It Takes All Kinds

Retirement Goodies

Our school saw five people retire this year (quite a bit for a school with a staff of 21)!  For the retirement tea, I was in charge of finding baskets for cards that they could use later, and making some sort of nameplate. I found these at Old Tyme Pottery, but with a rustic fabric woven in and a countrified 'Simplify' plaque wired on the front.

So...  I removed the fabric and wire, painted the plaque, stamped a flourish with Brilliance ink, and handwrote their names with a glitter pen. Punching larger holes and adding eyelets to the wood plaques was easy with my cropadile.   Then I tied on each nameplate with a different ribbon, something they could easily remove later.

For the cards, I played with inking some diecut chipboard various blingy colors, and debossed some vellum using my Cuttlebug and old Fiskars embossing plates.  Some Stickled butterfly punches and Jolee's later, I had a series of mass-produced, yet all different, elegant cards. (pretend there is a sentiment--I couldn't find my Congratulations stamps to save my life!).

Dandelions Are Flowers Too (and a tutorial)

I was happy when my friend Olivier started playing with these dandelions as I've always wanted to take a photo of someone blowing the seeds into the wind. He was happy to pose for me while I clicked away, and this page was born.

   

 

This is a hybrid page using a template and brush by Karla Dudley Designs.

Here's a quick tutorial to show how the flowers were made. (Sorry for the blurry shots, I decided to use my P&S camera and it refused to cooperate!)

 

1. Punch three circles from patterned paper. These are 1.5" in diameter

   

Place the circles together and secure them with a brad in the center

 

3. Use scissors to cut the circle into strips

 

4. Scrunch up the circle like so

   

5. Then open slightly before using on your page

 

A final close up shot

 

Have you come up with a neat technique for making a flower or other embellishment to match your page? Share a link with us in the comments!

Handmade Flowers Technique Book

Hi everyone!

This is my very first post here on the blog! I was absolutely delighted to get an invite by Francine to join the design team here at It Takes All Kinds. I am somewhat active on some of the scrapbooking message boards but have never been invited to join a design team or anything similar. So this is a new endeavor for me!

I guess I should first give a little intro! My name is Monica (Monica B on many of the message boards). I am 24 years old and live in Kansas City - tornado alley! I recently graduated from college with my degree in Elementary Education. Jobs are sparse right now, so I am substitute teaching for the time being and am enjoying having so much extra time to scrap after a busy year of student teaching and final courses! I am not married and have no kids, but I have a toy chihuahua named Dinky that you will see often in my layouts! That's just a little about me =)

Okay, on to the purpose of this blog post! I thought it was a coincidence when Francine told me that this month's theme is handmade flowers because I had just finished a mini album with different techniques for making handmade flowers. I have seen so many cool techniques for handmade flowers that I wanted to put them all in one place for an easy reference when I am scrapping.

Here is a look at the book:

 The cover: Cosmo Cricket flower paper, Making Memories script paper, Crate Paper letter stickers, K&Company rubon letters, October Afternoon label

 Lollipop Flowers

 Rolled Flowers

 Flower from a Heart Punch

 Layered Scallop Flower

To see the entire book, check it out here in my gallery: Flower Technique Mini

xoxo Monica

Enjoying the mess

My scrapbook supplies have been (mostly) packed away (in the back of my car!) since January due to some home remodeling and then home repairs we had to undertake.  At first, it was no big deal - I have plenty of other hobbies and real life responsibilities to keep me occupied.

But after awhile, I started to get the itch.  You know the one, that nagging desire to make something.  I tried cupcakes.  Cookies.  Thought about getting out my cross-stitch supplies which haven't seen the light of day in at least 8 years. Finally I unloaded the car and deposited everything in the corner of my dining room, because there is nowhere else for it to go right now. 

When I finally sat down to scrap something, I think I had the scrapper's version of a binge.  I wanted to use EVERYTHING.  I wanted to play with EVERYTHING.  I didn't care about what photo I used or the story I had to tell, I just wanted to make something.  My dining room table is now a jumble of buttons and ribbons and chipboard accents and glue dots and felt and glitter and shiny things.

I started glueing flowers together, one on top of another on top of another and I didn't want to stop.  It felt so good to just be making something again, even if it isn't in accordance with proper design principals, even if I had a million pre-made flowers I could have used, even if I was using a not-so-perfect photo to tell a not-so-important story.  I enjoyed making the mess.  And I'm not cleaning it up anytime soon.

Huge List of Handmade Flower Tutorials!!

I've searched the web and come up with a bunch of tutorials for making your own flower embellishments. First, one by me, from my sadly neglected tutorial blog.

 
 

Layered Flower Tutorial

Here is a long list of tutorials to make flowers from paper, fabric and other crafting materials.

Felt and Button Flowers

Sewing Pattern Flower

Tissue Paper Flower

Artsy Paper Flower

Dimensional Paper Flowers

Fabric Flowers

Scalloped Flowers

Spiral Paper Roses

Tissue Paper Flower II

Big Paper Flowers

Rolled Paper Flowers

Layered and Textured Flowers

Friendship Blossoms

Fabric Paper Flowers

Fabric Paper Flowers II

Phew! I think everyone should find something there to like! If you have a tutorial to share or know of another one anywhere online please leave a link in the comments!

Rebirth

My favorite part of spring is seeing the rebirth of all the flowers that have been dormant for so many months.  I took these photos of the first roses for the season last spring.  I am still waiting for this year's rebirth.

 
This layout was for a challenge that I did for National Scrapbooking Day at Studio Calico.  It was to use punches on a photo, cardstock and another material.  I used my edge punch on the big photo and the cardstock and I used my square punch for the smaller rose photos and also to make the windows in the transparency.

Later this month I will be sharing a layout with a handmade flower technique.

Showers and Flowers

Welcome to May! It's personally my favourite month of the year (because I celebrate my birthday), and also the month where things really start looking good weather wise. This month we focus on showers and flowers. Rain showers, bridal and baby showers, showers of blessing......and of course we know that showers bring flowers!

We also have a technique challenge this month: handmade flowers. Here's a page I did recently where I made some rolled paper flowers.

 

I used the tutorial found here on the Creating Keepsakes blog

 

Keep checking back to see what the team has in store this month!