Embellish

Before and After: repurposed wall art

I know. I know. I admit I had this hanging in my kitchen for a long time. I bought it at a second hand store shortly after we moved into this house (ahem... ten years ago) and I always did intend to use the frame for something else. But I never got around to it.

It wasn't BAD... just nothing special. And I am trying to pare down our possessions and only keep things that I really, truly love. I'll never be a minimalist, but I have enjoyed de-cluttering and the internal examination that comes from trying to decide WHY I hang onto so many things.

Now that I have completely shot my style cred, can I show you how I repurposed it this morning? I promise you'll like it a lot better!

Am I right or am I right?  Much better! I pulled the backing and glass off and painted it a nice flat black, then put it back together with the fruit of this morning's "labors" in the craft room--three adorable dresses on mannequins, courtesy of the Dress Up Framelits for the Big Shot (#120101), a lot of fun scraps of Designer Series Paper, Paper Tea Doilies, ribbons, brads and the Boho Blossoms punch.

Hope maybe I've inspired you today to take a look at something you have around the house that does not make you happy when you think of it. Maybe it could be repurposed--or maybe it really should be donated to charity--or maybe it really belongs in the trash! But a home filled with delightful, personalized, homemade art is a warm and welcoming place.

Fancy that!

I soooo wasn't going to buy this bundle!! I thought the All Dressed Up stamp set (#129171-W, #129174-C) and coordinating Big Shot dies and Framelits (#130101) were super cute, but just not something I really needed. Fast forward a month or two into the Spring 2013 Occasions Catalog, and here I am, making my very first card with them. LOL!

We made this version at Barb's party this week and it was a big hit. I am kicking myself for not taking a photo of the matching scrapbook page some of the girls made before I gave it to Barb as part of her hostess gift. Oh well! I will definitely be making more pages with these cute accessories.We all agreed the pearls and the flower at the waist just gave it the fancy trim the demure little print dress needed. I can't WAIT to play more with this stamp set.

TIP: Did you see how well the new Ovals Collection Framelits (#129381) look with the Holiday Frame embossing folder? You would never know that is technically a Christmas folder--it looks like lace peeking out around the rim of the ovals. I hope this folder (from the 2012 Holiday Catalog) makes into the main catalog on June 1st! Lovin' my new Oval Framelits!

Valentine Pockets

Spent a delightful hour in my stamp room making Valentine's to swap at our February Song of My Heart Demonstrator meetingon the 11th. I wanted to use the flat Ghiradelli chocolates for mine, so I used the Petite Pocket die for the Big Shot and these went together in a flash! I am particularly pleased wih the way the little tab turned out. I didn't want to put velcro or ribbon on these to hold them closed, so I used the Word Window punch to make a little tab to stick into the belly band. Problem solved!

Notice the three colors on the stamped image? I used the baby-wipe-as-ink-pad technique, where you fold a couple of baby wipes into a little pad, drip reinker in various colors on it, and then use it as an ink pad. I got thirty little hearts stamped before the colors were too muddied up. Then you just pitch the baby-wipe--no muss, no fuss--my kinda technique!

Scrapbook Marathon Technique Pages

Always like to throw a little vintage in the mix for anyone who has heritage photos to scrap... plus, let's face it, any excuse to use those adorable flowers from the 2013 spring Occasions Catalog is reason enough! This page came about because of the great Midnight Muse journalling box design in the Print Poetry Designer Series Paper stack. I also used the Midnight Muse handwriting design, too, as the vintage style is famous for mixing patterns.

Here's a closeup of the main embellishment on the page. Love that scalloped tulle--hope we get it in a bazillion colors in the next catalog!

We also made this masculine page with the new Ticket punch and That's the Ticket stamp set. It's hard to see in the photo, but there are tickets stamped in Pool Party on the background mat as well. I drew the color scheme for this page from the Sale A Bration papers that you can get for FREE right now with any $50 order. It's just one of 19 different freebies to choose from during Sale A Bration 2013!

TIP: This page was a lot of the Scrapbook Marathon attendees' first time playing with the Core'Dinations cardstock line, so they really enjoyed using our new sanding blocks system. I loved the tone-on-tone look of using Early Espresso Big Shot letters on the same color background and sanding the edges so they stood out. The headline almost seemed carved from wood when we were done. 

More to come! Are you sorry you missed the Marathon? Yeah, I thought so! Be sure to subscribe to my blog so you don't miss news and updates and you can join us next time. We got so much done!

Dude, Valentine's is coming. Don't blow it.

Have you seen this yet? Take a second and show your significant other this hilarious (and oh so true!) video clip where a guy finally gets it right this year. Then check out Stampin' Up's new  Dude, You're Welcome stampin' kit for men!

"You Choose" layout

I gravitate towards girly pages, I'll admit! So when I was designing for the Scrapbook Marathon last weekend, I took one look at this finished page and though, "Uh oh!" because it turned out REALLY feminine and I know not all my attendees would have a use for hyper-girly pages. Luckily, I was using a Designer Series Paper from the Print Poetry stack, and the flip side was perfect for boys! So I designed an alternate sample page using the same background color (Summer Starfruit) and most of the same elements and tools, and my ladies got to choose which side of the DSP they would use.

I like both of them for different reasons... the nice crisp stripes and bold colors of the boy page... and the ruffly lace and tiny flowers of the girl page... while they had a lot in common, they turned out quite different. And the girl verson took a lot longer to make!

All the papercrafting products you see on all my pages as well as all the tools I used to create them are available to purchase from Stampin' Up through me. In fact, you don't have to wonder where to find 99% of what you'll see on my blog! It's all right here: www.lyssa.stampinup.net and you can shop anytime from the comfort of your own home by clicking on Shop Now. Search by color, product type, item number, tool name, or new arrivals--and be sure to check out the Clearance Rack for retired products at up to 80% off. Checkout is simple and secure. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have, or if you'd rather place your order via email, that's fine, too. [email protected]  Happy Shopping!

Scrapbook Marathon favorites

Here's a couple of my favorites from the projects we did the morning of the All-Day Scrapbook Marathon. While there were fun color combos and neat little elements on all eight pages, these two were my favorites! It's just really hard to beat rainbow colors on a solid white background, and layouts composed of lots of little squares are some of my very favorite to make. They're versatile, too, because you can fill up as many or as few squares as you want, depending on how many pictures you have to scrap.I used the Polka Dot Parade Designer Series Papers for instant rainbow fun ((#126902, $10.95).

This is a really trendy, minimalist page layout with lots of visual "white space," using the First Edition specialty Designer Series Papers (#121878, $12.95) and the new Print Poetry DSP stack ( (#129312, $6.95). I embellished it with some Basic Gray stitched ribbon together with the big brushed-nickle one inch buttons and some of the Sale A Bration 2013 reward choice buttons from the Sycamore Street embellishment pack in Pool Party.

I also used some of the paper flower pieces from the Pop-Up Posies kit (#131395, $12.95). They kind of looked like paper fans, which I thought was a great echo to the print on the background page, which is the history of the cherry blossom, heavily featuring Japan, of course. Fun!

I looooooove scrapbooking! If you need inspiration to get out of your scrappin' slump, look no further! Click on Scrapbooking in my blog menu to see hundreds of past pages I have done in Scrap A Stack classes and clubs, including 31 Pages in 31 Days from last August's Scrapbooking Summer School, and then I have two more posts of pages to share from the Marathon.

Scrapbook Marathon Day

We had the most fun today! My first-ever Scrapbook Marathon was a huge hit! We all agreed it needs to be a bi-annual event. Everyone loved the combination of Make N Take projects in the morning and free scrapping time in the afternoon. The only problem was that no one wanted to go home at five!

Many thanks to the ladies who joined us and many thanks for the compliments on the pages! For those of you who weren't able to attend, I'll be sharing a few pages each day next week.

I hope you'll stop back in to see the rest of the projects from the Marathon this week, and I REALLY hope you'll consider joining us for the next one!