Buttons & Pumpkins

I have absolutely loved looking at all the stunning fall projects this way by our DT Ladies and also have been completely wowed by your challenge entries in our current Beary Sweet Challenge, "Happy Fall Y'All." Keep it up! You have an entire week still to enter and we'd love to see what gorgeous autumn creation you are working on.

Our challenge this week was to add buttons to our Happy Fall projects and I decided I wouldn't add just a button or two, but a whole barrel full!




Or at least an entire pumpkin full! The center of my card is a pumpkin made from buttons.




To start with I found a pumpkin pattern, (you can get your own copy by clicking here), traced it onto Bo Bunny Double Dot Burnt Orange cardstock and cut it out. Then I used Tacky Glue and adhered all shades and sizes of orange buttons to my pumpkin. This is a little tricky and I found it worked the best to just put glue on a small area, find buttons to fit and then move on to the next area, adjusting as I went. Once my pumpkin was dry I could then mount it to my card.


For my card I used some of the awesome new papers from Authentique's Glowing line. I love all their 6 x 6 paper pads, make sure to check out these new arrivals in the Beary Scrap store. I made my sentiment by applying letter stickers, inking over the top with an ink dauber and then removing the stickers.


Supplies Used:
Bo Bunny Cardstock-- Burnt Orange, Coffee, Clover
Authentique Glowing 6 x6 paper pad
SEI Windsor paper-- Farleigh
Seam Binding-- Key Lime
Color Box Fluid Chalk-- Chestnut Roan
Pink Paislee Expressions Whimsies Alphabet-- Chocolate
Fiskars Border Punch
Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue
Lots of miscellaneous buttons!

I hope the beautiful fall colors and weather find you wherever you are and continue to inspire you to create this weekend. Happy crafting!

Bottle of Blessings

Are you having a great summer? It seems to be going by way too fast! My nephew starts Kindergarten today (he's in year-round-school). If it's too hot to play outside, then maybe you should pull out your scrappy stash and make something beautiful!

This is week two for the sketch challenge at the Beary Scrap - and my card today highlights Bo Bunny's Gabrielle Collection. This is my favorite Bo Bunny line ever! My stamp is Message on a Bottle from Crafty Secrets, and I colored it with Copics, and fussy cut it out. I added some Dew Drops from the Robin's Nest. All of the paper edges are inked with Distress Ink. Finally, I finished it off with some seam binding ribbon.

There are a few days left to play along with our challenge, and we have a great prize up for grabs!

O, What a Flower!

Who knew there were so many ways to make your own flowers? I know you have seen a bunch this week and they are all fabulous! Today I have one more, very simple!, way to show you to make your own flower embellishment.

If you are like me, you have lots of letter stickers laying around that don't always get used (I know, especially those weird letters like q and x!). This is a great way to utilize some of those stickers and make a cute flower at the same time.

For this flower I used some letter "O"s for my flower petals. You will need a small piece of cardstock (circle or square) to anchor your petals to.


Snip one side of the O and then overlap the cut apart ends and stick it onto the small piece of cardstock.


Repeat with more O's until you have completed the petals all the way around.



Push firmly on the petal centers so they will stay (or anchor them with an extra glue dot). Then attach a button for the flower center and wa-lah! Super fast, cute and easy flower!



Now, you may be thinking-- okay, but "O" is not one of those weird leftover letters and I agree, I generally don't have a lot of "O"s left so here is one using a "w"--

On this one I didn't snip anything, just over lapped the ends of the "w" onto each other to form sort of a double petal and then stuck it on the cardstock.

And another one with a "Q"-- I always have those left! For this one I snipped it right where the little piece crosses the circle and then trimmed off the ends of that little piece, so basically it ends up looking like an "O."



Here's my completed layout with my letter flowers on it. I used Bo Bunny's Roughin' It papers for all of my circles and trimmed just a square off a diecut paper from that line to put my date and flowers on.

I hope you have learned a few tips and tricks from our DIY embellishements this week! Stayed tuned until the 30th for a few more ideas and make sure to enter your own DIY project in our current challenge.

Hello!

We have a really fun challenge going on over at the Beary Scrap. We want to see you make your own embellishments. All of the DT has been trying to come up with fun ways to inspire you, so you will really want to keep checking each day to see what we've got in store for you.

This week, I decided to make a flower for you, using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. What might surprise you, is what I used to make the flower. I'm sure you probably have some baby wipes lying around your studio. Well, here's something new you can try with them. Use your Glimmer Mists to color the wipes. I don't even clean up where I have colors on my mat from other projects - just lay it down, and let it absorb what's there, and then keep spritzing to completely color it.


Dry the wipes thoroughly with your heat gun (they will feel rather stiff). Then cut 3 sets of the flowers with your die. Stack the flowers, and add glue or a brad in the center. You will be surprised how much this actually feels like fabric.

Papers: Bo Bunny Timepiece, Bazzill
Alpha Stickers: Echo Park For the RecordRibbon: Seam Binding Latte
Pearls: Kaisercraft
Tickets: Maya Road
Glimmer Mist: Tattered Angels
Dies: Tattered Florals
Punch: Martha Stewart
Epoxy Bubbles: Epiphany Crafts

Do It Yourself Eyelet Flowers

Happy Friday all! I have been so excited to see a couple of entries already in our Do It Yourself Embellishment challenge. I know you all have fabulous ideas out there and I can't wait to see how you create your own unique embellies so keep those entries coming!

My project for this week is this little covered notebook and matching pen-- I found it for only $1.00 at my local craft store.



My main DIY embellishment is an eyelet flower-- I saw this idea recently in PaperCrafts magazine (along with a lot of other DIYs) and was dying to try it! It was super easy to make (as long as I kept my fingers out of the way of the hot glue) and I was really pleased with the end result. If you want to try your hand at this kind of flower, here are some instructions:


1. Gather your materials--
Cardstock and circle punch (I used a 1 1/4 inch circle)
15 inches of rick-rack trim (this makes a 1 1/4 inch flower, use more if you want a bigger flower)
Glue Gun


2. Begin at the outside edge of the circle and apply hot glue around the edge, then start pressing down the rick-rack onto the hot glue, twisting it slightly to make it go around the circle. (You have to kind of twist and bend it as you go, as rick-rack does not naturally curve!)

3. Continue circle inward with hot glue and then applying the rickrack, twisting and turning to make it circle. Continue all the way into the center. Mind your fingers! I used hot glue because I like how fast it is and I'm not sure anything else would have held rickrack as it doesn't turn easily. If you used a lighter weight trim or lace I think Tacky Glue would work just fine and be less dangerous for your fingers!


4. Trim off any excess rick rack in the middle and any excess cardstock from the back circle. You'll end up with something similar to this:


Then add a brad, button or whatever you can come up with to the center for the middle of the flower. I used a brad and pierced it all the way through the cardstock circle.


A couple of other little DIY things I wanted to show you-- to make a leaf for my rick-rack flower, I punched a heart from my patterened paper and then also cut the small heart from some black lace to cover it:


I wanted to add a seam binding bow so I used white seam binding and spritzed with with Glimmer Mist to match my paper. I love how easily the seam binding can be colored and how quick it dries. After I spritzed it, I scrunched it up good and then tied the bow after it was dry.

Here's another look at my final product--


Supplies used:
Bo Bunny 6x6 paper pad-- Timepiece (sold out in the store, sorry!)
Seam Binding-- White
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist-- Brick Red (currently on clearance at 30% off!!)
KaiserCraft Pearls-- Black
Tim Holtz Distress Ink--Black Soot
My Mind's Eye Lost & Found Union Square Brad
Glue Dots
Assorted lace trims


It's your turn-- show us your DIY embellishment and stay tuned for more DIY ideas from our Beary Sweet Design Team.

Make It Your Own

We have a really fun new challenge of you and I couldn't wait to do this one.
Make your own Embellishments.
 For this one I thought outside the box and not make a card. I have made a few of these cute fences over the weekend and I knew what I wanted to do for this new challenge. Plus I'm having so much fun altering items.

My paper in the picture frame is from the 6X6 Paper Pads from Bo Bunny the Gabrielle Collection. The fence and picture frame are from my stash.

My purple roses were made the the Retro Flower Punches. They were Inked with Colorbox Ink and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I also added some Mulberry Flowers. My vines were made from a die from Sizzix Vine w/Leaves and sprayed with Glimmer Mist.

My Butterfly at the top of my picture frame is a punch from Martha Stewart and the bottom one is from my stash and sprayed with Glimmer Mist. I have some pretty Robbin's Nest Dew Drops added. This whole project was put together with Fabric Tac Glue.

Here is a close-up of my stick pin I made. I made this with the Baby Bear Tear Bear Acrylic Paper Piecing Pattern. I inked the edges of my Mulberry Paper with Colorbox Ink.

Let's see your own handmade Embellishments and enter your project

---HERE---

Thanks for looking

~Patricia~

Blast Off with Some Seam Binding

OOOoohhhh, I am in love with the new Seam Binding in stock at The Beary Scrap. It is versatile and comes in so many great colors! I had a lot of fun adding it to our sketch this week and using it to make my card blast off!


This sketch is just as versatile as the seam binding-- last week I used it to make a two page 12 x 12 layout and then this week brought it down to size in a 6 x 6 card. That's what I love about sketches-- they just jumpstart my brain and I can go anywhere from there!

I used Bo Bunny's Blast Off papers-- check out the cute 6 x 6 paper pads Kimm has in stock at the store, they are a great deal! I really like the colors of these papers-- strong, vivid colors that are perfect for boys but could also work for some cute baby or birthday projects.



Instead of trying to find embellishments to match, I just cut my own from some of the papers (the bigger rockets are from as 12 x 12 page I got locally). All this fussy cutting does take time but it's worth it in the end as the rockets and stars match so perfectly.

Rockets and stars just screamed out for glitter and so I liberally added Stickles to all my cut out embellishments. With all the colors of Stickles available, I had colors for all my stars. Then I popped up the rockets and some of the stars with foam squares for dimension.


For my last bit of dimension, I added that great seam binding, this time in white to simulate the cloud left by a rocket blasting off. It was so quick and easy-- just secured with some glue dots-- and really adds a lot.

Here's a quick peek at the inside:



Be sure to check out all the colors of seam binding Kimm has available and enter your own version of our sketch in the current Beary Sweet Challenge for your chance to win a $20.00 voucher to The Beary Scrap store.

Sketch Challenge Take 2

Have you played in our Sketch Challenge at
The Beary Scrap Challenges?
Here is another sample of our sketch challenge this week I got to make and us designers had to add Seam Binding and the Leondro Blue is a perfect match for the Bo Bunny Gabrielle Collection. I used the 6X6 Paper Pad for my card.

I made my Tattered Teddy Paper Piecing Pattern with Mulberry Paper and made it into a Statue of Liberty Bear with a pattern from Treasure Box Designs. My USA mini bottle caps are from my stash and sit on top of some Flowers. I added some Robbins Nest Dew Drops to the side. My papers were Inked with Colorbox Ink and the whole card was glued together with Fabri-Tac Glue. Lets see your project for our Sketch Challenge and enter it ---HERE---

Thanks for looking

~Patricia~

Nature Is Calling!

Hello hello and happy Monday to you! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I had a birthday... and it was good. *wink*

So, this is Week 2 of our Beary Sweet Nature Challenge, where you can enter any project that you think conjures up "nature" in your noggin. As a bonus challenge to the design team, we have to include a charm in our project. Easy enough!

Kimm just got this fun filmstrip ribbon into the store, and I decided to use that as my jumping-off point. Here's what happened when it all landed:

Card Recipe

• Paper: Bo Bunny Gabrielle 6x6 pad; Bazzill Basics Lily Pad and Walnut
• Medium: Ranger Distress Ink in Walnut Stain; Stickles Star Dust and Patina; Ranger Glossy Accents as a top layer on the bitty butterflies; Irridescent acrylic paints on the Pink Paislee wood butterfly
• Embellishments: Tiny butterflies cut from a sheet in the Gabrielle paper pad with homemade wire antennae; Tim Holtz Idea-ology Film Strip Ribbon; Pearls; Assorted Prima flowers; Hand made decorative stick pins; crochet lace from stash
• Adhesive: 1/4" Scor-Tape; 3D Dots - 1/8" black 
• Tools: Scor-Pal (check out the Scor-Pal Mini!); Ranger Blending Tool; sewing machine

Thanks for visiting today! Come back all week for more great design team samples of our Nature theme. I hope you can enter our Beary Sweet Nature challenge, too. You could win a $20 voucher from The Beary Scrap!

Cheers,
Susan

Butterfly Notes

Our theme for our new challenge at The Beary Scrap is Nature

I think the new BoBunny Gabrielle Flight line of papers says Nature all over it. I think this has to be one of my all time favorite line of papers. This paper worked out perfect for my #643 Monarc Butterfly from Precious Piecings I made my butterfly match the colors of the paper line. I inked all my edges with Colorbox Ink and every thing was glued down with the best glue ever Fabri-Tac. My embroidered butterfly was sprayed with Trunk Bay Glimmer Mist. I added some Pearls and some ribbon, doilie and flowers from my stash. My back ground paper is from Echo Park For The Record. I even have a hidden little tag behind the Butterfly for notes.

Make sure you enter your Nature theme project ---HERE--- at The Beary Scrap Challenge Blog.

Thanks for looking.

~Patricia~



The Beary Scraps Sketch Challenge Plus Embossing

Here is my card for our Sketch Challenge and the added Challenge for the Design Team --Embossing.

I used the new Bo Bunny papers from the Gabrielle Flight and I have to say I think this is my favorite paper by far, I love love love it. If you haven't seen it in person you have to get this. For my embossing I used white card stock with embossed dots and cut out with dies and added Colorbox Ink. I used the Rolling Ball Embosser from EK Sucess to shape my flowers. I also made my Tattered Teddy with an Acrylic Pattern and Mulberry Paper and also highlighted with Colorbox Ink. I put together my tear bear with Fabri-Tac Glue.

Now lets see your sketch and enter your card--HERE--

Thanks for looking.

~Patricia~

Baby It's Cold Outside

Hello dear friends and happy Monday! This week the Beary Scrappy Gals are continuing to show samples using our current challenge theme. We're adding a little extra, too!

Winter Blues with Sparkle

Lately I've been focusing on embellishments that match the paper line. On my last two cards I used elements cut out from the 12x12 papers. For this card I looked no further than the wonderfully coordinating embellishment packs made for Bo Bunny's Midnight Frost line. 

This was a quick card - everything fell into place at lighting speed. With these fabulous chipboard embellishments I was able to add my sparkle (with a little extra thanks to Stickles on the swoosh) easily. Both the blue ribbon and white lace are Midnight Frost Wraps - see the sparkle on the lace? Yea, it came like that! Yay!

On the inside I plan to use a sentiment along the lines of "Baby it's cold outside... let's snuggle". Hmm, sounds kind of silly when I write it out... any suggestions on better wording?

I used Crystal Stickles on the swooshes to enhance their sparkliness. They were already this green-y color but I kicked it up a notch. No enhancement necessary on the "Brr" - it's great as is!

The base card stock is Bazzill Basics - have you seen that all Bazzill is on clearance? 50% to move it all out and make room for new and exciting STUFF!

Don't forget we still have our Guest Designer Call going on through March 5th. We know you're all busy making projects using our GD sketch and we can't wait to see 'em!

Cheers,
Susan

---

Beat Those Winter Blues!

Hi, Gini here and it's time for a new challenge theme at the Beary Scrap, and we chose Winter Blues. Your project can be wintery, or blue, or how you escape your winter blues... however you would like to interpret the theme.

I decided to use the Bo Bunny Midnight Frost papers (and gorgeous trim) - but decided I would use these papers for blue skies rather than a winter chill! So I added some stamped images from Unity stamps - and colored with copics. It's really fun sometimes to use your copics on designer papers rather than white paper. I inked the edges of my paper with Distress Ink and the Ranger Blending Tool (I love this little tool, and keep one of the pads for each color of Distress Ink in a divided craft box). I added a couple of Kaiser Craft Pearls to set off my Bo Bunny Wraps. I love keeping a great stash of the pearls on hand, in all colors. You know how us Southern girls are about our pearls!

Please don't forget to enter your sketch for the Beary Scrap Guest DT call. This is such a fun group and we would love for you to be a part! Check out the details here.

Heart Shaped Mini Album

Happy Sunday everyone-- Bringing you some more love and heart shaped ideas from The Beary Scrap. I am a big believer that Valentines' Day should celebrate more than just romantic love and I like to do lots of family things at this time of year to show my kids and others how much they are appreciated. So my project this week is a heart shaped mini album for my kids to give to their grandparents on Valentines' Day this year.




These chipboard albums were really fun to make and super quick as they are very small, only about three inches across. I used the Flirty line from Bo Bunny, perfect for Valentines' projects (and also on sale at The Beary Scrap, so now is a good time to stock up!). I traced all my hearts first, making sure I got just the part of the designer paper that I wanted and then cut them out. They are adhered with plain old glue stick, but two layers-- one on the back of the DP and one on the chipboard itself.


This paper line from Bo Bunny worked so great for this type of project-- each paper is double-sided so there are twice as many choices and they all coordinate. I chose to keep the colors together and made three sections-- 1 blue, 1 pink and 1 green for each of my three children.


To embellish each page, I used some of the Flirty stickers from the same paper line and added a sepia toned picture of my kids plus a handwritten note they wrote. Plus then I added some random embellies like fiber, a ticket, a doilie, punched hearts and ribbon.

My little three year old even added his own unique version of his name-- he's just learning how to write it and I think it's super cute! (It's Jace, by the way, if you can't decipher his letters below!)

The final page has a picture of all three, and a little note for Grandma & Grandpa, placed on top of those cute Flirty birds.


That's it for my friendship/love projects and I want all of you out there to know how much I have LOVED looking through the projects you have entered in our friendship/love challenge. Thank you for sharing your talents with us! And if you still have a project to share, there's still time! Link it up before tomorrow night at 11:59 EST for your chance to win!

Brrrrr! The Snow is Falling!

Hi! It's Gini and since I have started seeing a little snow falling outside my window, I was inspired to make this card. I really love the sketch challenge we have going on now -it is so versatile, I'm sure I will be using it again. I got to play with some of the new goodies in the store for this card - Bo Bunny's Midnight Frost and Magnolia "MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS" Tilda with Fir Tree. I think Midnight Frost is proving quite popular among the DT!

I cut my snowflakes out using Spellbinders and embellished them with a little bling. For my Tilda, I colored her with copics, added stickles to her coat, puff paint for her fur, and ultra fine Flower Soft in Pine over the tree. I love how this created lots of dimension.

I hope you will get a chance to play along with us!