I'm teaching layout classes (and a Canadian retailer for PION DESIGN!)

I am so happy that Pam Malone opened a little shop called Paper and Lace, in Strathmore Alberta,  just 20 minutes from my house!  We have teamed up to help promote her new shop and I will be teaching a May 5th layout class (featuring Prima papers) and a June 16th layout class (featuring PION DESIGN papers!!!) at the Days Inn Hotel in Strathmore.  Yup that's right, Pam is now one of the very first Pion Design retailers in Canada!!!  She is just waiting for the "For Mother" collection to arrive.


Oh... and BTW - Pam carries all the latest and greatest scrappy goodies (she has AMAZING taste!)... all at $20-25% LESS than all the scrapbook stores around.  She also bends over backwards for her customers and accepts custom order requests - still at the lowest prices around. It's like a permanent sale at her place!

The May 5th, 2012 class will be INSPIRED by my recent "desire" layout - with a few fun twists such as handmade flowers and a stamped title plate.

In my classes for Paper and Lace, you'll apply some tips and techniques such as making handmade flowers, layering, distressing, inking/paint, use of lace, adding pearls/bling, flower clustering, etc.  You'll learn how to add dimension and depth to your layouts - taking them from flat to fabulous!  Best of all, you"ll get to play with spectacular products and tools, have lots of fun, plus go home with a gorgeous project!  At the end of the class, you'll have gained skills and inspiration to create future projects and flowers on your own. Get ready to unleash your creativity and have some FUN!

Birdhouse Treat Box (Meg's Garden and Green Tara)

I modified my own template from my gingerbread house box that I made for Christmas and came up with this cute little birdhouse box and the roof is actually a card. The box is made of one 12x12 sheet of paper from the brand new "Forget Me Not" collection. Meg's Garden also sells gorgeous trims, laces and flowers (including Green Tara :)  Here I used Green Tara cherry blossoms, paper leaves, lace and trim. The bird was cut out of another paper from the collection and I watercolored it blue to match and added feathers.

Since Meg's Garden prints on long sheets, you get a 12x12 plus a 4x12 strip (single sided) with every paper in the collection. 4x12 is a perfect size for cards! I used the coordinating strip for the outside of the birdhouse roof. As you can see, the florals are a fussy cutter's heaven. The papers aren't too thick to cramp up your hands so fussy cutting is made very easy with these papers.

Here is the underside of the roof - I created a card by glueing another excess paper strip (back to back) from a different sheet in the collection - which is the inside of the card. All it needed was a stamped phrase to complete it. To attach the card just use a clamp clip to the top of the box and decorate with lace/trim.

Here are the modifications (in yellow) to my original template. You need to put the hole at the outer edge instead of third row in (window for gingerbread house) and you may want the box a little taller (optional) and the roof a little wider than the gingerbread house version too. The same for everything else though!

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek at my project today!

Life's Beautiful Card (Meg's Garden/Green Tara)

The Meg's Garden "Forget Me Not" collection includes some amazing vintage image elements sheets - this is a card maker's dream. Combined with a 4x12 paper strip from the collection, it is easy to pull together an elegant card. I added some pretty Green Tara cherry blossoms, twisted organza/pearl trim and tassel trim, plus a stamped title.

Here is the image sheet I cut the pretty picture from.

This is a view of the outside of the card. The inside is still blank (until I decide who to give it to). You can never have enough blank cards for all those unexpected occasions that seem to pop up!

Thanks for stopping by today while I share my little project.

Over 100 Dusty Attic styles in my shop

Just a head's up that the BRAND NEW Dusty Attic chipboard styles were added in my shop this morning (http://www.etsy.com/shop/vickyalberto) and are already selling fast. I have also re-stocked popular/requested items too. A total of 115 styles were listed!

Here is a little tease of the latest and greatest available:

Home is where the heart is (Pion Design and Green Tara)

I have been so busy this month but had to sneak some time to play with the new "For Mother" collection from Pion Design and Green Tara goodies I received. I was given a pink and white/cream themed challenge pack from Green Tara to work with (pink is my fave color to scrap) and combined everything with the Once Upon a Sketch challenge for April too - I just loved Nadia's sketch this month!

This is my daughter as a baby in our backyard wearing her favorite outfit at the time (I have a lot of pictures with her wearing this, LOL). Don't you just love the printed doily pattern on that paper? I enhanced it by using a Martha Stewart corner punch on the edge.

Here is a close-up of the Green Tara flowers and trims, plus the Dusty Attic "Rose Vine" piece that simply I chalk inked. NOTE: My Dusty Attic shipment has ARRIVED - I'm just working on getting out custom orders and loading the rest into my Etsy shop, hopefully all done by Monday :)

This is the OUAS sketch and theme for April, I just flipped it to suit my picture.

Green Tara Products Used:

Cherry Blossoms Pale Pink 

CODE: FLC22PP

10cm petals. White Pack

CODE: FDS023Wh

Heirloom 6.5cm Silk and Organza Flowers Dusky Pink 12pcs

CODE: XF9213DP

Daisies Pink

CODE: FDS027P

3.8cm White 

CODE: L2862W

Loop n Tassel 10mm Pink Champagne

CODE: RB9694PC

April SwirlyHues challenge and project

I really, REALLY love this month's SwirlyHues colors! I love them so much that this is my THIRD project with this palette.

Here is the card I made with the colors and my Swirlydoos April kit. NOTE: The SwirlyHues Challenge is open to ANYONE, including non-kit subscribers and there is an OPTIONAL sketch made available for inspiration to be used on ANY kind of project (if desired). Kit contents are not required for this challenge.

Check out the full challenge details and some inspirational work  from the Swirlydoos DT at http://swirlydoos.blogspot.ca/2012/04/april-swirlyhues-challenge.html

Flower Girl Headband (Green Tara)

Seriously, you can make a gorgeous headband that would retail for about $25 in 15 minutes... for less than half the price! This one was actually inspired by a flower girl headband my daughter saw in a boutique - with a whopping $38 price tag. No way was I paying that much for a 3-year-old's play thing, since she is not in a wedding.

All I did was buy a plain faux leather headband (at my local dollar store) and hot glued some Green Tara lace trim (glue in the very centre only of the lace). I then added the twisted organza pearl trim with fabric glue (over-top the hot glued lace just in case of future yellowing). Then I added some GORGEOUS silk flowers with Swarovski crystals (3 cream and 3 pink) with fabric glue in an off-centre cluster. My daughter actually chose the pretty flowers and I coordinated the headband and trims to match. We make a pretty good crafting pair (only 34 years difference in age :) I still won't let her wear it out of the house yet though, LOL.

Swirlydoos April kit reveal and blog hop

Welcome to Swirlydoos' April "Whispers of Spring" Kit Reveal Blog Hop Block Party! If you came here from Lisa Gregory's blog, then you are on the right track. If not, go back to the Swirlydoos blog and start from there. We have some amazing projects for you to see today and as a bonus we have Petaloo joining in the fun and offering a prize too! There are 2 prize packs up for grabs this month so make sure to follow along and have fun.

I was so excited to go to the "dark side" and play with the beautiful high contras in Prima's Almanac collection. This is me at 33 pregnant with my baby girl. After having 2 boys I was soooo excited to be having a girl. It was a very difficult pregnancy but worth it! I used the April Swirly Hues colors for this layout.

NOTE: The SwirlyHues Challenge is open to ANYONE, including non-kit subscribers and there is an OPTIONAL sketch made available for inspiration more to challenge details follow soon.

Here is a close up of all the gorgeous Prima goodies from the main kit and the flower add-on.

I used the pretty April Prima BAP sketch as inspiration and rotated it like this:

Here is a fun picture of my boys and the Prima collection was perfectly paired with this G45 butterfly sheet of paper. The Dusty Attic chipboard is from my stash.

Here is a close-up of some of the flowers in the main and the add-on kit.

Here is my little girl last summer at the beach. I used the April kit sketch for this layout. The doilies are from my stash and the cameo is from last month's kit.

Here is a close-up of the gorgeous Prima vine and flowers.

Here is the inspirational kit sketch this month:

Lastly for today, a little journal to use up some scraps from the above layouts and to make good use of some pretty Prima packaging :)

Here is a close up of some of the flowers and chipboard you'll receive in the main kit.

You have until midnight, eastern time, on April 11th to complete the hop. Winners will be announced on the Swirlydoos Blog on April 12th. In order to qualify to win here is what you need to do:

1: Visit all of the blogs and leave a comment on each. This way we know you were there. Become a follower if you're not already one. Take your time. There are beautiful things to see along the way.

2: Before you leave each blog, look for the “special” words and write it down. Once you have visited all the blogs and collected all the special words, they will create a QUESTION. 

3: Finally, go back to the Swirlydoos blog and leave a comment letting us know how much fun you had AND tell us the QUESTION that was created with all of the special words you collected AND GIVE US YOUR ANSWERS.

My special word is : THREE

The party continues over at LYNNE's blog. Have fun!

"Beautiful" (Green Tara)

I have created my very first blocking style lo. It was inspired by all the beautiful 7 Gypsies trays that people have altered in the past few years (Steph Devlin's in particular because of the color palette) and I thought this blocked design might look nice as a layout. I went a little chipboard crazy on this one, LOL. The papers are from an old Basic Grey "porcelain" collection and chipboard is all kinds (Dusty Attic, K and Co., KaiserCraft and Tattered Angels) - 11 pieces of chipboard in total! All the beautiful batik aster flowers (vintage and sunset) and cherry blossoms (pink and peach) are from Green Tara. A very simple design but it takes quite some planning. Probably one of the layouts I have spent the most time on. It's fun to try new things and get out of your scrappy comfort zone.

Here is a close-up of some of the details. 

Well, I am working like crazy to get ahead on DT projects before my chaotic month of Easter and 3 kiddo birthdays which all begins this weekend. Plus... my Dusty Attic shipment is due to arrive soon (in the mail on its way to me :) for my Etsy shop and there is STILL... income taxes to be done (of course I have procrastinated in order to scrap instead, LOL). Wish me luck! BTW Blogger won't let me remove the excess spacing from here to the comments for this post - weird!

World Autism Awareness (Giveaway)

My friend Cathy has an awesome giveaway on her blog in support of creating awareness for Autism (since April is Autism awareness month :) Autism is a complex neurological developmental disability that is lifelong. Recent news shows that the rate of autism has increased yet again. It is currently at 1 in 88, nearly doubled the rate in 2007. Please go to her blog to find out more and leave her some love. You will be entered to win some fantastic scrappy prizes from May Arts Ribbon and Scrap n' Art Magazine.

http://scrappycath.blogspot.ca/2012/04/world-autism-awareness-day-and-scrap-n.html

Fantastic Swirlydoos Event

Oh how do I ever wish I lived near California for this...

Check out more details at over at Swirlydoos http://www.swirlydoos.com/page.php?97

Swirlydoos March Kit - Take 2

I've made 2 more DT projects using the glorious French Quarter kit from Swirlydoos for March. Here is my matching gift box and card set (I'm saving it to give to my hubby - we are planning on going on a 10-year anniversary trip).

CARD JOURNALING READS: "Thank you for the wonderful family you have given me... but I miss waking up on weekend mornings just with you (in a quiet house). 10 years down, only about 20 more to go - until we have that to ourselves again, Happy Anniversary!"

I used the OUAS challenge as my inspiration and used the sketch in 2 ways different ways for each project. Here is the challenge criteria and sketch image.

Here is a close-up of the gift box - all of the product was in the March main kit including that watch (no add-ons used).

Here is a close-up of the matching card. I used Prima flower packaging and Petaloo flowers from the add-on kit.

All those little half circles to create the borders were left overs from my reveal day layout below (cut to make the postage stamp border). I keep all my scraps, LOL.

Here is the template I used for the gift box. My "unit" measurement was 1.75 inches.

And finally this is an image of the Swirlydoos March kit.

Here are all the glorious add-ons that Krissy (Swirlydoos Owner) puts together EVERY month to coordinate with the main kit. I personally can't live without the flower add-on (top right image).

I've made 3 layouts, a gift box and a card with this main kit (plus the flower add-on) and I STILL have enough materials left over to create one more project... if only I had the time, LOL. I just got notice that my April kit is almost here so gotta get creating for that reveal soon!