It's a Floriade!

Floriade is a flower festival celebrated in Australia and this time, we were asked to do a "Floriade-inspired" LO using at least 10 flowers from Manor House Creations, and here's my take.

Title: Pool Fun

Materials: Patterned papers - Sassfras Lass, Crate; Chipboard Alpha - American Crafts; Wood Alpha - Pink Paislee; Mist - Tattered Angels; Flowers - Manor House Creations; Twine - The Twinery; Ink - Clearsnap; Pen - American Crafts; Sticker - October Afternoon; Misc - doily

Summer Flowers

Summer is coming up in the land Down Under and we are featuring Manor House Creations Summer Flowers. I love this photo of my kids with their cousins Anna and Katherine taken when we last visited them in Chicago.

Manor House Products used: The Tropics - Getaway, Sunbake and Seaside.

Other Products Used: Cardstock - American Crafts; Patterned Papers - Webster's Pages; Fabric Diecuts - Pink Paislee; Mist - Tattered Angels; Ticket - Jenni Bowlin; Stamp - Tim Holtz; Ink - Clearsnap; Chipboard - Maya Road; Paint - Making Memories

Burlap & Buttercups August Kit and LOs

Oh, you will love this latest kit from Burlap and Buttercups filled with yummy goodies!!!

12x12" Double-Sided Patterned Paper (1 sheet each):

• Simple Stories - Simple Pleasures, Hello Sunshine, 100% Summer Fun
• Lily Bee Design - Villa, Sun Soaked
• Pebbles - Dandy, Ticked Pink, Thanks a Bunch
• Fancy Pants Designs - Cards, High Tide, Sand Dollar
• Bella BLVD Sophisticates - Banana
• Bazzill Cardstock (1 sheet each): Ruby Red, Parakeet, Sea Salt, Straw, Kraft

Embellishments:

• Simple Stories Fundamentals cardstock stickers
• Bella BLVD Sophisticates alphas, Mustard & Apricot
• 1 package Little Yellow Bicycle canvas stickers, Words; 2 Little Yellow Bicycle 6x6" decorative edge paper, assorted styles; 2 Little Yellow Bicycle canvas borders, assorted styles
• Partial package Cosmo Cricket Bling Bling, Salt Air
• 6 white Kaisercraft paper flowers, assorted sizes
• 3 Pebbles fabric-covered brads, 2 Pebbles layered felt embellishments, assorted styles, Pebbles Floral Lane alphas, brown
• 2 Prima Whisper Flowers

Ribbon/Trim:

• 1 yard each May Arts scalloped trim, pink; and solid wrinkled ribbon, ivory

And here's the add-on kit:

• Pink Paislee Cushies alphas, Meringue
• Cosmo Cricket Odds & Ends cardstock stickers
• 1 package InkadinkaClings, butterflies
• 18" yellow plaid ruffle, May Arts
• 1 bottle Ranger alcohol ink, Juniper

And finally, here are my 3 LOs made using the main kit and the add-on.

This first one turned out better than I thought considering that the photos were taken using only my iTouch. "Storm" from Kopi Tiam is Bianca's favorite cold dessert and is what she usually asks for when she earns a treat for herself. And she won't even share it with anyone, not even me, as she can finish the whole thing all by herself!

Title: Sweet Summer

Journaling: Bianca & her favorite "Storm" from Kopi Tiam. Summer 2011

This next LO uses photos taken from our last trip to Boracay. To do the butterflies, I stamped with Versamark on a 3M transparency that can be heat embossed, and embossed with black embossing powder. Then I stained the back with alcohol ink and cut them out. I also layered 3 different sizes of the white Prima flowers, inked them while layered and then scrunched each layer for some dimension.

Title: Beach Day

Journaling: Boracay. is. our. favorite. beach. ever. 

This next LO again uses a photo from Boracay in 2009. This was the day before we were scheduled to leave and the kids had gotten really tanned after 3 days under the sun! This LO was a lot of fun to put together and I love how the kit had the exact colors I needed to match the photo.

Title: Happy Memories

Date: 12/31/2009

So hurry and get your own August kit before it rans out at Burlap & Buttercups!

Butterfly Crafts April Challenge

This month's challenge at Butterfly Crafts is a color challenge. We have to use 2 out of 3 given colors...but I decided to use all 3 of them -- pink, yellow and blue.

If you have the time, please join us for this month's challenge...you have upto May 14 and the winner gets to be our June Guest Designer!

Summer in the Big Apple

Here's a long over-due LO from our trip to New York last summer. We're lucky that my 2 sisters share a huge (by NY standards) apartment and they let us stay with them for a week...I have a feeling though that the invite is only open if we have the kids with us...

It's funny though, because if you ask my kids what they love most about NY, they will tell you that it's the apartment -- they got so tired of all the walking to the subway and back (it's 5 blocks to 57th and Lexington) -- they were excited to go out each morning but were more excited to get back home asap where the doting aunts would let them watch TV, play games on their laptops and let them eat whatever they want.

Title: Summer in the Big Apple

Materials: Cardstock- DCWV, American Crafts; Patterned Paper- Nikki Sivils; Making Memories Slice machine; Foam alpha - American Crafts; Buttons - Nikki Sivils; Small alpha stickers - Nikki Sivils

Journaling: We spent a week in New York and can't wait to get back. May 2010

This LO uses the new Summer line from Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker which has a really fun color palette...I hear all of Nikki's new lines have sold out and she has had to re-print already...woohoo!!! I also followed a sketch from Sketches for Scrapbooking by Allison Davis and Debbie Sanders.

The apples were the last things I cut from my Slice machine before it unceremoniously died on me -- not really, but started cutting really weird shapes and the Making Memories Customer Service says since it's past the warranty period I would have to pay $19.99 for check-up on top of shipping it to the US and then an unknown amount if it is fixable...tsk tsk. So I will have to do a "big think" on this one as I have almost 30 design cards, but am not keen on investing in another MM machine if it only lasts 2 years...what to do, what to do....and I did love my Slice machine to bits until this all happened...