, is that it feels like there is something else that could go there. I tried just stamping the sentiment in green and then black on a smaller tag for the top, but the phone rang right as I was stamping that one and totally ruined it. Does anyone have any good ideas for this one? Right now it is still as this last picture, but I do like the way it looks right now, but it needs more.

Don't forget to leave a comment to get entered to win a set of Unity stamps. I'll leave the giveaway open until next Monday, May 23.

Growing in Unity Day #1

Hey everybody! How's everyone doing this fine morning? Ok, I'm not exactly sure how fine the morning is outside, but right now, for me, I have two of my kids snuggled up next to me while we watch "Super Why" and "Dinosaur Train" and I get to share fun stuff with you guys.

How many of you have ever heard of Unity Stamps? Raise your hands and let me count, wow, looks like we're pretty much tied with yeas and nays. I found this company about 6 months ago when I decided to foray into the world of stamping and scrapbooking. I had found Crafty Steals and through them Unity Stamps. I instantly loved the idea of these stamps, they don't take up a whole lot of room, they are very versatile and easy to organize and they have a Kit of the Month Program, which is just awesome.

Recently they have started to have some challenges that I thought would be good ones to get me into a creative state of mind. I try to do a little something crafty every day and a simple card can fulfill that very well. Also they decided to try out "Growing in Unity", where every week one of their fans gets the chance to show off some of their work. Well, when the call went out, I was a day late and got put on the waiting list. I thought it would never actually happen that someone would drop out of such a great opportunity and I would get a chance, so I put my thoughts on the back burner and was just going to wait for next year. Two weeks ago I got an email saying that I was the very first person on the waitlist, and was May 16 all right with me? What do you think I said? Well, we're here together, so of course I said yes.

Here's my first day of "Growing in Unity", which they all uniquely enough qualify for three of the Unity challenges going on right now. The monthly challenge this month (they just released it yesterday) is "Tooty Fruity". Amazingly, my three cards today have berries, ok they are really cherries, but they are a fruit! Then there is the KOM Sketch Challenge, where you have to follow their sketch for your layout or card. And then last night, as I was winding down for the night last night, I noticed that All Things Unity had posted a new challenge, called "Stamps never used", which for me is that almost every time I ink up a stamp it is for the very first time, so it works too.

So, where are these cards you ask? They are coming up, I just wanted to say a little bit about them. If I'm going to make one card, I might as well make several in one go, especially if I'm using 12x12 cardstock and have several pieces I'm working with and they are also double sided.

The pages are from My Mind's Eye Magnolia collection and the stamps are from Unity's KOM called "Perfect in Every Way."

Oh, I almost forgot! I also get to give away one set of Unity Stamps to one of you awesome people. All you have to do is comment on this post to be entered. My little 3 year old is very subtly giving me hints that I need to finish and give attention to him now by nudging my arm so I can't type very well right now. So I'll see all of you back here tomorrow.

Bird Challenge

This is one of the cards I came up with for the UNITY Monthly challenge to use a bird stamp. I also made an envelope to match, playing with the different patterns can be fun, this way I don't have to remember the seam allowances.