Lovely Lex!

Happy Monday everyone, I hope you all had as a beautiful weekend as I did.  The weather was gorgeous, I got alot accomplished and I finished another layout that I have been wanting to.  I am sure alot of you are like me and have that "bucket list" of projects that you want to do someday.  This is one of them.  My beautiful niece Lex had her junior prom and was kind enough to put her pictures out for us all to enjoy. 

My sister, Laurie shared these lovely little butterflies with me from Vintaj and they fit perfectly over a chipboard butterfly (found in the dollar place at Michaels) that I coated with Tim Holtz crack paint. The effect is absolutely stunning.

I really didn't wait to put too much dimension on this because it's going to go into a project for my Mom, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't add some bling and bows.  I love exploring the sewing section in my local fabric stores to seek out and find new little ribbon roses.  These came in a cluster of 3 and the I love how they look.

 I did use one of my vine/flower clusters to balance out the right side and add a touch of pink to match her beautiful dress.

I added her name by making a tag using the Styled Labels die from Tim Holtz movers and shakers line, I cut 2 pieces out one in black velvet and one in pinktini card stock.  Offset them and add Lexie's name in pink rinestones.  In the corner I added a display trim corner in antique brass from 7 gypsies 

I must sign off for now my friends but I really hope you enjoyed my project and try some of the techniqes, I would love to hear your thoughts or just stop by and say hi. 

                                                          Thanks for stopping by
                                                                      Jennifer

Today is my lucky day!

I just found out today that I was the winner in Donna Salazars Ginormous give-away.  Wow I am speechless (and for those that know me that is quite amazing)  For anyone who is not familiar with Donna and her very creative team you should pop on over  and check out her blog at http://donnasalazar.typepad.com/my_weblog/ very inspiring place to go!

Thank you,

Jennifer

ATC swap for Dusty Attic

Hello everyone, well spring has sprung in Wisconsin and my roses are just about to bloom.  Something new is around every corner, so in the spirit of that, I decided to do something new.  My first swap, oh I am so excited.  My friend Jenny Burns, a designer from http://dustyattic.ning.com/, has invited me to my first ATC swap.  For all of you new to that an ATC stands for Artistic Trading Card.  Dusty Attic is one of my favorite places to go for inspiration.  They have a lot of really talented artist designing for them and I would be lying if I told you I wasn't so excited to be a part of their May ATC swap. 

 The theme is vintage and I had so much fun, there is really no rules other than the cards must be 2.5 x 3.5 inches and that they must be traded never sold.

I played around with a lot of bling of course, but when I started making these I realized the Dusty Attic chippies were more than enough for them.

 I wanted to do a theme without making the same card 5 times so I took the main elements and used similiar graphics.

But used different elements and flowers.

Hey I had to dress them up a little with girly bits but I can honestly say I love these.  I didn't overdo it with alot of bling but I think their lovely.  I can't wait to get mine and maybe learn some new techniques.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.


                                                                  Jenn

new flower

Well today I did a little soul searching, I am in a severe dry spell right now and I am buying more than I am creating so I was perusing one of my favorite blogs http://astridsartisticefforts.blogspot.com/ and she gave me the inspiration to do some tags, thank you Astrid. I just threw together (really it was more like a couple of days of heavy duty creating) and I cam up with a few ideas.  

 I have these cool tags from Tim Holtz that I built off of.  Here's one (sorry it's upside down) but I can't wait to use it.

This one leads me to my next part of this blog entry, tada I made a new flower.  Now ladies I am not going to insult your intelligence, there are so many creative artist that make flowers, I just tried to Blingify one.  Hope you enjoy!

I started with my new favorite toy the Donna Salazar Rose Creation dies by Sizzix.  Oh I am telling you if you want to dabble in the flower realm you must get this die. Here are the materials I used to make this.

I took one cutout from all sized of the flower (6 in total), some blue perfect pearl mist, gold perfect pearls, some homemade flower vine, scissors, and tools to curl the flower petals I used a small pliars and a paintbrush.

 I sprayed both sides of some black velvet cardstock I had with perfect pearls and let them dry, I sprayed the backs because they will show.

 I then curled the petals, the largest I curled the petals under and the other 5 I curled toward the center.

I then just stacked them largest to smallest swirling the petals so that one full petal overlaps the gaps of the next petal. I secured them with a brad as shown. Now here's where the magic happens.

I then took all these extras, the little rose buds from www.monamigabi.com/, the leaves and the flower vine and I built off of it.  I started by gluing the flower vine in between 2 layers of flowers and I glued on some leaves and finished with a few of the beautiful blue rose buds that I found at Mon ami Gabi.  I then made a mixture of a bit of perfect pearls in gold and mixed it with water, it makes such a beautiful accent paint and I had fun "painting" my flowers gold I just added hints of the gold paint here and there but it really is so much fun and it makes me feel like a real artist I love it/.  Here is the finished project waiting to be put onto a page or a gift box or some thing. 

I thank you all for looking and inspiring me everyday.  I would love to see what you ladies do with this technique and if you email me a picture of your work at jenniferberkhahn@yahoo.com I will humbly share your works of art with my blog followers.  Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment you ladies always put a smile on my face. 

Jennifer

A gift for my Mother

 Good Morning, everyone.  This weekend was extremely busy with lots of things going on but I did manage to finish a huge project I was making for my mothers 83rd birthday.  I wanted to give her something really special and I figured whats more special than a mini album full of memories.  The basic design of the project was from a very amazing artist Kathy Orta and can be found at her blog ttp://www.paperphenomenontutorials.blogspot.com/ . She always has alot of fun little pockets and places to put pictures and tags.

The closure I used for this was simply a magnetic clasp that I found in the jewelry department at my local Joann Fabrics attached to the cover with some suede paper straps and d rings.

This allowed for a space to add a chain to which I added trinkets for the bling factor that you know I love.

I embellished the cover with crystal scrolls and flowers.  I actually found these little butterflies that look perfect on the flowers.

They were purchased from Michael's at a deep discount, they were in the dollar bin and they were on clearance 5 for a dollar, you got about 4 or 5 butterflies per package and they are quickly becoming one of my favorite embellies.

As you can see in this close up they really add just a touch of whimsy.

The book itself consists of about 10 pages, but as you can see from the photo there is room for about 5 pictures. 

This book really was as much fun to make as it was to look at and I  learned some really cool techniques working this tutorial and would absolutely encourage anyone to go try out one of Kathys projects it was well worth the 10 or 15 dollars I paid.  I can't wait to take some of the tips and incorporating them into my next project. 

Thanks for stopping by and looking at my latest.

Jennifer

A Tag for every occasion

Happy Monday one and all, todays post is about tags.  I use alot of them for all different reasons.  I add them to gifts, I make mini albums with them and I use them to label containers.  I was inspired by my sister Laurie this week because she makes such beautiful tags.

I started with  a plain manilla tag from Tim Holtz and of coursed dyed and distressed it with various distress inks and glimmer mist.  On top of that I added some old fashion tags with french sayings on it that I found on Pinterest. 

I topped off each tag with some scrolls I cut from a Tim Holtz die, added some homemade vine and flowers to embellish.

Thanks for stopping by

Jennifer

How I organize my studio

Hello everyone, today I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to alot of scrappers and artists I know.  How to organize all the stuff we have so that we can buy more!  I have been hard at work doing some spring cleaning in my home and what better place to start but the room we all love our studio.  Now I can't take credit for all the ideas and I will try to give credit where credit is do.  So I hope you enjoy and can use some of my tricks. 

1) Stickles.  We all love them, we all use them and some of us struggle with how to store them.  What I did here what take an old frame that I bought at Goodwill (not just helping the community ladies, you are also getting stuff really cheap) .  I took the glass off (it will of course be recycled into something fabulous, stay tuned) I covered the insert with black velvet and added elastic going horizontially across the board.  I used brads to secure it, sorry no measurements, I just eyeballed it.  I then was able to store 20 bottles in this 8 X 10 frame and as an added bonus I can secure to the only free space in my room , the WALL!

2)My next problem product to store is lace and trimmings.  Well, I like alot of you ladies, I say I am going to recycle everything.  Since I  have been hoarding (choke, choke) cardboard boxes hoping and praying that I find a use for them before my husband calls that network and I have to go on TV because I don't want to throw anything out.  Ta Da, I have a use.  I cut pieces to fit inside some boxes (that I recycled from my sons lego collection) and I wrap all my beads, lace, and other do dads on to the cardboard pieces.  I was able to secure the pieces with rubber bands (yet another, "I know I can find a use for this somewhere" product.  The result is fabulous.  Not only are my pieces individually wrapped so that I don't have to spend hours unraveling but they are wrinkle free.

3) I used this same concept for other products such as Items 3 Tissue paper and Fabric that I use to make lovely things out of (such as flowers). I now can see all the fabric that I have collected and since I only allow so much room for these items I don't overbuy.

4) Now this idea was totally scaplifted from Leann at http://luvleescrappin.blogspot.com/.  She came up with a brilliant way to make foam stampers for her Tim Holtz distressed inks  (sorry Tim but I love this idea and since I cannot justify buying one of your stamp holders for every color I am passing it on)  She came up with a way to take a 2X2 (actually it measures 1.5 X 1.5) and cutting it down into 1.75 blocks and adding velcro and wa la you have a perfectly fitted block for each color of distress inks that you own all you have to buy are the replacement foam pads.  I love, love, love this and can't thank Leann enough.  She also came up with a cool idea to take doll pins clothes pins and by simply adding a makeup sponge to the rounded head with a rubber band a perfect sponge dauber to use when you are doing a smaller section.  I labled all mine with the color and name and have them sitting out so they are always in reach.

5)  Since I have been getting into using embroidery on my pages I was really struggling with how to have all my threads neatly stored.  I found this one on Scrapbook.com forum and Pinterest.  I bought some clothes pins at Micheal's.  They have some in the dollar bins and you get 4 for a dollar and they come in really pretty colors.  I simply wrapped the clothes pins with the individual colors of floss and here they are.  Now not only are they out and accessible but I can see what colors I have so no more overbuying (Thank God, because there is some new Tim Holtz Idea-ology pieces I need to make room for)                                                                                                                                                              

7) Last (for today) but certainly not least, a place for brads.  I used the same technique for my brads that I did my stickles.  I took an old frame added some ribbon and brads and placed all my brads and grommets into test tubes that I bought fom my local science and suplus store and make this attractive little piece that is always within reach.


I hope you all found something that you can use in your space and would love to see how you made it your own.  Please leave a comment I would love to hear you.  Thanks for stopping by.

Jennifer