Saturday, June 16, 2012

Garden Girl Layout (Meg's Garden/ Green Tara/ Helmar)

I had this cute close-up shot of my daughter as a toddler but hated the background so I fussy cut her out and created a garden scene for her to sit in. Oh where to start... I used a mix of papers beautiful floral papers from Meg's Garden (Garden of Blue Flowers and Le Belle Jardin and French Garden collections) and started to pile on chipboard, flowers, trim, a doily, pearl bling (yup basically the kitchen sink, LOL). I think I have nearly 25 Green Tara buds and flowers on this one!

Here is a close-up of my "garden" - purple gardenias, pink cherry blossoms, red rose buds and a beautiful large pink velvet rose.

The background was glued with a Helmar adhesive runner and all of the flowers and chipboard were glued with Helmar 450 quick dry glue - clear and acid free! This stuff is seriously a little miracle in a bottle, LOL. The butterfly is also raised using Helmar's Zapdots.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Helmar's June 15th Blog Hop

Welcome to the Helmar "Happy Fathers Day" Hop!
Today we are so excited to share with you a variety of fantastic masculine projects. We've put our Helmar arsenal to good use and want to share with you some inspiration for those last minute Fathers Day gifts.

If you have been following along, you should have hopped here from Cindy Royal's blog. If not, hop on back to the Helmar Blog and enjoy. Make sure to leave comments along the way, because we will have prizes up for grabs. And if the man in your life is super lucky, we may even send him a Helmar prize pack too.


My project today is something you can actually create with your kids - homemade tinted bath salts for HIM. Men like relaxing baths too! For this project I used my June Swirlydoos "antiquities" kit (featuring Bo Bunny products) and a recycled glass Kraft brand jam jar (plus some SUPER Helmar glue - see details below). BTW - I think this is the first project I've ever done without using flowers, LOL!

Close-up of the card glued together using Helmar's Craft and Hobby PVA Glue.

Close-up of the jar decor glued using Helmar's 450 Quick Dry glue.

Bath salt recipe (mix together very well):
2 cups epsom salts
1/2 cup coarse salt or sea salt
A few drops of food colouring (I used 3 drops of blue)
A few drops of essential oil (optional - for aromatherapy)

Thanks so much for stopping by. Now hop on over to Jess-Kinderstampo's blog where you are sure to find more Fathers Day inspiration. If you get lost along the way, below you will find the links for the order of the hop.


Helmar
Lisa Wilkinson
JJ Sobey
Cindy Royal
Vicky Alberto (ME!)
Jess-Kinderstampo
Cheryl Walker
Amy Lassiter
Rae Cooper
Jen Erickson
Katie Nolan Denham
Carisa Zglobicki
Michelle Wallace
Julie Tucker-Wolek
Erika Taylor

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Anatomy of a Layout (Swirlydoos/Helmar)

Anatomy of a layout
(featuring Bo Bunny's "weekend market" collection)

Hi, I have done a step-by-step tutorial of a layout created with my June Swirlydoos "Antiquities" Kit and wonderful Helmar Glue. I have used "BB" in this tutorial to refer to Bo Bunny.

Step 1 - PREP THE BACKGROUND
Cut a jagged half inch strip off each side to the BB Antique (cream) paper, ink all the edges, and glue to the dark side (brown) of the BB Weekend market paper using Helmar's adhesive runner... BUT do not glue all the way to the edges. Next, make a small tear at the top right of the cream paper and ink the white edges revealed. Lastly, using a thin object (like a skewer) to curl back your tear and all 4 cream paper corners.

Step 2 - ADD THE LAYERS
Glue a BB cameo trinket at the bottom of the tear you made using Helmar 450 Quick Dry glue. Next, cut a 5"x 10.5" rectangle of burgundy paper (I used Simple Stories - red dot paper from the "Awesome" collection), and 4.5" x 8" rectangle of the cream BB Tapestry paper and then 3" x 10" rectangle of the BB Rulers paper (the backside has the black scroll design). Ink all the paper edges and glue as shown (burgundy first, orange second and cream last) using Helmar's adhesive runner.

Step 3 - CREATE A DIE CUT + ADD THE PHOTO
Either fussy cut the scroll design from the backside of the BB Stripe paper or (as I have done), use a previous collection BB die cut paper as a "stencil" and cut out a bracket shape from the patterned paper. Add a horizontal 5" x 7" picture to your layout (with a half inch cream border around the 3 sides) with Helmar Acid Free glue. Then, glue the bracket shape along the bottom of the picture too using the acid-free glue.

Step 4 - CREATE + ADD THE EMBELLISHMENTS
Make a big bow with wide copper ribbon and glue a cream flower (mine is Prima) in the middle with Helmar 450 Quick Dry glue. Glue your bow embellishment to the bottom left of the photo using the 450 glue too. Now, add some bling - I cut a Prima bling in half and added it to each bottom side of the photo. Lastly, add the title and you're done!

Please join Helmar on June 15th for a wonderful Father's Day celebration blog hop! See you back here on Friday!


Monday, June 11, 2012

Thinking of you card (Pion Design/ Helmar/ Green Tara)

Just a quick post today with a card made using the gorgeous new "Grandma's School Book" collection from Pion Design. I really love the beautiful softness of this summer collection! I used Helmar Craft and Hobby Glue for this project... and a little trim from Green Tara.


June Swirlyhues Challenge

Join us this month over at Swirlydoos while I host the June Swirlyhues Challenge!  Please note that you DO NOT NEED TO BE A SWIRLYDOOS KIT SUBSCRIBER to participate in this monthly color palette challenge.


Here is my example:
I rotated the optional inspiration sketch like this:

For full challenge details and more gorgeous inspiration from the DT, please visit the Swirlydoos Blog.