It started out as yet another attempt at the Ali Edwards butterfly collage...

It really did. I've been meaning to make a version of Ali's project ever since I bookmarked it back in February, lol! I had gotten the Martha Stewart punch AFTER the first time I tried this (with the circles here). After doing some playing, I found that I really loved this punch layered with a bit of folding to the top butterfly to give it dimension. So I made a pile of them without particularly counting or anything. I used several double-sided sheets of Cosmo Cricket from the Gretel line. Yes, sigh, I DID think about applying for the DT position and picked up a few more pieces of Cosmo Cricket last time I was in Champaign, but in the end decided I probably didn't have enough of their newer stuff to stand a chance so decided against it after all. Anyways. After I had all these cute little butterflies, I thought it might be cute to do their centers in glitter. So out came the Scribbles. Then I was in love with the sparkle so added some more to the edges of the wings.

I was finally ready to make my collage. I had an 8x8" shadow box frame from EK I wanted to use for this. I tried it on white. Eh. Tried it on various colors from the Gretel line. Eh. I give up. That collage just doesn't seem to be in the cards for me, lol! So instead I just started to play with the design of the paper I liked best for this and remembered a picture I had of my son and his dad (one of our last outings as a family, come to think of it) and thought it would be just perfect. I plan on giving it to my son's grandma - it includes most of her favorite things - her grandson, her son, and loads of GLITTER, lol! Yes, more glitter on the background as well as some bits of Glossy Accents. A few more butterflies on the frame itself and voila - ready for Grandma's enjoyment! I still have about a dozen more completed butterflies and am almost done with another project using two. I'll share it later! LOVING how it is coming out though!

Here is the frame opened (it opens from the front like a book) to keep the glare off.



This is a closeup of the upper left corner.


This is an extreme closeup of one of the butterflies.


Closeup of the butterflies on the frame itself.


And a bad shot of the whole project. Sorry - had the excess help of a seven year old bouncing through the room while I was trying to do this!

Teacher Gift Birdhouse

Well, today was the last day of 1st grade for my son, Michael! He's been ready for his 6-week summer break for about a month now, lol!

I had originally planned on making another frame for Michael's teacher, similar to the one I made for his kindergarten teacher last year (here), but Michael insisted that I do a birdhouse for her instead (I've got him addicted too, lol!). Since his school loops their teachers two years in a row, I can always make her a frame next year.

So I asked him what her favorite color was - of course he didn't know, but he did say she wore red a lot. Sooo, I picked out a couple of coordinating papers from My Mind's Eye's Tres Jolie line that featured a pretty shade of red. The manila paint from Making Memories happened to go nicely, so I used that for my base. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so the only decoration I used was the Prima flowers, with dimensional paint from PSX for the centers. I just kept looking at those x's and decided some understated bling was in order, so used a clear glitter pen from Sakura for the centers there. Just the right amount of sparkle!

On a funny note...the Beacon's 3-in-1 glue I use has a tendency to occasionally bubble. Usually it's easily noticeable and quick to just pop with a needle tool or my fingernail. However when i attached the birds to this one, apparently I didn't notice a bubble. It wasn't until I went to photograph it zoomed in that I saw the hardened bubble...yup, right under the top bird's rump! It was comical, but I decided my son's poor teacher didn't need to see the birdie doing it's thing, lol! So there's a little excess clear glue under there, but at least it's no longer a big obvious (how did I not see it??) bubble anymore!

Mother's Day Scrap-O-Dex

I want to wish all the Mothers out there a VERY Happy Mother's Day!!!

Teehee, now a moment of rudeness to my own Mom (sorry, Mom!) but you can't see this until you get it! So go away! Love you though! :)

Obviously, this Scrap-O-Dex is something I made for my Mother in honor of the holiday. While this did take a lot of time, it was all using simple techniques. I've already mentioned the flower texturizing technique in my earlier post with the matching house box for this SOD. The rest is simply lots and lots of Stickles! Of course, the Scrap-O-Dex is from Zsiage. The patterned papers, again, are Zsiage's Starr Brites II collection (designed by Jen Starr). All the chipboard shapes interspersed throughout are from one sheet of Zsiage Chippies (also by Jen). Several of the shapes I actually cut in half to make the fit the space better (which used a lot less too!) There are a lot of leftover shapes as well to use on other projects. The flowers are from Prima and, again, punched from Zsiage papers (the punches are from EK and Carl). The Stickles from Ranger (I used orange and pink). The quote stickers (all from one sheet!) are from Cloud 9, and the pen I used to outline on each page is from Sakura. The Magic Mesh, of course, is from Magic Mesh.

I actually worked on this in layers. First I completed the Scrap-O-Dex itself. I covered the front and back with Magic Mesh and then added the Stickled letters and then the flowers. Then I covered all the chipboard pages with patterned papers and trimmed them. I picked out the chipboard shapes to use and covered half with orange and half with pink and set them to dry while I created all the flowers. I did a lot of those flowers over the space of a few days - usually while watching TV, lol! Then I picked out all my pictures and trimmed them down to an appropriate size. Then I began assembling! For each page, I simply cut a piece of paper big enough to fit the quote I was using and slip behind part of my picture. No measuring. Just left them random! After attaching the paper, quote and picture, I then edged the paper with a black pen just to be sure it stuck out nicely against the background. I would have inked them all had I thought of it before attaching the first one but since I did, I had to go ahead and make do and follow through the rest the same way. Once all the pages were done to that point, I determined placement in the Scrap-O-Dex and put them in. Then, working from the back to the front, I began layering and adding flowers and the Stickled chipboard pieces. It's much easier to visualize and make everything tie together (for me at least) working this way. I do the same with acrylic albums just so I can see where I should be working and what will show through from page to page. It helps to see where there are gaps and where things might be bunched up too much as a whole and in sections.

SOD Gift Box - Mother's Day

Zsiage's Scrap-O-Dex's come in these cute little gable boxes. So far I had been going the simple, straightforward route in decorating mine, but my fellow design team members at Zsiage have come up with some absolutely amazing things being more creative. Soooo, I decided to try something beyond just covering one in paper and adding a few embellishments to it.

I made a Scrap-O-Dex (which I'll share tomorrow!) for Mother's Day for my mom. Since I had used the Starr Brites Series II papers on it, I went with the same for the box to put it in. Then I decided I wanted to make it into a little house (kind of a spin-off of my birdhouse theme, lol!).

I did a quick covering of the whole bottom part, then cut off the top section and trimmed some of the excess flaps off. Then I glued the top handle flaps inside out to each other and covered them with paper to create a roof. To get the side sections (the triangles) on and solidify the structure of the roof, I ended up just using plain old tape. It got covered with the flowers in the front and since it's clear, doesn't show too much in the back either. I cut a slit and slipped a folded over piece of paper through it to make the chimney.

Then came the fun part - decorating my house! The Dutch Garden paper from this collection has all these wonderful swirly flowery pieces - I just went to town with my Xacto knife and made them into bushes. All the windows and door were simple shapes, with slivers of paper to make the separate window sections and a punch to mimic a door handle.

I punched tons and tons of these little flowers in two sizes and just kept adding them everywhere, like the bushes were flowering. I gave the flowers texture by first wrapping them face up over various things I had handy - pen caps, etc. - to crimp the petals themselves. Then I put them face up on a mousepad and used an embosser to swirl around in the middle, flattening that back down and creating the final shape.