More flowers...

To create these cool and cheap paper flowers, first start with two or three matching spray inks and a mini mister or other water sprayer.

Then randomly spray onto your Inksentials Crafters Mat ($19.99 at Scrapbooking Fanatics, WOW!) with blots of colour.  Spray the whole thing well with the water.

Blot up with your average paper towel and dry to crispiness with your heat tool.

Cut out using your die cutting machine or another template.

Cool, hey?

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

My kids and I made these flowers on Friday together.  Most are the roly roses by Imaginisce that I then painted/dripped Glimmer Glaze on top of.  Man, that stuff is great for anything!  The light blue top middle one is the Tim Holtz accordion flower.  They look so nice when they are done, but if I don't use the right weight of paper the perforations go right through!  It is always a gamble with that die in my little Cuttlebug!  The other two on the far left are using the new Glubers.  I used ribbon for the bottom one and fabric for the top.  Ribbon is definitely the harder of the two to use and the fabric makes the look a little more weathered and vintage.  I guess it depends on what look you are going for.

I then stuck all of our flowers and a few buttons on my previously ugly jar of buttons to fancy it up.  It turned out nice, but is still a pain to get buttons in and out of!

Finally, I finished my bird layout of my #1 crafter.  I am obviously all about the flowers this weekend.  I am working on another one of my husband with a couple of cool flower techniques on it and will post later!  The most exciting technique on this one was taking the brown corrugated coffee cup holders (from Starbucks or, my fave, 7-11) and using them for die cutting swirls and flowers.  Then I paint them with glimmer glaze and voila!  Cheap as borsche!  Scrapbooking doesn't always have to cost a fortune!  The paper is old, old MME but is still so cute and current with their colour scheme and bird motif!  I love when I can use up some of my old stash, although by the time I get through it all, all my new stuff will be old too!

June!

June is here! The end of school, the start of summer!  My garden is planted, the camping trips are booked, I am ready to go!  I bought a bunch of new dies in hopes that I will be able to use up all of my older papers and supplies with a new outlook.  The new Tim Holtz dies are AWESOME!  I am a little obsessed with the bird in the cage (movers and shapers) and although have not yet used him on a LO, am making cards to beat the band!  I also recently acquired Spellbinders Blossom Three and Fleur de Lis.  Love them!

Here is one of my cards featuring my (second) fave little guy!

My fave little guy is my son, who is as thrilled about the new dies we have acquired as I am!  He is a tireless crafter of all sorts... He is four and a real go-getter!

My Dad took my eldest daughter to Riverdance when they were here and I did up this quick LO to commemorate the event.  She had the BEST time.  My favourite part of this LO are all the different kinds of flowers, including the Roly Roses from Imaginisce!  They are so beautiful, but soooo small!  If only they could come out with bigger ones!  The other flowers are from a Sizzix die that I cut canvas and glassine paper out of.  The other ones are white bulk ones that I stamped, embossed, and then sprayed with the Ranger spray inks.  The brightly coloured background under the green picture mat is a paper towel that I sprayed with the inks, dried with my heat gun, and then cut out with the kids' crafting scissors!  I knew those horrible things would come in handy some day!



Glassine paper is the best paper of the year!

I went to a card class this weekend and it was wonderful! I learned a few new things that I will probably use... like how to make a cool ruffle out of paper towel!

But two of the coolest things I was introduced to this weekend are the new Roly Roses by Imaginisce where you roll your own flowers out of their punch out templates (not shown...yet) and I finally bought the new glassine paper by Tim Holtz.  This is like the old school wax paper where when you crinkle it it fades on the crinkle and it has the coolest texture.  Above I inked with alcohol ink to match my paper and then sprayed with the neatest new spray, Perfect Pearls Mist in copper.  Apparently it is resin-based so it sticks to everything and doesn't wrinkle up your paper like the water-based ones.  They are both good for different things I guess.

This is my LO called "See how they grow". My favourite part of this one are the metal flowers by Graphic 45 that I saw used on another layout and coveted until I finally bought them on sale.  Now they are all gone (almost $20 for 6!), but they were so great while they lasted.  I used the Tim Holtz resist paper, his paper collection and matching stickers, I sprayed the resist paper red and then used a paper towel to wipe of the ink over the resist and it worked really well. Then sprayed some white flowers, tacked on my metal ones (sniff) and voila!

I am excited tonight to get into to some of my new stuff that I have been saving until I used up some of the older stuff!  Yipee!