Lasting Memories #44 "Scrapbook pages that Recycle"

Good Morning,

So here we are again with another Lasting Memories submission.  This week we are using recycle-able things, or reusing something we can re-purpose.  This challenge wasn't hard for me at all...you should see my craft room.  I keep EVERYTHING that I think can be reused, recycled or re-purposed.  When I was growing up, my mom used to say "when we move, we just need to pack Brenda's room, because if you need it, it's in there".  Ha, well mom, I'm still that way!!!  I guess I've been helping save the earth for at least 37 years...uhum!!!  The other day I was going through some of my son's clothes that don't fit anymore and I donate a lot of stuff to Goodwill and such.  He had these awesome dress shirts, but they had some stains so I took the buttons off.  Yup, recycle them babies.  Then I went through the linen closet and found some table runners that I've had for a hundred years and don't ever use.  As I was packing them up when I thought some of them had some lace on them that I could reuse somehow, so out came the scissors.  I was also cleaning out some of my flower designs that have lost their use.  I tore apart a topiary I made a long time ago and kept the flowers, cuz you just never know.  Well, I combined all these things and this is what I came up with:

Now the flowers on the Title are from the topiary set along with the buttons from Austyn's dress shirt.

The tan fabric/lace is from the table runner.  I cut about every 9 holes and weaved a piece of blue ribbon through it.

I punched a flower out of blue cardstock and then layered strips of the lacey stuff around the punch with hot glue to make a flower.  Then I inked the fabric and added a button to form the flower and hotglued some leaves to the back of it.

The tags are cut from SCAL's tags shapes and inked around them.  Then I used more of the lacey fabric and cut strips to attach to the tags.  I also used some leftover twine and made my own baker's twine.  If you want to see how I did that you can check it out here.

Now the title/tag I made for myself.  You see, I just underwent some major dental work and I am so excited to be able to really SMILE for a change.  It's been a long time coming and I feel so much better about myself.  I wanted to commemorate this feat for myself, thus the layout is for ME!!!  I used Getting Cricky's stamps set "Positive Thoughts" and "Amazing You".  Now, some say you shouldn't brag about yourself, but I don't think I am bragging, just feeling good about ME!!!  Believe me, it's a new feeling for me to be this happy and confident.  Even my BFF said that I am smiling more and actually laughing out loud.  My mom used to always say, when you feel good about yourself you are a nicer person and it shows.  Well, mom, again you were right!!!

So I hope I've inspired you to create a layout with things you can reuse or recycle.  Remember, every little bit helps.  If you don't recycle on you layouts, remember to recycle through your garbage though.  It doesn't take very long to separate your items and help save the earth one step at a time.

With This Ring

Good day guys,


As you know I am also in a Layout challenge over at Paper Secrets and am loving that I am actually doing more and more layouts. Each week we are given an assignment for a layout. I really don't care if I win the contest, it's just helping me to do more layouts that I should have done a long time ago (or some new ones in this case). If you participate and follow the guidelines you advance to the next week. We started with 27 and 18 again moved onto this week. I will keep updating you as I go along. Who knows, I might not be able to participate one week and then I am out, but until then, I am scrapping my butt off, (they used a different word, but my blog is family friendly...hehehe

This week's sketch is this:

 and this is what I came up with:

and what's in red is what I used out of the items I was allowed:

hand or machine stitiching
glitter/stickles/microbeads
3+flowers
rubons
3+ photo corners
punch
3+ tags
altered or raw chipboard
paint
vellum

I used SCAL and a file from Scrapping Table's Wedding theme for the dove and rings cut out of vellum.  I also cut the tags using my cricut.  I glued my pictures down onto some more scrap paper and created a pocket to put my tags in.  I inked around them to make them look a bit aged.  These pictures are of my mom and dad's wedding.  This group picture is of my parents with my grandparents on my dad's side and his siblings.  I am very happy with this layout and I am still going strong.  See you next week for another PaperSecrets challenge.

Simply Sundays "Vintage Appeal"

Happy Sunday -

Well, it's that time again.  I love Simply Sundays at Getting Cricky and am so blessed to be apart of this wonderful Design Team.  Also, if you didn't already know, (that means you didn't read my coming out post), Kristal has her stamps for pre-order available.  You can see them here.  Remember, for each stamp set that you order, Kristal is donating $1 to it's respective charity.  What a great thing for her to do.  I really love all her stamp sentiments and cannot wait to get to play with them.  I am hoping I will have them in hand by next week so I can show them off...maybe another giveaway????

Okay, onto the challenge.  Kristal wanted to do something with a vintage appeal, although I love this look, I don't get it right most of the time.  So, I decided to use a vintage photo at least.  Last summer I spent a week with my mom in Minnesota.  It was great mother/daughter bonding time.  We shopped, drank coffee and reminisced.  I do not have a lot of photos from when I was a kid or even of her childhood.  Living overseas most of my life and moving alot, things get "lost".  I do remember us always taking pictures, just don't know what happened to them.  Anyway, back to last summer.  Mom and I went through the pictures she had and I found this beautiful wedding photo of her parents.  Of course I took it...hehehehe.  I did not, however, use the original photo.  Instead I scanned it into my computer so that she can have the original back.  I am also in the process of using it to make a layout for myself.  Now the photo of course is in black and white so I have no idea what style or color of bouquet my Oma had, so I used pinks...I love pinks and I hope my Oma loved them too.

So...

I used to do alot of mosaic work.  You know, where you cut up china, glass, etc and create something with it?  Well, I have a ton of old china (probably not real) plates laying around yet so I decided to use one as a base for a small layout type style and here is the finished project.

I made all the flowers from scratch using a technique plus incorporating a bit of my own that I learned from Penny Duncan.  She has the most beautiful paper flowers on her site and a ton of free SVG files.  Go check them out sometime.  To start, I spritzed a paper doily with a pinkish glimmer mist that I made myself.  It was a bit drastic, so I added a yellowish glimmer mist over the top and heat set it with my heat gun, (cuz I am impatient like that).  I added a tan piece of card stock to the center of the doily where the center of the plate would be and layered a piece of vellum with some wording on it atop of that piece.  I used spray Tack to adhere all the paper piecings onto the plate to make sure I get a real good seal.  I did offset it a bit to give it some dimension.  I then used my ATG gun and adhered the wedding photo on top of the paper. 

A little bit of tulle, scrunched and tied in bows behind the paper flowers I made with some leaves from previous silk flower stems added a nice touch.  I also used some pearls I got from Michaels in the dollar bin and a small pearl flourish atop the photo and paper. 

Sorry about the quality of the pictures.
My camera ran out of batteries at the
most inopportune time, so I
had to use my cell phone.

I absolutely love how this turned out and hope my mom likes it too because this is what she is getting.  It's a late Mother's Day present because the project I had intended for her never came together due to some health issues of a friend's son, but that's another story in itself. 
Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think about my Plate layout.  Then go and create something vintage style and go over to Getting Cricky and link it up.  I am sure Kristal will also have another fabulous giveaway.  She usually does!!! and it's usually pretty awesome.  She is a very kind sole and so good hearted.  Please tell her that...

Thanks for all the comments left over the last four days for the Getting Cricky Stamp release.  I really cannot wait to get those stamps so that I can start making projects with them.  I am so excited to be able to give a set away and the winner gets to choose which set she would like...so are you ready to see who won?  I placed ALL the comments in a hat and my DH drew:

Sue said...
I just posted on Facebook about this one too....
June 4, 2011 7:47 AM

Congrats Sue from http://thescrappingsofsue.blogspot.com/
Please let me know which Stamp set you would like and as soon as I get them I will mail your set out to you.

Now remember, you still have a whole week to enter my "Food for Thoughts" stamp set giveaway here.
See you next Sunday for another awesome Simply Sunday Challenge.