Stitching Inspiration

Hello hello again! Thanks for popping in today. It was a great weekend here in Maryland - got lots done around the house and had many giggles with the Husband. He's a card!

So, we kicked off a new Beary Sweet Challenge yesterday - "In Stitches". I hope you can play along with us! I've been noodling around with the idea of a vintage sewing inspired card lately. I collect vintage sewing stuff, so it's always on my mind in some form or another. At an estate sale years ago, I found a 1924 Singer Model 66 in it's cabinet with the cool drawers and scrolly iron base. The wood top had some cosmetic problems but the machine itself was in great shape. I recently sold it on Craigslist (without the drawers!) since I will be receiving Grandma's machine in a few weeks. It's in excellent condition and I'm very excited!

Sew, here's my card, in an attempt to scratch the vintage sewing itch I've been feeling lately:

I Googled "vintage sewing" images and found this beauty. I popped it into Photoshop, upped the resolution and sharpened it a bit. I think it turned out pretty well! I used Basic Grey's Capella papers - it's such a beautiful variety of prints. I was able to use 4 different Capella prints as well as the coordinating solid green layer. Oh, and the pattern along the left side is from the Capella ribbon tape set. Pretty!

The layout is strongly influenced by current challenges Creative Prompts and Practical Scrappers, plus my own quirky style. I wanted the do the CP challenge but couldn't make the "tiles" work. I found the PS sketch and figured I could turn that scrapbook layout sketch into a card and use my already-cut tiles. Now it's a combination of the two challenges - three tiles as a nod to CP and freeform placement thanks to PS. Ooh, they're kind of like quilting blocks, no? Even though it's a huge stretch, I'll still enter both challenges (on my personal blog post) as a "thank you" for the inspiration. :)

I wrapped a tiny spool with coordinating thread and made it into a charm. I have no idea where the scissors charm came from... I don't remember seeing it in my collection before today. Weird, huh? The stick and t-pins are both from Grandma's sewing box. Thanks again, G-ma!

Card Recipe

• Image: Vintage Sewing from a Google search
• Papers: Bazzill Basics in Mud Pie and French Vanilla; Basic Grey Capella 6x6 pad as well as 12x12 Dolce and Timpani; Neenah card stock for the vintage image
• Medium: Glimmer Mist Pearl; Stickles Frosted Lace; Color Box Fluid Chalk in Chestnut Roan
• Embellishments: Basic Grey Capella ribbon tape; We R Memory Keepers Designer Eyelets & Snaps - Inspiration set; Lace, pins, charms, twill measuring tape from stash
• Tools: Scor-Pal; Cuttlebug embossing folders; trusty sewing machine and favorite thread
• Adhesive: Scor-Tape; Aleene's Quick Dry 

Thanks again for stopping to visit today. Elise will be here Wednesday with her answer to our BSC #8: In Stitches challenge. Hope to see you back for another visit, and can't wait to see your entry, too!

Cheers,

Susan

Beary Sweet Challenge #8: In Stitches

Welcome to our Beary Sweet Challenge #8

The design team sends out HUGE WHOPPING BIG thanks to everyone who joined our BSC #7 - we are so thrilled to see each and every one of you! We'll announce winners on Tuesday, August 17th. Thank you!

In Stitches

Ooh, how I do love my sewing machine. This challenge period we're asking you to pull out *your* sewing machine, needle and thread, pen for faux stitching or your Bazzill In-Stitch'z and "sew" it all together for us!

This challenge runs through August 31 at 11:59pm EDT. The prize winner will be chosen by random.org and will be announced along with our "Beary Sweet Top 3" on September 3rd.

Once again the random winner will receive a $20 voucher for The Beary Scrap! Whoo hoo!

Here are the "rules" to play - PLEASE READ:

• Become a follower if you aren't already (don't forget this one - it's disqualified a few folks already!);
• Link your blog post (not your blog "home page") or your online gallery submission with our Inlinkz frog below.
• Link back to this posting on your blog; tag your online gallery post with BSC#8;
• Please, only one (1) entry per person. Links to projects/cards posted before August 15th will not be eligible for the prize draw.

Additional information:

• Feel free to combine with other challenges;
• All NEW project types are welcome as long as they follow this technique challenge (cards, scrapbook layouts, etc.);
• International crafters can play, too!

Thanks for playing along with our challenges - we really appreciate you!

Cheers and smooches,

Susan, Gini, Patricia, Jamie, Elise and our fearless leader Kimm

Blling it On!

I bet by now, you have had to put on your sunglasses from seeing all of the bling that the Beary Scrappy Gals have been sharing with you this week. This week's theme was so much easier for me than a CAS card!

I started with an image from Elisabeth Bell, which was just perfect for the Doodlebug Designs paper I had chosen.

In case you have ever wondered whether or not you can use our thick mulberry paper with your Cricut machine, I found out the answer is yes! I wanted my ice cream cone to have lots of texture, so I embossed the cone with the herringbone cuttlebug folder, and cut the ice cream out of Fuchsia mulberry paper. I was really pleased with the textures!

As for sparkles - this card has it all! Stickles, crystals, glitter paper!

Check back on the Beary Scrap DT blog on Monday to see our new inspirations!

Sparkle And Bling Made For A Princess

Who loves to make a card with lots of Sparkle and Bling.

Yep that would be ME!!

I like to call myself the self proclaimed Queen of Bling.

There is not a card I don't bling up. I love it.

Well this week at The Beary Scrap Design Team Blog it's

Sparkle and Bling week and here's my card

Princess for a Day.

How many people have picked up some of Kimms awesome Tear Bear Patterns and would like to dress them.

Well I made my dress for my bear with a pattern from

Little Scraps of Heaven

Tricia has all kinds of patterns that can work wonderful with

Kimm's Tear Bear Patterns.

My card recipe:

Card Base: Sugar Coated Card Stock

Back Ground Paper : BoBunny Peacock Lane

Tear Bear Pattern

Mulberry Paper

Mulberry Flowers

Diamond Stickles

Martha Stewart Corner Punch

Colorbox Ink

Pearls

Lace

Spellbinders

Thanks for looking.

~Patricia~

Sparkles & Bling Ballerina

After last week's Clean and Simple Sketch, I really got to play with all my embellishments for this week's project dedicated to Sparkles and Bling! What fun! And what could be a better fit for Sparkles & Bling than a beautiful little ballerina in her sparkly costume for this year's dance recital?

I used pink and brown Bazzill cardstock for the basics of my layout and then got right into the Bling by using the Sundress line of glittered cardstock from My Mind's Eye. Usually I don't really like glittered paper, it's heavy and seems like the glitter often falls off everywhere but these beautiful papers are just lightly glittered, a great weight to work with and the glitter doesn't come off. Plus, they are on sale right now at The Beary Scrap so they are a great deal! Besides the Sundress line, there are 3 other lines-- Coastal, Flirty and Natural-- with lots of designs perfect for all types of projects.



I added some lace trim at the edges-- this one isn't from My Mind's Eye but they do have some lovely trims, also on sale! I did use some chipboard borders from the same Sundress collection from My Mind's Eye which are really fun and easy as they are self-adhesive (don't you just LOVE anything that is self-adhesive?)



The last thing from the Sundress paper line that I used were a couple of diecuts from the same paper line as well as the "Bloom" alphabet rubons. Wow! All that, and I'm not even done embellishing, I love this Sparkles & Bling thing! My little ballerina just happened to be wearing a teddy bear costume and so what could be more perfect for this page than one of Kimm's Tear Bears!

So I made my own Tear Bear Ballerina, trying to position her in the same pose as the photo of my daughter. I used Bazzill tulle to make a tutu by folding it in half, then taking a running stitch through the top with embroidery floss and pulling it tight. Then I sparkled up the tutu and bear with rhinestones and pearls from Kaiser Craft. To make the flourishes, I used a stencil and traced the flourish on with a vanishing ink pen then used some Kaiser craft rhinestones that come in a long strip all connected and laid them along the ink line before it disappeared (which had to be quick!)

How's that for embellishments? There's definitely enough sparkle on this page to make up for my stick-to-the basics page last week but I'd have to say, my scrap table was a huge mess after this one and it took much longer than last week, so there is definitely something to be said for Clean and Simple. Speaking of Clean and Simple, you still have a few more days to enter our Beary Sweet Challenge with your take on our sketch for a chance to win a $20.00 gift certificate to great goodies from The Beary Scrap!

You're A Princess

Hello Friends!  How are you all doing?  I hope you're all wonderful and having a great week so far!

As you know, this week we're having "Sparkles and Bling" .. oooooh ... I love it!!!  Where can you go wrong with Sparkles and Bling?  You simply can't!  hehe!

I thought Princess Tilda fit perfectly for the theme, and so I've used this adorable image:

The Fun Stuff:

Image:  Magnolia Princess Tilda

Papers:  K&Co

Medium:  Prisma Colored Pencils

Other:   Distress Ink, MS Punch, Stickles

I hope to see you take part in our challenge!  We still have our awesome sketch by our lovely Susan still going on until August 14th!  And throughout the rest of the week, my awesome fellow DT's will surely inspire you to whip out your supplies and have fun!  :)

Hope you have a WONDERFUL day!!!

Hugs,

Elise

Princess Tilda Sparkles!

Hello dear readers! Welcome to another week with the Beary Scrappy Gals! This week we want you to put your shades on 'cause we're full of Sparkle and Bling!

I've kept things simple this week and used the current Midnight Madness sketch as inspiration.  I do love a good MM challenge, and can't wait to see the one we're sponsoring August 10 - 16!!

This card started out with a peacock feather in the upper right corner but the more I looked at it the more I thought it was looking back at me. *grin* It was unsettling!

Isn't Princess Tilda just the sweetest? She's wearing a costume full of Stickles, from the Platinum on her tiara to the  Frosted Lace gloves and skirt. Her dress is enhanced with clear Sakura Gelly Roll pen and the buttons on her sweet little shoes are Star Dust Stickles.

The card's outside layer is edged with Stickles Icicle -a larger reflective surface that leans toward golds- and the inside layer closer to Tilda is edged with Diamond. The particles are smaller than Icicle but also reflect golds as well as the colors around it. Star Dust is randomly dotted on Tilda's background.

Card Recipe 

• Stamp: Magnolia's Princess Tilda
• Paper: Bo Bunny Peacock Lane - Parade, Stripe and Flowers (reverse side); Neenah for stamped Tilda
• Medium: Stickles - Platinum, Icicle, Diamond, Star Dust; Sakura Gelly Roll clear; Prismacolor pencils with OMS
• Embellishments: Mulberry roses; ribbon, pins and Swarovski crystals from stash
• Adhesive: Scor-Tape

Thanks so much for stopping in! Our current Beary Sweet Challenge is going on HERE. It's a "Simple Sketch" and we look forward to your entries by August 14th!

Cheers,

Susan

There must be some Hocus Pocus going on here!

Ahhh, Saturday - the weekend! And so it must be time for me to share this week's Beary Scrap creation with you. The Beary Scrappy Gals have been sharing CAS projects based on this sketch. This is also our challenge to you for another week, so please join us.


So, I got out my Spellcaster Tilda, and told her, "Look, Miss Susan said this was to be a clean and simple card - so no flowers, no layers, no distressing, no glitz, no frou-frou." Well, I don't think she was very happy with this - I mean, after all I was using the Bo Bunny Peacock Lane - How could I not embellish that? I held strong and made this very CAS card.


I should have known better than to leave Spellcaster Tilda alone in my studio with her magic wand! I came back and found that suddenly there were layers, and ribbons, and flowers, and butterflies and stickles - All the things that we had agreed would not be on this card! I think Tilda even got into my Glimmer Mist and sprayed that clear butterfly! This certainly was no longer clean and simple.

So, if you are looking for a little magic, drop by the Beary Scrap and see what we have in store for you!

It's a Simple Sketch Week at The Beary Scrap

Susan came up with a Simple Sketch this week for us at The Beary Scrap and I think it challenged us all to keep it simple. As most of you know us Beary Scrap Girls love to load on the embellishments. Well it worked this week for me, I have another one of Kimm's new Acrylic Paper Piecing Patterns to show off again this week and keeping it simple shows off this really cute

Pandie the Panda Bear Pattern.

He is just so cute holding his little flower. Kimm added another awesome Tear Critter to the collection and more to come out soon. Keep an eye on The Beary Scrap Store for more new ones. He was made with Mulbery Paper and I also used some free printable eyes that Kimm has for you to download from her site. I did add some 3D Diamond Glaze to the eyes before I cute them out to make them a little thicker.  My backgound paper is by Bo Bunny Double Dots and I used the Martha Stewart Butterfly Boarder Punch and the Doily Lace Punch. I added Stickles to my Mulbery Flowers. I also added some really cute paw print ribbon I had in my stash.

This was the sketch we had to follow this week. Now can you keep it simple like us Beary Scrap Girls did this week.

If so make up your project and add it ---HERE to the challenge blog.

Make sure you come back tomorrow to see what Gini did this week.

Are you a fan of The Beary Scrap on Facebook you never know who's going to be playing over there late night, become a fan and join in on the fun.

Thanks for looking

~Patricia~